Morning of hub meeting. Sense the text, “As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions” (Rom 14:1) cf. Rom 15:7 Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.
Jesus is speaking about simplicity, about being “one of us” i.e. truly human. He is our constant companion, the realization of this is the key that will enable him to enter through the doors of offices, lunch rooms, school rooms, board rooms, bedrooms…. He will walk in with us and be recognized as present. (The church has complicated Jesus – special places, vocabulary, occasions, positions etc.)
Jesus doesn’t think of himself in relation to us in comparative terms: “I have something you don’t have, I am better than you” e.g. I am wiser, wealthier, stronger, more intelligent etc. This is not the language of friendship; “No longer do I call you servants,[1] for the servant[2] does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15)
Relationships are primary, not properties (these are different but secondary). Why doesn’t Jesus think like this? Athanasian Creed 25., within the Trinitarian relationships, “none is before or after another:none is greater or less than another” this is how the Persons of the trinity see one another.
If we are in Christ in God (John 17:20ff; Col 3:1ff etc.) we are within the love of god, within the heart of God. we are in the level playing field of God’s own heart where the perfect oneness of love means absolute authority. A sharing and release of this authority is coming in the church.
Confusion in the church today: secondary properties e.g. giftings, position, title etc are made primary. This is a basis for all control via inequality if self- perception i.e. inferior –superior. In the “world” we live in society is based on these inequalities, this is a function of the wrath of God. Within all this, “holding it together” is the glue of fear, the fear of judgement, divine and human. But, “By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17). Much of church fails to understand that the Father is exalted in his nearness, Jesus is transcendent in his immanence (God for us only in his humanity), and the Spirit is intimate/near in his perfect holiness.
The Lamb is pouring out blessing from his Father’s throne (Rev 4 ff.), which is the pinnacle and centre of all things. Everything radiates from the throne, the Father, our Father (“go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”John 20:17) is calling/drawing us closer to the throne.
The more we approach the throne the more we must/will go out. (Approx series of concentric circles, suburb, state, nation, world.) This access and distribution of God is the restoration of the Father’s blessing cf. “And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over” Gen 1:28; “And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”” Mal 4:6
The only precedence (as Jesus is begotten of God, Spirit proceeds from Father and Son) in God is love, the Father is the first in love “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8). All restoration movements that do not recognise that this is the essence of fatherhood in all its forms will fail.