I’m picking back up on the series “Jesus is Our Reality.”

In the last two installments of our series, we don’t have to bring Jesus to anyone! He’s already there!

I’ll recapitulate Tenet 1 here.

Smiling Icon believes in:

A Christ-Centered View of Reality
• The Creator and God/human Jesus Christ is the central truth of the cosmos (Col 1:16-17).

Tenet 2 reads this way:

A Christ-Centered Unconditional Love
• God loves us more than he loves himself (1 John 3:16).
• God’s good creatures fall into sinful self-destruction.
• But in his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus Christ has embraced all persons at their worst to rescue and redeem them for a renewed relationship with the triune God (Rom 5:5-10, Col 1:13-14).

In this blog, we will study Tenet 3.
Smiling Icon believes in:

A Christ-Centered Inclusion
• The exclusive claim of Jesus Christ (Jn 14:6) excludes no one.
• Jesus Christ is the most inclusive person there is (Jn 12:32)!
• We are all implicated in the Second Adam even more than in the first (Rom 5:18).

 

The Astounding Claim of Jesus

Jesus said something really astounding that often goes over our heads in John 14:6:

John 14:6
New International Version
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

He was answering Thomas’s question in verse 5:

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

I’m sure this went over Thomas’ head, just as it went over my head for years. But consider the amazing implication of what Jesus is saying here.

If Jesus Christ is our “Reality,” if He is the central truth of the cosmos, if He is the one in whom all live and move and have their being, then he technically is “the Way” we have entrance into the very being of God Himself!

He’s the second Person of the Godhead. If we dwell in Him (which Scripture says we do) and if He dwells in God (which Christ said He does), then we who dwell in Him dwell “in” God too.

Jesus is the Way—not because we choose Him to be. Simply because by way of Being He is! He is our “doorway” into the Being of God. By Being in Him, we are in whatever He is, and He is “in” God. And all are in “God” in that sense in Him.

 

Jesus is the Most Inclusive Person That There Is!

Read John 12:32 in this light and consider its implications:

John 12:32
New International Version
And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

When Chris was “lifted up” (first on the cross, and later by the Ascension), all people were included in what happened to Him.

Notice how Paul expressed this.

2 Corinthians 5:14
New International Version
For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.

Read the rest of this chapter if you want to be amazed. Christ included all in this act of redemption. He was not on Earth counting humanity’s sins against them, just waiting to make them feel bad for all they weren’t.

He was on the earth to remind them that they were what God created them to be in Genesis 1—beloved sons and daughters in whom He was already well pleased.

After the creation of Adam, God said:

Genesis 1:31
New International Version
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.

It was we, through the “Original Sin” — which I’ve come to believe is simply the sin of thinking we had to “become” like God, knowing God and evil, as opposed to simply living loved by God, much the way a baby is loved by its parents before it can walk, talk, write, draw, and do anything else. We are loved because we just are, and it was our Father’s good will to give us all things. He didn’t want us to live in the insecurity of having to “become” like God. He was going to take care of that for us, in His Son!

And there is even more good news in this tenet.

 

Original Sin Has Been Eclipsed by the Original Righteousness Won by Jesus Christ

We give “sin” such power, and think Adam’s mistake has to determine who we are forever. If original “sin” was infectious, how much more the “original righteousness” won for us by Jesus Christ, who was tempted in every way yet without sin, was for us?

Romans 5:18
New International Version
Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.

Smiling Icon believes “all” means all!

 

Universal Love Doesn’t Universalism

Just because God’s love and the power of His Son’s life and death claims all, it still doesn’t mean “all” accept this gracious way of being and willingly let the God in whom they live “live” in Him. But God’s love is so much more universal than we’ve allowed it to be in our individualistic thinking. And if “all” really means “all,” there are a lot of saved people who can stop living like frozen archived images of God, like animated creatures frozen in place. They can start letting God in and letting God win, and come to life.

And for that matter, we can too! How different the Marketplace becomes when it becomes a sea of humanity, living in Christ, just waiting for you and me to “save” them from feeling rejected and not included in the life of God, and to realize they’re already “in” Him. And can let Him in too, and become alive in ways they never dreamed possible!