Wednesday 20 October 2010

What Does a Garment of Righteousness Look Like?

This is a thinking out loud post - so please don't kill me just yet, if I utter what you consider to be dodgy things. Please do question, criticise, etc.

This may seem, at best, like an indulgent question and at worst an irrelevant one, along with "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" The answer to which (if there is one) won't help me when I walk into the office at 9am tomorrow morning or drag the kids screaming round the supermarket. But maybe that's because (as a result of the Fall) we're more interested in the enjoyment of the gifts (Gimme what works for me) than the esteem of the Giver (I love you Lord)...

Mike Bull writes in Bible Matrix...

"Without the Fall, men would have followed the rivers [which flowed out from the mountain garden of Eden] to the ends of the earth, carrying God's Spirit within them as miniature temples. Like stars moving across the sky, this holy army in glorious robes would fill the world."

Following on from my last post, I am beginning to think that the great sin of Adam and Eve was not that they wanted to be like God for it was always God's intention to welcome the human race into their fellowship and allow us a share in what Father, Son and Spirit have eternally enjoyed together, but that they wanted the benefits of the divine nature and the new creation on their own terms and in their own time. They were selfish and presumptuous. (The sin of presumption carries awful consequences throughout the Bible - to cite a few).

Adam and Eve couldn't wait for God's time to be clothed with light like Jesus is, and to use it for their own ends. (Note this is the essence of witchcraft whether it be the hocus-pocus or scientific variety: desiring the power of God but not the fellowship with God that goes with it.) We have lived under the curse of that presumption ever since.

But God's plan to sweep us up into the divine nature is not thwarted, and the human race is offered a way back through a garment of blood.

Before you or I can wear the imperishable clothing - the garments of light, and ride out in the holy army, we must first wear a garment of innocent blood, the blood of the one sacrificed on our behalf.

Enoch was on the right track.

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