Mike Parsons
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The Gospel of Inclusion: Already in Christ, Already Transformed
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For me, this reminds us of where God is and the life that is within us. So we turn to that source: we are saying we have no other source but him, and we turn to that source of life within us. That life will never run out. And if we keep drawing from it…
Christ in everyone
Jesus used living water as a symbol of that fountain that we can drink from, rivers of living water flowing from our innermost being, various analogies that he used of that life that would be in us. The religious system has basically turned all of that around to become only true if we do something to allow God to do that, when he’s already done it for everyone.
It says in Corinthians that the things of the spirit are only spiritually appraised. Well, if that is true and our spirit is dead, then how could we spiritually appraise anything? How would anyone ever turn to God if their spirit were already dead? It would only be the soul that would be engaged. But it is not. It is the spirit. So the spirit is already alive. We have already received resurrection life in the spirit, which brings that to our mortal bodies so that we are immortal. And the spirit and the soul need to be coming back into correct relationship. The Holy Spirit dwells in everybody, not just when someone prays a prayer and asks Jesus to come into their heart (which he already is!).
People say, well, no, that can’t be true. But Paul very clearly stated that in Galatians 1:16, where he was talking about what happened to him on the Damascus road. Saul at the time was a Hebrew Pharisee, persecuting believers, thinking he was doing God’s will, resisting what God was wanting to do in him. He was on the Damascus road, going to Damascus to persecute more Christians, when this light came around him. And Paul said, who are you, Lord? And the response was, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But he describes that in Galatians 1:16 as God being pleased to reveal his Son in me. Not outside of me, that he needed to invite him into him. Not in the light that was around him, but in him.
And the reality is, that is true for everybody but they are not aware of it. They may be living their lives completely independently of that. They may be living their lives in a very religious way. What Paul described there was a revelation of what had already happened. He had been resisting it by choosing to follow his own religious path. And Jesus said, you’ve been kicking against the goads. You’ve been resisting me all this time. And then God called him to go and preach Christ in the Gentiles. If you read most English versions, you’ll find it says Christ among the Gentiles, because they’ve completely misinterpreted it. The same word as Christ in me is the same word as Christ in the Gentiles already. That was Paul’s message. The gospel that Paul preached was inclusion: all are included in Christ already; not that they’re all excluded and have to do some sort of works to get included.
And unfortunately, the gospel has therefore become a gospel of works. It is said to be by grace, but actually it is not. You have to pray a prayer. In their parlance you have to ‘repent’, which in their view means you have to be sorry enough to recognise that you’re a sinner and you need forgiveness and you need God in your life. And unfortunately it’s become for a lot of people very insecure, because they wonder, did I mean it, did I do enough, did God accept what I said?
Everyone is already born from above
How do we think that just praying some sort of prayer is going to suddenly transform us? We are already transformed. We need to come to that realisation. I am not saying we should not pray, or should not ask God to come in, but what we are doing is recognising what has already happened. From that realisation, we accept what has already happened. We do not make it happen. We come to a realisation that it has happened and we experience it. But it already happened for everyone. Everyone is no longer born in Adam. Everyone is already born from above. God already dwells in them and is looking to reveal that to them, through the Spirit, bringing them life so that they can enter into that relationship that Jesus promised, that they would be a dwelling place for God and that they would know.
The disciples already knew the Spirit. The Spirit was with them but not yet in them. That was the promise of drinking from him and having rivers of living water, which was of the Spirit that would not yet be in them because he was not yet glorified, as it says there. So they would have recognised the Spirit, and they knew the difference when Jesus breathed into them and they received that Spirit. They were representative of all. But they knew it. Most people would not have recognised that at the time.
Wouldn’t people know? Well, a lot of people immediately started to know. The gospel spread throughout the whole known world very quickly because they did know. And at that point, they were preaching a message of inclusion. Most evangelicals today preach a message of exclusion: that you will only be included if you pray a prayer, if you are repentant. Now the word repentance, metanoia in Greek, means to have God’s mind, or to have a change of mind, to agree with God, which is what happens when you realise what God has done and you accept it. It totally changes your whole view of your relationship with God, and you then enter into and experience it.
But we have made it works-based. Every church or every stream has their own way of people responding to that: asking Jesus to come into your heart, putting your hand up in a meeting, coming to the front, an altar call. In the Catholic Church it would be taking the sacraments. They all have different ways of doing it, but it’s all based on what they do. Therefore it is works. Which is why no wonder people struggle with the affirmation of that in their lives and are always doubting and in unbelief, because they’re looking at what they did and whether it was good enough. Whereas if we look at what God did, the Father accepted all of us in Jesus, included us all in Jesus even before the foundation of the world. We were predestined to be restored to face-to-face relationship with him. Already done.
People talk about having to be born again. We’re all born from above, because that’s what the term really meant. It’s been coined ‘born again’ because Nicodemus said, well, how can I be reborn in my mother’s womb? He used that illustration because he didn’t get it. And Jesus said, you don’t get earthly things, so how am I going to describe heavenly things when you don’t even get this simple illustration? But the reality was that Jesus was promising what was going to happen, and it happened on the resurrection day, which is why we live in the power of resurrection life. It is so much more than religion has made it out to be. The Catholics focus on Good Friday, and a lot of evangelicals also make a big deal of Good Friday, but Easter Sunday, the resurrection, was the key to it. If Good Friday happened without Sunday happening, it isn’t going to work. But it did happen. Jesus overcame death, conquered death, overcame our lost identity to restore us to life.
Jesus was not killed. He gave up his life. He surrendered his spirit. They could not take his life; he gave it up. He needed to identify with our lost condition so that he could overcome it.
And what happened while Jesus was in the grave? He went into Sheol and preached good news there to those who were imprisoned. There were those who did not have a relationship with God who were imprisoned there, and he went to preach to the spirits of those who were imprisoned. And those who did have a relationship with God would have embraced the reality of that. It says he led captivity captive. He preached, they responded, and he led all those out of that place of the grave into a new place. When he said to the thief on the cross, today you will be with me in paradise, paradise was the part of Sheol where those who had a relationship with God in the old covenant were. You have the illustration of Abraham’s bosom and the gulf between those who had a relationship and those who did not. But Jesus went and preached to them all and led them all out of that place to be with him.
So the thief didn’t stay long in paradise, because when Jesus was resurrected, he took those out of the grave with him. And literally, some people came out of the grave. It says so in Matthew. They were seen, wandering around Jerusalem telling people what had happened. Now, that is a one-liner in the text, but it happened. I believe those people went back into heaven with Jesus when he ascended. That cloud he went up into heaven in: you could say that is a cloud of witnesses. They didn’t stay around on earth. They went with Jesus, and he went in that cloud of witnesses back into that realm to be seated at the right hand of the Father.
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Sons of Issachar 