Revsamosborn, Zanesville, OH (2026)

Daily Reflections posted at 5:30am;
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12/27/2025

DAILY REFLECTION — Revelation 19

Revelation 19 stands at a hinge in the Apocalypse, where lament gives way to praise and judgment gives way to promise. After chapter upon chapter of exposure, warning, and unraveling, the seer is finally permitted to hear what heaven sounds like when God’s justice is no longer contested. The chapter is not primarily about spectacle or violence, as it is often misread, but about interpretation. It teaches us how to understand the fall of evil, the meaning of salvation, and the character of the King whose reign brings history to its true end.

The chapter opens not on earth but in heaven, with a roar of praise that echoes the Psalms yet carries a distinctly eschatological weight. “Hallelujah” is spoken not as a general expression of joy but as a verdict. God is praised because his judgments are true and just, because he has condemned the great pr******te who corrupted the earth, and because the blood of the servants has been avenged. What must be named carefully is that this praise does not arise from cruelty or triumphalism, but from the long-delayed vindication of truth. Evil has been unmasked, exposed, and finally undone. Heaven rejoices not because enemies suffer, but because deception no longer rules.

This matters because Revelation insists that judgment is not arbitrary force but moral clarity enacted. Babylon falls because she is false. She has seduced the nations with counterfeit glory, prosperity without righteousness, power without accountability. Her collapse is permanent, her smoke rising forever, not as a sadistic image but as a declaration that the reign of corruption does not regenerate. It ends. For communities weary of injustice that seems endlessly recycled, Revelation 19 offers the daring claim that history is not trapped in cycles of domination. God’s justice is not endlessly postponed. It arrives, and when it does, heaven calls it good.

From judgment the vision turns, almost unexpectedly, to marriage. The marriage supper of the Lamb reframes salvation not as escape from wrath alone, but as union. Redemption culminates not in isolation but in communion. The bride has made herself ready, clothed in fine linen, bright and pure, which John interprets as the righteous deeds of the saints. This line guards against two distortions at once. Salvation is not earned by moral performance, yet neither is it indifferent to lived faithfulness. The garments are given, yet they are worn. Grace does not bypass obedience; it enables it.

The invitation is pronounced blessed. Those invited to the marriage supper are declared fortunate not because they have secured a place, but because they are welcomed into joy that originates in God’s own life. Worship erupts again, and John himself nearly misdirects it, falling at the feet of the angel who reveals the vision. The rebuke is sharp and necessary. “Do not do that. Worship God.” Revelation consistently refuses to let mediators, visions, or even spiritual experiences become substitutes for God himself. The testimony of Jesus, the angel says, is the spirit of prophecy. In other words, all revelation serves one end: faithful witness to Christ.

Only then does the rider appear. Heaven opens, and the Messiah enters the scene not as an abstraction but as a figure whose identity is layered and resistant to simplification. He is called Faithful and True, names that define not merely his character but his reliability. He judges and makes war in righteousness, a phrase that must be held together rather than softened. This is not war driven by fear, expansion, or ego, but judgment that sets things right. His eyes are like flame, seeing through every false claim. His robe is dipped in blood, an image often misread as the blood of enemies, but more coherently understood, in light of the Lamb imagery throughout the book, as the blood he himself has shed. The victory he enacts is inseparable from the sacrifice he has already made.

His name is the Word of God, drawing together creation, revelation, and redemption. What God speaks, God does. What God promises, God fulfills. The armies of heaven follow, not to assist but to bear witness. The weapon that proceeds from his mouth is not a blade forged by human hands but speech. Truth itself undoes the lie. The kingship he claims is absolute yet unlike every rival sovereignty. He rules because he is true, not because he coerces allegiance. The vision insists that history does not culminate in chaos or compromise, but in rightful rule.

Two clarifications are crucial if Revelation 19 is to be read faithfully. First, the violence of the imagery is symbolic and theological, not a script for human action. The church is never commissioned to execute judgment. That work belongs to God alone. To weaponize this chapter for political or cultural aggression is to misunderstand both the Lamb and the throne. Second, the joy of heaven is not permission for human cruelty. It is relief that injustice no longer reigns. It is the exhale of creation when truth finally stands.

For the church, Revelation 19 reshapes both hope and worship. It reminds us that praise is not denial of suffering, but protest against its permanence. It teaches us to long not merely for escape from the world’s pain, but for the restoration of the world under the reign of Christ. It cautions us against confusing victory with domination, faithfulness with force, or holiness with spectacle. And it anchors our endurance in the promise that history has a center, and that center is the Lamb who was slain and now reigns.

So, today, ask yourself:

Where have I grown accustomed to injustice as if it were permanent rather than provisional?
What false versions of power tempt me to confuse control with faithfulness?
How does the promise of the marriage supper reframe my understanding of salvation and obedience?
What would it mean to worship now as someone who trusts that truth will finally prevail?

May your hope be shaped not by fear of judgment but by longing for justice.
May your worship remain fixed on God alone, undistracted by spectacle or substitutes.
May you live now in the light of a kingdom that is coming and cannot be undone.
And may you be found faithful, clothed in grace and obedience, when the Hallelujah finally fills the air.

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Beale, G. K. The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.
Guthrie, George H., and David P. Nystrom. Revelation. The NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014.
Mounce, Robert H. The Book of Revelation. Revised Edition. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997 (rev. ed.).
Osborne, Grant R. Revelation. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002.
Schreiner, Thomas R. Revelation. A Paragraph-by-Paragraph Exegetical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2023.

12/26/2025

DAILY REFLECTION — Luke 18:1–30

Luke 18:1–30 gathers a sequence of teachings and encounters that, taken together, function as a sustained examination of what genuine reliance on God looks like over time. The chapter is not concerned with momentary faith or isolated acts of obedience, but with the deeper question of whether trust endures when justice is delayed, status is threatened, and security is called into question. Across parable and encounter, Jesus presses one central issue: who or what ultimately carries the weight of our lives.

The chapter opens with a parable explicitly framed by Luke as instruction “to show that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.” The story itself is intentionally jarring. A widow, socially vulnerable and legally exposed, repeatedly appeals to a judge who neither fears God nor respects people. Justice comes, but not because the judge is transformed. He acts to protect his own comfort. Jesus’ point is not that God resembles this judge, but that God is emphatically unlike him. If persistence can move a corrupt official, how much more can faithful appeal rest securely in the character of a just and attentive God.

Yet the parable’s real pressure point comes at the end, when Jesus asks whether the Son of Man will find faith on earth when he comes. The danger, he suggests, is not unanswered prayer but eroded trust. Delay can hollow out hope, and repeated disappointment can slowly reshape prayer into resignation. Persistent prayer, then, is not a technique for manipulating outcomes, but a discipline that preserves relationship. It keeps the heart oriented toward God even when the timing of justice remains opaque.

The next parable deepens this concern by exposing a different threat to trust: self-justification. The Pharisee and the tax collector both pray, and both address God directly. The distinction is not religious sincerity but posture. The Pharisee’s prayer is constructed as a comparison, an accounting of virtue measured against others’ failure. The tax collector offers no defense and makes no claim. He simply asks for mercy. Jesus’ verdict is decisive: justification belongs not to moral self-assurance but to humble dependence. The reversal is stark, and it unsettles precisely because it dismantles the assumption that visible righteousness guarantees right standing before God.

This concern with posture continues as Jesus welcomes children, insisting that the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. In the ancient world, children represented vulnerability, dependence, and lack of status; they possessed nothing to leverage. To receive the kingdom like a child is not to be naïve or uninformed, but to relinquish claims of entitlement and control. The kingdom is not seized through competence; it is received as gift.

The encounter with the rich ruler provides the sharpest test of these themes. The man approaches Jesus earnestly, asking what he must do to inherit eternal life. He is morally serious and socially respected, and Jesus does not dispute his obedience to the commandments. Instead, Jesus presses the one place where trust fractures. “Sell all that you have… and come, follow me.” The command is not a generalized rule imposed on all disciples, but a diagnostic exposure. Wealth, in this case, has become the man’s functional security. When asked to release it, he departs sorrowful, revealing that obedience and attachment can coexist in uneasy tension.

Jesus’ subsequent teaching makes the stakes explicit. Wealth is dangerous not because it is intrinsically evil, but because it tempts its possessors to imagine themselves self-sufficient. The difficulty of entering the kingdom lies not in having resources, but in trusting them. The disciples’ astonishment underscores the radical nature of Jesus’ claim. If even the secure and morally upright struggle to enter, who can be saved? Jesus’ answer reframes the entire discussion. What is impossible for humans is possible for God. Salvation does not rest on capacity or control, but on grace.

Two clarifications are necessary to hear this passage rightly. First, persistence in prayer does not imply divine reluctance. God is not worn down by faithfulness. The parable addresses the fragility of human trust, not the indifference of God. Second, Jesus’ confrontation of wealth is not a blanket condemnation of possessions, but a warning about divided loyalty. What must be relinquished is whatever competes with wholehearted dependence, whether material, relational, or reputational.

Taken together, Luke 18 offers a coherent vision of discipleship marked by endurance, humility, receptivity, and surrender. Faith persists when justice delays. Prayer continues when outcomes remain uncertain. Dependence replaces self-defense. Trust releases false securities. The kingdom belongs not to those who manage their lives most efficiently, but to those who entrust them most fully to God.

So, today, ask yourself:

Where has delayed justice tempted me to lose heart rather than persist in prayer?
In what ways do I subtly justify myself before God instead of depending on mercy?
What attachment might Jesus name if he pressed directly on my sources of security?
How can I practice receiving rather than securing my life this week?

May your prayer persist without cynicism;
May humility free you from the burden of self-justification;
May you learn to receive the kingdom as gift rather than possession;
And may you follow Jesus with a trust that endures when outcomes remain unseen.

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Bock, Darrell L. Luke 1:1–9:50. Baker Academic.
Fitzmyer, Joseph A. The Gospel According to Luke X–XXIV. Yale University Press.
Green, Joel B. The Gospel of Luke. Eerdmans.

12/22/2025

DAILY REFLECTION -Isaiah 66
The God Who Refuses Containment

Isaiah 66 closes the book not with a gentle benediction but with a searching and unsettling vision of God’s holiness, judgment, and expansive mercy. It refuses to allow Israel, or the reader, to imagine that God’s redemptive work can be domesticated, localized, or reduced to religious performance. The chapter confronts false worship and empty piety, announces judgment upon violence and hypocrisy, and yet ends with a breathtaking horizon in which the nations are gathered and God’s glory is made known to all flesh. Isaiah 66 is not a conclusion that resolves tension; it is a culmination that intensifies it. It insists that the God who saves is also the God who exposes, and that true worship is inseparable from humility, obedience, and reverent fear.

The chapter opens with a radical declaration of divine transcendence: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.” The language is intentionally destabilizing. Any attempt to contain God within a structure, institution, or ritual order is immediately relativized. The temple, which has loomed large throughout Israel’s history and imagination, is not dismissed outright, but it is decisively re-situated. God is not dependent on human construction. He is not housed, managed, or secured by sacred architecture.

Yet this declaration is not anti-worship. It is anti-presumption. God names the one to whom he looks with favor: “the one who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” The contrast that follows is sharp. Ritual acts, when divorced from obedience, become morally grotesque. Sacrifice without reverence is likened to murder. Incense offered without submission becomes idolatry. Isaiah is not critiquing liturgy itself, but liturgy severed from covenant faithfulness. Worship that does not form obedience becomes an offense rather than an offering.

The chapter then turns toward judgment, especially against those who persecute the faithful while cloaking themselves in religious legitimacy. Those who claim divine sanction while excluding, shaming, or harming others will be exposed. God’s voice emerges not as affirmation of their confidence, but as confrontation. The language is stark: recompense, fire, and sword. Judgment here is not arbitrary. It is the unveiling of reality. God reveals what has been hidden beneath religious pretense.

At the heart of the chapter lies a vision of astonishing restoration. Zion is portrayed as giving birth suddenly, without prolonged labor. The imagery defies natural expectation. Restoration comes not through human orchestration but through divine initiative. God promises comfort, nourishment, and peace like a river. Jerusalem becomes a maternal figure, sustaining and delighting her children. The tone here is intimate, even tender. The God who judges is also the God who consoles, and neither dimension can be abstracted from the other.

The vision then expands outward. God declares his intent to gather all nations and tongues. Survivors are sent as messengers to distant lands, proclaiming God’s glory among peoples who have not yet heard. The scope of salvation stretches far beyond Israel’s borders. Even those once considered outsiders are brought near. The shock intensifies when God announces that some from the nations will be taken as priests and Levites. The boundary markers of identity are redrawn. Vocation is no longer determined by lineage alone, but by God’s sovereign calling.

The chapter concludes with an image that has unsettled readers for centuries: all flesh coming to worship before the Lord, while the bodies of the rebellious remain as a warning. The fire is not quenched. The worm does not die. Isaiah does not soften the image. The final word of the book holds together universal worship and enduring judgment, refusing to collapse one into the other. The holiness of God remains intact to the end.

Isaiah 66 reveals a God who cannot be contained by religious systems, national identities, or human expectations. Divine transcendence is not distance but freedom. God is free to judge false worship, free to comfort the faithful, and free to gather the nations into his redemptive purpose.

The chapter also reveals worship as a moral reality. True worship is not defined by external correctness alone but by humility, obedience, and reverent responsiveness to God’s word. Ritual without submission becomes violence in religious disguise. Conversely, trembling before God’s word becomes the mark of genuine belonging.

Finally, Isaiah 66 presents a vision of salvation that is both expansive and demanding. God’s mercy reaches to the ends of the earth, yet God’s holiness remains uncompromised. Inclusion does not come at the cost of truth. Judgment does not negate compassion. Together they reveal a God whose purposes are larger than human categories and whose faithfulness endures beyond human failure.

So What?

This text does not authorize contempt for the church, the sacraments, or liturgical life. Isaiah’s critique is directed not at worship itself, but at worship emptied of obedience and humility. Nor does the chapter sanction triumphalism toward those judged. The warning images function as moral revelation, not invitations to gloat.

Equally, Isaiah 66 should not be read as a denial of God’s tenderness. The same chapter that speaks of fire and recompense also speaks of consolation, nurture, and joy. To emphasize one at the expense of the other is to distort the prophetic witness.

Isaiah 66 pushes readers to examine where they have attempted to manage God through habit, ideology, or performance. It calls for a posture of reverent openness, in which worship reshapes life rather than shields it from scrutiny. The chapter invites communities to ask whether their religious practices cultivate humility and obedience, or whether they merely reinforce self-assurance.

It also helps to form hope that resists narrowness. God’s purposes extend beyond familiar boundaries, gathering voices and peoples previously unseen. Faithfulness, in this vision, involves both trembling before God’s holiness and trusting in the wideness of God’s mercy.

So Today, Ask Yourself...

Where have I confused religious activity with faithful obedience?
Do my practices of worship cultivate humility and attentiveness to God’s word?
How do I respond when God’s purposes exceed my expectations or challenge my boundaries?
What would it mean for my faith to hold together reverence, repentance, and hope without collapsing one into the other?

May the God whose throne is heaven and whose mercy gathers the nations grant you a humble spirit that trembles at his word, a faith refined by truth rather than performance, and a hope wide enough to rejoice in the glory of the Lord revealed to all flesh.

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Goldingay, John. Isaiah 56–66. T&T Clark, 2014.
Oswalt, John N. The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40–66. Eerdmans, 1998.
Motyer, J. Alec. The Prophecy of Isaiah. IVP Academic, 2015.

12/19/2025

DAILY REFLECTION - Revelation 11
Witness, Measurement, and the Cost of Truth

Revelation 11 stands at the structural and theological center of the book’s trumpet sequence, and it does so by reframing what divine victory looks like in the midst of apparent defeat. Rather than escalating spectacle or multiplying catastrophes, John is shown a vision that forces a reconsideration of how God exercises authority in a hostile world. Measurement replaces domination. Witness replaces control. Faithfulness replaces survival. Revelation 11 is not about predicting the church’s escape from suffering, but about revealing the form that God’s reign takes when it collides with violent resistance. The chapter insists that the triumph of God is inseparable from the testimony of his people, and that such testimony, while ultimately vindicated, is costly.

The chapter opens with an unexpected act: John is given a measuring rod and told to measure the temple of God, the altar, and those who worship there. Measurement in Scripture is never neutral. It signifies ownership, protection, and evaluation. Yet John is instructed not to measure the outer court, which is given over to the nations, who will trample the holy city for forty-two months. The imagery evokes Ezekiel’s temple vision, but here it is adapted to an apocalyptic context. The act of measurement does not promise exemption from suffering; it establishes distinction. God knows what is his, even when it is subjected to pressure.

The temporal markers are significant. Forty-two months, 1,260 days, and three and a half years recur throughout apocalyptic literature as symbols of a limited, intense period of oppression. The duration is severe but bounded. Evil is given room to act, but not sovereignty over time itself. The trampling of the holy city signals vulnerability rather than abandonment.

Into this contested space step the two witnesses. They are clothed in sackcloth, the attire of mourning and repentance. Their posture communicates the nature of their message. They do not appear as triumphant conquerors but as prophetic figures calling the world to account. John identifies them symbolically as “the two olive trees and the two lampstands,” drawing on Zechariah’s vision of priestly and royal anointing. Together they represent a complete, sufficient witness, not merely individual prophets but the embodied testimony of God’s people.

The witnesses are granted authority to speak and to act with prophetic power. Fire proceeds from their mouths, drought follows their proclamation, and plagues accompany their testimony. These images echo Elijah and Moses, signaling continuity with Israel’s prophetic tradition. Yet the power of the witnesses does not shield them from death. When their testimony is finished, the beast from the abyss makes war on them, conquers them, and kills them. The language is stark. Faithful witness does not guarantee immediate vindication.

Their bodies lie in the street of “the great city,” symbolically named S***m and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. The city is defined not geographically but morally. It is the place where truth is silenced and spectacle replaces repentance. The nations gaze upon the dead witnesses and refuse burial, a final act of contempt. They celebrate, exchange gifts, and rejoice because the witnesses had tormented them. The torment is not violence; it is truth spoken without compromise.

After three and a half days, breath from God enters the witnesses, and they stand. Resurrection interrupts mockery. Fear replaces celebration. They are summoned to heaven in a cloud, echoing the ascension motif. Vindication does not erase suffering, but it reinterprets it. Immediately following, an earthquake strikes the city, killing seven thousand and leading others to give glory to God. Judgment and mercy converge. The response is partial, but real.

The chapter concludes with the sounding of the seventh trumpet. The announcement is cosmic and definitive: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.” The elders worship, declaring that God has taken his great power and begun to reign. Judgment is rendered, rewards are given, and the temple in heaven is opened. Lightning, thunder, earthquake, and hail follow. The scene closes not with escape but with revelation. God’s reign is disclosed, not imposed by force, but confirmed through faithfulness.

Theological Synthesis

Revelation 11 reveals that God’s authority is exercised through witness rather than coercion. Measurement signifies divine recognition, not insulation from harm. To belong to God is not to be spared suffering, but to be known and claimed within it. The chapter insists that the church’s role is not to secure control over the world, but to speak truthfully within it, even when such speech provokes hostility.

The two witnesses embody the paradox of Christian vocation. They are empowered, authoritative, and faithful, yet they are also vulnerable and killable. Their apparent defeat is not failure, but the necessary passage through which their testimony is vindicated. Resurrection follows witness, not avoidance of death. In Revelation’s theology, suffering does not negate God’s reign; it discloses its character.

The seventh trumpet clarifies the horizon. The kingdom does not arrive through incremental human achievement or violent overthrow, but through the faithful endurance of God’s purposes until the appointed time. God reigns not by suppressing opposition immediately, but by exposing its limits.

A Few Implications

This text does not authorize a persecution complex that treats all opposition as evidence of faithfulness. The witnesses are opposed because they testify truthfully, not because they seek conflict. Nor does the chapter justify triumphalist fantasies in which the church imagines itself immune from loss. Revelation 11 explicitly portrays faithful witnesses who are killed.

Equally, the text does not encourage withdrawal from the world. Measurement is not retreat. The witnesses stand in public, speak clearly, and remain present within the city that resists them. Faithfulness here is neither domination nor disappearance.

The Formation

Revelation 11 challenges the church to understand success differently. It trains believers to value truthfulness over effectiveness, endurance over control, and fidelity over visibility. The chapter calls communities to consider whether they measure faithfulness by comfort and influence, or by witness and obedience.

To live within this vision is to accept that testimony may provoke resistance, that vindication may be delayed, and that God’s reign often advances through means that appear weak. Formation shaped by Revelation 11 produces Christians who are neither naïve nor cynical, but steady, truthful, and unafraid of loss.

So, Today, Ask Yourself…

How do I define success in faithfulness, and where does that definition differ from Revelation’s vision?
Where am I tempted to seek protection from suffering rather than endurance through witness?
What truths am I reluctant to speak because they might provoke resistance or misunderstanding?
Do I trust that God’s vindication, rather than my survival, secures the meaning of my obedience?

May the Lord who measures what belongs to him give you courage to bear faithful witness, patience to endure misunderstanding and loss, and confidence that no act of truth spoken in his name is forgotten, until the kingdom of this world is revealed as the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.

----------

Beale, G. K. The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text. Eerdmans, 1999.
Osborne, Grant R. Revelation. Baker Academic, 2002.
Mounce, Robert H. The Book of Revelation. Eerdmans, 1997.
Schreiner, Thomas R. Revelation. Baker Academic, 2023.

12/19/2025

This is arguably the most important thing I’ve ever posted. It’s not about “being right,” it’s about making sure everyone hears and graps the true depth of the gift on offer.
If you have doubts or questions about any of it, let’s talk. Seriously.

You’ve likely been told that a Christian is someone who has accepted Jesus as their savior and invited the Holy Spirit into his/her heart, that the Gospel is (Bill Bright’s “Four Spiritual Laws):
(1) God loves you & has a plan;
(2) Man is sinful & separated from God;
(3) Jesus is God's provision for sin;
(4) We must personally receive Christ to know His love and plan and escape hell.

This is a modern, American “salvation culture” distortion. The “four laws” are not untrue, they just aren’t the Gospel. And the church has, over the last 150 years, replaced the Gospel as proclaimed by Christ and the NT with the “laws.” The result has been devastating.
In truth, it has been so insidious that many of you will read the following and think I am crazy. I implore you to prayerfully with sincere consideration read to the end.🙏

At its core, Christianity is not about escaping hell or agreeing to a set of doctrines. It is the way of discipleship - the lifelong journey of becoming fully human by being restored in the image of God through Jesus Christ by the Spirit.

The Gospel is NOT the message of personal belief and escape from hell. The Gospel is the public proclamation that Jesus is King. His life, death, and resurrection have inaugurated the reign of God. This means everything has changed. A new world is breaking in. And every person is invited to live in that kingdom.

Being a “Christian” is being a Disciple and Discipleship is the process of being conformed to the image of Christ. It is the historic practice of becoming the embodiment of one’s rabbi. It is how we come to “be Christ” and discover who we truly are as His siblings. The disciplines of the Christian life (prayer, Scripture, worship, generosity, silence, community) are not religious obligations. They are the tools by which the Holy Spirit unwinds the false and sinful identities we’ve inherited from the this age and teaches us to live as sons and daughters of God. They lead us into a depth of knowing God that surpasses anything resembling the modern “personal relationship” you’ve been told to foster. The disciplines of the Way, handed down by Jesus Himself by way of the Apostles are constitutive of a disciple’s life and therefore the definition of “being a Christian.”

The process of unwinding our false sense of self is what the John the Baptist, Jesus, and the rest of the NT writers call “repentance.” It is not a confession of sin, although that is necessarily part of it. It is, rather it is a “rethinking” (“metanoia”) - a coming to terms with the nature of reality and the way in which we have missed the mark.

Coincidentally, missing the mark is what the word “sin” means (“hamartia”). Sin is not merely the breaking of rules. Our misdeeds are in fact a result of our sin, which is a state of being. It is the rejection of God’s authority and the refusal to accept and live into our true identity written onto us by God Himself. Sin is our taking ownership over who we are apart from the God who made us. It is a betrayal and sullying of the image we bear.

Sanctification, then, is not behavior management. Rather, it is the process of destroying the false self and the recovery of our true self, which is “hidden with Christ in God.” To use Jesus’ own words, it is the process of daily taking up our cross, and in Paul’s words, dying to ourselves.

You are likely thinking, “Sam, the Gospel is absolutely about salvation. Paul is very clear about this.” You are correct. But, again, not in the way you were likely told. Salvation is not being saved from Eternal Conscious Tormet, but rather the initiation into the “new age” ushered in by the defeat of sin and death accomplished by Jesus on the Cross. THIS is “atonement.”

Salvation is not a ticket to heaven. It is union with God, here and now. It is the restoration of the true self we were given and the relationship for which we were made. To be saved is to be re-placed into the divine life and to be commissioned as a participant in God’s movement to renew all things.

This is why the call to follow Christ cannot be separated from the call to justice. Biblical justice is not punishment - it is restoration. (I have a whole other paper on Biblical justice, if you’re interested in that). Righteousness is not individual perfection, I.e. following the rules - it is right relationship. Righteousness, in the Biblical framework, is acting properly within relationship in accordance with the boundaries established by the covenant governing the relationship. It is first and foremost about relationship, not about an objective standard of morality.
Righteousness, justice, and justification are all the same word in Greek and Hebrew. To be justified, then, is not simply to be declared blameless. It is to be placed back into relationship with God, made right with Him and one another. It is to live within the covenant of love, enacted at the cross, that defines God’s kingdom. This is crucial to understand.

As for the actual term “Christian,” it was originally a derogatory term used by the Gentiles to make fun of the “People of the Way.” The Greek term used means “little Christ.” The church liked the moniker, and made it their own. To be a “Christian,” as noted initially, is not to agree to a proposition about the deity of Jesus and His taking on of our punishment. That is not an untrue reality of the crucifixion, it’s just not the whole story of what it means to follow Jesus.

As Jesus said, “Go and disciple the nations.” Not make converts. Not consumers. Disciple the nations. This means teaching people to obey his commands and reflect his heart in the world; teaching people to engage the process of repentance; leading people to engage in the disciplines in order to allow the Spirit to transform them into “little Christ’s.” It is the process of becoming divine (theosis).

The church is the ekklessia - the “called out ones” who exists to train themselves and others for this life. Not to maintain religious traditions or secure moral superiority, but to replicate the process of discipleship, reproducing those who incarnate the risen Christ by His Spirit and live in the world as agents of reconciliation, healing, hope, and above all LOVE.

This is what the early church called theosis - the transformation of human beings by grace into the likeness of God - the process of “becoming divine.” That is not to say that we become God, but we participate in the divine nature by virtue of our union with the Spirit. “God is us, but we are not God.” This union is the foundation of all being. In Christ, we are made whole. By the Spirit (our union with the God), we are empowered to live the life of the kingdom now.

This is the ancient, orthodox understanding of what it means to be a follower of Christ.
This is the life giving truth of the Gospel - the Good News.
This is Christianity.
Anything less is at best a half-truth - a lie.

The kingdom is here.
The King is enthroned.
And discipleship is THE only faithful response.

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