The 'Spiritual Salt' Syndrome - Part 1

.... In this posting we'll talk about the second spiritual 'syndrome' that keeps us from seeing Jesus in the Scriptures. This one may be called the ‘Spiritual Salt’ syndrome; but in order to explain it properly we’ll need to offer another parable:

.... Let’s say you go to McDonald’s for a bag of french fries. Before digging in you take a shaker of salt and sprinkled . . . a little bit . . . on it.
.... That salt is good! It makes the meal taste better, but really, you could have had the fries without it. It was just to add a little flavor. It wasn’t really important to the meal, it just made it taste a little nicer.

.... This represents a common mind set as we read the Bible and come across a passage that says ‘in Christ’ or 'in Him', or ‘in the Lord Jesus’ or something similar. We tend to regard those phrases as a bit of 'spiritual salt' that God has added so the text will read a little nicer. Or perhaps this 'spiritual salt' is to ‘sanctify’ the text, to make it sound more spiritual. It makes the passage 'taste' a little better, but we could have understood the Lord's meaning without it. (Do you remember the ‘spiritual test’ from several postings ago?)

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.... When you are reading your Bible and you see the phrase ‘in Jesus’ or ‘in Christ’, is that like a little salt on the french fries to you? Can such important implications be taken so lightly? Or can you leave out the part about abiding 'in Christ', and still understand your relationship with Him properly? Many of us have assumed that ‘in Christ’ mean ‘as Christians,’ and we've let it go at that.

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.... In effect, when we do this, we are skipping the true meaning because we are leaving Jesus out of it. We are willing to settle for an impersonal ‘arrangement’ rather than the deeply personal relationship that God has intended through His Son. We do the same thing in reading the Bible that the Corinthians did when they heard the preaching!

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.... So when we see the words ‘in Christ’ or ‘in Him’, or 'through Him who loved us' or something similar, we must understand it as a testimony, first and foremost; of Jesus Himself and not of ourselves. For example:

.... "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

(2 Corinthians 5:21)

.... The words 'in Him' offer an important context for God's meaning: they offer, as a premise, that Jesus Himself is the righteousness of God. Now, it is true that we fully stand in this righteousness also, but we do so by abiding in Him so that our standing is entirely dependent on Him. Do you see how it works? It is born from the relationship itself and not from some impersonal provision. But if we skip the words ‘in Christ' or 'in Him’ we disregard the connection with Jesus that it predicates, so that our understanding devolves into an erroneous, Christ-less, religious form.

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.... Does anyone seriously think they’re the righteousness of God without Jesus? But rather, the Scriptures tell us that we’ve become righteous because Jesus Himself has become our righteousness (Jeremiah 23:5-6; 1 Corinthians 1:30). We’ll continue this discussion in the next posting.

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Daily Bible Reading: John 6