(L, M)br...
Illustration
(L, M)
Religion and gospel are not the same. Religion talks about possessing; gospel talks about being possessed. Gandhi once said, "I think of Christ as belonging to the whole world." He was not wrong; he was merely unclear. Christ belongs to the world as possessor, not as possession. It is because he came as possessor that those who were enjoying all sorts of good things from God rejected him. Whenever religious people say that his light is their brightness, his truth their tradition, his grace their heritage, his gospel their religion, then they are on the road to rejection.
Paul was bold to make this distinction to the rulers and elders. Because the builders could not make the stone fit their plans, they rejected it. But it kept turning up again and again until they let it use them. What Christ gives we possess only insofar as we abide in him. When we admit that our possessions are still under his control and that he came to claim his own, then we are saved. John Bannister Tabb says it well:
A little Boy of heavenly birth,
But far from home today,
Comes down to find his ball, the earth,
That sin has cast away.
O comrades, let us one and all
Join in to get him back his ball!
-- Lincoln
Religion and gospel are not the same. Religion talks about possessing; gospel talks about being possessed. Gandhi once said, "I think of Christ as belonging to the whole world." He was not wrong; he was merely unclear. Christ belongs to the world as possessor, not as possession. It is because he came as possessor that those who were enjoying all sorts of good things from God rejected him. Whenever religious people say that his light is their brightness, his truth their tradition, his grace their heritage, his gospel their religion, then they are on the road to rejection.
Paul was bold to make this distinction to the rulers and elders. Because the builders could not make the stone fit their plans, they rejected it. But it kept turning up again and again until they let it use them. What Christ gives we possess only insofar as we abide in him. When we admit that our possessions are still under his control and that he came to claim his own, then we are saved. John Bannister Tabb says it well:
A little Boy of heavenly birth,
But far from home today,
Comes down to find his ball, the earth,
That sin has cast away.
O comrades, let us one and all
Join in to get him back his ball!
-- Lincoln
