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SERIES A - BASIC TEACHING
ONE.
A1.1 THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. THE CENTRE.
He is the centre of Heaven and will be the centre of the human race for ever - but we have the never-to-be-repeated chance of living for Him here on the Earth where He was rejected.
We can have as much of Christ as we want of Him - if we are determined.
New Christians need to spend hours and hours and hours reading the four accounts of His life on Earth - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - and to make the discovery that “knowing about Him” can change into “knowing Him.” He is alive. And old Christians should never stop coming back to the Gospels. They are the foundation of all else, the starting and finishing points of understanding all God’s Word.
A1.2 THE GOAL POSTS ARE UP.
St Paul wrote to the Christians at Colossae (Colossians 1:15-18)
Jesus Christ is God-become-visible, Head of Creation. He made everything in Heaven and Earth, the material universe we can see and the spiritual realm we can not. Every throne, power, ruler or authority - all was made by Him and for Him. He was there before it and He holds it together.
To His own people He is Head - and they are the body. He is the first to rise from death with a heavenly human body.
The purpose of all that exists is that He shall stand supreme.
(Or as the King James Version puts it, “that in all things He might have the pre-eminence.” )
Footballers do not set their own goals, the posts must be in place before the match can begin. A player makes that goal his own in order to score - or even to play. An unsuccessful shot at the real goal is still football. A shot at an imaginary goal is nothing.
The goal of the universe was in place before the first atom was called into existence. We may set up our own goals in life if we choose, and achieve them if we can, but they will count for nothing. The exciting possibility opened before us is to share the goal of creation as the purpose of our existence. The farthest star, the tiniest cell and I are all working together for the same purpose. My life can be shot at the real goal and it will be real life.
God wanted His Son to have a kingdom; so He delegated to Him the task of creating a universe: -
All things were made by Him (John 1:3)
By whom also He made the ages. (Hebrews 1:2)
Not just the existing universe but an ever-increasing realm moving forward from age to age for ever. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end. (Isaiah 9:7)
Christ is head of a dynamic, ongoing, ever-increasing community, involving people, angels, animals, plants, atoms and galaxies as well as those other things which eye has not seen nor ear heard nor have they entered into the heart of man. Age after age stretches away ahead like successive arches in an unending viaduct, each vaster than the last. The coming regime is His, and we can be in it.
A1.3 THE MAN WHO IS WISDOM.
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:24 KJV)
Christ in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
(Colossians 2:3 KJV)
Down the ages thinkers, mystics, philosophers and religious teachers have searched out wisdom and grappled with issues concerning the meaning of life.
To list just a few issues (as examples without discussing them), much debate has gone into questions such as;
1/ The nature of History - is it a line or a circle, and if a line, where does it lead?
2/ Is every event predetermined (Fatalism) or does God always get His own way in every detail (Theistic Fatalism)?
3/ If God does not always get His way, does that mean there are two gods in conflict (Dualism)? If so, who will win?
4/ If God is good and made the world, why is there so much suffering in it?
5/ Why are Good and Evil so mixed together and why does God not separate them now?
6/ Is there justice? Will evil triumph or will there be a final judgment?
Jesus told a story about a farmer who sowed wheat and found that his enemy had sowed weeds in the same field, (Matthew 13:24-30 and 36-43). There are just one hundred and sixty seven words in the story and a hundred and seventy nine in the explanation. Yet in that short space He dealt fully with all those six philosophical questions and there is still more teaching in the story.
Reading the parables can spoil the reader’s reputation for being intellectual, because the answers are too simple, but read them all the same. They dispose of weighty issues in order to confront the hearer with even weightier ones.
From the One who is the Wisdom of God wise teaching can be expected but Christ is more than a wise teacher. The wisdom cannot be separated from the person. Human reason is made to function in relation to Christ, just as human eyes are made to function in relation to light. All are blind in the dark.
A1.4 SEED OF THE WOMAN - SON OF MAN.
The most ancient of prophecies tells of the coming deliverer, “The Seed of the Woman” who would crush the serpent’s head. (Genesis 3:15)
Whatever else “The Seed of the Woman” may mean, its main point is that the coming saviour must be human - born of a woman, not a superman or angel or mystic deity but flesh and blood, muscle and bone.
It had to be so; for God had decreed that Humankind was to have dominion over all the works of His hands. The enemy had only to corrupt the human race to gain control of creation. But no sooner had Humankind fallen than the declaration came from Heaven that a human was coming who would turn defeat to victory and crush the serpent’s head.
Centuries later the prophet Daniel had a vision. He saw hideous monsters representing various kingdoms and forces, then he saw the throne of “The Ancient of Days” and -
I saw in the night vision and behold one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of Heaven and came to the Ancient of Days and they brought Him near before Him. And there was given Him dominion and glory and a kingdom that all people, nations and languages should serve Him: His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13-14 KJV)
Jesus quoted this prophecy more often than any other. He was quoting it every time He referred to Himself as “The Son of Man” and He also spoke of the day when He would “Come with the clouds of Heaven.” (Matthew 24:30)
One of those occasions was at His trial when the High Priest directly commanded Him on oath to tell whether He was “The Messiah, the Son of God”.
He confirmed it and added “You shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of Heaven.” (Matthew 26:64) For that statement they condemned Him to death at once.
Returning to the vision as Daniel saw it, The Son of Man was one with a human face after a nightmare of horrible monsters. Just as the Serpent was to be crushed by The Seed of the Woman, so the inhuman forces of evil would be defeated by The Son of Man. The ultimate kingdom would belong to a man.
This is born out today by the forces of evil themselves. Every occult symbol has something inhuman or distortedly human about it. Horror monsters and aliens, undead and semi-human creatures are the Devil’s daydreams. It is humans he fears and hates.
Jesus qualified; flesh and blood, muscle and bone, there was no doubt about His humanity. From the moment of His birth, Satan knew that here was one member of the race who was not under his control; so he tried to use Herod (who was) to destroy the newcomer. Since that day, tens of millions of martyrdoms bear witness the the ferocity of the Devil’s hatred of every human being who is in any way linked with the one man whose existence spells his doom.
In Christ Mankind finds its Head, its purpose, its dignity and its future.
The title “Son of Man” (or Son of Humanity - anthropos) includes in its meaning the human victor over inhuman evil, the ultimate human, the Head of the race, a new prototype for a new Humankind and the coming ruler of Daniel’s prophecy. St Paul speaks of Him as “The Last Adam” and “The Second Man” - the one in whom old humanity dies and a new creation takes its place. In Him the race is restored to its intended glory and those who have found Him first as rescuer, go on to find themselves part of His new order.
A1.5 THE WORD OF GOD.
Many and varied were the ways God spoke
To our fathers of old by the prophets.
But now -
In these last days -
He has spoken to us by His Son.
Whom He appointed heir of all things,
By whom He created the ages,
Who is the brightness of His glory
And the perfect expression of Himself,
Who by Himself took away our sins
Then sat down on the right hand of the greatness on high.
(Hebrews 1:1-3)
People express themselves in words, and by our words we are known. To know a person, listen to what they have to say.
God has a Word by whom He can be known - Jesus Christ. To one of His followers who wanted to see the Father He said, “He that has seen me has seen the Father,” and Paul called Him “God-become-visible,” - “The image of the invisible God.” John begins his Gospel with this introduction to Christ:
He is The Word - with God right from the start - and God Himself. He is The Creator - nothing was made without Him. Life is in Him - Life that is Light for Mankind. Light shone in darkness - and darkness could never put it out.
So if we want to know how God feels about something, look at Christ. He was angry, He wept, He enjoyed the company of His friends - this is God.
God is angry with hardheartedness and petty-mindedness and child-corruption. We know He is because Jesus was.
God grieves for those who bring disaster on themselves by rejecting what He has to say to them. We know God grieves because Jesus wept.
God takes delight in companionship with ordinary people - we know He does because Jesus did. God is known in Christ, His living Word, His self-expression, the one by whom He reveals Himself, The Word.
A1.6 THE TOTAL AT THE TOP.
Totals used to be written at the top of the columns on those days; so the same figure was both the Head and the Sum. Paul in Ephesians 1:9-10 uses this picture in a phrase which different translators have rendered “Sum up,” “Head up,” “Consummate,” and “Bring together in one,” but none have quite made the point because people today are used to writing totals at the bottom of the column.
God has let us into the secret of the plan and purpose which is His delight, that in the regime called “The Fullness of Time,” all things in Heaven and Earth will be added together and Christ will be the Total at the Top. (Ephesians 1:9-10)
In 1951 I was one of a group of teenagers packed into a room, sitting on arms of chairs, ledges and every available patch of carpet, listening for three and a half hours to a little old lady talking. (Well she seemed old to us then.) Her name was Gladys Ailward and that was before her several biographies or the two films of her life had been made. The combination of her adventures and personality held us enthralled, heedless of discomfort, passing time or anxious parents. (After 11pm phone calls started coming asking whether we were still there.)
The events in China as she escaped from the war zone with a hundred children came to life in an Edmonton living room, sending out a score of youngsters fired up with the exciting knowledge of what the life of Christ can do in us. In a sense she brought those experiences back with her and gave them to us.
Just one person, one story, one living record and demonstration of Christ in action; but He has been in action in countless millions of individual lives over the centuries; in every ethnic group, culture and language. All the many-sided facets of human life will at last be brought together to make up the history of Heaven. We shall take our experiences there with us to give them to Him and share them with each other as Gladys Ailward shared hers with us that evening.
We shall be too busy to spend all the time in reminiscing of course because Heaven will be full of action, but the history will be there, a billion biographies to honour Him who by His Spirit lived those lives in us. They will all be His biographies. He will be The Total at the Top.