The Jericho Road

When we have a living relationship with Jesus, one that is personal and deep, our preaching, teaching, or personal conversation will reveal a preoccupation with him as a person, not merely as a doctrine or a means to some imagined theological or eschatological end. Our contact with others will transcend giving good advice as we are compelled to share our meditations on the cost Christ has paid to redeem us. 

When we see our every moment as dependent on his sacrifice and intercession for us, we will not be dominated by a desire to give or receive a constant stream of “how to” lectures, those presentations that are nothing more than thinly disguised legalism. How ready we are with good advice rather than good news!

Imagine the kind of living testimony that comes from the lips of those who abide at the foot of the cross. What does someone talk about, what do they think about when they have spent hour after hour looking on the broken form of Christ? Often silence rather than words will mark the experience of a soul wrapped in contemplating what they did to the Son of God and what he has done for them. 

Every doctrine, every teaching of the Bible will appear as if it were dipped in blood. There will be no Sabbath rest without being crucified with Christ, no doctrine of the Second Coming without meeting the resurrected Jesus as he walks from his own tomb. 

How long will it be before we as a people, we as leaders, have such a vision of Jesus that we feel no more need for the dry, trivialized, powerless presentations that we pass off as the “Three Angel’s Messages”? How the angels must weep when they see our shallow grasp of this everlasting gospel that is to go to “every tribe, kindred, and nation” to every soul who “dwells on the earth”. 

The glory of the Seventh-day Adventist message is Christ and him crucified. When we see this truth in relation to all our faith and practice we will have an experience worth living, one others find it worth having. 

Update on Sunday, January 10, 2010 by Jan McKenzie

The phrase “not merely as doctrine” in the opening paragraph above should not be construed as a criticism of doctrine itself. Sound doctrine is essential in the formation of sound faith and practice in the life of the church.

To clarify, I am referring to the misrepresentation of true doctrine that takes place when it’s very centre, the person and atoning work of Christ are taken out. Whether this misrepresentation is accidental or intentional, the effect is the same, the doctrine becomes false and powerless.

Christless, bloodless teaching is neither true nor Biblical, no matter how many text are used in it’s support. Doctrine without the cross of Christ as it’s theological centre is by definition, false doctrine. Sadly, there is much of this about these days. In fact, this is the apocalyptic sign of the “last things”, the state of Christianity just prior to the judgment of God. It is the spirit of antichrist.