Christ is a Totalitarian
Love conquers All. God In Jesus of Nazareth made the Ultimate Story of Love—a love which redeems over suffering, raises Us from the Dead and Leads to Eternal Life.
Christ is a Totalitarian
Christ Makes a Totalitarian claim on the believer’s life and enforces all worship to work through Him. Even if You are a non-Christian, Jesus does not care. You are to worship Him or else become the spirit of the AntiChrist.
I do not think that Other Faiths are equal, there is gradation. Judaism is the root and progenitor of Christianity and Christ was born an Ethnic Jew in the line of David. It is properly to be called the Judaeo-Christian West. I do believe that God does not discard all of His past Covenants with the House of Israel. Yet to deny the Son of Man, and to refuse His deity, whilst also trucking in unbelief towards His Substitutionary Sacrifice on the Cross— where Christ took on the Punishment belonging to sinful and rebellious Man. This denial is the denial of God’s Newest, most central, most sublime Work and Miracle; the Best of Any conceivable and actual Covenants. That God became Man for the purpose of being the Christ. To live amongst Men and to Die for the very people who were crucifying Him, His killers He did save. The whole generation Who saw the Son of Man in the Flesh, incarnate and denied Him will One day weep at Their Own wrong doing. But the same is true for every person now Who is not a Believer in the Messianic Mission of Christ, every Knee Will Bow, every tongue confess.
And isn’t what Christ offers the most Beautiful of All Possible Worlds, His Kingdom of Cruciform Theocracy, the Kingdom and the Cross. And the defeat of death with bodily resurrection. Bringing down the forces of Satan and Death and leading His followers in procession behind Him in this Victory. He descended into Hell and returns with a flaming sword. You could not conceive of a more loving God, the God lowered Himself to the Life of a Man and bore the mockery of being hung on a tree as the ‘King of the Jews.’
Up to this point in History the symbol of the Cross was seen as a Dread (as N.T. Wright makes clear) and Yet now the Christian wears the Cross and the Crucifix around His Neck as a symbol of Mercy and Peace alms.
Christ died so that the very world which condemned Him to die like a thief in absolute ignominy—so that it would be liberated, forgiven, saved from the fate of death. He died such that We can live in eternal peace. As with Myself I do not fear Death, I treasure every moment but am comforted in the Lord that He could take Me any moment. And in this I have assurance of salvation despite My many Sins strewn out behind Me.
Christ became Sin on a Cross and took upon His body the full wrath of God which was owed to Man. Paul Washer declaims that Christ’s real punishment (beyond physical torture and death) was in an invisible yet crushing weight of the Truly divine punishment which God had built up in His wrath against man. Belief in the Substitution is equal to Faith and an act of consecration upon One’s Own life.
But then Christ said in His last words “It is Finished.”
And this is truly what I wish to impart to You My Reader as My Pastor did for Me. The victory of God through Christ, of Christ on the Cross and of the Holy Spirit released upon the World. This is the Three Persons of God and each is really a person in relationship to You. This victory is more loving, more beautiful, sublime, and totalitarian than Any man made political utopia or battlefield decision. And it goes to show that the One power which is more than any other, more than Hate, Shame, Bitterness, Resentment, loathing Death and Pride; is in a word Love. Love conquers All. God In Jesus of Nazareth made the Ultimate Story of Love—a love which redeems over suffering, raises Us from the Dead and Leads to Eternal Life.
This Is the Faith I strive to serve and Which the Attempts at belief and the confession of the Lord My God In Christ and Baptism of the Water, Spirit and Fire; it is all Finished. Amen, I hope this writing finds You well and in a Life marked by the Love of the Lord. Peace Be Upon You. - Greg W.