Divinity Restrained Within A Man
Right, haven't blogged in way too long. I sincerely apologise! To you and myself!
With way too much swirling around in my mind at the moment, I have decided upon a topic that was suggested by my friend Jamie Ternent.
That's him right there. He suggested I blog about a topic him and a friend of his use as a line to confuse people: The divinity restrained within a man. I thought "hey! That's actually a really interesting topic!"
And so I shall tackle the subject with my convictions.
Firstly, let's consider the phrase:
The Divinity Restrained Within a Man.
There are two primary perspectives from which to view the phrase:
1. All men are made in the image of God and thus have a form of divinity within them waiting to be unleashed.
2. Man has fallen from their original state as being made in God's image and therefore only born-again believers have such divinity within. And even they have that divinity restrained within their beings.
I think both have an essence of truth to them. This is actually a very philosophical topic that could be and will be thought about and tackled for decades to come. But let me just share my convictions.
Both perspectives compliment each other. Indeed, we were created in the image of God. But something significant took place when mankind ate of the Tree of Knowledge, major disruptions to our original state took place. After all, Jesus came to redeem. He wouldn't need to redeem something if it wasn't broken. It was. Jesus came, perfect divinity, born in the "likeness" of man, but not in the lineage of man. He was conceived of a virgin and therefore bypassed any kind of sinful tendency carried in the DNA of mankind, as I believe DNA is transferred at the conception of the egg by both the sperm cell and egg cell.* Bio lesson over. But basic theology.
So Jesus was the perfect human being, and was then shockingly broken and brutally beaten and murdered to redeem not only mankind, but the curse the entire planet came under at "The Fall":
Colossians 1:20
"through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the Cross."
Clearly, what Jesus did on the Cross was the legal rectification of this broken world. Because that too is clear; this world is broken. This viewpoint confirms another one of Paul's writings:
Romans 8:19-21
"19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God."
And this passage brings to light the point of what I would like to make here in this post, and makes for the foundation of the remainder of it.
What Jesus did on the Cross was the legal act required to make right this broken world. But that act happened 2000 years ago. Why is the world still broken? The common Christian's answer would be "because we are waiting for God to come back and make things right." This is what most Christians want. For God to come back and make things right and deal with this broken world once and for all.
But go and have a look at the response Jesus gives when His disciples asked a similar question in Acts 1:6-8. The disciples, like most Christians today, wanted to know if now was the time for God to make everything right. Jesus acknowledges that yes, God does seem to have a time when things are going to start happening. But that's about it. He then brushes it aside and instead says to His disciples that they are about to receive all the Power they need, through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, to go and change the world.
Here's my point: In light of Romans 8, what if God is waiting for us to rise up and use the Power He has made freely available to us to start making things right here on Earth?
Think about it. Why else would Jesus make the payment to fix a broken world, but then ascend to Heaven and leave us here on that broken world?
What if He has commissioned us to fix the mess?
I think this is what Paul meant when he said all of creation is waiting for the sons of God to be revealed. All of this planet is groaning, waiting to be made right, and the waiting is for us! Creation is waiting for us, the sons of God, to rise up and take our place!
And so, back to the statement: The divinity restrained within a man.
Here's what I believe: Jesus made the payment for all of creation to be made new. (Col 1:20). But it is His joy to give us the authority and do it on His behalf, using the Power He has made available to us by His Spirit in us.
Consider Luke 10, where Jesus is filled with joy because His disciples were extending His Kingdom. I believe it is the joy of Jesus to give us the authority and go and exercise His rule on His behalf.
So, Colossians 1:20 says the all things have been reconciled by what Jesus did on the Cross. Including things on Heaven and things on Earth. What about this for a theory? When God banished Adam & Eve from the Garden of Eden, what if there suddenly became a sort of barrier between the natural and spiritual realm? In that moment, mankind became driven by his 5 senses, no longer by his spirit.
Then Jesus says in John 3 that for a man to even experience the Kingdom of Heaven, his spirit needs to come alive within him. Through Jesus' complete death (spiritual death too) on the Cross, mankind has the right to complete Life, spiritual life too.
So, what if the ushering in of the Kingdom of God is an ushering in of the spiritual realm of Heaven onto this Earthly physical realm, until the two become one again? Afterall, Revelation 11:15 says the kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdoms of our God. But who will start that "ushering in process" of those kingdoms turning over? I think it's us.
So here's what I'm getting at... This planet is still very broken. Even our mortal bodies, born of mortal seed. But when we put our faith in Christ, something magical happens. Our spirits come alive within us. (John 3:6). But our bodies seemingly stay the same. But then Romans 8:11 says that the Spirit within us will give life to that mortal body. Not sometime, but now, as we live out this life.
The word salvation means to be "made whole". When we were born-again, our spirits came alive, but our bodies are still in the process. And so is this planet.
In light of this, we are missing the point if we thank God that we are saved, and then do our very best to avoid sin, and wait eagerly to go to Heaven and be free from sin once for all! NO!
We have been given everything for life and godliness NOW, and so we use the fullness of God within us to simply brush aside sin like it were some external parasite from a distant universe (for that is what it now is to us who are from another world) and we go about making things right!! In every area of society!
Well... after all that... my convictions on a statement like "divinity restrained with a man"? Simply this: The born-again believer has been given everything they need to be like Jesus on Earth. Its as simple as that. Ephesians 1:3 says we have been given (past tense) every spiritual blessing. That means when we get to Heaven, we won't get anymore. We've already been given everything.
The key is to access* what has already been given, and start using it to make this broken world a better place. When we start doing that, we'll make Dad happy. And He'll start getting up and getting ready to come and join us for a very, very big celebration.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Let it be said I don't think this has been scientifically proven as yet, although some Christian apologist scientists have come close. Also, no-one besides Jesus has been born of a virgin, so it's kind of difficult to tell.
*How do we access? I believe it is by simple child-like faith. Believing what Jesus said. But that's another post.
With way too much swirling around in my mind at the moment, I have decided upon a topic that was suggested by my friend Jamie Ternent.
And so I shall tackle the subject with my convictions.
Firstly, let's consider the phrase:
The Divinity Restrained Within a Man.
There are two primary perspectives from which to view the phrase:
1. All men are made in the image of God and thus have a form of divinity within them waiting to be unleashed.
2. Man has fallen from their original state as being made in God's image and therefore only born-again believers have such divinity within. And even they have that divinity restrained within their beings.
I think both have an essence of truth to them. This is actually a very philosophical topic that could be and will be thought about and tackled for decades to come. But let me just share my convictions.
Both perspectives compliment each other. Indeed, we were created in the image of God. But something significant took place when mankind ate of the Tree of Knowledge, major disruptions to our original state took place. After all, Jesus came to redeem. He wouldn't need to redeem something if it wasn't broken. It was. Jesus came, perfect divinity, born in the "likeness" of man, but not in the lineage of man. He was conceived of a virgin and therefore bypassed any kind of sinful tendency carried in the DNA of mankind, as I believe DNA is transferred at the conception of the egg by both the sperm cell and egg cell.* Bio lesson over. But basic theology.
So Jesus was the perfect human being, and was then shockingly broken and brutally beaten and murdered to redeem not only mankind, but the curse the entire planet came under at "The Fall":
Colossians 1:20
"through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the Cross."
Clearly, what Jesus did on the Cross was the legal rectification of this broken world. Because that too is clear; this world is broken. This viewpoint confirms another one of Paul's writings:
Romans 8:19-21
"19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God."
And this passage brings to light the point of what I would like to make here in this post, and makes for the foundation of the remainder of it.
What Jesus did on the Cross was the legal act required to make right this broken world. But that act happened 2000 years ago. Why is the world still broken? The common Christian's answer would be "because we are waiting for God to come back and make things right." This is what most Christians want. For God to come back and make things right and deal with this broken world once and for all.
But go and have a look at the response Jesus gives when His disciples asked a similar question in Acts 1:6-8. The disciples, like most Christians today, wanted to know if now was the time for God to make everything right. Jesus acknowledges that yes, God does seem to have a time when things are going to start happening. But that's about it. He then brushes it aside and instead says to His disciples that they are about to receive all the Power they need, through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, to go and change the world.
Here's my point: In light of Romans 8, what if God is waiting for us to rise up and use the Power He has made freely available to us to start making things right here on Earth?
Think about it. Why else would Jesus make the payment to fix a broken world, but then ascend to Heaven and leave us here on that broken world?
What if He has commissioned us to fix the mess?
I think this is what Paul meant when he said all of creation is waiting for the sons of God to be revealed. All of this planet is groaning, waiting to be made right, and the waiting is for us! Creation is waiting for us, the sons of God, to rise up and take our place!
And so, back to the statement: The divinity restrained within a man.
Here's what I believe: Jesus made the payment for all of creation to be made new. (Col 1:20). But it is His joy to give us the authority and do it on His behalf, using the Power He has made available to us by His Spirit in us.
Consider Luke 10, where Jesus is filled with joy because His disciples were extending His Kingdom. I believe it is the joy of Jesus to give us the authority and go and exercise His rule on His behalf.
So, Colossians 1:20 says the all things have been reconciled by what Jesus did on the Cross. Including things on Heaven and things on Earth. What about this for a theory? When God banished Adam & Eve from the Garden of Eden, what if there suddenly became a sort of barrier between the natural and spiritual realm? In that moment, mankind became driven by his 5 senses, no longer by his spirit.
Then Jesus says in John 3 that for a man to even experience the Kingdom of Heaven, his spirit needs to come alive within him. Through Jesus' complete death (spiritual death too) on the Cross, mankind has the right to complete Life, spiritual life too.
So, what if the ushering in of the Kingdom of God is an ushering in of the spiritual realm of Heaven onto this Earthly physical realm, until the two become one again? Afterall, Revelation 11:15 says the kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdoms of our God. But who will start that "ushering in process" of those kingdoms turning over? I think it's us.
So here's what I'm getting at... This planet is still very broken. Even our mortal bodies, born of mortal seed. But when we put our faith in Christ, something magical happens. Our spirits come alive within us. (John 3:6). But our bodies seemingly stay the same. But then Romans 8:11 says that the Spirit within us will give life to that mortal body. Not sometime, but now, as we live out this life.
The word salvation means to be "made whole". When we were born-again, our spirits came alive, but our bodies are still in the process. And so is this planet.
In light of this, we are missing the point if we thank God that we are saved, and then do our very best to avoid sin, and wait eagerly to go to Heaven and be free from sin once for all! NO!
We have been given everything for life and godliness NOW, and so we use the fullness of God within us to simply brush aside sin like it were some external parasite from a distant universe (for that is what it now is to us who are from another world) and we go about making things right!! In every area of society!
Well... after all that... my convictions on a statement like "divinity restrained with a man"? Simply this: The born-again believer has been given everything they need to be like Jesus on Earth. Its as simple as that. Ephesians 1:3 says we have been given (past tense) every spiritual blessing. That means when we get to Heaven, we won't get anymore. We've already been given everything.
The key is to access* what has already been given, and start using it to make this broken world a better place. When we start doing that, we'll make Dad happy. And He'll start getting up and getting ready to come and join us for a very, very big celebration.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Let it be said I don't think this has been scientifically proven as yet, although some Christian apologist scientists have come close. Also, no-one besides Jesus has been born of a virgin, so it's kind of difficult to tell.
*How do we access? I believe it is by simple child-like faith. Believing what Jesus said. But that's another post.
2 comments
Looks like you are an expert in this field, you really got some great points there, thanks.
- Robson
Yup. I totally agree. The preterist theology holds a fulfilled view, or the view that "It is finished." The finished work of the cross is complete. WE are the light of the world, Jesus said. And he prayed that we would be one as he and the Father are. When we realize that the illusion of separateness is broken, that nothing separates us from God's love, then we REALIZE who we are, where we are from and the power of the Kingdom within!! "For the Kingdom does not come with observation." It is here, we are it. Time to be ministers of reconciliation and draw people in!
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