Messengers of Life or Blind Guides?

Jesus asked me to give this message to a friend once: ‘Would you give up the Sabbath for Me?’ Why would He ask this question? Let me explain.

First, let us ask another question. What kind of leader are we? Leaders can be found giving people rivers of sand to drink. Leaders can be found binding people when their mandate is to set captives free. Or leaders can lead people in and out to find pasture. As the ‘led’ we can find ourselves in a parlous position when the very belief system we think gives us comfort is actually our prison.

Jesus came to set the captives free. Any genuine apostle does the same. Like Moses, Elijah and Jesus a genuinely apostolic figure is a liberator who joins God’s people to Christ’s infinite life. Life in law is innately limiting. Life in Jesus is without limitation. Life in Jesus is called life in the Spirit. This is the life of the sons of God who live in authority and not as teachers and keepers of the law.

We don’t have to be bad to bind people. We just have to put our faith in things that are not God. We just have to be out of agreement with what God has done. We just have to read the Bible through a lens that is not Jesus.

There is no way we can be apostolic with an old covenant mind-set.

Don’t let your perception be clouded by good works, spiritual gifts or a new mission endeavor. It’s sad when leaders do these things yet remain bound and crippled in their being. This is binding of the worst kind because it is invisible.

We don’t have to be bad to bind people. But we can get a false sense of satisfaction, a touch of smugness and a mistaken identity that comes from an attachment to ‘our perspectives.’ This shrinks who we are and limits what those to whom we minister can become. The worst kind of captivity is to be imprisoned in a sense of being that is much smaller than you are.

But formed and built up in Jesus we are furnished with discernment to see what is of man and what is of God. We can live in an atmosphere of liberty, peace and infinite possibility. But those who live in law cannot see. Their inheritance is veiled. Living in performance of any kind we bind ourselves. Tied to Moses we blind ourselves. As Sabbath keepers we are more than ‘kept’ by the Sabbath. We are deformed and belittled by it. But hey – we are complete in Christ. So live in Him!

‘But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away’ 2 Cor 3.14 NIV.

We are accustomed to think of ‘false christ’s as deceivers of other people, never suspecting that all our lives we have been limited by their presence and influence. The reason we do not easily discern the influence of a false Christ [sic] is that from our earliest years we have been socialized, indoctrinated and brain-washed by a system of belief whose source is something other than Jesus Christ Son of God.

A one time captive to false doctrine writes,

‘The proof of the power of the indoctrination I had undergone is that throughout my sojourn from all things Christian or Adventist I continued to believe in the Sabbath. As I write this it occurs to me that I didn’t just believe in the requirement of Sabbath-keeping. 

‘Believed in the Sabbath in the way she now believes in Jesus..’ She had a false christ [sic]. Do you?

A leader from God does not plant churches, community, identity or purpose. An apostolic person plants Jesus. Jesus draws people into Himself and creates sons and daughters of God. Re-birthed from the law into Jesus by the Spirit, such people live in the Spirit as sons of God. Deep rooted in Christ and the product of His Being, they become the church. They are the community of the saved and their identity and purpose flows from the Spirit of Sonship in which they live. They are the kings and priests of God who reign on the earth.

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See  Lyn’s story. See Also Greg Taylor’s perceptively argued study on Jesus our rest. What lens have you been using. Do you use The Sabbath to interpret the New Testament or are you using Jesus to interpret it?

Keith Allen

Christ alive in you Now!

A friend had a dream recently. The key part of it for the purposes of this post is that someone had mangled the sacrifice and that people were called to return to the genuine Sacrifice. It’s a riddle of the cross. Observe what follows.

I see before me a half-dead man. Decay has so taken hold on his body that he is scarcely mobile and partially blind. His name is Body of Death. His head is manacled to Performance, Performance has him chained to the law, the law confines him to the Old Covenant and the OC binds him to the knowledge of good and evil. Dead Body lives in Adam. But his real place is in Jesus.

From time to time Body attempts to revive himself with a swig from a bottle of spiritual gifts. Now and again he is stirred by a new method of prayer ministry or the effort to establish a new form of church. Sometimes he will attempt to stand upright and stagger a few steps into an overseas mission venture before falling to the ground like a man with a debilitating disease. Body is meant to bear a sword but all he has is a spoon with which he attempts to feed himself.

Body of Death does not mean to be a clacking carcass in the valley of dead bones. But he remains so because he lives from a mindset that has perverted the cross and robbed it of its’ power. The death and resurrection of Jesus, has been substituted for his own sacrifice of works. What had resulted is a false christ and a false cross on which he crucifies himself in order to please Jesus.

Beware of a false sacrifice (you) and a false christ (a little Christ who is the page boy of the law) that binds people in the Old Covenant by making it the New. The New Testament really is a new and living way – Christ in you, Christ as you. Christ for you. Christ covering you. This is the deeper meaning of the Lord’s Table: Christ your life.

Make no mistake. We cannot live in resurrection life (Jesus) unless we are really dead in Adam. We are not a new man or woman in Christ if we are still living in the law. In Jesus we are sons. In performance we are a Body of Death.

‘By abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace’ Eph 2.14,15 NIV.

Body of Death is dead because he has not died with Christ and therefore cannot be resurrected with Him to be the One New Man. He is still in the Old Testament while living in the New, struggling to have Jesus help him keep the law. But Jesus lives in us to transform slaves into sons by the Spirit.

Sadly, for Body of Death, Christ died for nothing because he lives in the law and hopes Christ will help him do it. He has set aside the cross; set aside God’s grace, while he strives to achieve what God has already accomplished in Jesus for Him. As a result he is separated from himself, separated from God and separated from his fellows.

No. We have been delivered – delivered from the Body of death to live whole and holy in Jesus as the One New Man.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!’ Gal 2.20,21 NIV.

‘Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault’ Col 1.22 NIV.

Only one real door

Paul urges all to live in the Spirit since those who live in the law cannot minister the Kingdom of God. Why? This is a Kingdom of kings and priests  and not of slaves.

‘But what does the Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son’ Gal 4.30 NIV.

Adventists are sincere and good people. But unless our life is Christ; unless we are living in the New Covenant, we are not competent to minister the Kingdom of God. We can minister kindness and goodness but never the authority that Jesus has over sin and the devil. This is to say that as prisoners of the Old Covenant and sons of the slave woman, our stature is dwarfish and our swords miniscule.

The unfortunate dilemma of God’s Adventist people is that they interpret the New Testament through the Sabbath. This ties them to the law, the Old Covenant, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – but unfortunately not to the cross, which is the tree of life.

You may believe as an Adventist that God asks you to ‘keep the Sabbath.’ He did in the Old Testament, but you are a child of the New. Here you live in a New and Living Way, a righteousness sent from God which is the THE PERSON OF GOD’S SON. While the Bible is a consistent whole, the New Testament is not the Old Testament with Jesus added. Let’s say that another way. The New Covenant is not the old re-invented with Jesus’ help.

We live in a whole new era – a change from the law of sin and death to the law of the Spirit of Life. The first is an abstract rendition of the knowledge of good and evil. Something the Father gave as a School master to lead to His Son. The second is Jesus, the personification of life and goodness – Jesus Christ in you. Christ in you as your life is the point of Jesus’ victory at the cross.

It is a great mistake to believe that the Bible is one continuous whole. The last book of the Old Testament marks the end of the account of our life in Adam.

Matthew records the beginning of our life in Christ. John announces a new Genesis; a new creation in Christ. The Bible is one whole that is consummated in the Person of Jesus. But the New Testament is not a re-invention of the Old in Jesus mode, which means that many of us have been greatly misled.

The confusing factor is that Adventists as well as many other Christians live in Adam and attempt to use Jesus to do it. They have not fully grasped what Jesus has done. This is to say they have remained eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, hoping that Jesus will help them eat it well. But this fruit always brings death.

Adventists are more solidly glued to Adam than most others since, they are bound to it by a doctrine which is inimical to their identity and purpose. Many in the Body still wade through a molasses swamp of good and evil because our natural inclination is to live in this realm. To the natural mind this dichotomy seems ‘natural’ and normal. But this is not the new and living way.

Large numbers believe Christianity is about being good – with Christ’s help. But the Kingdom of God is about life in God’s Son by the Spirit.

Unless we understand the difference between the Old and the New Testament and the meaning of the New Covenant we can never minister its love and authority. Nor can we meet the standards we set for ourselves – unless we adopt the practice of picking on some part of the law like the Sabbath, focusing on this one aspect and then persuading ourselves that we are righteous and whole because we are Sabbath-keepers. Trouble is, real righteousness is infinite. Paul states emphatically that if we remain looking for salvation in law, then for us Christ died for nothing, which means that we are under a curse and absorbed in self-effort which can only multiply death.

‘He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant–not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life’ 2 Cor 3.6 NIV.

The Lord once gave me a picture of Avondale College surrounded by an extensive cemetery that extended right out to the gates. The institution and those like it are founded on death! The gift of God is Jesus who is infinite life. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. When Jesus is our life this infinite life wells up in us in continual novelty and freshness. Crucified to self in Jesus we live a raised life, because we are filled with the power of the Resurrected One. Thus we have not a day dedicated to Jesus but a life that is His. Our re-creation and our rest is Jesus.

Further Reading: Hazel Holland, Ramone Romero, and Cherry Brandstater.

 

Keith Allen

Agreeing with what Jesus has done

Jesus is life in Himself. Those who live in Him will live completely and eternally. Nothing can be added or subtracted from Jesus. He is all sufficient and fills the universe with His Presence. There is no such thing as a Baptist Christian or an Adventist Christian. Christ is not divided. Jesus is one. He re-creates people to be one and draws people into Himself to make them one. Jesus heals us, draws us to Himself and together with each other because God is love.

You either live in Him or you don’t. Add anything or subtract anything from Jesus and you have created at best a sect and at worst a cult. Phrases such as ‘we as Adventists’ and ‘since I became an Adventist’  and ‘our perspectives on’ indicate that something is amiss.  This phraseology need not be used by those who are Christ’s. It does not have to be. Those who believe have a place in Him. They have the same place that Jesus had with His Father, which means that you and the Father are one. There is nothing more glorious than this.

Followers of Jesus find their life in Christ. Indeed He is their life because He manifests His light and righteousness through them. Jesus is either the righteousness of God in you or you are embroiled in the vain attempt to prove your righteousness to God. Nothing surpasses being in Jesus as a son/daughter and one with His loving embrace of the universe.

‘And the same one who descended is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that he might fill the entire universe with himself’ Eph 4.10 NLT.

Jesus is your life and the life of the world. This is not always well known, even by Christians, not a few who think Jesus is an addition to their life. Jesus is the life and the light of the world. So why is the world in such chaos? It’s writhing and thrashing because people live in their own light and life. This is what is meant by living in the knowledge of good and evil. Living in this mind-set people can live ‘a good Christian life’ without ever representing the Kingdom of God. People can be moral and ethical yet powerless, blind and continually defeated. But to have Christ as our life is to reign as kings and priests today!

The Kingdom of God is the realm where Jesus reigns, where He is worshiped as Lord and lived in by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in us and on us means that we are never orphans and always sons. It is by the Spirit that we can live in God and He in us. By the Spirit of Sonship we become the Kingdom of God.

Eternal life is Jesus. So is temporal life. The Kingdom of God is eternal life in you today and every day. It is Christ in you. The Body of Christ is those joined to Jesus and who are literally His life because they become who they are – new men and women in Jesus. This is the manifestation of Christ on earth, Christ in the work place, the kitchen and the nursery.

Live from the law and you will know perseverance but never glory. Live in the Spirit and you will reign as daughters and sons.

The Kingdom of God cannot be lived by planting the Old Testament in the New. In the Old Testament God lived in no one. He was with men and women of God and His anointing rested on some, but He did not live in any.

It was not until God became incarnate in Jesus that Jesus became incarnate in people. The latter occurred when the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost. Pentecost made possible much more than the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost achieves the reality of Christ in you. This is the mystery of the ages revealed in Jesus. Those who live in the Spirit of God are the sons of God.

‘And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ’ Eph 1.9 NIV.

Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly’ Eph 3.2-3 NIV.

‘This message was kept secret for centuries and generations past, but now it has been revealed to God’s people’ Col 1.26 NLT.

‘To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory’ Col 1.27 NIV.

Keith Allen

Where Eagles Dare

We were made to live in God, and be His daughters and sons. Yet many Christians live like chickens when they could fly like eagles. Unless we are living in Jesus; unless He is our life and unless we are part of God as a son is of a father, we are missing most of what we have been resurrected to be: Sons and daughters of God. In the Spirit we are participants in Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus is life in Himself and we are alive and functioning as sons and daughters of God to the extent that we are one with Jesus.

We have an inheritance. Our inheritance is that we as Believers are sons and daughters of God, called to exercise the life-giving ministry that Jesus did when He was physically among us. Now He is spiritually among us, manifest in our flesh as HIS BODY. The inheritance and mandate of every believer is to multiply today what Jesus began. Just as Jesus healed sick bodies so we are called to heal the earth, society and the nations. This is not a self-reliant work. It is Christ through us as us. This is the Kingdom of God.

We are not meant to live robbed. We don’t have to live as an ox when we are a son of God

The grace of Jesus covers the ignorance of Believers. But it is not meant to sustain them in it, but draw us ever more fully into Christ from glory to glory. Jesus did not allow Himself to be nailed to the cross to in order to sustain even the smallest amount of captivity. Jesus came to set captives free. His cross multiplies liberty, dignity honour and authority. His cross opened the door for Jesus to live in us and through us by the Spirit. Significantly His Spirit in us is called the SPIRIT OF SONSHIP.

Jesus’ cross is the gate whereby Jesus transforms sons bound in slavery to sons who are His kings and priests in the earth. Because of Jesus’ cross all are at one with God, embraced by His love, privy to His thoughts and representatives of His grace in the world. Because of His Spirit Jesus fills our being with Himself and makes this statement real: In Him we live, move and have our being, or as Paul wrote, ‘I am crucified with Christ, yet I live because Christ lives in me’ Gal 2.20.

Keith Allen

The Mode is the Spirit

An exasperated Adventist pastor exclaimed to his son, ‘Why all this talk about Jesus!’ No doubt many Adventists would be offended if it were asserted that Adventism is not about Jesus. The truth is though, that Adventism is about Adventism in general, the Sabbath in particular and the law as a foundation for these retrograde beliefs. I say retrograde because Temple, Sabbath and Law ended at the cross. Christ as our life began at the resurrection and  became multiplied in people as the church at Pentecost. The church, His Body is the multiplication of Christ in people by the Holy Spirit.

The mode in the New Testament is the Spirit.

This is not to say that we now live in lawlessness. By living in Christ, we and the creation are made whole. We are aligned with the Father and made one with God in Jesus. All things are ‘brought together in Christ’ as Jesus becomes our life individually and collectively. The New Creation has one genesis: Christ in you. This is Christ in us individually and socially through us into the creation.

Lawlessness has two sources. It comes from those who rebel against Christ, refusing to aknowledge His Kingship. Lawlessness also comes from those who live in religion, law and performance. If we believe that the Sabbath is mandatory we live in law. The custodians of law had Jesus put to death. A law mentality is innately hypocritical because it can never achieve that which it espouses. It has no power to accomplish righteousness leaving adherents living in pretense, frustration and immaturity. In such a state we have no power to overcome sin, let alone appreciate genuine holiness. Should we insist on living from a law foundation we will inevitably find ourselves suffocating Jesus in general and putting Him to death in particular – that is wherever He is speaking through those in whom He lives. This is what the author of Hebrews meant by crucifying the Son of God anew.

In the Kingdom of God Jesus is the life-giving Spirit, the Law of the Spirit of Life and the embodiment of all righteousness. The law is not something beyond Jesus or separate from Him. It is His embrace that sustains all things, meaning that the universe finds it proper function in the Person of Jesus.

He is holiness and wholeness personified. But in Adventism Jesus is inferior to the law and a servant and minister to the law. According to the Desire of Ages Jesus is running about upholding the law. No friends He is not. Jesus is drawing attention to Himself as the Source of righteousness and life.

We remain stunted of being like the dwarves in C.S. Lewis’s Last Battle if we refuse the banquet of the Lord’s Table that delivers food that means we will never hunger again. The living bread that came down from heaven is Christ in us. This is real food than makes us more than just a human. It transforms us into those with the dignity and authority of the sons of God. This bread is always, fresh, pure and life-giving. It has power to overcome sin and guilt. It has supernatural strength to defeat every work of the devil. Unless we eat this bread we have no life in ourselves. But those who live in the law claim to be alive while demonstrating that they are dead.

‘Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me’ John 6.57 NIV.

Keith Allen