The scriptures are peppered with visions of an exalted humanity. This is one of the better kept secrets within the church. Are we maybe a little afraid of what people will do with this encouragement? Or maybe it doesn't fit well with a message that centers on sin, sinfulness, and fixing and managing a sin problem?
The scriptures are peppered with visions of an exalted humanity. This is one of the better kept secrets within the church. Are we maybe a little afraid of what people will do with this encouragement? Or maybe it doesn't fit well with a message that centers on sin, sinfulness, and fixing and managing a sin problem?
Welcome back to the willing fool. We are doing episode six today. So welcome back. I'm your host and lead fool. Paul Trimble and Today we are going to hear some really amazing Passages very kind of mind blowing and encouraging in a way but to set the context for this I want you to Continue to put on that lens.
We've been talking about this entire season this concept That is painted in the scriptures That God has this close knit family, and he has two types of members in the family. He's got humans, and he's got these divine or spiritual beings as well. And from the beginning, God's desire, hope, intention, agenda was to fully involve and integrate The humans into that divine family.
He wanted them to be as close as possible. They were allowed access even into the inner workings, the divine council, the garden, to be as close as possible to have intimacy, to help rule and reign and make choices and, and rule like Kings and Queens. And so, uh, very high calling, very high view. But also just a deep desire for intimacy and closeness.
So, if in fact I'm not totally off base, and that is really part of the intention and the story and sort of the driving force behind the story, Um, then let's, let's put that on as a lens as we look at these scriptures and think, Does this sound right? Does this make sense? So, I'm going to be reading primarily from, New Testament readings today, and we're looking at how God through the biblical writers seems to view, people that he's called into his family.
That is people who have said, yeah, I want to be a part of what God is doing. I want to, um, fall. In the footsteps of Jesus, I want to acknowledge what God has done and is doing in and through Jesus, through the Holy Spirit. And so, it's deeply encouraging, like I said. Uh, so here's, here's a kickoff scripture, Romans 8, verse 12.
So then, brothers, we are not obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you're going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. All those led by God's Spirit are God's sons. for you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, Abba, Father.
the Spirit Himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God's children, and if children, also heirs, heirs of God and co heirs with Christ, seeing that we suffer with Him so that we also may be glorified. So here you have language of being adopted and welcomed into the family as God's sons, and of course implied daughters as well.
Um, you've got this language of being adopted, of being in the family, and also even at the end of being glorified. I could read a bunch of other scriptures, but I'm going to reference most of them. In Galatians 3, you have, believers in the family as described as Abraham's seed and heirs. Galatians 4, you've got similar language to what we just read here with adoption and being sons and daughters and heirs.
That God will send his spirit, or has sent spirit, into our hearts. Ephesians 1 talks about how we've received every spiritual blessing in the heavens. And then, here's one of my favorites in Ephesians 2, because I think... It's so good at breaking out of the constructs that we normally have for, you know, believing and then in the future getting a reward in a disembodied, heavenly state that is elsewhere and in the future.
Ephesians 2, Paul says, He, made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses. You were saved by grace, together with Christ Jesus. He has also raised us up and seated us in the heavens. So that in the coming ages, he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace. It goes on from there, but this image reference here is, is us seated with Jesus, raised up and seated in the heavens.
And you have the imagery of a throne here and elevation and ruling. And as we're going to see, this is no exception. This is not an anomaly. This is the normal imagery that is used. For humanity who responds to God's calling in God's message. And if you think about it, it's just, it's, it's deeply encouraging because it isn't simply, all right, you know, you're, we'll forgive your sins.
I guess you don't deserve to be here, but you're going to be at least let in the door. It's just much, much higher and much better than that. It's I, I see you as a ruler. I see you as a king. I see you as a queen. I see someone that I want to put. You're in charge, come be part of this family business with me, this family business of being part of my family, intimacy, access, but also ruling with and running things.
And again, like I mentioned, if we're, we're seeing that and we've already put on the lens of, this is what God's intention and aim was from the beginning. Then, these scriptures, they're entirely coherent. They make sense. They are consistent with the picture we've started painting from Genesis 1 3 onwards.
I could reference a lot of other scriptures, I'll just give you some, some tidbits. First Corinthians 6 3 talks about how Christians are going to judge angels. Judging is not just rendering, verdicts or condemning, but it is, it is, it's a position of authority and leadership. It means being above.
And Revelation 2, promise to Christians who persevere is having authority over the nations. So that's a very different image than, sitting on a cloud and strumming a harp and singing worship songs. Only it says you're going to be given authority over the nations. And if you're conjuring up the imagery we've studied and looked at from Genesis 11 and Deuteronomy 32.
This, this has been the job of that divine counsel, those B'nai Elohim, sons of God. They were entrusted with authority over the nations. And here is saying that that's going to be given, that job, that role is going to be given to believers, to the people of God. They are going to be given that role of authority over the nations.
That which to this point has been, if nothing else, a divine counsel role, a son of God, spiritual being role. And Revelation 3, let me read that one.
to the victor, meaning someone who endures, I will give him the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I also won the victory and sat down with my father on his throne. You've got this sense of, it's been shared with me. We've got this family thing, this really tight thing. I want you to be a part of that.
Just as the father shared his throne with me and I sit on his throne, I want to share my throne with you and I want you to sit on my throne. Again, it couldn't be any more intimate access. It couldn't be any more of a highly elevated role and position within that family business. Revelation 20, you have a reference to Christians who are going to reign with the Messiah and in this case, specifically martyrs.
Um, but I think the image is consistent with everything else we're looking at. In Matthew 19, Jesus tells his disciples, You guys are gonna sit on thrones and you're gonna judge the 12 tribes of Israel. And again, the disciples were pretty keen to kick in that leadership role sooner rather than later.
But I think Jesus is giving him a vision of what he expects things to be in the future. Um, and that again, it includes this image of them sitting, reigning, ruling over, people, over the nations, in this case, over the tribes of Israel. 2 Timothy 2 promises to believers who endure that they will reign with Him.
They will reign with Jesus. So I hope you're getting the picture. I know I'm adding a lot of scriptures here, but just to say this is not... Simply one image hanging out in left field. This is, this is the image that is consistently painted. And amazingly, it goes further than that. Um, let's look at 2 Corinthians Maybe this is overkill here, or maybe you're thinking, No, I just, I need to hear all of this. We all with unveiled faces, this is verse 18, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory. So there's this thought communicated of part of what we're doing right now, just through life and through what God is doing is being transformed.
And there's a passive element to that, that we're not the main actors, but there's an active element that we're cooperating. into the same image. So this, Jesus is the image of God, and we're being transformed into that same image. Uh, 1st John 3 says, we will be like him. 2nd Peter 1 says, that we are to share in the divine nature.
Now, even if you grew up in most churches, there's not a lot of times, at least that I can remember, where Somebody really addressed and talked about and focused on the fact that we're supposed to share in the divine nature. Like, what are you talking about? We're going to become gods. Well, the scriptures seem to be saying that in some way we're invited into that divine life, that divine realm, um, that divine nature is how it's translated in this we're, we're being invited into it.
1st Corinthians 15, a key chapter with, quite a bit in it talks about what as believers were supposed to expect. So Jesus is mentioned as the first fruits. And part of what that means is that it's using an analogy of farming is, when crops are plant planted. Maybe depending on the crop, I don't know, definitely not a farmer, but you might have a first batch of the crop that comes to fruition and you can harvest and there's more to come, but that's just the first of that season and so it's saying Jesus is the first fruits, meaning what he went through in death and resurrection, wasn't just supposed to be like a one time thing to kind of prove how cool and powerful Jesus was or God was.
No, it's, it's saying this is, this is the way of things. This is how I want things to be. Just as Jesus went through this process, you're going to go through this process. He was the first fruits, but you're the later fruits. You're the later crop. And just as he was raised, you're going to be raised. So think of that in context as I read this.
There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is different from the earthly ones. There's a splendor of the sun, another of the moon, another of the stars, for one star differs from another star in splendor. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. Sown in corruption, raised in incorruption.
Sown in dishonor, raised in glory. Sown in weakness, raised in power. Sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body. If there's a natural body, there's also a spiritual body. So it is written, the first man became a living, being the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, then the spiritual.
And lemme pause before I read a little more. Just to give a little bit of understanding and context. The idea is, uh, when you hear spiritual in here, you might think disembodied. And that's because of a western mindset we have that is not really shared with the biblical writers. That's not how they looked at things.
When they say a spiritual body, they mean a body. They mean something that, has a physicality to it exists within a physical dimension, but that is also spiritual. It is, uh, of a different nature than simply a natural body. And, it uses the kind of category of celestial bodies. And here it might be a little difficult for us because.
We're such materialists, we're used to just thinking of things as just matter and that's literally all they are. But for an ancient writer, they're looking at the heavenly bodies, celestial bodies as of a different nature than, than our physical bodies. And so that helped form a category and language for them to talk about spiritual beings.
But the point being, there are simply natural bodies and that's exactly what we have now. And that Eventually, we are expected to have a resurrection body, meaning not, not a body, not a disembodied, but a body that is fully imbued with all the qualities that you would expect of a, spiritually enabled and empowered body.
Do I know exactly what that means? No, I'm reaching for what I think is being pointed to with the best language that I have. So when you hear. And nature and spiritual. Don't think physical versus non-physical. That's not what's being addressed. Everything here has some materiality or ality to it.
The first man was from the Earth and made of dust. The second man that's from heaven, this is actually an example of what I'm talking about, so I just read that. So the First Man is a reference to Adam. Second Man is a reference to Jesus saying, Adam came from dust. Jesus came from heaven does not mean that Jesus didn't come with a body, right?
We can all agree Jesus had a body. So, when it says he's from heaven, it does not mean he doesn't have a body. So are those who are made of dust, like the heavenly man, so are those who are heavenly. And just as we have borne the image of the man made of dust, we will also bear the image of the heavenly man.
Again, this idea of we're gonna begin to look and have the image of Jesus who has the image and imprint of God the father. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and corruption cannot inherit incorruption. Listen, I'm telling you a mystery. We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed in a moment.
In the blink of an eye at the last trumpet, the trumpet will sound the dead. Be raised incorruptible. We will be changed. For this corruptible must be clothed with incorruptibility. And this mortal must be clothed with immortality. When this corruptible is clothed with incorruptibility and this mortal clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written will take place.
Death has been swallowed up in victory. Death wears your victory. Death wears your sting. And so there's this great imagery and this promise that that how we are going to be clothed, that is embodied is in a way that is incorruptible. That is immortal. It is. I'm trying to see if there's any other adjectives here.
I miss, I guess those are the main ones, incorruptible and immortal. We are to be embodied in that way. Second Corinthians five, is in my mind, related scripture. It says, for we know that our temporary earthly dwelling, talking about our body, is destroyed. We have a building from God, an eternal dwelling in the heavens, not made with hands.
Our modern thinking naturally thinks disembodied in the heavens floating, but that's not correct, and you'll hear why as we keep going. Indeed, we groan in this body, desiring to put on our dwelling from heaven. So we don't go from earthly dwelling to no dwelling, we go from earthly dwelling to heavenly dwelling.
So this is a great parallel to what we just read. In 1 Corinthians 15, you've got the same idea from a different angle. Since when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. Indeed, we groan while we are in this tent, burdened as we are, because we do not want to be unclothed, but clothed, so that mortality may be swallowed up by life.
And it goes on from there. Again, same idea, different, slightly different language and imagery. But, we're going to receive a heavenly dwelling, that is a heavenly body. Much as Jesus, post resurrection, was not simply a ghost, but had a body. He could eat with his disciples, uh, he could say to Thomas, hey, go ahead and put your hands down.
Um, go ahead and touch my hands, touch my side if you like, you can touch my body, uh, but at the same time, it was a different body, clearly, and it maybe did not have blood, maybe it was made of something different in some way, and we know at times he seemed to appear when he didn't seem to be, shouldn't have been able to appear, and at times people had trouble recognizing him, so, what do you make of all that, I don't know, I can't say that I have like a fully fleshed out understanding, I don't.
But I get the idea. The very basic idea is it is a new body that is imbued with properties consistent with the new life to come and empowered and equipped for the new life to come and new creation. That's the bottom line. Uh, and this is incredible. So you get these passages talking about this, but also talking about how we are to reflect Jesus.
It's not just like. Kind of be a little bit more like him but to be like him to share in the divine nature And then you've got these passages pointing out that God makes his home within us. It's not a it's not a Coincidence that this is talking about tents and dwelling. I mean the theme through scripture has been God dwelling with humankind Wanting to make his tabernacle tent temple with a tent among people and here we are the tabernacle we are the tent just as Jesus is described as a tabernacle among us.
Acts 2, the fire, the wind comes, and all of a sudden, the people of God also are like a tabernacle, a tent for the Lord's presence, the Lord's spirit. 1 Corinthians 3 and 6, I think I mentioned earlier, talk about we are the temple. Collectively, yes. Individually, yes. Both. And how stunning of an idea that this God who From the beginning, desire deeply to make his dwelling in and among us as close to us as possible to experience fellowship as close and unobstructed as much access, as much proximity as possible has now found a way to make his home, not just near, not just close, not just in the midst, but, but in us.
With us. I mean, think about that thought. God is in me. God is with me. If you think about that, just, you know, the words, but then think about the reality that those words reflect. It's something you almost hesitate to even say. It sounds so presumptuous and so arrogant. So such a high hope, but like, should I even wish for something?
That crazy that good and yet this is the message the scriptures Immerse us in I think we're supposed to think about this to relish it to think deeply about it And now I want to shift a little bit and just talk about What I mentioned in the very first episode this idea that sometimes if we embrace certain strains of theology we become Um, not only arrogant, I would say, but very resistant and oppositional to correction, uh, with things that we may get wrong.
And so, I've, I've dropped little hints here and there about how, it, it might be this idea that, oh, you know, sin is sort of the driving force of the story, and our main role in the story is those guys who sinned and messed up, and... And we're, we're essentially the enemies, but we need to flip and join the good side from the enemy side.
Uh, and that's, there's, I think there's a grain of truth in that. But if that's the main, the main part of the story as we understand it, those are the broad strokes of the story. It's super negative, and there tends to be a fixation when that becomes the story. On, on, of course, sin or sin problem. How do you get it remedied?
What's the sort of formula or transactional thing I need to go through to fix that problem? Um, and what gets lost? I think what gets lost emotionally for sure, psychologically and at a heart level is just unbelievable goodness of what it seems that God wants in us and for us. How close he wants to be.
How hard he. will work, the links he will go to, to make that reality. And the fact that he has in fact done so that that emphasis gets sort of dropped and lost in the wash. And what actually takes its place, I think sometimes is this just as darkness, um, where, uh, it's like our job is simply to take this little formula, this little sin solving formula.
And, um, you know, try to make as many people as possible drink it so they can be cured of their sinfulness and their darkness. And at least they'll be safe then, you know, at a minimum. That's the important thing. Get safe. Get saved. Be on the safe side. Don't go to hell. Um, and then all of life seems to be just that.
Like, that's, that's kind of the focus. And if we're going to talk about unity, then that's, that's sort of the underpinning thing about which we might be unified. Um, And then when there's problems, when real life comes about, when there is snake like behavior, when... People do act treacherously or, um, you know, they're following that path.
But they've officially signed off. They've officially signed off on the correct doctrines. They've gone through this process. They've agreed. They signed on the dotted line. Then it becomes really hard to, to point that out. To identify what that is because we don't, we don't really have language and categories for it.
And besides, they're, they're officially on the good side. They've done the things, right, that they're supposed to do. Um, and so what happens is, a lot of things, I mean, abuse can go unchecked. Um, poor behavior can go unchecked. There isn't a language to really combat. That and and bring things out. I think what happens is sometimes two scriptures get co opted to Smush down trying to address and deal with things effectively And I mentioned Jeremiah 17 earlier, The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure who can understand it and that can be used to say hey, you know Don't don't trust your gut.
Don't trust your heart. It can be used to squish what people are going through and experiencing That's just one tiny example. Matthew 18 gets quoted and used a lot, you know. Well, if your brother sins against you, go and just address it with that one individual. And, here's the list of sins that might make it onto that list.
Adultery, theft, murder. If it's not one of those, then, you know, well, do you really have a label for it? Was it really against you? Well, you know, there's all kinds of ways to err that don't involve those, that short list of... Sins we might find in the 10 commandments say there's all sorts of things and Jesus didn't hesitate to address these in Matthew 23 he didn't hesitate to address them in the temple clearing That was not you could say Jesus was following Matthew 18 and you'd be correct.
But I think that's because Matthew 18 is correct and appropriate for some things but not as a tool a mechanism a weapon a To shut down conversation, learning, even addressing erring behavior that might not be at the individual level. What if it's at the group level? Um, you know, the prophets, for example, um, never, almost never used Matthew 18 as their means of addressing the waywardness of, of people.
And, and those were usually in group settings. Um, so I, I think we can just get really myopic, um, short sighted with. Using scriptures to oppose and shut down what can be very, very needed, meaningful correction of a prevention of abuse, correction of, of, of abuse. Um, and I don't mean just abuse, like physical abuse, but anything that's wayward and hurting people, which is a pretty broad category of things that seem to be very relevant to God's consideration and what he cares about.
I think that's not great. So I'm going to unpack why I think that is in a future episode, couple episodes from now. Um, just like I think there's a psychology to it. I think there's a set of axioms that if embraced as sort of our theological framework, make it nearly impossible for anybody to get through and to say, look, this isn't right.
Uh, this isn't the way things are supposed to go in God's upside down kingdom. Um, You know, here's how it's harming people. There is a way that I think even great people, spiritual people, people with great hearts can misunderstand what God's message is and therefore be very quick to shut down meaningful correction and help.
Uh, and so this was just a hint at it. Um, again, I'm going to, I'm going to talk about it more at length in an episode or two, but the big picture, just to zoom back out, God's view of us is very, very high. It's very high. If God thinks that we are good enough to, as we're being transformed to be glorified, to be like him, to be sitting on the thrones and judging people, then we don't want to treat people like, you know, dumb sheep.
That can't handle difficult things, that can't handle difficult matter, that just need to be told what to do, as I heard one elder describe. The Christian life is just a blue collar thing where you do the same thing over and over and over and you probably just need to be reminded to do those same exact few things over and over every day.
Which in my mind, that's a very, that's a very low view of humanity and a very low view of Christianity. But it's very popular and within that it does make sense to kind of keep people from thinking too hard keep people from addressing things that Go beyond. Hey, is this an individual sin that's on the prescribed sin list that we can address?
um So that's the thoughts for today. Thanks for sticking around hearing it out We got a couple more episodes. They're going to be great. So stick with it to the end. Thanks for joining. See you next time