THIS VERSE FOLLOWS from the last: “You did not so learn Christ!—assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus” (Eph. 4:20–21). This verse shows how, when you lose the correction of the Jesus of history, and concentrate on the Christ of experience, you can run into all sorts of sidetracks, which lead into all sorts of futility.
The Christian faith is static and dynamic. It is static in that something happened in history two thousand years ago that can never happen again—God’s self-revelation of Himself in Jesus. That is fixed and final. We are given in Jesus a standard for God and for man. We see what God is like and what we can be like. God is Christlike; we can be Christlike. The idea of periodic and continuing incarnations runs us into all kinds of absurdities.
I sat in a train in India and watched people at every station come into the compartment and fall at the feet of a sadhu—a holy man. I asked his disciple who he was, and he replied, “He is God.” I could see he was a spastic unable to coordinate his speech properly. The weird was to be worshiped. Had he been normal the people would not have glanced at him twice. Another case of the so-called messiahship is that of Krishnamurti, whom I have interviewed and whom I have heard swear in good round English.
No, the Christian faith is static—it is fixed once and for all in history. It is dynamic, however; it goes beyond history and enters into experience. We remember Jesus Christ, and we realize Jesus Christ. His revelation is fixed and unfolding—forever ahead of us in history. Jesus stands on the further side of our twenty centuries, forever beckoning us on. This unfolding revelation is according to a pattern—“as the truth is in Jesus.” The Holy Spirit guides us into all the truth for “he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:14). Jesus is the textbook in the school of the Spirit. You are taught not merely about Him, you are taught in Him. To be taught about Him is verbal theology; to be taught in Him is vital Christianity.
O Jesus, my Lord, I want to be taught in Thee, for then I shall not merely listen, I shall live what I hear. I shall be the informed and the illustration. The Word will become flesh in me. I am in a school of life. I thank Thee. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Since I can only be taught in Him, I shall be in Him every moment lest I miss the highest.
