The Incarnation
“Think of a group of people trapped in a collapsed mine. And suppose that the rescue team only set up shop on the surface and never actually goes down into the mine. What would the point be? There would be no rescue. The help would not reach the people trapped in the mine. But turn the thought around. Suppose that the rescue team does go down into the mine, but loses contact with the surface crew. In that case they, too, would be lost.
It is necessary that we hold on to both sides of the truth. If Jesus ceases to be himself, the Father’s beloved Son who lives in fellowship with the Father in the Spirit, then all is lost, for he has nothing to give us when he comes to us. If, on the other hand, he lives out his sonship with his Father but does not do so inside Adam’s skin, then his sonship does not reach us; the dance of life of the Trinity flies over our heads.
Once we see with John and Paul and the early Church that the incarnation was a real incarnation, that the Son of God became flesh without giving up is fellowship with his Father, then we are face to face with a paradox that will allow us to see the truth about the work of Christ. In Jesus Christ, a union is forged between two things that do not belong together. On the one side, you have the Triune life of God with all of its face-to-face fellowship and purity and fullness and joy and rightness and integrity. On the other side, you have human existence in all of its hiding, brokenness, corruption, disease, and perversion. The incarnation means that these two worlds are now united.” (C. Baxter Kruger, The Great Dance, pp. 34-35.)
The Restoration of Light!
What a beautiful image of our Divine deliverance! It is noteworthy to say that Jesus not only brought light into the cave of our fallen darkness but that the ultimate purpose was to bring us up and out into the Light of Life! We often see light as just an improvement of life in the mine. A candle, so to speak, in the darkness and confusion of life underground. But this misses the point of the rescue entirely. Jesus does not come to improve our cave-dwelling but deliver us from it both now and forever. We were not made for life in the mine. We were created to be beloved children of our Heavenly Father, brothers and sisters with Jesus and free in the Life and power of the Spirit! We were made for life in a universe full of fellowship in infinite space and time.
Relational Heaven!
“However, what boy, willing to be a disciple of Christ and a child of God, would prefer a sermon to his glorious kite. A kite is the most divine of toys, and with God, Himself as his playmate, watching it together in the blue wind, tossed hither and thither in the golden sky! He might be willing to part with his kite, the wind, and the golden sun and go down into the grave for his brothers, but surely not to be admitted to an eternal prayer meeting!
For my part, I rejoice to think that there will be neither church nor chapel in the heavenlies. Yes, there will be nothing of religion but its Love and no law but the perfect Law of Liberty. There is no need for law or religious practice where every heartbeat expresses the Divine, where selfishness is too revolting to be considered, and every voice is eager with thanksgiving! Where the rushing of these joyful waters is bursting from beneath the throne of God. The waters being the joyful tears of the Universe!
Religion! Where will there be room for it, where the essence of every thought is the Divine? What place for honesty, where love fulfills the law to overflowing! Here a person would rather dive into hell than wrong his neighbor in the smallest way!
Heaven will be continuous fellowship with God, in this relationship, in this very sense of being, is joy! For to experience real Life, there must be actual and conscious contact with its very source. Therefore, this life is simple goodness, as good as the very Life of God is good, filled with the joy of our very being!” (George MacDonald, The Unspoken Sermons, The Inheritance, #36, paraphrase by Dale Howie)