Ephesians 4:4-6 (NET) “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you too were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
There is only one true faith, and that is the faith of Christ. Anything else ultimately amounts to mere subjective human opinion. The only faith that actually counts (in being flawlessly correct), is Christ’s own faith in the Father. This is because Christ is the only one who has known the Father, with the perfect wholeness of full objective clarity, from all eternity, and from before the foundation of the world. Therefore, what Christ Himself believes about God, and as God (being God the Son), is truth that is absolute!
This 'one faith' is God's very own faith; being God's belief about God, and also God's belief about us, as humans. This is the very 'faith' that we all so vitally need to realise from within us - the 'one faith' that accurately informs us about what is objectively true of God, and also true of us! As such, having faith 'in' Christ is not so much the issue, but our participation in the faith 'of' Christ is. You see, in and of ourselves, we are actually incapable of believing all the right things about God, and of believing all that God personally believes to be true about us. So, in order to obtain all the correct information, we need God to reveal it to us, otherwise we are effectively blind to the truth about our existence! Thus, our inescapable need as humans, to experience the very faith of Christ!
This sort of faith is not something that we can self-generate, but rather, it is something that God does in us - as a totally benevolent work of grace! And this is ultimately about seeing what Christ has already attained for us all, through His incarnation! Here, we get to experience what Christ Himself believes, and thus to find harmonious synchronicity with God's objective truth. Yes, Christ's own faith is the 'one faith,' being the only truly objective understanding, and that which we get to commonly share, through co-participation, This is the very faith that has the incredible ability to set us free, in enabling us to see existence from God's perspective, and in the subsequent discovery who we ourselves truly are! Christ's own faith is what ultimately liberates us from the very lies that we believe about our existence.
It is our faulty beliefs in regards to our existence, that are at the very root of so much of humanity's suffering, difficulty, grief and strife. This faulty belief pertains to the innate core needs that we all have, which can only be met in knowing (experientially) God's loving truth about us. These essential relationally-based needs, which we have from birth, are directly tied to who God actually is, as a perfectly loving and faultlessly good Father. These include; to be consistently loved unconditionally, to be fully accepted just as we are, to be believed in, to be nurtured and raised with gentleness and kindness, to be genuinely cared for, to be provided for, to feel that we matter, to have true purpose and meaning, to feel secure and safe, to have confidence and assurance about our future, to be truly wanted and valued, to feel that we do belong, to be heard and understood, and to know certainty of hope, for beyond just this life.
Wherever we lack in terms of this vital information (which largely depends on our childhood relational experiences, and particularly with our parents/parental figures), then we are inevitably left vulnerable to embracing faulty beliefs about ourselves. Also, because we all struggle with a perceived lack in regards to self (i.e. "I am not ....... enough"), we all inevitably end up embracing all manner of lies related to our existence. This faulty belief, which has been forming in us since we were young children, eventually takes up residence in our subconscious mind, and works in us to give rise to desires that are aimed at meeting our unmet core needs. However, the dysfunctional ways that we so often employ in an attempt to meet these core needs never actually work!
We all experience this! We all try desperately to meet our core needs in numerous different ways, which are always destined to fail! This is our common predicament as humans; our faulty beliefs and the dysfunctional behaviour that inevitably results from it! However, the reality is that only God's objective truth can liberate us, through actually meeting our core needs. Thus, we all fundamentally need to become experientially aware of God's right belief about us (having the clarity of God's own faith), in order for us to function in the 'right way of being' that God truly intends for us.
So, through Christ's own faith (which includes God's own belief about us), God has ultimately established 'true righteousness' (God's own perfectly right way of being) within humankind. As Christ lived out His eternal relationship with His Father, from inside of a body of mortal human flesh, with our own innate lack of clarity about our existence, Christ effectively gave us His own divine perfection of self, and the divine clarity that He alone had. In so doing, Christ brought us all through to a state of divine wholeness, through imparting into us all that was His. And so, Christ quite literally gave us all that He had within Himself, through working it into our humanity. This is how Christ Himself completed us, establishing us all in His own perfect way of being - that of perfect love. This was God's gift to us, being freely and fully ours already, and with no strings attached! Yes, righteousness comes through 'faith' - namely the 'faith of Christ' (Romans 3:22)! This means that a 'right way of being' (as God has always intended for us) comes through Christ's own faith! As such, Christ Himself has become our righteousness - in giving us His own truly 'right way of being.' This is about Christ's own perfect belief (which includes the truth about who we really are) overcoming all our faulty beliefs, and ultimately becoming our subjectively experienced reality too.
We are ultimately liberated by Christ's own faith, to experience His own divine reality - being that of complete relational wholeness and at-oneness, in His relationship with the Father and the Spirit. Yes, Christ's flawless face-to-face relationship of perfect love with God, in God, and as God, has actually become ours too, through His incarnation! Christ's incarnation (God becoming fully human), was the event through which we all become co-participants in the triune God! Through Christ, humanity was very tangibly 'adopted' into God, being inserted into the Trinity, through Christ's very own person and being. Because Christ became exactly what we are, humanity was now represented within the Trinity; and so, what belonged to Christ, then became ours too. Consequently, we all became co-participants in Christ's own divine sonship, which made us the very sons and daughters of God through Him, and co-heirs of God's everlasting Kingdom! The Gospel (the Good News) is that Christ has already accomplished all this for every single one of us, and His own faith within us, actually gives us eyes to see it! Ultimately, this is all about Christ being at work within us; with His own faith and love operating organically inside our very being - setting us free from lies about our existence, through awakening us to His eternal truth.
And so, Christ's crucifixion was the very moment that all our corruption was finally overcome, being destroyed right along with Christ, in His death on our behalf. Christ, the sinless 'Lamb of God,' became the ultimate sacrifice that finally removed sin once-and-for-all, from the entire human race (with sin being a way of being that is out of sync with God's nature of perfect love). This had nothing to do with Christ appeasing a wrathful God, but everything to do with Him overcoming our own innate lack of divine clarity regarding our existence, and our subsequently corrupt way of being. Humanity killed God, due to the rage that was produced through our belief in lies, and God let us do it, in order to liberate us from our bondage to sin! Christ took upon Himself all our hatred and emnity towards God, as humanity condemned, tortured and crucified Him. He became the scapegoat for our sin, and the subject of humanity's hateful wrath. And because of His fundamental connection to all, and in being the one in whom all things exist and have being, what happened to Christ directly implicated us too. Christ 's death was an event that literally included us too. Thus, when He died, we died right along with Him. This was the death of our 'flesh;' being our corrupted humanity, with its veiled perspective of existence, and its predisposition toward faulty belief. In Christ, the 'old self,' (the natural man who is subject to sin), was finally brought to an end. So, when Christ died, sin was finally no more!
And so, Christ's resurrection on the third day, was humanity's re-birth - this time as a whole 'New Creation.' Yes, we were all born again, through Christ's resurrection, with an incorruptible immortal body, finally made whole and fully complete. This is God's truth about us all! We are all now seated with Christ, in the Heavenly realms; where He is at one with the Father in all the fullness of divine perfection, Again, this is so, simply because of our fundamental connection to Christ. As both fully God, and fully human, Christ quite literally defines who we are, And so, we are all 'in Christ,' and included in what He has done. This is not a possiblity for us (if we choose to believe it), but rather, it is God's reality about us all! Our faith does not make it true! In fact, the only way for us to become truly aware of this reality, is through God's Spirit testifying to Christ's own faith (in bearing witness to Christ), from within us. As such, we all need to experience Christ's own faith, in order for us to believe as God believes! This is not something that we should have to choose, but something that we become aware of, through hearing the gospel truth about Christ! Yes, God's faith is made known in us, through hearing the astonishingly good news of Christ.
As bible translator Francois Du Toit points out in his book 'God Believes In You,' Jesus' exhortation was to "have the faith of God" (Mark 11:22), and not "have faith in God," as many translations unfortunately state. Similarly, the apostle Paul indicates in Galatians 2:20; "The life that I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God" and not "faith in," as he is so frequently misquoted as having written. And so, our humanity is actually supposed to be a journey in the discovery of, and an awakening to, God's own faith, from within us! We actually have things very confused if we think that God has left it all up to us to conjure up the right 'faith' through our own self-effort. Such 'faith' would inevitably be flawed due to it's purely subjective nature, and its fundamental basis upon our own limited understanding! What we all so vitally need to experience is Christ's own faith about us! Yes, we need to know what God actually believes and what God knows for certain to be true about who we really are! This kind of faith is a joyful realisation, and is in fact no work at all! This is the effortless faith of Christ, which produces rest and peace within us!
As such, it is the Spirit of God (who is actually already present "in all"), who enables us to experience Christ’s own faith. In this way, (by the Spirit) we all get to participate in the ‘one faith’ (that being Christ’s faith). It is only through Christ’s own faith working within us, that we are enabled to see our existence from God's perspective, and thus to experience a subjective reality that is in harmony with God's objective truth. And this has nothing to do with conformity to certain religious doctrines, ideologies or beliefs! Nor is this about attending church, saying a prayer, nor even about being a Christian! Neither is this about us 'choosing' or 'determining' to have faith in Christ. This is about coming to a personal awareness of what God has already so freely and benevolently given to us all, in and through Jesus Christ!
This is being awakened to see that we actually exist in inseparable at-one union with the Father - at peace with God, unconditionally loved, fully accepted and eternally secured, in and through Christ Himself. This is about discovering rest and peace as an essential way of being; in knowing that Christ (in Himself) has done everything that is necessary for our eternal existence in a state of wholeness, completeness, well-being, and in all the wonderful fullness of everlasting life. Yes, we really are found, home, safe, and right where we were always meant to be, secure with God, and simply because Christ Himself has made it so! As such, Christ Himself is God's concluding truth about humanity, in being the One in whom all things are brought to their finally perfected completion.
The Holy Spirit’s enabling is the only way that Christ’s own faith can ultimately become our faith too. Apart from the Spirit’s help, we would all be rendered helpless and otherwise trapped in our flawed subjective beliefs. But, as the Spirit resides within ‘all flesh,’ there is untold possibility for us all, in the experience of Christ’s very own faith, love and life! Yes, the Spirit enables our participation in all that is Christ's, and what He has established for us, as co-heirs of God along with Him, and as the beloved children of God!
Yes, Christ and His own faith are already present within us, by the Spirit. This is God's Kingdom here on Earth; the righteousness, peace, joy, love, and life that God has placed within us all! This is even something that we all already experience in different ways, we just don't always recognise it as such. So my prayer is: "Yes Jesus, continue to awaken us to Your incredible reality! Continue to win us from our flawed ways of believing to your own faith; that we might both perceive and experience our existence in the fullness of what truly is!"