July 09

“The Son of God manifested so that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).
“Destroy” is the translation of the Greek luo, which means “loosen”, “untie”, or “set free”. The works of the devil are in the flesh of man and it is man who must be set free from them; whether he is or not depends upon how he responds to the call of God.

Man was made according to the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26); an “image” being a representation of the external form of something, like a statue, for example; whereas a “likeness”, on the other hand, is a reflection of nature and character. Thus, the overarching purpose of God’s call is that we might become like God; thinking like God and acting like God. That is the reason why God created man, and those whom God has called and chosen to be in Christ are meant to be the very incarnation of Christ, in the same way that Christ is the very incarnation of God; realistically we cannot be that in this life to the same degree of perfection and completeness; but nevertheless, in the same way that God was and is in Christ, so Christ is meant to be in the nature and character of the one who is called by His name.

This is a far cry from the world-view of modern Christian theology, which puts forward a doctrine that implies that faith in Christ stands in lieu of moral conduct; that a Christian, believing in Christ, can, by virtue of that belief, never be denied entrance into heaven, irrespective of the life he leads. This is a scandalous distortion of the scriptures!

But a more subtle form of delusion from which many Christians suffer is that which suggests that God’s purpose in calling us is that we might do something for Him; as if He cannot accomplish what He wants in the world without man. The greatest threat to the purity of devotion to Christ, and the most common disabler and distorter of the faith of believers, is the carnal desire “to serve Him”. This puts man at the centre of things; whereas the primary aim of God’s call is to become Christlike; it is not to do something for Him; in fact God can only do His will in those who are Christlike, those who have emptied themselves so that they are not even conscious of doing anything for God, because they have no consciousness of self; the ego is dead!