Can We Keep It?

We emphasize the continuity between the Old and New Testaments. This is exactly backwards from what the Reformation did. Reformed theology is the basis for Dispensationalism, that heretical belief that the only proper understanding of God’s hand in human history is to see clean legalistic breaks between certain ages or “dispensations.” Each of these dispensations represents a radical break in how God dealt with mankind, to the point He’s almost not the same God.

So to understand Radix Fidem, you have to wipe away all that crap and try to see how revelation never changed, but that God kept making it easier to understand and it all climaxed with the revelation of His Son. We see no distinction between Law Covenants and grace. The only reason God went so far as to offer Law Covenants was because of His grace and mercy. So today as we walk about on God’s created Earth, we still need to understand Biblical Law in order to claim His “unmerited favor” (AKA, grace).

So we emphasize that His favor makes some demands. If He raises your spirit from the dead, then there is a reason for that — so you can walk in His glory and obey His Word. Sure, we can talk about spiritual birth or “born again,” but that’s something God alone handles on His end. The only thing we can do much about is our obedience from the heart. Thus, our time on earth is not a matter of trying to get folks born again, but to get folks under His favor.

We already know no one can live in His favor without that spiritual birth, so the emphasis is on the doing, in the sense that His Law will sift humanity. Again, it’s the only part of the story we get to tell. So we keep reminding folks that they can’t expect to even understand until they understand from the heart. Another way of saying it is that you have to focus on your convictions; convictions are burned into your heart by God. You can’t know the Spirit or the living Word/will of God with your head. The Bible itself uses the language of heart-led living.

And yes, we boldly proclaim that this is Christian Mysticism or Biblical Mysticism. No bones about it; what we teach and do is not part of any existing institutional religion. Nobody says you have to leave your church, but we warn you that if you teach Radix Fidem, your church will leave you sooner or later. And we keep warning everyone that this also means you have to reject Western Civilization. Even though we are stuck here in it, we aren’t really part of it. We belong to something else entirely.

However, condemning Western Civilization makes a pretty poor evangelistic sermon. Most people have no idea what the term means anyway. We have to talk to them where they are. That means we can address any aspect of their existence from the high ground of Biblical Law. Sure, we condemn their whole existence, but the way to get their attention is typically by sharing snippets of divine wisdom about various details of their lives. And we gain the credibility to talk about it by first living it out before their eyes. They need to see what Biblical Law looks like in our conduct, and more to the point, they need to see the way God’s glory shines in the blessings of shalom.

So we invest in the language of adapting ourselves to the moral fabric of Creation. We talk about all the ways the intellect needs to adjust it’s frame of reference so that it can organize and implement what our convictions demand. If we surrender ourselves to that burning drive to obey from the heart, God starts changing our situation so that it more closely reflects the ideal depicted in His covenant promises. We talk a lot about that.

And these days I’ve been led to start asking you to talk about how we can make this come to life on the earth again, to reestablish covenant living with a tribal feudal nation of God’s people. I’m asking you to embrace the vision of building once again a distinct people of shalom with a longevity that will last across multiple generations until Christ returns. How do we make this stick without compromising and taking the failed path of the institutional churches? How do we keep from losing this again, the way it disappeared after the last disciple of Jesus passed away?

It’s not a matter of thinking we are smarter than the Early Church Fathers, but we simply cannot waste this precious opportunity. God has given us back the heart-led way; let’s see if we can keep from losing it this time.