The Whole History of the Church

11/25/2009

“The whole history of the Church is one long story of this tendency to settle down on this earth and to become conformed to this world, to find acceptance and popularity here and to eliminate the element of conflict and of pilgrimage. That is the trend and the tendency of everything. Therefore outwardly, as well as inwardly, pioneering is a costly thing.” (T. Austin Sparks)

“What is Zoe, you ask? It is a Greek word that means the Life of God. As we allow Zoe (God’s Very Life) to rule more and more in our Individual life, we will have a more and more Abundant life. True Life, Life from Heaven, can only come through death. (John 12:24). Take up YOUR cross, lose all, and you’ll find Him and Zoe in that Holy Place (Mat.16:24). Few will go. But you may, if you will.” (Glenn Gibson) 11:42 a.m.

I was thinking last night as we spoke after dinner of scriptures that link [loving/hating what God does] with [aliens, strangers, pilgrims, pioneers, set apart, anointed with joy, too good for this world]...and so the link in this first paragraph above came to mind. In fact, the “whole history of the Church” as described in the first paragraph above could be viewed as a tendency to settle for knowledge of good and evil—to stop seeking the Tree of Life, this continual recalibration/refinement process in which we actively work to align our hearts to love/hate what God does. The second paragraph above links this Life from the tree back to the cross...which is where we must go each time our own wills blur our vision and ability to discern the trees, also discussed last night.

This “whole history of the Church” “that is the trend and the tendency of everything” can be likened to the second law of thermodynamics: Everything naturally evolves toward disorder. “God is a God of order.” Any order created in nature always requires work—a corollary to the second law.

Could it be, then, that the whole history of the church SO FAR is one of eventually going the way of Adam and Eve in turning from the Tree of Life...and that the whole FUTURE of the Church to which “all nations will stream” (Isaiah 2) is one in which the Church never ceases to eat from the Tree of Life...and it lives in Her (Rev 22) ...And that this “law” that will “go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem,” is the law of the river of life flowing through the Tree of Life—not some static, stagnant set of codified edicts but a Living River to which people MUST come.

“In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it.”

“Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 2)

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” (Revelation 22)

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