 
Sharing in God's Life:  
Interviews With C. Baxter Kruger

Copyright 2015 Grace Communion International

Published by Grace Communion International

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Interviews and Dr. Kruger

Jesus and the Old Testament Saints

How Do We Get Enough Faith?

Perichoresis and Sharing in God's Life

Seeing the Truth About Jesus and Us

Jesus Has United Himself to Us

The Theology of Paul Young's Book The Shack

Who Are We in Jesus Christ?

Where Is God in the Darkness?

The Publisher

Grace Communion Seminary

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## Introduction

This is a transcript of eight interviews conducted as part of the _You're Included_ series, sponsored by Grace Communion International. We have more than 110 interviews available. You may watch them or download video or audio at www.gci.org/YI. Donations in support of this ministry may be made at www.gci.org/donate.

Grace Communion International is in broad agreement with the theology of the people we interview, but GCI does not endorse every detail of every interview. The opinions expressed are those of the interviewees. We thank them for their time and their willingness to participate.

Please understand that when people speak, thoughts are not always put into well-formed sentences, and sometimes thoughts are not completed. In the following transcripts, we have removed occasional words that did not seem to contribute any meaning to the sentence. In some cases we could not figure out what word was intended. We apologize for any transcription errors, and if you notice any, we welcome your assistance.

Our guest in the following interviews is C. Baxter Kruger, president of Perichoresis, a non-profit ministry. He is also president of Mediator Lures and holds two U.S. patents on fishing lure designs. He and his wife Beth had been married for 24 years; they've had four children.

Baxter's ministry has developed a website sharing the gospel of the triune God with the world, promoting international dialogue, providing essays, prayers, free books and lectures. He established Perichoresis Press – a publishing ministry with more than six books published, and over 150 hours of teaching recorded and available through the website.

He's taught in ten seminaries and colleges, preached in 50 churches, 20 denominations, in four countries, providing a relational, theological vision for a re-integration, overcoming our inherited divisions. His ministry focuses on recovering a relational vision that reflects the union of the Triune God, the human race and all creation, in Christ; promotes healing for relationships, marriages and families; and establishes a framework for international relations.

Dr. Kruger is the author of the following books:

Across All Worlds: Jesus Inside Our Darkness

God Is for Us

The Great Dance: The Christian Vision Revisited

Jesus and the Undoing of Adam

Parable of the Dancing God

Patmos: Three Days, Two Men, One Extraordinary Conversation

_The Shack Revisited:_ _There Is More Going on Here Than You Ever Dared to Dream  
_

We also have three interviews with C. Baxter Kruger and William Paul Young together; they are included in the e-book of Paul Young's interviews, titled _God and the Shack,_ available in the same place as you obtained this e-book.

The interviews were conducted by J. Michael Feazell, who received his D.Min. degree from Azusa Pacific University in 2000. At the time of the interviews, he was vice-president of Grace Communion International.

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## Jesus and the Old Testament Saints:  
A Round-Table Discussion with C. Baxter Kruger and Steve Horn

**J. Michael Feazell:** We're delighted to have with us in our round-table discussion Dr. C. Baxter Kruger, president of Perichoresis, an international non-profit ministry. He is joined by his assistant Steve Horn. Let's go around the table and introduce our panel.

Joseph Tkach (JWT), current president of our denomination.

John McKenna (JM), doctrinal adviser to our denomination. [now adjunct faculty at Grace Communion Seminary]

Mike Morrison (MM), editor of _Together_ magazine. [now Dean of Faculty at Grace Communion Seminary]

Steve Horn (SH), Dr. Kruger's assistant.

Baxter Kruger (CBK), husband of Beth.

**JMF:** Thanks everybody, let's begin by talking about all the people in the Old Testament... many of them are the heroes of the Bible, and yet they lived before Christ came and consequently never heard of Christ, never named the name of Christ, what happens to those people? Are they in hell? I've heard that said.

**CBK:** If you ask me the direct question, I would say that there are two concepts that are important, and this is where your theology bursts the wineskins of our present conception. The first one is the concept of _prolepsis,_ which is there are certain things that happened on the basis of something that has not yet been historically realized. Paul says that God winks at the transgressions committed in the old times because he knew that the sacrifice of Jesus was coming. In essence he's saying God was relating to Israel and to the world at large on the basis of the relationship that he would have with them in the future in the person of Jesus.

That's one thing. The other is that Paul says, I think deliberately, that, not only are all things created in and through, and by and for the Son of God, but he says _Jesus,_ and he has in view there the incarnate Son. Just in the mind-boggling idea, basically what we're saying is that Adam and Eve and everyone after them came into being, by the Father, through the Son and in the Spirit. What they knew of that, how much they understood of that, how they could process that, I don't know, but for me, I do not believe that any person will ever wake up on the other side and meet Jesus and say, "Who are you?"

Jesus is the one who knows how people respond to him. Everybody in the history of every religion wants to be the one in the position to say, this is what constitutes a response to Jesus. But he is the only one in that position. Paul says in Colossians that the gospel has been proclaimed to all creation, in heaven and on earth. He is pushing the envelope that way, and that relationship has been there, and is being revealed in some way that makes sense to people, and Jesus is the one who's relating and having that. That's about as far as I can go there.

**JMF:** What are the implications of that for loved ones, relatives, all people in far-away places who perhaps never heard the gospel or perhaps never heard it in a way that properly represented it, and therefore verbally accepted it...

**CBK:** Well, who _has_ heard the gospel properly presented since Jesus preached? The good news is that Jesus is the one who has established relationship with the human race. He has done that. That is not dependent upon the church, that is not dependent upon our faith. The Father's Son has established relationship with each of us, in his Spirit. He is addressing us and we are responding. The place of the Christian church is to be a witness to that relationship, to help people know who it is that they are in relationship with – what this is about – what their time and their history is about. The church is to bear a witness and to be a fellowship of light that brings light on what's really going on. It's not Allah, it's Jesus. It's our job to stand up and unpack and proclaim that as the truth, not something we create, but as the truth it is, that he has established.

I think that it is really important for us to recognize that we give up judgment on who's in, who's out and what constitutes that. Jesus has established a relationship with the entire cosmos – in his own incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Everyone, at some level, is aware of that. They may not be able to call him Jesus, because maybe they grew up in a fundamentalist church where Jesus was so small and so mean-spirited that the only thing that they could do is run from that conception because it was so non-human. They are embracing life, and I don't think that when they are embracing life, they are embracing non-Jesus. They are trying to find Jesus in the dark. It's the job of the Christian church to say, "This is what's going on here. You're trying to embrace the real Jesus." You help people see who that is.

**JT:** One of the key verses in all this incarnational talk that we've had today is one you've alluded to numerous times, that all things are created for him and by him and consist in him. I think one of the most misunderstood issues is this notion that if you die before you hear Jesus' name and have the chance to accept him as your Savior, that it's all over. Somehow, God is handcuffed and you're destined to go to hell for eternity and have eternal torment. What it overlooks is the fact that God is sovereign and he is not a prisoner of his sovereignty, he has a freedom, and since he created all things, and all things live and consist for him, by him and in him, we're not really dead till he says we're dead.

**CBK:** I think about Lazarus, he's dead four days, comes back to life, and (the Gospel of John was apparently written by the apostle) you think, "John, why didn't you interview Lazarus? This guy's been dead four days? For John, he's like, "Why interview Lazarus when we've got to talk to Jesus? Here's what we're looking at when we're going to meet on the other side – it's right here in front of us." The revelation of who God is, and what God intends, and has planned and has accomplished, is the person of Jesus and his union with us. That's what we come to on the other side.

**JMF:** Jesus conquered death, and in him, we're conquerors of death as well.

**SH:** One who was slain from before the foundation of the world, that's what I'm thinking about. We keep bringing this forward into a time in history as if that's important.

**JMF:** As if God is bound by time...

**SH:** this is _before_ the foundation.

**JM:** Perhaps we could remember that he came in the fullness of time. How are you going to flesh out the significance of the fullness of time without understanding that he is the Lord of time? He is the Lord of time past, he is the Lord of time present, he is the Lord of time future. He is the Lord of time. He is the judge and Savior of all time. When you're asking questions about how he relates himself to time, you're asking big questions, and you need to get the answers from the Lord of time.

This concept of prolepsis that Baxter is talking about, I see Moses' confession already operating with the concept of prolepsis. He's doing it like this: Because the Lord bailed the people of God out of Egypt, I can confess the one who created the heavens and the earth in the beginning. It's in the light of redemption that you understand creation. That is fundamental to what the meaning of prolepsis is. Nobody understands the Creator without the redemption of the Creator, and this Creator is the redeemer of all time.

**CBK:** and the Revealer.

**JM:** The Son of God, pre-incarnate, is just as time-full (and I think that's what you are thinking of) as the incarnate Son of God – it's just a different kind of time, isn't it?

**SH:** Some of the actions in the Old Testament particularly, several things were counted as righteousness. If you take the definition of righteousness as being in right relationship – that was what was basically given to them where they were. We just happen to be coming along in the time to where God was in Christ Jesus reconciling the entire cosmos – and a period of time that was written about, we saw that happen in history – we were operating in that particular point in history.

**CBK:** The basis of the covenant relationship with Israel was the circumcision, and it happened to Israel in the flesh of Jesus. It all pointed forward to him. The old covenant was a covenant in Christ, which he was destined to come and fulfill for them and in their behalf, and we're on the other side of that covenant fulfilled, but just the same thing, we're participating in that.

**JMF:** It was for "today" the today of Joshua. Today where God meets us – wherever and whenever God meets us – it is the "today."

**MM:** It was all pointing forward.

**SH:** All the language of the prophets pointing towards the Messiah...

**JM:** And the Messiah is the son of David. "I'll never take my _hesed_ – my grace – from off of your house like I took it from off of the house of Saul. In this way, you will be my son and I will be your father." In that Father-son relationship is something new. Nobody before David is going to have this ... Moses didn't have this kind of relationship with the Lord God, with the great I AM the Lord God is. He chose in his freedom in the time of the monarchy to give this relationship to David. That promise to David is Messianic hope. The messianic David is the grace of God by virtue of the fact that God was free to choose to do this for the sake of fulfilling his promise in covenant with his people in his creation. That's why you can talk about Jesus come in the fullness of time – the promise kept the righteousness of God.

**CBK:** I was thinking a while ago about this that Moses – somebody was talking about that Moses – and with David too, it's the Spirit of Christ that inspired the prophets, who inspired Moses. It's not like in the Old Testament the Spirit is caught off guard with the Incarnation. The Incarnation is what's planned before the foundation of the world, so Genesis, the covenant with Abraham and with Israel, and with Israel, with the human race, is not only a foreshadowing but it's patterned after the new covenant. It is not yet historically realized. This is just baby steps, and it's going to be fulfilled in Jesus, and once it's fulfilled in Jesus, then we go back and we see that relation that God has had with all peoples all the time in Christ but there was no way to see that during that great darkness.

**JMF:** Preparation.

**CBK:** Preparation, fulfillment, now revelation – in the Spirit.

**JMF:** The matrix.

**CBK:** Yeah, we're in the matrix.

**JM:** I like even this trajectory that we are talking about, that it has typological significance. When Jesus says, "they wrote about me," he's not saying, Moses knew me, and wrote about me. He's saying Moses wrote of God in such a way that he spoke of me even if he didn't know it. All the prophets said that way.

**JMF:** 1 Peter 1:10.

**JM:** Yeah, the prophets ... they don't have any idea what they're writing about and probably St. Paul and St. Peter had very little idea that they were writing Scripture – they were writing letters, that's all they were doing.

**CBK:** They were doing their best they could to write about Jesus and didn't realize what it meant.

**JM:** Well, who makes it Scripture? The one to whom they were bearing witness – Jesus, because he is who he is.

**MM:** The Old Testament was an unfinished story. It's a tremendous story and you just wonder where is it going, where is it going? Until Jesus comes along. Ah, this was what it was all pointing to.

**JM:** And nobody liked it.

**CBK:** The players didn't like it, but the thing is, the real author of Scripture knew that even though the players didn't, and he counted all the players' rejection of their own messiah to accomplish reconciliation, and the real players in the story had no clue. We were talking last night about, that Caiaphas was the only high priest in the whole history of Israel that did his job. He offered up the one acceptable sacrifice – and he did it for the wrong reason. He did it to save himself and the people, and he was doing that. That's a picture of how God is a great chess player. It's just three-dimensional chess, and he's way ahead of what we think is going on. And it's revealed to us in Jesus. Then we get it. There's the purpose of God in creation – it's the union between humanity and Christ.

**JMF:** Barth talks of the debt of gratitude we owe the Jews for bringing about exactly what they were intended to bring about ...

**CBK:** T.F. Torrance calls it "the womb of the incarnation," which is just a fantastic [image?].

**JT:** I think it is vital to understand it in this context that you're now presenting, because I've met Christians and non-Christians who have a very different view – in fact, they might look first at the angelic creation and see that a third rebelled, and so Plan A failed. Then he creates Adam and Eve, and humanity falls, Plan B fails, and so now we come to the Incarnation, and now we are already to Plan C, God has failed a couple of times.

**CBK:** Yeah, Israel failed,... The incarnate Son and the relationship that he has with his Father and the Spirit and the human race and all of creation in himself, that union, that covenant relationship – between the Father, Son, and Spirit and the human race and creation, that is not an after-thought that God quickly thought of after – Adam fails, my creation fell, I've got to come up with another one – that is Plan A – in the light of which we now understand what's going on with creation, and we now understand what the calling of Israel is about. We now understand what the calling of the church is about.

**SH:** To use your analogy with a three-dimensional chess board, when God created everything, he had checkmate.

**JM:** I was surprised that you'd be like in either four or ten, eleven dimensions.

**JT:** However many dimensions there are, checkmate in all.

**CBK:** That's the beauty – Jesus is the light of the cosmos – not just the light of the Christian church. He's not only the one in and through and by whom are all things, but FOR him. Here, in this person, and in the relationship between – God on the one side and the human race in another that exists in his very identity – here we see what God is up to from all eternity. This is the revelation, this is the unfolding of what's been hidden and we could not conceive of. That's a Christological hermeneutic – that's the truth of all truths, that's the way to think as a Christian.

**JM:** Every time you are going to read covenant renewal in the Old Testament, you are asked not only to read God with his people, but the creation is always asked, called upon, to bear witness to what he is doing with his people. God never just bears witness to himself, between himself and his people. He always says, "Heaven, come over here and look at this. Earth, come over here and listen to this, because I'm speaking with my people and you're my witness." The creation, the cosmos, is always a part of every covenant renewal you'll ever read throughout the whole Bible.

**JMF:** God enters into covenant relationship with Israel numerous times in the Old Testament "that all nations might know that I am the Lord."

**JM:** Yeah, that's very important.

**MM:** To be a light to the nations.

**CBK:** Cause Israel did what the Calvinists do, and what the church typically does, which is "we're in and you're out, and this is for us, and God loves us and does not love everybody else." He says, no, I'm calling you Abraham, I will bless you, I'm going to protect you, and I love you, and through you I'm going to reach the world.

The restoration of relationships

**JMF:** One of the stated purposes of Perichoresis under your supervision is recovering a relational vision that reflects the union of the triune God, the human race, and all creation, in Christ. Promotes healing for relationships, marriages and families, and establishes a framework for international relations. That is a tall order, and yet it accurately reflects what the gospel is all about.

**CBK:** It looks like, if it's a goal, it's a tall order. How in the world are you going to do that? But if it's a reflection of the international relation that's established in Jesus, of the healing for all relationships – marriage and family and racial, and sexual – if it's a Christological statement, then it's not a tall order, something that's been accomplished that's not being revealed. The more you focus on Jesus in terms of, he is the Father's Son and the Anointed One, and he is the one in, through, and by him all things are created, the more you focus on his identity, the more you realize, he is the point of union – he is the point of relationships. And he's already accomplished it in himself in his own person.

Now comes our education, our coming to realize that these divisions that we create because of our own insecurities, and anxieties, and darkness, are false divisions. We have a responsibility – a global responsibility, too, because the cosmos is bound up in Jesus' relationship with us. I'm a part of Jesus' relationship with you, and with people in Australia or India or Russia, this is of a piece IN Christ. That warrants as a framework that says, "Wait a minute. We've got to re-think things here." Because it's easy just to say global and national divisions and religious divisions and even in the Christian church, a couple of thousands of denominations within the Christian community, within the Protestant community. But underneath that there is a oneness that we have in Jesus, and that's why Paul says, "be diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Because the unity... don't create it, it's there in Christ. Preserve it. Stay focused on that, and that liberates you from recognizing people or nations according to the flesh.

**JT:** That leads to a question that we get asked when we're talking about the Incarnation and all that it implies, and how we participate in the divine nature – some will level the accusation that we're just teaching a form of universalism. How do you answer that?

**CBK:** I wish I could. I wish and pray that the whole human race comes to see the truth. I have my doubts about certain denominations, but I am not a doctrinal universalist. I am a hopeful universalist. The world is reconciled to Christ, we're included in the family, Jesus has established a relationship with all of us. He sent the Holy Spirit to enlighten us, and it is possible for us to say consistently again, and again, and again – even indefinitely – say, "no, I'm going to live in my own world. I'm going to live in the way that I see things, the way that I see God. I've got my theology, I've got my vision of God, I've got my vision of the world, I've got my vision of what Jesus did, and I am god. My vision is what counts, and Jesus, you line up with me and everybody in the planet line up with me."

That creates chaos and conflict and internal pain, and it's possible for that to be an indefinite position. But God never changes, and this is important, that what we do (or do not do) does not have the capacity to change the being of God or his relationship with us that he has established. We're not talking about changing God from being a Father back into being a judge. We're talking about the fact the he has bound himself in relationship with us. That is never changing – the Spirit is haunting us and trying to enlighten us, and that's the state of things.

Now, how it comes out? We're not in a position to say with any kind of dogmatic reference. It's theoretically possible that no one would get it, no one would see. It's theoretically possible that almost everyone, or even indeed all, will come to see. There are people that I respect, George McDonald and Thomas Erskine among them, great thinking Christian godly men, that the love of the Father poured forth from both of them. They both were committed universalists. They just believe that the love of the Father was going to win, it was just impossible not to. I think, that's probably ... that's good.

But I just can't say that. So, I'm not a universalist, but I understand why people who are operating out of a legal framework can only hear me saying that, because for them, if you pray to receive Jesus, then you've got a ticket to heaven and you're going. And if everybody's got a ticket, then everybody's going to go to heaven. But the plain fact is that there are people who don't want to go. They may have a ticket and the trip paid for, but they don't want to participate in it. It's not going away, it's a very miserable form of existence.

**JMF:** C.S. Lewis' book, _The Great Divorce_ ... [ **CBK:** Fantastic book.] talks about that.

**JT:** That was a nice turn of phrase the way you've explained that, they have a paid ticket in their pocket but they don't want to use it.

**CBK:** In C.S. Lewis's image, the door of heaven is always open, and even the door of hell, and maybe it's the same door. It's not "we died, and God goes back into being God, and forget this Father, Son, Spirit stuff, and forget this covenant relationship. Sorry, all that's over, you had your chance, now it's gone in flames." It's covenant relationship, and where are you in the journey? Whether you see or whether you don't see, you're not changing God in this.

**JT:** I think you will agree with me, it's almost an odd question about "are you a universalist" because when I look at the early church fathers, they all wrote with a hope that everyone ....

**CBK:** They believed in a cosmic Jesus. They believed that Jesus is the one who has reconciled the cosmos, and so they were looking for the manifestation and the revelation of that, and they wanted to participate in the unveiling of that. Our Jesus in the West today is (for Pete's sake), without the church he can't even have a voice. It's like we make Jesus Lord of our lives – who's lord, then? The announcement is he is Lord, he has come and established a relationship with us; therefore quit living in your own world and come live with him in his. Walk with him. Let him disciple you. Let him teach you about the Father.

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## How Do We Get Enough Faith?

**JT:** Working pastorally, we've met people who have ups and downs in their lives, and when they have the downs, they always feel like such a failure, that they were just not faithful enough, and they didn't have enough faith. When they better understand this Incarnational theology, they have a whole different context in which they're living. Unfortunately, with the proliferation of the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel, many people are trying to work up enough faith, and then the fall is very painful and great when they realize they haven't worked up enough faith. Perhaps you can comment on the difference between living in the faith of Jesus as opposed to working up your own faith.

**CBK:** That's the difference between religion and Christianity. Every religion in the world is going to tell you that you have to build a relationship with God, or maintain a relationship with God – here is how you do that, go do it.

Christianity says, no one knows the Father but the Son. Jesus says, come to me and you can share in my relationship with the Father, which means I'm the true believer, and I will share my faith with you, and you can participate in my relationship with the Father, and that's an easy thing, he says. My yoke is easy, my load is light. I'm not like the Pharisees, who are going to keep lists upon list upon list of things you've got to be doing to entertain and maintain some sort of relationship with this invisible God.

To me, the greatest news in the world is ... there's a singer/songwriter back in, I think he's originally from Alabama – named Pierce Pettis – one of the, just brilliant singer/songwriters of our time, but he's got a song called "God believes in you." One of the lines says, when you feel so ashamed that you could die, God believes in you.

For me, the news is that, not only does the Father, Son, and Spirit believe in me, believe in us, but they've established a relationship with us, and with me and with all of us across the world. And so it's not about us working up something in order to get into a relationship. Faith is a discovery that Jesus has established a relationship with us, and it's a discovery that commands me to stop my own false religious believing and pretense, and to rest in the reality of that relationship. It's a discovery that summons me to acknowledge it by reckoning on it – and beginning to live and participate with his mind, with him. It was great relief there.

**JM:** I think one of the most comforting aspects of this kind of confession for me has been that Jesus Christ has repented for me. That I do not have to dig down into the depths of my own being to find a proper repentance before God, because Christ does that for me. To me, I can only catch one little minnow, but I'm a fisher of men because of who Jesus is.

**CBK:** How could you repent without knowing what sin really is? We're not even in a position to say how bad have we actually done in our own self-effort. Only Jesus is in a position to say, "this is what the mess is," and he receives the Father's love in the middle of that for us.

**JMF:** Don't we often see our own sin and sinfulness way down the line, after we've been Christians a long time? We tend to think, I'm worse now than ever, it seems to me, and it's probably because we can see what sin is better, the longer we walk with Christ.

**CBK:** There are several dimensions, there's one that I want to point out there and that is, my friend, Bruce Wauchope, in Australia, he's done a series called "The gospel and mental health" that's available in our website. But one of the things that he points out is that, as we come to know that we are accepted, truly just accepted as we are, only then do we start letting out stuff that we've been keeping hidden and suppressed and in a closet. That's when we begin to be healed – only in the light of our acceptance can we even acknowledge that this is going on, let alone come forward with it. So he says quite often, the gospel is news about acceptance in Jesus, everything starts falling apart in people's lives, because they are no longer trying to hold it all together. They let it come forward, and that's where real healing starts.

**JT:** That's freeing. The legalist can't see this, because he's wearing not just thick glasses, but welder's glasses, and they're comparing themselves to this list of rules. They misunderstand the context of Jesus' ministry, or John the Baptist's ministry, when they talk about repenting. All they do is heap up a larger and ever-growing burden of guilt on themselves.

**JMF:** They have to try all the harder to hold everything together.

**SH:** If you're not seeing yourself in Christ, who else is going to hold it together? It's going to get dumped in your lap every time. So to me, the whole paradigm of talking about sin goes far deeper than the ten commandments or the legal models. He goes all the way into you not seeing, and you denying who you are in Christ, and what has been accomplished in and through his death, burial and resurrection.

**JMF:** It leaves you with deep depression or hypocrisy or both.

**JM:** It took no other than Christ to show me how much I hated him. Only he could show me that. No one else can show us how much we hate who God is, except God.

**CBK:** Only then, by revealing the relationship that God has with us, that he won't let us go. He's accepted us.

**JM:** That's why we say ... He's a very merciful God.

**SH:** We started out talking about the faith issue, seeing that participating in Jesus' faith, he is the one who has the relationship with the Father. He is the one who knows the Father. He is the one who actively participates in the love of the Father and the Spirit. He shares that with us. He shares everything that there is with us. So he is sharing our faith.

I used to read that Scripture, "If you have the faith of a mustard seed, you could say to that mountain 'be removed,' and it falls into the ocean." I read it and read it and kept trying to conjure it up. Finally I read it one day, and I felt so stupid, because after a while the way I read it was, it says, "you don't have it. You don't have the faith of a mustard seed. Jesus is the one who's got all the faith." He shared it with us through grace, that's what saved us, and took a lot of the pressure off.

**JMF:** So I don't have to depend on the quality and level of my faith to know that I'm saved.

**SH:** No more than you do for your own salvation. It's not up to you, it's a finished work.

**CBK:** Who has ever moved beyond "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief," I mean, honestly? Would that not be the apostle Paul's last confession? Or the great Athanasius? Isn't it "Lord I believe, help my unbelief"? I see it, I want it, and so you tell me the difference between looking at it ourselves, as Steve was saying, independent, outside of union with Christ, outside of his faith and faithfulness. We are trying to put our quantity of faith over here to see if it qualifies to get an exchange miracle, if we flex it enough. That independent faith is to say, no, Jesus is the one that moves mountains, and when we participate in him, we find ourselves getting water because he says "get water," and he is going to transform it into wine. We don't do that, he does that. He's the transformer.

**MM:** I was thinking about how people want to get other people saved, and yet those other people are already saved. Maybe it's more of an educational process than a saving process?

**CBK:** We have to rethink – because you're thinking it about this way – you cannot be lost if you don't belong. Salvation has to be rethought in the light of the fact that Jesus has a relationship with us. I had this discussion with a Calvinist at the American Academy of Religion in New Orleans out on Royal Street. I was going to eat supper and he followed me and he was arguing with me all the way. We got out in the middle – it was Canal Street, which is a boulevard – and he said: "Surely you don't believe that all these people out here in New Orleans are in Christ."

I just looked at him and said, "Well, of course I do. I mean, how else did they get here?"

He said: God made them.

I said: _Which_ God made them?

He said, "God."

I said, " _Which_ God?"

He said, "I don't know what you mean – God's common grace?"

I said, "Which God, what's his name?"

He wouldn't say it. He wouldn't say, Father, Son and Spirit, because that would have meant that there is a relationship that Jesus has with all these people in New Orleans whether they prayed the prayer or even are one of the elect... So he's gonna hide behind the notion of common grace – and some generic common grace that the Father relates to people behind the back of Jesus – as opposed to seeing that all things come into being in and through Jesus and now he has lifted us up, all of us, into this relation.

Now we can talk about getting saved – getting saved is what Jesus did for us; now we can talk about our _experience_ of that. And where are we in our journey of understanding?

The first encounter that I had that I remember was in college, and I was at a camp, and boy, it was very powerful and I thought, "this is fantastic." Everybody tells me "you got saved." I thought, "I got saved." Then I had another encounter that was even better, three years down the road and, well, what was that? They said, you get a second blessing. Ok, a second blessing.

Then I had a really huge one in Scotland with J.B. Torrance teaching, and I'm going, I didn't know how to categorize it, and he is the one who said to me, "you have many, many experiences in your life. Don't build your theology on experience – your salvation happened in Jesus. It unfolds in your life relationally. There are moments of great insight and liberation and clarity. There are moments like that, but those are not when you get from outside of Jesus into Jesus. That's revelation. That's clarification. You used the word "education," which is a fantastic word. Education means to draw out.

**MM:** I was thinking Jesus _announced_ his good news. He didn't ask, "Is this true or not?" Rather, he announced it as a fact.

**CBK:** Again, and again, the gospel is not an invitation, it's a declaration of reality – I am the Lord your God, I am the light of the cosmos. Follow me and you won't walk in the dark, you'll be in the light. Again and again and again, it's not an invitation, it's a declaration of reality. That declaration summons us to change our view of reality and come and participate. And the kingdom's here.

**JM:** I remember one day at Fuller Seminary, Tom Torrance was being haunted by Evangelical born-again people, and they wanted to know, "when were you born again?" I can tell you, I was born again in 1972, because of some experience I had in San Francisco. Everybody was after Tom because could they do the same, they could say, I was born again in such and such a date and such and such a time. When they asked that question to Professor Torrance, he said, "Well, it was around A.D. 30."

**CBK:** In Jesus' resurrection.

The abundance gospel

**JT:** That triggers another area that I think we should ask you to comment upon. It's interesting how quickly Christianity can be turned into a religion – of lists of rules, and things to do or another way of saying it – making a formula out of Christianity. Something that's ever growing in popularity in the United States, and I'm afraid it's one of the worst things that the United States exports outside its country, is this health, wealth, prosperity gospel – if you just do these right things, have the right amount of faith, you'll be wearing a Rolex watch in just a matter of months and driving a new Lexus – maybe you could comment on that.

**CBK:** Everything that happened to Jesus and his apostles. You can't have a vision of the gospel that excludes what's happened to the apostles and to Jesus himself. I think God wants us whole and complete, and we are in Jesus – and that unfolds in history – and it includes our death. The experience of our salvation, the unfolding of it includes our death.

I have this conversation with a friend back home who says, "Baxter, you teach that everything is bound up in Jesus, and if it's bound up in Jesus, then all we've got to do is believe enough, and if we believe enough, it will all unfold."

I said, "You're right. If we believed with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, then the truth in Jesus will be set free. What you're excluding is the journey, and the journey is our life, which includes our death. That's when we learn it."

We learn it when we die – that we're not the Lord, we don't have the power of life, we never did, and we've always participated in Jesus. One thing that needs to be on the table is that, that suffering is part of the way in which we can participate in the faith of Christ – as he'd learned the things who he was (Hebrews 5) through the things that he suffered.

The second thing that I think is important is that, he is the one who tells us what we are supposed to believe, what we are supposed to do. That's not in our control. There were servants sitting around when Jesus commanded these servants to get water, he transformed it into wine. The next day, they went out – "we're gonna get water." So they get water, get more water, get more water. But that's not what Jesus is doing. He's the only one who transforms it into wine – he calls the shots.

That's why the Lazarus story is important. It says explicitly in John 11, "Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick" and it says, he stayed where he was two more days. It was like a two-days journey. After four days the man has been dead, the sisters come out and said, "If you would've been here, our brother wouldn't have died." He says, this has been done for the revelation for the Son of Man. This suffering, this not getting the Rolex, this struggle, this man died and was rotting, he went through that, that family went through that, for the revelation of Jesus Christ. We've got to have a place for that obviously biblical story in our theology.

**JMF:** Jesus said, I've come that they might have life and have it more abundantly. We want to interpret the word "abundantly" as Rolexes and Lexuses – abundance of possessions. What we possess, our position, prestige, power – that's not the abundant life. When you boil it down, what people really want, what people really need and what constitutes abundance in life, ask any rich person who's never have a love relationship, who's never had anybody care about them and love them and has never loved anyone – we need and want love – that's abundance. People would trade all the riches they have for somebody who loves them, cares for them, to feel accepted and know that they're beloved. This is abundant life.

**CBK:** Jesus, when he defines eternal life – this is eternal life, that they may know you. Knowing the Father and this Father's heart (which is what you're saying), knowing his love for us produces an unearthly assurance within our souls, a peace and a hope that is life. It has an infinite variety of expressions. It may include giving your own life for the benefit of another person. That abundant life is not just... that's an American invention, only recently did anybody think about anything like that – only in a materialist world would anybody dream of that.

Abundant life is knowing the Father's heart and experiencing his lavish love. Today, whether that's in Los Angeles, or in Australia, or wherever it is – and in the midst of our lives and relationship. In the freedom that comes from knowing I am assured in my soul, with that unearthly assurance, now therefore I'm not self-centered. In this moment I'm living in assurance and therefore I can be other-centered like the Father, Son and Spirit, and I can be there for my family, be there for my friends, for their benefit – that's the rippling of the river of living water. That's the kingdom, the way of being in life with the Father, Son and Spirit. The abundance of their way of life comes into expression in us through assurance. That's it, that's what we want.

**JMF:** Giving ourselves away entirely and receiving ourselves back from God and from one another – totally different sense of abundance from the way we've defined it.

**SH:** One of the things interesting to me about the grace of God is that he would give you the desires of your heart, so to me, there's nothing that would preclude anyone from wanting to have riches and health and all of the other stuff – Paul said, what good is it then if I gain everything but I don't have Christ? That's kind of strong language to me. You can probably pray yourself into a million bucks. So what? I've seen more miserable wealthy people than I care to even speak about right now. They have all the money in the world.

**CBK:** And what freedom and beauty it is when do have a Rolex, so you can give it to somebody else.

**JMF:** Exactly – even Abraham was a rich man for his age, a wealthy man. And yet this wasn't what defined him. It's not what made him be who he was and successful.

**JM:** We must be talking about life in the new creation – the new heavens and the new earth as the new children of the kingdom, that's where life is ultimately very abundant.

**CBK:** "Wherein dwelleth right relationship."

**JMF:** "How difficult it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God," Jesus told the disciples after the encounter with the wealthy man who couldn't let go of his possessions. But even so, they said, "who can be saved then?" "With God all things are possible. Even this, a camel going through the eye of the needle, God can even do that." He does do that – save rich people and poor people alike, there's no difference when we're in Christ.

**CBK:** To come back to what I call the unearthly assurance, the longer I live ... that is the real gift of the gospel to us. It takes the pressure off. It helps me to see that I am loved, and have been loved and I am accepted and I'm included just like I am right now today. So I can let go of stuff – to strive – even striving of earnest prayer to get a Rolex watch. Whatever it is, you can let go of that and just be. That leaves you not in self-centered mode, not in narcissistic mode, not in frantic mode, but in the calmed mode where you're free to give of yourself for others – which creates fellowship, and that life of the kingdom has an inbreaking, it expresses itself.

**SH:** The question is, what makes you whole and complete and in need of nothing? To me that's the real question.

**JM:** Having no need, to be nothing.

**MM:** Reminds me of Paul in prison in Philippians. He is in prison what does he talk about? He says he wants to know Christ and his sufferings and also the power of his resurrection. He knows that one is on the path toward the other. He is not even praying his way out of prison, he's just assured of, that if he dies, he will go to be with the Lord, that's all that counted.

**CBK:** There was a George Wishart in the Reformation right before ... he was a guy that evidently was preaching when John Knox was converted or came to the light, or whatever you want to call it. But Wishart was also burned at the stake and he was down in a well in St. Andrews (and there's a marquee out there marking it in the road) and he was singing. It was one of those wells ... basically a foot around it goes down, at the bottom it's five feet. You've got enough room to stretch out there, but that's it. He was singing down there, and people that listened to him all came to faith, because they could not figure out how in the world this guy was having a good time. Then that even was sort of idolized: that's what _we_ are supposed to do.

He was experiencing the Father's care for him as a person in the midst of that trauma. And it was light. Other people say, What is going on here? This is beautiful. You wouldn't want to say to him he did not have abundant life in that moment. He didn't have freedom, he didn't have a Rolex watch, or any other kind of watch, for that matter. He was living in his own mess because of where he was and could not get out, but nevertheless the Lord met him there. It was something very real and very deep and very beautiful about it, I guarantee he would not have given up a million years for exchange somewhere else.

**SH:** Idolatry, comes to my mind also. Praying for prosperity.

**CBK:** I think your question is...Steve, what constitutes being whole and complete and in need of nothing? For me the only answer is that we know the Father as Jesus knows the Father.

**JT:** And the only way we can do that is through Jesus himself.

**JM:** If we read John 17 in his prayer for us, not only for his disciples but those who will believe (through his disciples) in him, that the Father and the Son in the Spirit share with those who believe in Christ is abundant life. It is life forever, it is the new creation. Though the history of the church can deny this answer to this prayer of oneness, "that they maybe one, Father, as we are one" – though the history of the church may deny it, the church can't deny it. The church of Jesus Christ is one with the Father, of the Son, in the Spirit.

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## Perichoresis and Sharing in God's Life

**JMF:** We've never covered _perichoresis_ as a word, and what does it mean, and why is your ministry named Perichoresis?

**CBK:** We just wanted to figure out what would be the hardest thing to actually pull off in the universe [laughter].... So we just figure a name like that... No.

Oh, goodness. The word means, technically, mutual indwelling. What attracted me to it early on was the way in which the early church was grappling to explain how the relationship of the Father, Son, and Spirit works, and how can there be three in one. For me, to come to see Jesus as the Father's Son, as the Anointed One and the one in and through and by and for whom all things were created, and to say and to speak the name of Jesus Christ is to say Trinity, and humanity, and creation are not separated but bound together in relationship.

I started thinking, Steve and I were talking about this, we were excited about this, like, how do we talk about this person _Jesus_ in this way? Then we talked about the idea of starting a nonprofit ministry that was essentially Christologically focused, helping people recover the early church's vision, and we were talking about how do you summarize this in one word. We talked about "Immanuel," we talked about "union," both of which are great words that summarized what we were talking about, but those are words that are used all the time.

I said my favorite theological term forever is _perichoresis._ It's just right at it. It's saying it all in one word. It says union without loss of personal distinction. It says Father, Son, Spirit relationship – oneness but not enmeshment. It's just a classic word, and I was naïve enough to think that a word like that would not be a marketing problem. The interesting thing about it is, it's not a marketing problem with the younger generation. They love stuff like that. They just love words like that.

We'd backed into it there, but the other thing I think is interesting about the word is as we march historically, the old divisions between science and religion – or at least some of those parts of division are beginning to, not fall away, but we're having conversations – and it seems to me that there is a lot of scientists out there who're trying to come to some concept of how things can be united and yet remain what they are without being psychologically enmeshed or absorbed. I think that word and the concept of Perichoresis is going to be very much the forefront as we move into the third Christian millennium, and in terms of the larger discussion.

**JMF:** In the description of the ministry of Perichoresis, you have written that you have established critical dialogue with scientists, with doctors, lawyers, counselors, and teachers, and provided a relational theological vision for a new integration – overcoming the inherited divisions between those disciplines.

**CBK:** Yes. That's again a Christological affirmation. Once you see that Jesus is not just one individual and a sea of individuals that are unrelated, but he is actually the one in, and through, and by and for whom all things are created and are sustained. Then in him, in the person of Jesus, you're talking about the point of unity. You're talking about the one who holds it together, and so that gives us a whole new vantage point for international politics, a whole new vantage point for law and justice and what are we trying to do, and who are the people that we're involved with.

Instead of recognizing people according to the flesh, like Paul says, don't recognize people according ... he doesn't recognize people according to the flesh. Paul said, "one died, therefore all died." All our divisions, and all the ways that we recognize and honor one another is out – there's only people bound up in Christ and the giftedness in that. That's the way we look at people. That revolutionizes the way we go about our relationships, it gives us a framework to know that I'm not ever going to meet a person in the planet [including the Calvinist] who is not included, and is not a joint heir with me, and a participant in the life of the Father, Son, and Spirit. To know that's who I'm dealing with radically changes the way that I approach... (or theoretically, radically changes, and we still fall to our own prejudices, thanks), but it gives us a foundation for a new dialogue.

Then when you talk about that in terms of economic theory, for example, where did our current American economic theory come from? It came from some philosophy. Some guy or group of guys' way of thinking about the nature of economics. Thinking now in Christ that we are bound together in this relationship, we now have the responsibility to live in the unity of our relationship together. That changes some of the dynamics and what pushes our economy and the way we value different things. These are all implications. What I found is the more I proclaim this Jesus, the more I've got economists or physicists, or scientists. Or psychologists and all, and so when they see something of the implications for their field, immediately the want to have a dialogue, and that's what's beginning to happen.

**JMF:** Physicists and paleontologists, we tend to, as Christians, limit our dialogue to "creation vs. evolution," and it's a stark kind of a dialogue that draws lines in the sand, God against the evolutionist and that sort of thing. But what you're talking about supersedes and transcends that kind of thinking.

**CBK:** It's like a shift in paradigm – it's like the Augustine-Pelagius battle – you're either Augustinian or you're gonna go to the Pelagian framework. But both of those are operating out of the same framework – they are both operating out of failed understanding of objective union – that Jesus has established a relationship with us, that he did that prior to our vote. The whole discussion has now got to be changed. In the same way, when you see in Jesus Christ that he is the one that established a relationship with us and with the whole cosmos, it is integrated in his own being, in his own person and his relation with the Father and Spirit. Now we've got a new paradigm or a way in which we can begin to think differently about some of these things, and not necessarily assume division – but begin to think, well, let's explore this.

Let's think through (for example) Boethius, shortly after Augustine's time, came forward with a definition of " _person_." He said that a _person_ is an individual substance of a rational nature. Ever since then, that's been the reigning concept of _person_ in the Western world. Our educational system is established on that basis – an individual substance of a rational order, rational nature.

Let's redefine _person_ in the light of Christ. A _person_ is one who exists in union with Christ and therefore in communion with the Father and Spirit, in communion with one another and in communion with creation. So you can be an individual and not a person, because a person is when you are participating in the relationship in which you exist. So you've got a very different concept.

What it means for me to be a person involves my relationship, in Christ, with the whole cosmos, with the environment, with the water, with ecology, with everything and not just in my backyard, so to speak, but in a global and cosmic level. Just that one little thing changes radically some of the implications. We ought to think about lots of things. That's where we are right now in recovering the gospel of the ancient church – we've got a lot of work to do. We've got to re-think tons of things, and that's where we need help. Thank goodness, we are a long way from being the only people on the planet who are wrestling with this. This is going on all over the place.

**SH:** Perichoresis is also a term used by the early church to describe and to talk about the Trinity. When you start to see that (I used to teach this, mind you, at a place called Harbor House with crack addicts and drug addicts)...the way we talk about the _mutual indwelling_ , that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit mutually dwell in each other to the degree that they function as one – in relationship. Because we were trying to move away from a legal framework into one that showed them a loving Father rather than a condemning Father.

**MM:** Historically, the word _perichoresis_ has been used for relationships within the Trinity, but from what I hear you saying, it's like we are also invited into this relationship, too. Are we participating in _perichoresis_?

**SH:** And we function perichoretically when we do it. Absolutely. It's almost like the butterfly effect.

**CBK:** It is a Trinitarian way of being, and we belong to that way of being, and we're not going to function properly or be happy or prosperous when we're living in a way that is alien to that way of being. It's a fundamental word because it helps us to understand in marriage, how you can be one and yet not lose yourself in that co-dependent enmeshment, the boundaries that are established are real, but you've got one-ness.

**SH:** Separate and distinct but yet one.

**MM:** We've been invited to the party.

**CBK:** Well, it's even stronger than invited to the party. We're being told we're AT the party. We're included in the party.

**MM:** So we can either have fun, or we can choose not to.

**CBK:** Or you can stay and fight to stay outside and watch from a distance.

**SH:** You can certainly choose to participate or not to participate. You're not going to escape the consequences of either side.

**JMF:** But there is no other way of existing or being, apart from this perichoretic relationship that God in himself has created through Father, Son, and Spirit and in which all the cosmos exists, including us, no other way of being.

**SH:** Amen. We move, we breathe, and we have our being.

**CBK:** It's almost like you would say, ok, is it thinkable that this God who exists in this way, as Father, Son, and Spirit, in this perichoretic relation in which there is one-ness but no loss of personal identity – is it conceivable that this God would think up another way of being and wire the universe in that way? What we have revealed in Christ is ... this is who we are, this is who God is, this is the way the cosmos is wired. That's why Jesus did miracles. Because, it's made for him. It's built after the blueprints or the pattern of his own relationship with the Father and the Spirit. When he spoke, it was made to respond to him in that way.

**JMF:** Everything that exists then comes out of, as a product of God's love.

**CBK:** Relational love is the Father, Son, and Spirit, it's been called into being and sustained in and out of that. It has its stamp on it. This is where I think the theory comes forward. If we're going to understand the nature of things or how they work, then, here's the blueprint. We're looking at the Father, Son, and Spirit relationship, we won't understand who we are and what we're made for, in what existence we have – here it is, this is the nature of the relationship. It's other-centered, self-sacrificial, love, mutual delight, self-giving, for the benefit of the other – that's the way things are made and they function like that.

**JMF:** But how do we think of ourselves, we don't think of ourselves that way. Typically, at our heart-level we think of ourselves in negative terms. We see our failures ...

**CBK:** Individual substances that are totally depraved!

**JMF:** We see ourselves as ugly, worthless on the outside, unlovable ...

**SH:** And independent ... functioning on our own and we have life within ourselves and we can produce that. What do I need with God?

**JMF:** Or at least we can struggle to produce it.

**SH:** In our fallen minds we think we can. It's only through the quickening of the Holy Spirit that we get convicted to conversion to have a renewing of the mind to see that we never brought anything to the party in the first place.

**JMF:** But there is a healing in that, in fact, this is all about healing.

**JM:** There's an aspect to this that I think we should pay some attention to. The perichoretic relationship between the divine and human natures of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ is one kind of perichoresis. Perichoresis of the divine and human nature in the person of Christ is not the same as the perichoresis between the Father, Son, and Spirit in the Trinity.

**CBK:** That's correct. That's why basically the former was dropped as the Trinitarian view of perichoresis emerged historically; the other Christological kind of moved to the background.

**SH:** Because of our fallen minds.

**JM:** I believe that we have to learn to integrate them and distinguish them – that there is a perichoretic relationship between the perichoresis in the Incarnation and the perichoresis of the Trinity. I believe this is important for the relationship to physics, to science. Because the divine and human natures, the divine nature of the Word of God, is spaceless and timeless. When the Word of God becomes flesh, what has been living eternally (and I like to use the ... whatever space and time are a reflection of, in eternity, so that I can say un-created space-time) has made room and time for itself in the Incarnation. So now, in this one person – which is why you cannot use Boethian terms – in this one person you have space-time, having been created by God for God, as a man, in relationship with the un-created space and the un-created time that God is, as triune.

**CBK:** That's another dimension of the word, the meaning of the word perichoresis: _make room_ for another within you own space/time.

**JM:** You have inherent in this perichoresis, the way that transcendence and empiricism belong to one another.

**CBK:** You got a hold of something. Someone's got a hold you right there. I cannot quite get it, but I smell it.

**JT:** Let's bring it to a level that maybe people can grapple with by asking a really difficult question. If we are partakers of the divine nature, and I believe we are, and if all the world, all the people – whether they are witting or unwitting of their participation, how do you explain in human history events like the Holocaust?

**CBK:** Something of that enormous proportion, and pain and suffering, needs a deep and detailed answer, but there are basic things to be said. How do you explain the failure of the church? To me, the life of the Father, Son, and Spirit is not a computer life. Jesus is not programmed to love his Father. He's three persons in relationship, and that life is one that involves (to speak anthromorphically) mind, heart and will of each of the three persons. It involves the choice, and so the life of God does not exist as a pre-programmed thing. It exists as a relationship that's real. Each person is real to the other person.

If the goal is adoption, if the goal is to create something that is not, and then bring that to participate in this Trinitarian life, then one of the things that has to be built into it, is our own distinct mind, heart, and will. Because otherwise we're just computers with Christological software, we're robots, and that's not the point. So that will and that choice is there. We're included in this relationship now. To participate, we must choose to do so in ongoing relational basis.

But to me, that is the crack in the door that allows in the snake. Because we can, in our own distinct mind, hearts and will, (although we're united with the Father, Son, and Spirit and share in that life), we can, in our distinction, become very confused and very dark. In our darkness and confusion, we can act out, live out of that, and do harm to ourselves and to one another, individually, and corporately, and to the cosmos. The Holocaust is the extreme example of that. But any form of murder, any form of where we are acting out of our confusion and darkness which ultimately is not us – do not belong to us as God's creatures, it comes from the evil one – that's another discussion.

The other thing I want to put over the top of that is, in no way taking away from the pain that the Jewish people suffered, not only there but throughout their history, the other thing is, this beautiful scene in the Lord of the Rings, when they're in the tunnel, and Gandalf is leading them through the darkness and they go across this bridge and this demon creature comes up with fire and it's lapping at them, the bridge is falling in and Gandalf walks out and he slams the staff onto the ground and says, "you shall not pass." Everything shakes, and the demon goes back down...

When I saw that, I thought, what God has done is that he has this stake in the ground as the death of Jesus. He is saying, here on this side is the human freedom. In your darkness you can do this, and this, and this, and you can do this to my creation, and you can do this to yourself and to other people. But I'm taking responsibility for your freedom and I'm putting an end to the consequences of it. At the end of this we have resurrection, where things are restored, and so we get back what was lost. You know, the Lord restores the years that the locusts devoured (in Joel's prophecy). We get that back in the resurrection, so God is wonderfully taking responsibility for giving it to us and taking responsibility for it at the same time.

In the midst of that, we have to live with the consequences of our own darkness and what we do to one another and to the creation. We've got environmental tragedies going on around us right now that's going to create a lot of trauma for a lot of people around the world. What the Jews went through is unthinkable. What any person that's been murdered, the rippling implications and consequences of that for the family.

Now, what God has said is, it's not enough just for me to punish the murderer, what I'm going to do, what I'm after is to restore the life of the one who's murdered and to restore the relationship between the murderer and the one who is murdered, and bring both sides of the family back into one-ness and right relationship. That's the vision of heaven, and the kingdom of heaven. Through Jesus' death and resurrection he's put an end to the implication, the eternal implications of the holocaust and is restored there. How you work that out, I don't know.

**JMF:** Forgiveness. A person who has experienced something like that finds it very difficult. How on earth can you forgive somebody who kills your child? And yet in Christ we're talking about God himself, taking on himself the consequences, the pain, the suffering of that, handing back life and restoration in such a way that forgiveness really does become possible.

**CBK:** He shares his forgiving heart with us, just like he shares his love with us. That's the only possibility of forgiving someone who has created such a grievous problem for us and our lives and our families, is that, the love and forgiveness of the Father is given to us by Jesus, and we can choose to participate in that or participate in the darkness over here, which is to retaliate and to demand retribution ...

**JMF:** ... which is the spiral of human history.

**MM:** What about people who can't forgive God, you know, not just the murderer ...

**SH:** I was thinking about that, too, when you were talking about people who have had things happen to them. I like the line from whatever movie I saw and it says, Jesus might forgive you, but I'm never going to do it. I'm never going to forgive you. There are people who carry that kind of anger around that we're not required...

**MM:** They've been hurt so bad ...

**SH:** We're not really required to do that. That kind of anger crucifies us on the inside. They will take you to your grave. We're really not, I don't think we're required to do that, not until you're good and ready to do it. People have a lot of guilt in themselves, other stuff like that.

**JMF:** The beauty is that, as with our faith, as with everything else that forgiveness already exists in Christ, we simply have not gotten to the place where we can see that and receive it for what it is – receive the healing that will come from it. Robert Capon talks about it in his books... he has one story in one of his books about it's kind of a gangster scene where there is a hit-man and one of the gangsters is [what did they call it], snuffed or rubbed out, [there's a word for it] and he shows how in Christ in the end, the snuffer and the snuffee are able to sit down together in the kingdom and have a drink together and be restored in relationship in spite of everything that took place between them.

Beautiful picture, very difficult, of course, if not impossible for us to enter into immediately, but through the death and resurrection of Christ, which we all have to experience eventually, we're all going to die and there is only one way to die, there is only kind of death that exists, and that is the death of Christ and only one thing comes of that death, is the resurrection of Christ into which we have no choice but to enter – whether we receive it like the [dwarves] of Narnia, or whether we going to receive it like the children of Narnia...

**SH:** When John was talking earlier about the perichoretic relationship that exists in the Trinity, mutual indwelling functioning as one, and that is different than what we experience, I totally agree. I still have to think that, that's definitely going on and it is shared with us – we just can't see it. What we don't have is the pair of glasses, it's the understanding, it's the fallen mind, it's whatever you want to call it (besides sinful human nature – because I hate that terminology), but I do know that, that perichoretic thing is going on with us. Jesus is in us, he lives in us, we mutually indwell in him. The glory of it is that, we see it, we get a glimpse of it on this side, but we will see it in totality on the other side.

**JM:** Live forever as a child of God is bound up with his eternity.

**SH:** That's true. Inescapably so.

**JM:** You could have perished, I mean, you could be nothing. But he said, no.... There are many, many testimonies, I think three or four I've seen myself, where people come out of the Holocaust, I think Corrie Ten Boom gave one... I've seen Jews who have met their keepers, their prison guards, and they have had to, just because they can't live with this anger, and they found forgiveness. How do they find that kind of forgiveness?

**MM:** They reject the name Jesus, but that's the real source.

**CBK:** Jesus is really not into getting credit, you know. He's really not worried about his ... He's more worried us living the life.

**JMF:** I read a book, I don't even remember the name of the book or whether it was fiction or what it was, but at the end of the book, it typically reads, the end. This one said, the beginning. I think part of what we're trying to say is that the gospel tells us, even to ourselves personally, regardless of how well we know ourselves and our sins and our sinfulness [the way we know ourselves best], we have not come to the last page of our story yet. For one thing, in terms of all of our history of our pain, and our suffering and our experiences that bind us and tear us down and we have not come to the end of the story where we see ourselves as we were created, and as we really exist in Christ as good and beautiful and part of a perfect creation. When we come to that end, last page, then we see ourselves that way, we've really come to the beginning.

**JM:** That's _Till We Have Faces_ ... [reference to a C.S. Lewis book]. We're gonna have a face at last...

**SH:** You're not going to be looking at a smoky mirror ...

**JT:** It takes one more question, since we are about to run out of time, and that is, speak for these last few minutes, some eschatology here, you've got the popularity of books like _Left Behind,_ and people looking for a second return of Jesus and... Speak to this culmination of all reconciliation ...

**CBK:** My golden rule on eschatology is: whatever we say about the _last things,_ we must not assume the absence of Jesus Christ today. We're talking about the second coming, we cannot assume that it means he is not here now. He _is_ here now. He said, I'm not going to leave you orphaned, I'm going to comfort you, you're going to discover you're in my Father and I'm in you, that's what's real. So to me, eschatology is largely about repentance and the conversion of our minds. It's about the restoration of proper seeing and sight. Jesus is not absent, the life of the Father, Son, and Spirit is not absent. The kingdom of heaven is not absent, but we're like the dwarves in Narnia. We are sitting in our worlds, our own relationships, we are oblivious to what is really happening. Eschatology is the second, and third, and fourth, and fifth, and sixth coming of Jesus to reveal himself to us in our darkness, and it's we who are in the dark, as Jesus says, we're the ones that are getting light.

That's the process that involves history in space and time, just like it takes some time for a person to go from being a baby, to those hard years of adolescence, and then they're close to adult-teen years where they know everything about everything, and everybody around them is really stupid. Then they begin to learn, wait a minute, I don't know so much. Then they begin to learn some things for real. And that process it takes time. You can't have 42 years of experience given to you by reading one book.

So history is the time and space given to human race by the Father, Son, and the Spirit to get to grips, to live out their own theories on who we think God is, and the way we think this works, to kill ourselves, to maim and destroy someone – it's the space and time God has given to us today so that we can come on the tutelage of the Spirit to see who we really are in the life of the Father, Son, and Spirit, and choose personally and willfully to participate in that with all our hearts, soul, mind and strength, because we've experienced evil, we've experienced the chaos, we've experienced the darkness and we don't want it. We don't want any more to do with it. That's almost inconceivable to think that, but that's what human history is about – it's the education of the human race.

**JMF:** Thank you so much for being with us again, Dr. Kruger, and thanks Steve, thanks to everyone in the panel.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

back to table of contents

## Seeing the Truth About Jesus and Us

**J. Michael Feazell** : Before we get started, I've got to ask about Mediator Lures, and I'd like to see one.

**C. Baxter Kruger** : Well, I brought one, surprise, surprise. This is one of 14 colors, my favorite, which is the Christmas bream [a type of fish], green and red. I've loved fishing since I was a little boy. My mother's favorite picture of me is staring down a cane pole after the picnic was over and everybody was back in the car. My dad had come down twice to get me and I would not leave. I stood there until I caught the fish. They had to wait in the car for like an hour, an hour and a half.

I always loved fishing, I always loved the idea of fishing lures, I love making things with my hands, woodworking – things like that. I dragged the Christmas tree out to the front street to be picked by the garbage one day and literally and simply I heard the Lord say, cut off a piece of cedar and make a lure. I always wanted to have a lure that looked like a real bream. I cut off a piece and the whole process started – it's probably 12 or 15 years in the making now, 12,000 hours, just all the free time I would come up with, trying... how do you make the thing shine, how do you make it work, what about the tail. Steve Horn, my friend, he is involved, he would spend hours working on it, and one thing led to another over a period of time.

Finally got 'em where I can make them by hand, and I would give them to my friends, but nobody would fish with it. They'd put them on the wall – as art. And so I thought, maybe we can get this into plastic in a production lure. We finally did that about two months ago, and so I handed it out to some of my friends, and they would not fish with those. So I finally decided, what we have here is not just a great fishing lure, but we actually have more of a collectible. So that's what I do – I make them. They're hand-crafted and I sign a number of them in very limited quantities. I fish with them, but most people just put them in cases and put them in their homes, office or that sort of thing.

**JMF** : One of the things you've talked about in your books and in your lectures has to do with fishing, baseball, all the fun things of life – that these are all NOT separate from being a Christian, that Christianity involves everything we do, and all of us.

**CBK** : One of the disasters of the modern Western tradition is the separation of sacred and secular. When you begin with the proper vision of Jesus Christ, you realize that this incarnation thing is for real – that God (the Father, Son, Holy Spirit) has no interest whatsoever in drawing us into a non-human relationship. God became human. The Son of the Father became flesh and established a relationship with us. Through the vast majority, the sum of God's time on earth, he was a carpenter. He wasn't even involved in "ministry." I'd dare say, he'd built more tables than he preached sermons.

We've got to recover this vision – the point of Christianity is not to escape our humanity, the point of it is to see the Trinitarian life is being given to us and the way that this is expressed is in and through our ordinary human experience – I mean from making fishing lures ...

My daughter-in-law came out one day years ago and she just stood there and watched me paint one of these lures, and she said to me: "Dad, how did you come up with the idea of doing this? How did you do the tails, how did you do the colors, how did you do the eyes, how did you get the scales, how did you think this up?"

It was probably one of two times in my life where I got it right the first time. I just said, "Laura, I've got a friend who loves to fish. Every time I get around my friend he shares his ideas with me, and nothing thrills him more than for me to carve his ideas into being."

She said: "Do I know your friend?"

I said, "Sure, you do."

"Is it Steve Horn? Is it Clayton James?"

And I said, "No."

"Who is it?"

"This friend loves flowers, and cooking, and crawfish boils, and music and laughter and dancing and fellowship and music and soccer."

She said, "Who are we talking about?"

I wish I would have had this recorded, because it was absolutely precious. It was a confession of faith. She said, "You're talking about Jesus, aren't you?" It was a confession of faith by a daughter of the Bible belt where "this is almost too good to be true." She knew it was true. She knew Jesus is involved in our humanity – that's where our humanity comes from – it's from the Father, the Son, and Spirit.

I said, "Laura, when you sit down and play music and you feel the joy of that – what I want you to understand is that music doesn't start with you. It's not your music. It starts from the Father, Son, and Spirit – that's where harmony comes from. They share it with you and you get to express it. I get to express it in being a lure-maker, or a theologian or a dad, or a friend, or a baseball coach – or just having coffee with friends. It's the way in which God lives out the Trinitarian life in and through us, in and through our human experience. When we recover that, we get our humanity back."

That's one of the things that's destroyed the Western Church. People are bored sick with it. Who wants to go and be involved in a thing where we leave our humanity at the door? I remembered distinctly as a child in a Presbyterian church (which I loved when I was growing up – I didn't mind going to church at all. I loved it.) But one thing that bothered me from day one is I can remember my dad and my best friend's dad, named Tuck Williams – who had the most distinctive laugh in the world, they would stay outside of the building as long as possible (and most all of them smoked in those days), and they would smoke their last cigarette and my aunt Polly played the organ and she hit a certain part in her interlude and all the men outside knew that was time to go to church. I can remember looking back and watching them step over the threshold and they all changed. I could hear them laughing, and they stepped inside, and they went in their "we're-going-to-worship-God" mode. They got real serious, real earnest, real artificial. I thought, "There is something disastrously wrong here." As if God is embarrassed by our laughter. As if the Father, Son, and Spirit didn't come up with laughter.

Part of my journey in my life is to connect the dots between the humanity of riding bikes, our romance, our sex, our making lures, our inventing dishes (food, I mean) – understanding how God relates to that. Incarnation is staring us in the face and I think, "Where have we been? What have we been talking about for 2,000 years? This should be the message that we proclaim from the rooftops all the time."

**JMF** : You've written about the "ultimate lie." What is the ultimate lie?

**CBK** : In one word, the ultimate lie is "separation." Underneath every religion and philosophy in the world is the lie of "separation" – that the human race is separated from God. Then it becomes a matter of "OK, how do we get back to God, or how do we get God to us?" Now we have a series of variations on a theme: "How do we get across the divide from where we are to God, or how do we get God to bless us here?"

**JMF** : Rules?

**CBK** : Rules, faith, repentance, works, crystals, charms, I mean, you name it: prayers, you can make a list over here of all the things human beings must do to get to God. That creates a very powerful group in the middle who decides what this is. You look at the idea that separation – I think it's a flat-out denial of Jesus Christ and the incarnation! God is come to us. God has embraced us in Jesus. Why are we talking about separation? It's like we're going to pretend that there's no Incarnation, and that Christianity is just a variation on this theme, so what we're going to do to get across the great divide to God is that we're going to believe in Jesus. Or we're going to have a special kind of repentance that's different from all the other religions or philosophies.

I'm thinking, "Wait a minute. The news is not that we can get to God. The news is not that we can receive Jesus – an absent Jesus – into our lives. The stunning news of the gospel is that Jesus has received us into _his_ life. He's received us into his fellowship in his life with the Father and the Spirit. That's been done and that's who we are.

We don't start with separation, we start with _union._ Now we have to rethink everything in the universe, because we have built into our default settings – as fallen people, and those who are influenced profoundly by Greek philosophy – we have our default settings of separation, separation, separation.

**JMF** : We are not worthy...

**CBK** : We are not worthy, we're not good enough, we're not going to make it, a whole series of those kick in, and so you ask a person who they are, you ask any person in the United States of America. "Are you good?" There is not one person you will get who will say, "I am good."

I say, if you can't stand in a mirror in your bathroom and look yourself in the face and say "my name – and I am good, with the goodness of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, because I do not exist alone." There is no just Baxter. The only Baxter there is, is the Baxter who exists in Jesus in his relationship with me. So in the core of my being, is not that old Calvinist doctrine of total depravity – at the core of my being is Jesus Christ "union-ed" with me and with us in the world, and I am good with their goodness. I am good with the goodness of the Father, Son, and Spirit and their beauty.

The next question is: If that's true (and it is), or _since_ that's true, why is my life still a mess? That's where we've got to think through a whole new way of talking about what sin is, which is NOT new! It's the early church – it's John, it's Paul. We've been trapped in Augustinian dualism – it's been handed down to us...

**JMF** : What's an Augustinian dualism?

**CBK** : OK, I'll give you the Cliff notes.

**JMF** : Yeah, that's what we need.

**CBK** : The first thing we need to talk about is that the early church – in the time of the apostles and right after that – the thing that they knew for sure, that they were prepared to (and did) die for – was, whatever else we say, the man Jesus Christ is God. We know this is the Lord – we're not giving this up. That's number one.

Number two, they realized that Jesus prayed to the one he called Father and they realized he was anointed in the Holy Spirit – and that there is a relationship between the Father, Son and Spirit. They were not trying to develop a doctrine of the Trinity – they started catching an enormous flak from the Greeks and the Jews, being accused of polytheism and tri-theism and things like that. So the early church began to develop its understanding and it said: "We are not giving up on the deity and humanity of Christ" and so, what's his relation with the Father, what's his relation with the Spirit? – and they worked out the doctrine of the Trinity. They came to see, over against the Jewish view of oneness and over against the Greeks' view of the indivisibility of the thing called God or the ONE – the early church came to realize that the deepest truth about God is this relationship with the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit.

It's not sad, it's not boring, it's not religious, it's not dead – it's alive, it's creative, it's other-centered, it's about acceptance, in the light, and life and love, and it's beautiful – and that's what's fundamental about the being of God. So if you peel back the onion of divine being, so to speak, and you come to the core of God-ness – you find relationship of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Augustine knew that, and so he's got this beautiful treatise on the Trinity that he wrote, but he was also steeped in Neo-Platonism and the premise of Neo-Platonism.

Just hang with me, this is important. The premise of Neo-Platonism is: whatever else you say of God – or The One – it's indivisible. There is an essence at the bottom of this thing or behind it all that is indivisible. So it can't be relational. Augustine is trying to develop a Christian vision, at the same time maintain his Neo-Platonism – and so what he offers to the Western Tradition is really two Gods. You got the Father, Son, and Spirit, and then you got the deeper truth about the being of God. Just like through a back door – beyond the Trinity. What being is this essence of God? What is the deepest truth about God – it's not relationship. What is it? For Augustine, it had to be absolute, total sovereignty. For the rest of the Western tradition, steeped as it was in Roman law and jurisprudence, it became a legal view of holiness.

I don't mind saying that the holiness of God is the deepest truth about God – but what I mean by holiness is a Trinitarian vision. Holiness is the utter uniqueness and the beauty and the goodness and the rightness of their relationship – that is the whole essence – is the wholeness of the relation, and their love, and their mutual passion and delight.

**JMF** : You've called that the "great dance."

**CBK** : Yeah. I tried to find a similar phrase to talk about that, and "the great dance" is an ancient phrase that you find in the church. C.S. Lewis uses it a couple of times in some of his books, and I thought that's what we can use to describe, in a snapshot, the life of God. It's a great dance, it's not boring and sad – it's not self-centered, it's not narcissistic, it's not about separation – it's about fellowship, and communion, and love.

But then you've got this thing over here that's deeper than that. You say, if we just stayed there – if we just stayed with Irenaeus and Athanasius and gone with the Trinity through our history, then the next thing we would realize was that, "MAN, this relationship with Father, Son, and Spirit – now, I know why Paul says we are predestined to adoption as sons and daughters." It makes perfect sense. If God is like this, then adoption is the main point, and off we go and running. Our challenge for listeners is go find books in the Western tradition that have been written on the subject of "adoption" – in 1500 years – and compare that with the books that have been written on "justification."

The apostle Paul said that the Father's eternal purpose for us is to include us in this relationship. We don't have 1500 years of discussion about this. Why not? Because over here [on one side] the "deepest" truth of God is holiness – not Trinitarian holiness, not relational holiness, but holiness conceived in terms of moral law and jurisprudence.

**JMF** : And that concept of God separates us from God – now we've got to find a way to get there, so we use Jesus as the bridge that we walk across to get there.

**CBK** : There you go. Off we go, and our "family conversation" for 1500-some-odd years talking about the Holy God (which is true, God is holy) but not _that_ kind of "Holy" – holy in this [on other side] relational way. When Jesus says, "Be ye holy as God is holy," he's not talking about this stainless-steel, antiseptic, squeaky-clean, boring kind of holy. He's talking about "be whole," be relationally together, be one, be in fellowship and communion, be unique in this. But over here [on the first side] we've got this holiness of God: stainless steel, moral rectitude, perfection – this God then calls the shots for the entire discussion.

**JMF** : That's just a concept, a Greek idea... That isn't what the scriptural revelation of God is.

**CBK** : Well, we've gone and found Bible verses to support it. That's why we've never even thought about the stunning news. How stunning is it, that the only reason the human race exists is to be included in the Trinitarian life of God. I want to talk about that. I want a conversation about that. Give me 1500 years to talk about "adoption." And let's bring that into "this is the vision of God – as Father, Son, and Spirit" as opposed to "God is the stainless steel, holy God who's not interested in relationship at all."

**JMF** : That gets into all these areas that you're involved with – scientists, doctors, lawyers, counselors, teachers – all these various expressions of human life and thought, energy, development, technology – all of that is wrapped up in who we are, who has God has made us to be – the whole cosmos.

**CBK** : We have not talked about the real foundation for what we are talking about here. We're talking about some good implications – but the real foundation of this is WHO Jesus is. Who is this person Jesus Christ?

What has happened to us is that we think of Jesus as a typical American individual – he lived, he died, he rose again, he did things for us, out of grace and love. But Jesus, when we go to the New Testament – the first thing you find is Jesus is the Father's only Son. That's the shocker. That's the mind-blowing thing. That's why the apostle Paul begins every one of his epistles with the reference "to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."

The mind-boggling thing about Jesus was not his power or his miracles, or even his courage to confront the system. Prophets did that. The mind-boggling thing about Jesus in the New Testament in the first instance is he is the one who has this relation with the one he calls Father – Abba, Father – and he is the recipient of "thou art my beloved Son in whom my soul delights." This is unique, this is unparalleled biblically. Jesus addresses God as Father, there is no reference in the Old Testament, there is no reference in any of the ancient literature that we know about – to this day that we found – where any individual ever called God "Father." Jesus calls him, "my Father," and the Father calls him "my Son."

And so point one: Who is Jesus? He is the Father's true Son. The second thing that's stunning about Jesus is: He is the Anointed One – the long-awaited Anointed One. He alone in biblical history is anointed with the Holy Spirit without measure as a permanent gift. So what do you make of this? He is the Father's Son, and Anointed One, and so that's where the church has led over its pilgrimage to see that this is not something that the invisible holy God back here just arbitrarily decided one day, "I'm going to be super gracious, oh, it's Jesus and Mary – this is revelation to us in our darkness of our character, in the way of being of God (as Father, Son, Spirit) from all eternity.

**JMF** : We usually hear that presented as kind of an after-thought. God created a perfect world, sin entered and God said, "What am I going to do about this?" So he sends...

**CBK** : Plan B. Jesus becomes Plan B. The final point in terms of the larger picture, the third thing we see in the New Testament, in terms of answering the question "Who is Jesus" is he is the one in and through and by and for him all things were created and are sustained. The presentation of the New Testament to us is that Jesus is a Person who exists in three relationships: relation with the Father, relation with the Spirit, and relation with the whole creation. The question is: when this Son, this Father's Son, this Anointed One became a human being, did he break ties, did he become the classic American individualist – all alone? Or, did he come in his relation with his Father? Did he come in his anointing with the Spirit? And did he come in his connection with the whole human race and the whole creation?

The Christian answer to that is "Jesus held on and brought all of this together in himself." He is the point of relationships; he is the point of view. So if you're going to speak the "name of Jesus Christ" biblically and in the tradition of the apostles, you're saying "Trinity," and you're saying "humanity," and you're saying, "cosmos." You're saying that the Triune God and the human race and the universe are not separated, but bound together in relationship – that's who Jesus is!

To deny his relation with his Father would mean Jesus has relation with us, but he has not included us in his relation with his Father. But no, that is not true. He is in relation with his Father, he is anointed, he's brought all of this together – and so that becomes what I call the truth of all truths – that's our Christian heritage, that's how to think as a Christian – is to start there. When you speak Jesus' name, you say, "No separation," you say, "union," you say "covenant relationship" forever. Now we can re-think everything we thought we knew, in the light of Jesus.

**JMF** : There is a concept in the Christian preaching, what you typically hear is, you're a sinner, you're separated from God, you do this or that, and then God will accept you. You're saying that this is not the place to start at all.

**CBK** : Jesus is not a footnote to Adam, in his Fall. The apostle Paul says that we're predestined to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. That's before the fall – that's before creation. That adoption is the purpose of God for creation, and our adoption through Jesus Christ was the plan from the get-go, from the beginning. We've made the Fall the central thing of which God is relating to, when the central thing that God is relating to is actually the Incarnation and the accomplishment of our adoption in Jesus Christ – that's the point. Now we're going to re-read the Old Testament and creation in the light of the fact that Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, is coming to establish a relationship with us, who are basically dirt. We are going to go from non-being, from dirt, to the right hand of God, we cannot do any of that – the Father's Son can do it, and that's what is he is going to do. He is going to anoint dirt with the Holy Spirit – that's the plan from the very beginning.

We can see that the Fall is not the thing that sets God's agenda. What sets the Father's agenda is his purpose for us in Christ. The Fall means is it's going to be a bloody mess. It's going to be loud crying and tears, as Hebrews 5 puts it. It's going to hurt. This is a quagmire of darkness and chaos and pain and brutality, and Jesus is going to suffer. In the genius of the Father, Son, and Spirit, they take our human response of rejection of God – rejection of Jesus, abuse, trauma, universal total rejection (with the possible exception of the three Marys and John the apostle, but basically, total universal rejection) and establishes a relationship between the Father and the human race at its very worst – and includes that broken human race in this Trinitarian life. That's at the heart of the gospel.

Now we can go back and understand what sin is. Now we can go back and talk about faith and repentance, and heaven and hell, and what the church is, what the distinction between the church and the world is, eschatology, election. Because what's happened in Jesus Christ, what has happened in his Incarnation is not plan B, that the Father thought up real quick after Adam botched it. Jesus is the eternal Word of God. Jesus Christ as the Father's Son incarnate, as the Anointed One, as the one in whom he has gathered the human race – this Jesus is the eternal Word of God, this is the Alpha and the Omega, this is not Plan B, this is Plan A. This is the first and only Word and the first and only plan.

Now we have a hermeneutic as Christians on how to address and re-think everything that we thought we knew. That's our calling as Christians – to take this Jesus Christ seriously.

**JMF** : In the light of that, how would you present the gospel? Let's say you have a two-minute presentation of what is the gospel, the heart and core of the gospel, how would you put it?

**CBK** : Slight variations. In quick conversations, I just say you belong to the Father, Son and the Spirit, you always have and you always will.

**JMF** : So that's the starting place?

**CBK** : You start off with _you._ You start off with the relationship that Jesus Christ has established with the human race. It's real. Our problem is... (I take these [thick-lens eye glasses] with me everywhere I go.) [Put on eye-glasses] Our problem is we just cannot see it. It makes no religious sense to us. It didn't make any sense to the Pharisees. The Pharisees were looking over at Jesus and saying, "Jesus, your vision of God is wrong." That's what we do. That's what's sin is. Sin is saying to Jesus, "Your vision of the Father, and your vision of the Spirit, and your vision of the relationship that you've established between the Father and the Spirit and the human race is just unfit – it's wrong. Jesus, you need to repent." Sin is insisting that Jesus Christ repent and change his mind and his vision, and come and line up with us in our darkness.

Jesus says, I have come into the world as light so that you may not remain in the dark [remove glasses] but will see what is – what he has established in himself. So in terms of proclaiming the gospel, I want to make sure that people understand that you don't begin with separation. Jesus has established a relationship with you and he called you to walk in it. He says, you can live in this [put on glasses] and you can insist on imposing your vision on the world, on your wife and children and people around you or even on your own denomination if you choose. But it's going to be miserable as hell because it's not real. What's real is the world [remove glasses] that the Father, Son, and Spirit has established.

So faith is saying to Jesus, I want to participate in your way of seeing things, not my way [put on glasses]. And repent and say, Jesus, rip these things off [remove glasses] quick, and reconstruct my basic vision, reconstruct my mind, renew it thoroughly, here it is, I don't want to see things the way I see them anymore. I want to see things the way you see, I want to live with you in your world, I want to participate in your relationship with the Father, and your relationship with the Spirit, and your relationship with the human race and your relationship with the cosmos.

**JMF** : So repentance is seeing things the way they really are, it isn't changing something that makes God change toward you.

**CBK** : Exactly, it's _metanoia_ [the Greek word for repentance, meaning "change of mind"]. It is a radical change of the way we perceive God, the way we perceive ourselves, the way we preserve the cosmos. It's a radical reorientation. Be transformed in your experience of life by the renewal of your mind, by the renewal of the way you see things.

If you want to live in this [put on glasses] world, with its vision of God as the stainless-steel holy version, and we are all sinners and broken and we can't get to God and God doesn't want us anyway. But Jesus is there and has opened the path – if we want to live in that world, we can live in that world.

But what Jesus is saying, No, come to me, come to me if you are heavy laden and I will show [remove glasses] you who the Father is, and you can live in my relationship with my Father with me. You can live in my anointing with the Spirit. You don't have to achieve this, I _give_ this, I've included you in this.

That's the dogfight of human history. If Jesus is not Plan B, as he is Plan A, then that gives me as a theologian a basic three-fold structure to human history: We've got creation or the beginning or preparation. You've got fulfillment in Jesus in his person, and now you've got revelation. So human history is a time in which God is creating space and place for us to be, to live out our theories, to insist on our way [wear glasses] and to suffer the consequences, so that we could come to know [remove glasses] as a race who God really is, who we really are and learn to participate in it, with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. It takes time. If you're a parent, you know it takes time for your children to come and see some things.

**JMF** : The doctrine of the Trinity lies at the heart of really understanding who we are in Christ, but it's a doctrine that just kind of sits on the shelf – it's not really put forward, we don't take it seriously...

**CBK** : Isn't that the saddest thing in the world, that the doctrine of the Trinity has been marginalized? The most beautiful thing in the universe – is the way the Father loves his Son, and way the Son loves the Father, in the fellowship of the Spirit and that great dance of life, that beauty, that goodness, that other-centric love and care is put over some religious insurance manual that nobody wants talks about.

**JMF** : It's always there in the Statement of Faith and the Statement of Beliefs, there is always the statement that we believe that God is three in one and so on, and yet it's not central to teaching, and what you are talking about here as our part in this relationship of the Father, Son and Spirit having been brought into it, this doesn't...

**CBK** : The Spirit is calling the church to repentance, to change its basic mind and to come back to its original vision, because the whole Augustinian split – that's one problem that gets introduced, but when we don't see that God is Father, Son, and Spirit (and that's the truest truth about God, there is nothing deeper than that relationship), then we're often running in a family conversation that's going to lead us over here [motion to a spot] into separation, into this fear-based model, that's going to crucify us all on the inside, making us a relational disaster. We come back here [another spot] and start, we then see that relationship is what the whole thing is all about. We're going to be having a relational theological discussion that integrates our humanity and our life from the very beginning, and adoption is going to be a main thing, and the question how do we live this up? How do we live this up globally?

The church is called to be the place, the fellowship, the group of people – within the world of darkness, that group of people raises its hands and says, Jesus, you have your way with my mind here. You come and teach us, you transform the way we see things, and we want to work out the economic, the environmental, the ecological, the relational, the international, the political, the scientific, the cosmic implications of who you are Jesus Christ – as the Father's Son, as the Anointed One, as the one who's drawn the human race and cosmos together to himself, we want to think out the implications of that, we want to see what it means for our marriage, we want to see what it means for the economic theory, we want to see what it means for the environment. We're going to throw everything we have into that, because we believe that if we think through a marital or relational understanding in the light of Christ, we're not afraid that it's going to lead us into a divorce problem, or fragmentation of relationship problem. We believe that it's going to lead us into wholeness. We're not afraid to say that Jesus is the one in whom all things are held together.

Let's think that through – why are we afraid? The church is afraid now because we've been backed in the corner. We've been backed in the corner because we've lost the vision of Jesus that has been handed on to us by the apostles. Recovering that, we end up having this thing – many people might perceive it arrogance, but it's really the apostolic swagger. My friend David Upshaw talks about this thing called the apostolic swagger. They knew, they _knew_ that Jesus was not a theory. He was not just another Platonic form. They knew that this is the one in and through and by whom and for him all things were created and are all things held together. They knew that if we follow him with our minds and hearts, this is going to bring healing and wholeness to us, this is going to liberate us. They were not afraid. They gave their life joyfully in the service of that revelation.

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## Jesus Has United Himself to Us

**JMF** : Your PhD degree is from King's College, Aberdeen, and you were mentored by Professor James B. Torrance. Would you talk about that?

**CBK:** J.B. (as we called him – he preferred to be called James, but all his students called him JB) was a father figure to many of us that studied. There were a group of Americans that were there at that time back in the late '80s. I did my doctoral dissertation on the subject of the knowledge of God in the theology of T.F. Torrance. But JB was my professor. TF had retired by those days, and JB was just wonderful. Just to be able to go and listen to him lecture – this was at the end of his career, so he was fantastic. My wife and I basically hawked everything we had, just to go have the opportunity of studying with him.

**JMF** : You wound up taking over his classes after he retired, didn't you?

**CBK** : Yeah, that was a tremendous privilege and a very fearful undertaking, but the university did not hire a replacement for JB that one year. That left Trevor Hart to teach theology by himself, and so he asked Dante Mail (who was a friend of ours) to stay for a few months and teach, and then he asked me to come behind them and teach; then I realized what he was asking me to teach was JB's classes. So I stayed there for two years and taught his classes.

I remembered the first day walking into his class, and that was at the other side of the podium and lectern, and I was saying, "What are you doing here?"

There's so much history there: that building was built in 1495, about the time Columbus was discovering America – that building was there and theology was being taught there. [ **JMF** : Wow.] And it was a remarkable experience for me.

Then we decided it was time for us to move back the United States. It's a bit colder in Scotland than it is in Mississippi. Five years of freezing is enough, so we moved back to the United States and worked as associate pastor for a while. In that process we realized that what we need to be doing, what I need to be doing, was writing and teaching in a wider format. Steve Horn, David Upshaw, Clayton James and myself got together and decided we're going to have a go at a non-profit ministry that did just that, that wrote books and did lectures and put on conferences, and let's see what happens.

**JMF** : Your focus is unique. Could you talk about that?

**CBK** : You mean theological focus? "Unique" is an interesting word – in some ways I would say "Yes," but I don't want to say "unique" in the sense of not part of mainstream historic Christianity.

In studying T.F. Torrance, you have to learn Athanasius and Irenaeus and Hilary and the two Gregorys and Basil and the early church's theology. You have to learn Barth, you have to learn Calvin and Luther, because those were so formative to his thinking. So what I have to say is not unique in the sense that it's part of all of that conversation. Every theologian wants to make a contribution to the church – contribution to the way we see things. Not necessarily original and un-thought of, but one that is "on the basis of." [i.e., building on previous work]

Integrating our humanity with our salvation in Christ is one of the areas where I think there's a unique flavor. It sounds very much like a Southern version of what the Reformation and Athanasius and early church were on about. It's sort of my take on it, because for me religion is never to be separated from our humanity. I hear what the fathers in ancient and modern times are saying about Jesus' relationship with us and his union with us.

My question is always been, "Well, I see that. I see that he's united himself with us as a gift of grace and this is who we are. What does that mean? And what does that look like? Does that mean we have to give up motherhood and fatherhood and fishing? Does that mean we give up life?" I struggled with some of that early on in my childhood because I felt like there was a gap between God/church and my humanity, and I knew it was wrong.

So in the fathers and in Torrance and in Barth and in the Reformation – the reformers, I realized that there is an integration here, and so I think to do something unique about us is holding on to that magnificent powerful vision of Jesus Christ's union with the human race – is something that he did, and is something that is real. We are turning the page and saying, Now here's what it looks like as we live it out. It works its way out in our human expression, in our motherhood, in our fatherhood and making lures, and being a teacher, and being a janitor, running a bread route.

Years ago I was teaching in the central United States, and this young student picked me up. It's flat in that part of the country, and we were passing farm after farm after farm and there were tractors and farmers. This young student, we were talking and I asked him, "What are you going to do when you finish school?"

He said he's going to go to seminary.

I said, you're going to be a pastor?

He said, "Yeah, I'm gonna be a pastor."

I said, "What would you say to that farmer on that tractor right over there, about the way Jesus Christ relates to his farming?"

The young student said, "Well, I never thought about that."

I said, "He's gonna be in your congregation, and that man gives 70 hours a week to farming. His family gives their father and husband for 70 hours a week to farming, their whole family tradition is bound up in farming, and so you don't know how Jesus relates to what he is and what he does as a human being."

He said, "I haven't really thought about that."

I said, "Why would you expect him to want to come to church? You're not showing him how Jesus is related to his whole existence."

And I said, "Isn't it striking that you will go home tonight..." and I said, "are you married?"

He said, "Yeah, I'm married."

I said, you're going to go home tonight and you're going to eat supper, right?"

He said, "Yeah."

I said, "What's the first thing you're going to do when you sit down at the meal?"

He said, "We're going to pray."

I said, "What are you going to do?"

He said, "We'll thank God for the food."

I said, "Why? He did not grow the food." I was being facetious because, yes, the Father provided food through the farmer – the farmer's participating in the Father's provision through the Son and in the Spirit, and this is holy and beautiful and good, it's not secular. It's the way we participate.

This young student said, "I never thought about that."

I said, "Now you can honor the farmer for who he is, and his family. It's not just the farmer, he is one who participates in the way the Father provides food...

**JMF** : And the farmer needs to know that.

**CBK** : Yes! He needs to live in the dignity of it over and against our culture, which says "Money, prestige, power, position, gives dignity." No. Dignity comes from what we're participating in.

The servants got water for Jesus. He transformed it into wine. We can't do that. The farmer can make the things grow. But he participates, and Jesus is the one who makes it grow. He's the good shepherd. He's the bread of life. We need to learn to relate to people in Christ, in who they are in Christ, and take off our sort of glasses – flesh glasses which says, it's segmented according to money and prestige and power and position and education.

If you want to talk something unique, it's not unique in the sense that it is biblical and Jewish right down the line for centuries. But it's been lost in any kind of meaningful way. We can now begin to see our humanity for what it is. There is no such thing as just human. There is no independent self. There is no just human person. It's us bound up in the life of the Father, Son, and Spirit, and life comes to expression in our ordinary human life.

**JMF** : In a marriage, or say, a person is a doctor or a scientist, or a lawyer or a factory worker or a fisherman, if his eyes are open to that, how does it change how he goes about what he is doing?

**CBK** : Let me give you a story. I was on a plane many years ago, flying from Dallas to Seattle, Washington. And I think it was Seattle, maybe in Portland. It was the first time I had flown in that part of the country and I had never seen the Rocky Mountains, so I deliberately got a ticket booked on the side of the plane; window seat. We got on the plane, and every other seat in the plane was empty, everybody had space, and I thought, this is going to be great. The plane backed out and stopped and pulled forward, and the door opened and on the plane came this guy who looks like Indiana Jones. He's got leather hat, leather backpack, jacket, the whole nine yards, and he was walking back and I thought, I know exactly where the man's going to sit. Sure enough, he walked back 30 rows and sat next to me. There was a young lady, I believe on the other side.

He introduced himself as a systematic micro-evolutionary biologist. He was coming back from a research trip in the Caribbean, and he was all concerned about plants, all concerned about plants becoming extinct. He had a list of plants and the Latin names of plants that we've already lost, some that we're losing, what we must do to save them. He was going on and on about this. Then he started a little bit about evolution.

Somewhere over Idaho, I think, he said, "What do you do?"

I said, "I'm a theologian."

He said, "I guess you want to talk about evolution."

I said, "No, I don't care about evolution. But I've got a question."

He said, "What's your question?"

I said, "Where did you get your passion for plants?"

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "Was your Uncle Freddie a botanist, I mean, your mother a botanist? Did you just decide one day you're going to be passionate about plants? You're a grown man, you know their Latin names, Latin names of plants that are no longer extinct, you're concerned about their future, you want to see them flourish not die. Where did that come from?"

He said, "I never thought about it."

So I pull out my napkin – he's got his diagrams – and drew three circles, and I said, Father, Son, and Spirit. I said there's only one man, there is only one person in this universe that cares about plants, because they belong to his Father – his name is Jesus. And Jesus is not going to care about those plants without our participation. He's put his passion for his Father's plants inside of you, you've been toiling around in the Caribbean participating in his passion for his Father's creation and its care, and its flourishing. And you don't know who you are.

The first thing he said was, "If that's the truth, why haven't I ever been told about that?"

I said, "You just were. You just were told."

In that moment you could see the difference, because until that moment, he thought _he_ was doing that. It was his passion, and by God, it was his idea and it was his energy and he was doing this, and he was proud of what he thought he was doing in his own strength as a human being. And in that second, the light of Christ dawned, he saw himself for who he really was. He's part of something much larger.

He said, "I'm not even sure I believe in God."

I said, "The most important thing is whether or not God believes in you. He does, and he's sharing his life with you, and that's who you are. If you can come to see that and believe in Jesus, then you can give yourself to participate not in a prideful look-at-me-I'm-better-than-you way, because he's going to make everybody in other departments feel "less than" because they're not botanists, they're just theologians or whatever. But you can participate in this in a much more personal way where you can give yourself to be a part of this and include the way in which Jesus is doing a lot other things."

That's a simple illustration to me of how that begins to work out. Pride is gone in a sense of, I want to participate, Jesus, in what you are doing here. Show me more, what am I missing, what are you doing with these plants. You're the one that's in resurrection and you're bringing these plants back, what do we do, how does that work? And you give yourself to participate in a much more intelligent and clear and less prideful and sanctimonious way.

**JMF** : Typically, when you go to church, you hear a sermon, you come away feeling discouraged or even worried about your relationship with God, because what you hear at church is, "Here's ten commandments." You not only hear "ten commandments," but then Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself, love the Lord with all your heart and all your mind," and all. And you feel like, "I don't do that," and you feel condemned because you know you don't measure up to what you're hearing you're supposed to be doing – and that's where you learn about God and about what you're supposed to be doing. We don't hear this. Why is that?

**CBK** : Can I tell another story, is that all right?

**JMF** : Go ahead.

**CBK** : This is my all-time favorite. This is a true story that happened when my son was... he's now 19, he's six-foot-five and he looks down on his father with great delight, but anyway he was 6 or 7 at that time. I was sitting in the den in our house on Saturday afternoon sorting through junk mail getting rid of them, watching a football game. He peered around the corner, 6 or 7 years old – face paint, camouflaged, plastic knife, guns, the whole nine yards, and one of his buddies was with him. The next thing I knew, there's two camouflaged blurs that just came flying through the air and hit me, and we started horsing around and laughing and we end up on the floor in a pile of laughter.

Right in the middle of that, I felt the Lord saying, "Baxter, pay attention. There's something huge happening here that's very important." I'm just scratching my head thinking, "A dad, his son horsing around on the floor, Saturday afternoon, it's got to be going on all over the planet, what's the big deal?"

Little by little it began to dawn on me... I did not even really know this other little boy. If you replay the story and you take my son out for a moment, and he's back in the back of the house and this other little boy walks in the den camouflaged, the same outfit, he looks at me, he's never seen me, I've never seen him. I don't even know his name, he didn't know my name. Presumably, he would have thought I was Mr. Kruger. But the last thing he's going to do is come flying through the air and engage me in that kind of intimate play.

But the fact was, my son was there, and did know me. He knew that I loved him, he knew that I liked him, and that I wanted him, he knew my acceptance. In the freedom of that knowledge of my acceptance and that knowledge of who he was and my love for him, he did the most natural thing in the world, which was to engage me. The stunning miracle was that, I saw my son's freedom with me, my son's knowledge of my heart rubbed off on that other little boy. He got to feel it and taste it and experience it with us. It wasn't his, but he got to share in it with us. It not only rubbed off on him, it was in him and he functioned from it. So to me, the Lord was saying, "That's the gospel."

The gospel is the news, and my son in the equation would be Jesus. The gospel is the news that we have a place in Jesus' relationship with his Father and in the Spirit he's sharing his own emotions, his own life, his own sense of his Father's presence – he wants us to live in it.

Religion would be when the boy suddenly gets... a whisper comes along and says, "But you're really not a part." So the boy steps over here, and he starts thinking, "How can have a relationship with God like... or to use the analogy, how can I have a relationship with Mr. Kruger like his son does?" And he starts writing down things that he can do that look like our relationship. The fact is, he is included in it, but he's choosing to carve out his own relationship with me rather than to participate. Every religion starts out with that separation, and it is going to prescribe things that you can do to have a relationship with God, when the New Testament is saying the stunning news is that Jesus has come to bring us and to receive us into his life and that's who we are and he wants us to participate – bear his fruit, fruit of his relationship with his Father.

That's the simplest story, but man, is it huge in its implications. We back out and we insist on having our own path to God, our own relationship to God the way we want it, the way we think it ought to work, the way we read the New Testament, and we're going to go at it that way. When the whole time, we've been included in this Son's relationship with his Father. Somehow we get to thinking that dirt can somehow climb into the being of the Trinity. Somehow that we who are fashioned out of the ground, can do something to achieve the Holy Spirit – the one single special Spirit in the universe. We're going to do something to achieve that. That's where religion – it's just a constant striving to create a relationship that really is already there and given to us, and it's the function of darkness and blindness.

**JMF** : In most preaching, what I hear all the time is, you are separated from God, you're a sinner, we've got to help people know that they're sinners and cut off from God and then show them the way. The way is, you say the sinner's prayer, let's say, or you start believing and now God will change his mind toward you. It's the old Jonathan Edwards ... the hanging over the throne...[ **CBK:** Oh, oh, in the pit of hell dangling like a spider's web over...] of an angry God, if you do x, y, or z (have faith, repent, change your ways, etc.), then God will change his mind toward you, apply the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on your behalf – that's how the gospel is most often presented.

**CBK** : You want to know why the church is dead and dying? I mean, that's not the gospel.

**JMF** : Give me a one or two-minute gospel presentation that...

**CBK** : The incarnation means that God has come... the Father has sent his Son to establish a relationship with us. Did Jesus establish a relationship with us, or not? Is he the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world or not?

I've grown up here in the same kind of preaching you're talking about. It's a much larger discussion, but it's a product of Augustinian dualism, then the Western tradition, and legalism. The gospel is the news is that the Father's SON – the Anointed One – has come to us and established a relationship with us. We're like my son's buddy – we're included in it, and we don't know who we are, so I'm not trying to get anyone to Jesus. I'm not trying to get anyone into a relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has done that – he's bigger than we are, he's bigger that Adam, he's bigger than the church. He's the one who embraced the human race in his own life, death, and resurrection and ascension.

Our role is to announce the good news. Not to say, "It's possible to have good news." Our role is to say, this is who you are. You too belong. You're in this. You're included in this. In that moment of announcement of the light... or in that moment of revelation, where we suddenly see that we're already included, not separated, not trying to figure out how to climb my way back to God, that produces, as my friend Bruce Wauchope says, "That produces mental illness." Striving, all kinds of fragmentation, and our soul is in fear. It doesn't produce relationship.

But when we see who we are, we discover reality that we don't create. That the Father, Son, and Spirit have created, in relation with us, we discover it, and at that moment we're called to believe. Are we going to believe in this reality or in... (I carry my glasses with me, because this is the issue.) Are we going to believe in the way _we_ see things (and that's the little boy backing off and saying, "I'm going to do it my way"), or are we going to say when the light comes, "Man, now I see who I am."

When you see who you are – that you're included in this relationship, here's one of the things that happens. You then begin to know for the first time, what it means to be a sinner. Now that I see that I'm included in that relationship, what a fool I've been trying to create my own. How proud I've been of what I have created and maintained in my own strength, and that's where the gospel reveals to us what sin is.

**JMF** : So the starting place of the gospel is that the truth that you're already included.

**CBK:** Yes, the starting of the gospel is Jesus Christ, and he is the one who has a relationship with the Father, he's the Anointed One, he's the one who has the relationship with us and in him, in his existence, in his person – all of us are bound together in that relation – that's the starting point, and that's the light of life that Jesus talks about.

When you see this in this light, you know the light of life, you won't walk in the darkness – that's the truth that sets us free (John 14:20). In that day you will know that I am in my Father, you're in me – you're not outside, you're going to see that you're in me and I'm in you.

That's the truth that sets us free from the illusions of our religion, and illusions of our own ideas which we keep trying to impose upon God, I mean the Father, Son, and Spirit. What's ironic is that in laying out the gospel presentation as we've done in the modern evangelical (and I stress modern evangelical) approach – laying it out the way that we do: we start off with a holiness of God and a sin – that we became sinners and there has to be some sort of a sacrifice. We have defined sin there out of our darkness.

Jesus says, "No one knows the Father but the Son." We who don't know the Father have come up with a definition of sin over here, and we're going to figure out how Jesus solves that problem. But we're blind! Even our doctrine of sin is a blind doctrine of sin. We need the life of Jesus Christ to help us to see the problem, so we can't start with the problem.

We start with the truth of who we are in Christ, that shines light on the darkness and we suddenly say, "Oh, now I can begin to see what sin is – sin is our not receiving the Father's love. Sin is believing that I'm separated from God and figuring out a way to carve my own way back. Sin is me insisting that God live in my world with me, rather than me living in the embrace of the Father. He loves me, he calls me to receive his love, now I can see who I really am. Now I can see what a mess I have made of my life and why. Now I can see what my future is.

**JMF** : That's very different from religion, that is also very different from universalism.

**CBK** : Yes, universalism ... I get accused of this a lot. You can understand if you've grown up in this other model, then the other model says, if you've done the contract, if you've had the deal and closed the deal with Jesus, then you're going to heaven.

So if everybody is included then, everybody's going to heaven. But the biblical notion of heaven is relationship. Jesus says, "This is eternal life." Not that you go to a place and have a seat in the auditorium and can watch the big show. Eternal life is knowing the Father. Eternal death is living without knowing the Father. It's relational.

Universalism is this idea that says, it's the counterpart to Calvinism and its double predestination sort of thing which says, there are a selected number of elect and they will irresistibly be brought to know the truth and set free by it. Universalism is just extending that sort of irresistible grace kind of doctrine that says, everybody's included and everybody's going to be brought to see it, and that's that, it doesn't matter.

That's not at all what I'm saying. That's not at all what the Scripture is saying. Jesus says, he is the light of the cosmos, not all the Christian church. He says, he takes away the sin _of the world_ – the cosmos, not just the sin of the believers. What happens in Jesus is the Father has come searching for us in the far country of our blindness and darkness and has established a relationship with us, and he will never let us go. That is the truth about the whole cosmos. Every person on the planet, Jesus Christ is in relationship with them – that's what he's done.

As we hear about it, we have to make a decision: which world am I going to live in? The New Testament says even the people who chose to live here are already included, they're just insisting on imposing their way of relating to Jesus onto Jesus rather than saying, "Take my mind and turn it around, I want to live in your world with you, your way. I want to participate."

So the New Testament leaves it, in my interpretation, the New Testament says it's possible for people to sit, who are included in this relationship, people who are not only loved by the Father, but now Jesus has established a relationship with them – it's possible for them to live in their own world although they're part of this relationship indefinitely. That's where we ended. You can't go any further than that.

I've got younger people who have come along and who have studied Barth and Torrance and George McDonald and they want to make a doctrine, they want to say, "Oh, everybody's going to be saved." George McDonald did that, and so did Thomas Erskine. C.S. Lewis didn't. He said, "No, we have to stop and say that..."

My hope is, I think it'd be the greatest in the universe if everybody came to see the truth and be set free by... and I hope for that, and I pray for that. But I cannot say that, that's exactly what will happen, because that would be to deny our freedom as human beings. That would mean all we are is computers with Christological software. We're not persons in relationship, we're just computers, and we are being programmed by God, and that's not the way it is.

Universalism is a hope. I mean, who wouldn't want... don't you want to see everyone come to know the truth and be set free by it? Well of course we do, that's our heart's desire. That's not something we created, that's the desire of the Father, Son, and Spirit. But can we make a doctrine out of that? No way, the New Testament won't allow us to do it, and even the gospel as we see it in Jesus won't allow us to do it. It's possible for us to live in our darkness.

But that darkness is chosen, and it's chosen again, and again, and again. We refuse... Jesus is able to break through our darkness and reveal the truth to us, and that creates a crisis. What am I going to believe? Which world am I going to believe? Which world am I going to live in? Which Baxter? I'm the one that's making that decision. He doesn't give up. But it's possible for me, for us to say, "Were going to continue to live in this goofy world that we've created in our own heads – as being the real world."

**JMF:** Dr. Kruger is author of _The Great Dance_ , which is available at www.perichoresis.org, along with access to Dr. Kruger's lectures and many other books and articles, and we hope that you'll take advantage of those.

**Announcer** : You've been listening to _You're Included._ Be sure to check for future programs on this series on our website, www.youreincluded.org. If you've enjoyed this program with Dr. Kruger, you might also enjoy the articles he has written for _Christian Odyssey_ – a magazine that helps make sense of the modern Christian life. _You're Included_ is devoted to the good news that your heavenly Father loves you, wants you, and includes you in Jesus Christ.

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## The Theology of Paul Young's Book _The Shack_

**JMF:** Since you've been here last, you've been doing some traveling (among many other things) with Paul Young, author of _The Shack,_ and giving some seminars with him. Could you tell us what's going on?

**CBK:** The first time we met was with the Worldwide Church of God meeting in Virginia two and a half years ago, and we became friends and we started talking. The way we met was through Tim Brassell emailing Paul, and telling Paul that I had written the theology that goes with _The Shack_.

**JMF:** Tim, being one of our pastors.

**CBK:** One of your pastors in Portsmouth, Virginia. Then Paul picked up that phone and calls me. I'm like, "I can't believe you're calling me, I mean everybody in the world wants to talk to you." But we talked and we became soulmates quickly as we realized we were on the same page. Then we started doing some seminars and things like that together, and we did a tour of Australia through our network – Perichoresis network down there, and we've done several seminars together. Recently, I've been asked to do more lectures on the "Theology of _The Shack"_ or things like that. It just sort of evolved and happened, and it's been beautiful. He's a fantastic man. I love to spend time with him.

**JMF:** We've had Paul on our program and talked about _The Shack_ and some of the concepts of God that are so earth-shaking for many people who read it. People either love it, or they hate it. How do you account for that?

**CBK:** I think the scene where Papa comes out and embraces Mackenzie Allen Phillips and the way it's set up, I think that right across the Western world, we all have two different Gods. One is the God of our constructs in our mind, and the other is the God that we know in the depths of our soul. This God here [in the heart] is the Father, Son, and Spirit, and love and grace and goodness. And this God here [in the heart] that we know loves us more than we love our own kids.

But that does not fit the theological constructs that we've been hearing – the doctrine of Atonement fights against this view, this knowing of God. When that scene happens in _The Shack_ ... Actually, Mackenzie Allen Phillips goes to the shack three times. The first time was to find the remains of his daughter. The second time he goes to meet Papa, but the Western God is what he is thinking was going to happen, and that God never shows up. He ends up shaking his fist in that scene and says, "I hate you and that's it, done, not doing that." That's the whole Western legalistic ogre God who watches us from a distance, more interested in whether we keep rules and relationship, and then he leaves and he rejects that God. "I don't want anything else to do with that."

He walks back to the Jeep and the whole world changes. He goes back and again he raises his fist. It's to knock on the door and he doesn't even get to knock – the door flies open and there's Papa and lifts him off the ground. That scene speaks right here [the heart] to everybody on the planet. They know somewhere in here, that's the truth about God.

But it just goes "bzzzztt!!" to all of our constructs. It creates a crisis. Right there in the opening scene, everybody wants to be there, but people who have a lot invested in this God [in the head] are seriously threatened by the awareness that people have here that this is good, this is beautiful. Who doesn't want to be embraced? The news is – that's the truth, we're all embraced like that. That's the gospel.

**JMF:** This concept of God being the far-away judge, we're uncertain of how he feels about us, where does that come from?

**CBK:** It's the construct of the fallen mind. It's Adam and Eve in the bushes, guilty, ashamed, afraid... and they project that fear and that guilt and that shame onto the Lord's face. They tar the Father's face with the brush of their own anxiety, and they create a mythological deity.

**JMF:** Isn't that pretty much the way all of the ... if you go back all through ancient history, that's the idea of religion and the gods, and the gods who are in the elements and the gods in the sky – there's always this sense of... you don't know what they are going to do next. They're like us, they're unpredictable, you've got to urge them or get ...

**CBK:** You've got to twist their arms somehow because they're not _for_ you. That's the projection of the fallen mind onto God creating the image... Someone in Australia (I can't remember who it was) said, "God created us in his image and we've been returning the favor ever since." That's the tarring of the Father's face with the brush of our own pain and struggle and anxiety and guilt. The perfect philosophical expression of that is in Greek philosophy, and as it emerges in neoplatonic philosophy, where you have God as the one that's removed – infinitely removed – from the earth, because this is matter, and matter is broken and sinful. This God is removed and isolated, so pure and self-contained and non-relational that this God is beyond being known and can't even feel anything that happens here.

That's the origin of the Western mindset on God. Then you throw into that: legalism, so this distant, removed God is, in his innermost essence, holy in a legally defined way – moral rectitude, purity in that way as opposed to "holy" as a Trinitarian concept, which is about the singularity, beauty and goodness of the relationship of the Father, Son and Spirit. You've got two Gods.

**JMF:** That gives us this idea, this huge gulf between God and us. Then in the evangelism training you are taught, you have to explain to people there's a huge gulf between them and God. [ **CBK:** Yeah, because Jesus hasn't come.] Now you can get him to become this bridge for you "if you say the sinner's prayer with me right now." He will be the bridge and you can get across to God.

**CBK:** To me that's just like pure neoplatonic philosophy coming in, because it denies, in the first instance, it's as if the Incarnation hasn't even happened. One of the ways around that for me is I like to put it this way: The gospel is not the news that you can receive Jesus into your life. The gospel is the news that the Father's Son himself, who's face to face with the Father, who's anointed in the Holy Spirit, became a human being and _he_ has received us into _his_ life.

One is the Greek philosophical construct of separation and somehow, Jesus has done something and there's a bridge and we can get back across because this God is too pure to even look at us.

Whereas the Trinitarian model is the Father, Son, and Spirit share life, and they're passionate about our inclusion and Jesus has come, as the early church teaches – Irenaeus is a great example: "Our beloved Lord Jesus Christ became what we are in order to bring us to be what he is." Athanasius: "The Son of God became the Son of Man to make us sons of God..." because the point is to share that Trinitarian life with us.

In the Greek model, this is bad, Incarnation may be real but not really. In this model of the gospel, the Trinitarian gospel: Jesus becomes not only human, which is unthinkable on that other model – he becomes flesh, he becomes what we are and enters into our brokenness and darkness in order that the life that he shares with his Father and the Holy Spirit, could become as much as ours by way of experience as it is his own.

**JMF:** Isn't that exactly what he says in John when he talks about, "I and the Father are one" and he says, "we are one with each other in him, we're one with him, he's one with the Father, therefore we're one with the Father in him." It's been there all along.

**CBK:** But it doesn't fit the great construct because there's separation, there's distance and un-approachability, and this god is so pure that in no way could he get entangled with humanity and matter – because that's all so broken and so fallen. So even though we hear Incarnation, it just kind of moves out, we don't pay much attention to it. We don't underline those passages. What in the universe could be more shocking and stunning and beautiful than the fact that the Father's Son himself – the one who is face-to-face with the Father, who dwells in his bosom, the one who is anointed with the Holy Spirit himself, becomes a human being to be with us? Is there any news more fantastic than that in the universe?

Why have we not seen it to be the point of emphasis? It's because of the influence of the Greek model. That's beginning to die down, it's beginning to come in conflict... and books like _The Shack_ , without doing any theology, without making any theological statement – that scene, you got two Gods, and that creates a crisis in us, because we know both Gods. Once you see the scene, you think, this has got to be resolved. That's going to be difficult, and that's where the crisis is in the book.

People love it here, but it, "Oh, no, that means... what about all this that I've been taught? What about all this that I thought was 'gospel' – it doesn't fit." I'm not talking about some sort of intuition here, I'm talking about a revelation of the Holy Spirit to us that this is the truth, this is who God is. It's who _you_ are. That's the crisis in the book that it creates in the very beginning. It's a beautiful crisis, liberating crisis.

**JMF:** It also raises the issue of justice and fairness and all this sort of thing, in the sense that this God of the academics that we have – the God on paper that we... with the gulf and all that, and who we have to become atoned for by behaving better after we make our decision and all that. There's a sense that the bad guys need to be punished and cut off from God. But in _The Shack,_ we are talking about a God who is presented in the Gospels who has already forgiven everyone in Christ. It raises this issue of: "How can it be that all the bad people, like in the book, the murderer of Mackenzie's daughter, how can that person be loved by God and be embraced...?"

**CBK:** He and Mackenzie, too, because we don't know exactly what he did to his dad, but it was not good.

**JMF:** Yeah, and so there's a chapter on judgment where there's a seat, and the Holy Spirit comes to talk about that topic with Mackenzie. That gets into this issue and resolves it, and many find that tremendously liberating because it speaks right to the gospel. But there are those... you can go to websites that take great exception, and find that horribly wrong and contrary to anything godly and righteous, because the bad guys seem to be getting away with something.

**CBK:** The first thing I would want to say there, my professor of theology J.B. Torrance, used to say all the time: "Forgiveness is logically prior to repentance and faith." In the modern West, we've packaged it like: forgiveness is possible _if_ these things line up, if you receive, if you pray... To me, forgiveness was instantaneous – Father, Son, and Spirit forgave Adam and Eve and forgave us. It's not a question of their forgiveness, it's a question of how are they going to reach us so that we _know_ we are forgiven and we can begin to have real relationship with them?

The Bible is about how God does the impossible – how the Father, Son, and Spirit reaches us in our blindness, our projections and our darkness. And how far are they willing to go in order to meet us ALL – not just the broken folks. In Jesus, they've come (the Father, Son, and Spirit have come) to meet us. This is what I've been working on a good bit in the last couple of years since we've last talked – in seeing the reconciling work of the Father, Son, and Spirit is the deliberate, willful, submission of Jesus Christ to our bone-headed, wrong-headed religious judgmental darkness. He could obliterate us, he could call the angels, but he doesn't. What he does is he bows to suffer – not from God's wrath, not from his Father's wrath, and not from the Holy Spirit's abandonment. He bows to suffer from _our_ curse, our wrath, our rage and our venting. We made him a scapegoat and we damned him and we did it to him publicly in the most humiliating way possible. And he said, "Okay."

In accepting us as we really are – in our brokenness and in that wrath, he has established a relationship with the human race – all of us, at our very worst. And he brought Papa and the Holy Spirit with him. So it's not a question to me, "Is this person forgiven? Is that person forgiven? What about bad people...?"

What has happened is the entire human race, in its blind rage, has been met by Jesus and Papa and the Holy Spirit, and it's inside and it's seeking to come out. That's forgiveness – he's found a way to reach us. Now, the question is: where are we in our journey – because we're still blind, all of us. We're still broken.

That's part of what Paul is getting at, is helping people, in that moment realizing, "If you put yourself in the seat of judgment, then you got to make decision about who's going to be forgiven, who's going to be included, who's going to hell, who's going to heaven." When he puts you in that seat, you think we're not... he confronts you in the book with the fact that we love our children better than our theology allows us to let God love us.

A sweeping panoramic from the other side sees the Father, Son, and Spirit coming to build a relationship with us in the midst of our darkness and sin and pain, and they set up shop right there and then seek to help us come to know that. That's what is one of the things that's underneath all the way through the book. People are unprepared for that because they've got a construct – separation, Greek philosophical deity, with Bible verses to "prove" that it's right, separation – Jesus is the bridge, only those people who've walked across that bridge are included and loved and forgiven. If you've got that kind of construct, then what we're talking about here makes no sense. It's like, how can that be, how can God be this good? You can't just say, "God forgives us." No, but you can say to your daughter, "I forgive you, without payment." Do you love your daughter better than the Father loves us?

Are you participating in love in the Father, Son, and Spirit? J.B. used to say that all the time, "God commands us to forgive sin seven times seven times. Are we supposed to be better than the Lord? Or is he not telling us the way he is?"

**JMF:** Colossians points out that "once you were alienated in your minds." Not alienated _from God's side,_ but alienated in _your_ minds. He just got finished in that passage talking about what he's done... reconciling everybody, all things whether things on heaven or things on earth and all that. And then once you're alienated... not alienated, but alienated _in your minds._

**CBK:** That's right. And some translations use the word "separation" there, like in Ephesians 4:17 it says: "Don't be like the pagans, don't walk around in the dark, now you know who God is and who you are, walk in that." Jesus is saying, "I'll meet you in your pain, I'll meet you in your brokenness, I'll meet you in your sin. Walk with me. Just walk with me, trust me a little bit and let's walk together. Let me share my life with you." And you can begin to let go of some things.

I thought Paul [Young] did a great job in that conversation by backing Mackenzie up and said, "Wait a minute, if we cut off this guy, the murderer, then we have to go back – probably cut off his dad, go back, cut off... and then you start cutting people off and squashing them before they are... and there are millions of people here that are never even born.

It puts you in that quandary where you think, wait a minute, God deals with us in our darkness. That's the only group he has got to deal with. He meets us in our pain and he's saying, "Walk with me." He's saying that to the Christian community, too. "Come on, walk with me." The one who walks with me, he says, "I am the light of the entire cosmos. It's who I am, it's who you are in me. Walk with me, and the one who walks with me, this one will never, ever walk in the darkness but shall have the light of life."

These ones don't come to know what this whole thing is about. That's the distinction between the Christian community and the world – or the believing and unbelieving. The Christian community say, "I want to walk with Jesus, I don't know how to do it. I don't know _how_ to continue in your Word. You've got to disciple me. But I know that you've got something here that I want to participate in."

The other part of the world is saying, "No, it's not there." That's where they are in their experience, and the Holy Spirit keeps walking with us. "I'm going to find a way to reveal" – and this I love – the Holy Spirit is determined to find a way to reveal Jesus, not simply to the world, not simply to a person, but to reveal Jesus _in_ them. So they'd encounter Jesus in their own pain and darkness and struggle. And from there, healing and life begins to work its way out.

**JMF:** How do you find the reaction, response... People who come to the seminars that you've held are coming because they're excited about the book, but how do they respond personally when you talk to them?

**CBK:** One of the most beautiful things to watch is when Paul Young tells the story behind the story – which is, to me, way more fascinating and beautiful than the book. People weep and people cry and people feel loved, they feel accepted, they feel moved. There may be a handful of people somewhere in the room who are angry. But by and large, they're being saved from their darkness and confusion and it's like an evangelistic meeting as he shares his life and story.

There's conflict, but what I've experienced is overwhelming love and excitement. People saying, "Yes, yes, yes. This is what I know. Tell me more. Don't stop, don't leave, let's keep talking." Their tears are flowing because they've heard him express the fact that they've been through this horrible sadness, they too have, and they haven't been allowed to talk about this. But this guy is talking about it. He's talking about a God who knows about it.

One of my favorite scenes in the book that I think speaks directly to what you're saying, both in terms of Christ, is saying in terms of response, is the scene where Mackenzie is in the garden with Sarayu, the Holy Spirit, and they're digging stuff up. The garden is Mackenzie's soul and his brokenness. So without theological argument, Paul has set up a scene where the Holy Spirit is now inside Mackenzie's brokenness and darkness because he came with Jesus and Papa. The Holy Spirit is not bothered, not put off, not "I can't look at this," but is able to embrace in freedom Mackenzie at his very worse. And then Papa comes walking the down the path with the sack lunch. It just screams acceptance, and that is something that people feel, and it opens their soul. So much stuff gets to come out and they love it.

When I had the chance to be with him, to see him speak and see him unfold his life's story, it's like an evangelistic meeting. People are being liberated from their darkness and being able to accept themselves and accept others ... "This is fantastic, this is the truth, this is the way God really is." Paul Young tells a story which you know the story, your listeners know it from other interviews with him. That sense of acceptance is like whoo, man, tears... Most of the time that I've been able to teach and do seminars and things alongside with that or with that, people are so excited they can hardly sit still. "Just tell me more, tell me more." They've never heard this thing about the Trinity. "Nobody's ever told me about that doctrine. Where did this come from, where is that in the Bible? I believe you, but where is it? Let's look." It's like, you've got to be kidding, that is so unbelievable. You could speak for three days and never move.

**JMF:** Once people get their minds around that, then that's all you see in the Scriptures anymore. Verses and passages that you've read your whole life, all of a sudden you see them in a new light. You see what they're actually saying to you, and it changes everything.

**CBK:** Funny how the Bible changes like that, isn't it? You underline all the wrong verses. You think, "Why did I underline that? I missed this whole section here."

**JMF:** Yeah, that [verse] tells me what that one was saying.

**CBK:** In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was face-to-face with God. And the Word became flesh, meeting us in our crap and darkness, and we saw it and we got to experience its fullness in our darkness. That's the gospel. Right there in the first part of John. Once you see that, it's everywhere in the New Testament.

**JMF:** You're working on a book on the topic of theology of _The Shack_ in which you go into a lot of these things, is that something that we can look forward to fairly soon?

**CBK:** Probably not in a matter of weeks or months, because I'm working on another book, and three-quarters of the way through – this is a novel and it's pretty interesting, pretty racy. I've done lectures on the theology of _The Shack_. I'm getting the recordings from two different places and I'm going to get someone to transcribe that. Then I'll sit down and take the time and work through and add and develop and edit that. But the basic research and ideas of the theology of _The Shack_ that I've been wanting to do are all in place, and I've already sort of done a test drive on it. It's been lecture format and interaction.

I will get all that put together and then hole up somewhere and write it, and of course (just because of my friendship with Paul) I would never want to produce anything that he was not pleased with on one level. Although there are places in the book where he and I disagree about things, they're not major issues. I'm still a theologian, after all. There are some places I want to quibble with him a little bit. But by and large I absolutely love every single thing in the book. I don't like the first four chapters. I mean it's kind of brutal, because you'd smell what's coming and nobody wants to read that scene. But from Papa on, it's just off the charts.

So I want to help people see what's going on, and I also want to help them understand that what's being said here about God – may be new to us, but it's actually the early church's. It's what launched the early church. If it's new to us, we've been lost over here in Augustinian captivity. I read _The Shack_ as Athanasius in the early church shouting across the centuries saying, "Come on back home, boys and girls. This is the way God really is, and you know it!" But be willing to repent, have your mind reconstructed to allow the truth of what's being said here, and the truth of what was said in the early church, come together.

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back to table of contents

## Who Are We in Jesus Christ?

**JMF:** The last time we got together, we talked a little bit about your book _The Great Dance_ , but one thing I wanted to focus on this time is a lady that you quoted from C.S. Lewis called Mrs. Fidget. And you mentioned: "One of my favorite characters in C.S. Lewis' writings is the lady by the name of Mrs. Fidget."

This woman so characterizes not only somebody we all know, probably, but also ourselves in so many ways, that she's a great character to talk about.... On page 78, for those who want to pull the book out and start reading:

I'm thinking of Mrs. Fidget [Lewis writes], who died a few months ago. It is really astonishing how her family have brightened up. Mrs. Fidget very often said that she lived for her family. And it was not untrue. Everybody in the neighbourhood knew it. "She lives for her family," they said; "what a wife and mother!" She did all the washing; true, she did it badly, and they could have afforded to send it out to a laundry, and they frequently begged her not to do it. But she did. There was always a hot lunch for anyone who was at home and always a hot meal at night (even in midsummer). They implored her not to do this. They protested almost with tears in their eyes (and with truth) that they liked cold meals. It made no difference. She was living for her family.

For Mrs. Fidget, as she so often said, would "work her fingers to the bone" for her family. They couldn't stop her. Nor could they, being decent people, quite sit still and watch her do it. They had to help. Indeed they were always having to help. That is, they did things for her to help her to do things for them which they didn't want done.

And you say, the problem of Mrs. Fidget was not marriage, not relationships, not motherhood – the problem of Mrs. Fidget was the way she saw herself. Let's talk about that.

**CBK:** ... Identity. I talk about it sometimes in terms of the "I Am NOTs" –believing "I am not special," "I am not included," "I am not good enough," "I'm not worthy," "I'm not important," "I'm not beautiful," "I'm not saved," "I'm not reconciled," "I'm not adopted." We have those whispers within us. They ultimately have their origin in evil, where they come through people. We believe we're not special, and then we have to find a way to _become_ special. I believe I'm not important but I will find a way that I can become important – and that's what Mrs. Fidget does.

I think she's a perfect illustration of so much that goes on in our life. She chose an ideal of motherhood and that, if she could attain that ideal, then she would be special. She wanted it to look like she really cared about her family, but in the end, what she really cared about was she attaining her ideal of motherhood. Lewis is brilliant in how she sees the whole family is actually brightened up after the woman died because she was putting so much pressure on them to help her fulfill her idea of motherhood, which had nothing to do with real relationships at all – it wasn't what her family wanted.

So it's – I am not, I can be, if I can get this.. and then you can fill in the blank in how we take people and maybe even whole denominations, or nations – into our "I am not" and our "self-salvation" scheme. It can get really messy and lots of stuff can be poisoned.

**JMF:** Relationships is what the gospel is all about, not doing stuff, list of rules, all that sort of things that we like to impose on ourselves to help ourselves feel better... measuring... we like to measure how well we're doing – we forget all about the fact we're talking about relationships – whole purpose of life in the restoration that we have in Christ is for restored relationships.

**CBK:** Real relationships which means you encounter the other person in what they want, in what they care about is important to you, not just what you want them to care about but what they actually care about, where they are in their journey. That's what the way Jesus met us in the incarnation. He's come to become what we are to meet us where we actually are in our journey.

The Mrs. Fidget story helps us with another problem that comes out of this conversation which is the whole vexed discussion of universalism, because here you have a woman who actually IS special. She actually is loved – by the Father Son and Spirit – she is included. But since she doesn't know it, and she doesn't believe it, then she's going to invent an alternative kingdom and demand that her children participate with her in her wrong-headed kingdom – which is going to poison them and eventually kill her, and destroys.

So is she included? Yes. Is she important? Yes. Is she adopted? Yes. Is she special? Yes. Does she know it? No, and because she doesn't, she goes out to create an importance that she can see, which is an illusion, which brings poison into the equation.

Mrs. Fidget-ism can continue on for all eternity – theoretically speaking. It seems to me like this is what we all do. Sometimes I think of sin as looking dead at Jesus and saying: "Jesus you're wrong about your Father, you're wrong about me, wrong about the human race and about our being included. So Jesus, what I want you to do stop believing what you believe about the Father and the Holy Spirit and about who we are – change your mind, which is repentance, and I want you to believe in me and in my vision." We do that with God, we do that with our husbands, our wives, our family, our friends, our churches. We are always imposing our agenda over the top of what's real, that is present but we can't see it – we can't receive it yet. So Mrs. Fidget is multi-layered, as she's used in that book; we can go in lots of different directions with it.

**JMF:** It reminds you what Jesus said when he's talking about forgiveness, which is often taken as a condition for salvation, that if you will forgive your brother then God will forgive you, and if you have not forgiven your brother, God will not forgive you. But that's really a statement about relationships, like you're talking about.

**CBK:** How can you be forgiven and not try to forgive others – it's like people ask me about universalism, about the sheep and the goats, and I'm like – hang on a minute here, people that ask about the sheep and the goats as if this is a huge issue are really telling you that they're goats, because I don't know any sheep that care about people being excluded or not included in that sense.

The sheep hear the voice of Jesus and they love it and the people who are forgiven by the Father they have their souls baptized with hope – they want everybody to experience this. And so the sheep wants all the goats to be included and to see it, to experience it. We just get it convoluted. Jesus has brought the Father's forgiveness to us as we know it. He who is forgiven much, loves much. The one sees how much they have been loved and forgiven now has capacity for mercy and compassion that flows out of them. That's the way I look at that passage.

**JMF:** A lot of people see God as angry at them or at least withholding any kind of love for them until they've measured up, until they've done enough good stuff. This idea conflicts with the God we find who's revealed in Christ in the Scriptures. How does a person go about holding two totally conflicting views of God together?

**CBK:** The entire world – especially the Western world – has two different doctrines of God. One is Greek philosophy – that God who is distant, removed, totally detached, unapproachable, other-worldly, not interested, we've taken that into the world of legalism and add legalism to that detached... This God is watching us (as intrinsically bad) watching us and keeping tabs but he doesn't really care about us, as much as we are keeping his rules – that's built into the fabric of the fallen man and through Greek philosophy it spread itself across the whole world.

**JMF:** So the rules come first, he makes rules and they need somebody to keep them and so he made us.

**CBK:** And we're just completely distanced. And he's up there unapproachable. Then you discover in the face of Jesus the Father-Son relationship and the role and the place and the beauty of the Holy Spirit in that relationship and you realize that the incarnation is shouting to us that God is not unapproachable – he intends to be known and to share that Trinitarian life with us. That why he became human.

I snagged this book a minute ago from your library because of what Irenaeus says in the early church – he says: "Our Lord Jesus Christ who did through his transcendent love become what we are, that he might bring us to be, even what he is in himself." One God is infinitely removed, unapproachable, not interested, excepting rules and regulations. The other God is: I'm coming to become what you are because I want you to share in what I am. So you're going to get to be sons and daughters with me and my Father. You're gonna get included in my anointing in the Holy Spirit. You're gonna get to be a part of my relationship with all creation. So you've got two different Gods running in our minds and in our hearts from the very beginning in the West and most people don't even think about that.

**JMF:** I've known a lot of people even combine those two in a sense of taking that false view of God as a distant uninterested or unapproachable God and actually project that onto the Father and Jesus is the good guy who fixes and patches things up and he keeps the Father in the background so that...

**CBK:** As long as we hang with Jesus we're okay, but if he goes to the bathroom from the playground, we're toast, because the Father really doesn't like us. But Jesus twisted his arms in some way so he might get us in the back door, as it were, and that's exactly what we've done. We're taking Greek philosophy, and in some of the Christian tradition, we twisted the Trinity to fit that, and we don't even know that's what we've done.

At this moment in history I think there's some untwisting that's happening – starting with the figure of Karl Barth in the last century. And people like J.B. and T.F. Torrance and with Moltmann and Colin Gunton, and now Alan Torrance and Trevor Hart – these and lots and lots of people who are saying, ok, we want to participate in the untwisting, we want to divorce from Greek philosophy. We don't want to participate in that darkness anymore. We want the Christian tradition that stands on its own merits and this is what we believe. And we're willing to roll the dice to see where it comes out. If we're thoroughly faithful to Jesus as the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, where is this going to come out?

We'll find ourselves right back with the early church. I read that passage last night to a group of folks here in Los Angeles (a younger generation) and they said to me, "never heard that... in all my years in the church I never heard anyone talking..." I said, that's the biggest picture. If you start off with this other model and this God, and you overlay Jesus coming on that, it's all about sin, and it's all about somebody's getting punished and Jesus stands in our place, and by the way, we're supposed to love his Father. The bigger picture is: the Father sends his Son because they have decided that we're going to be given a place in their relationship. And Jesus comes to bring us to be what he is in himself. Not just to give us a gift (like he came to give us a new coffee cup) – what he came give us is himself, in his life with his Father and the Holy Spirit.

So you're untwisting this legal stuff and you're now seeing why the early church was born and why it went around the world – is because the message was not: God is holy, you're a sinner, you failed, Jesus picked up the tab. The message is: The Father, Son, and Spirit set their love upon you from the foundation of the world, and Jesus has come and found you and he's sharing himself and all he is and has with you. And in order to do that, he's died and rose again and ascended.

**JMF:** Yeah, the way it comes across a lot of times is that Jesus comes to pay the penalty for our sins. So he pays the penalty, we're absolved, we got a legal document, as it were, that says: ok you're not guilty now.

**CBK:** That we can hold in God's face.

**JMF:** Yeah, or just feel good about it: "Well, I got off the hook and I'm so glad and now I'm ok." But then, we've got to start keeping the rules because the rules still are the most important thing. We got all of those past sins forgiven – but the rules are still there, we've got to keep them and now the Holy Spirit will come and he will help me keep these rules and if I don't stop keeping them enough, then I'd actually get into the kingdom, where I'll keep them perfectly. But still it's all about the rules.

**CBK:** We keep moving the bar. The Holy Spirit comes to us to help us share in Jesus' life. And what was Jesus' life? He says, "I only do what I see my Father doing. The Father loves the Son, he shows him all things he himself is doing. I don't have my own agenda. I'm not here to do just whatever I want. I want to participate in what the Father is doing." So it's relational. It's relationships.

Jesus says, "I don't call you slaves, because slaves don't know what their master is doing. I'm calling you friends, brothers and sisters, because I'm showing you or disclosing to you everything that my Father who shows me everything he's doing – he shares with me, because I want you to participate in our relationship – in our way of relating, in our way of living life in that relationship."

Jesus didn't come to give us new laws, he didn't come to give us a fresh vision of God. He didn't come to give us new steps to joy. The astonishing fact staring us in the face is what Irenaeus was saying in the early church – is that Jesus came to give us _himself,_ and in giving us himself, he's giving us his relation with his Father and his anointing with the Sprit and his relationship with all things throughout the cosmos. That's who we are, and we are to work this out in concert with him in relationship with him. We would do way more than keep the law in the process.

**JMF:** We don't need a law for friendship, do we? I mean, is there a friendship law? We're able to be friends because we actually care about each other, we care about participating with each other and we care about being together in a way that's productive. We adjust our wants and our desires because we care about each other. You don't need a set of rules for that. If you wrote down a set of rules, you could make one. But to sit down and try to follow that in order to create a friendship, doesn't work. You can look a friendship and say, hey these are things that happen in friendship. But it doesn't work the other direction.

**CBK:** To me, Christianity is about (and this might sound somewhat cliché, but it's beautifully simple) Christianity is about walking with Jesus. It's about being interested in what he's doing and what he wants, more than we are of what we want. Instead of me looking at Jesus saying, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong, you need to change and believe in me, we say to Jesus: I don't want to see things the way that I see them anymore. I don't want to see God the way that I see God. I don't want to see people the way that I see people. I don't want to see creation, I don't want to see myself... I want to see God and people and creation – with your mind and in your faith and in your wisdom and clarity, Jesus. I want to participate in your way of seeing.

He says, come walk with me. Walk with me and I'll help you see what's really real and what's really going on. That produces friendship. Because immediately when you get two or three people that are saying: I don't know how to do this. But what we want is to participate in Jesus. Then there's a point of connection that's profoundly deep and then they become brothers in the practical ongoing and sisters in the practical ongoing way whereby we're bound together – we care about them too, because we all care about Jesus, in sharing in him and not imposing our own ideas on the world or Jesus, the Father, Son and a denomination or whatever.

**JMF:** He actually did that first. His interest in us was selfless. He came, showed his interest in us by taking up our cause, becoming one of us and creating the room – the space for that relationship to happen.

**CBK:** This is where you will see, in the future, the unravelling of that whole notion of penal substitution, where Jesus supposedly goes to the cross to suffer the wrath of God that was intended for us. I just don't see in the New Testament that Jesus suffered the wrath of God. I don't see that he suffered the rejection and abandonment of the Holy Spirit. If you read the New Testament, you read the Gospels and you say, why did Jesus die? Then he tells you: "I'm going to Jerusalem, the Jews and the Gentiles are going to go and conspire together and they're going to kill me, and I'm going to let them do it. On the third day I will rise again."

If you see from the beginning of the Bible, the point here is the Lord is saying: "I want a relationship that is real with the human race so that in this relationship I can share with them the very life that I experience with the Father and the Holy Spirit." Jesus is stepping into that and so he's going to find a way to have a relationship with us as we really are in our brokenness. Otherwise he's not accomplishing the dream – which is to share with us his Trinitarian life.

So, how is he going to do that? He's going to do that by allowing himself to be crucified by the human race and he's going to bear our scorn. He's going to allow us to make him the scapegoat, and to pour our rage, our wrath, our anger on to him and he's going to take it. He's actually going to submit himself to our wrong-headed judgment and to our religion (which he totally disapproves of). He's going to submit himself to it and he's going to die in the arms of our bitterness. In doing so, he's establishing a relationship with us in our very worst and he brought his Father and he brought the Holy Spirit with him.

That's why adoption is not a doctrine. Adoption is what he is. Jesus has included the angry, vengeful, murderous, resentful human race in his relationship with his Father – that's adoption. Not the pristine version that we can dress up on Sunday. Jesus has included all of us in our very worst in his relation with his Father and in his anointing in the Holy Spirit.

So that is where the whole thing gets untwisted and back in line with the early church's vision of the Trinity and the incarnation. That is too beautiful for words. I mean, the Father, Son and Spirit deliberately submit themselves to our judgment, even though it's bone-headed and completely backwards and upside down and wrong. But they do that in order to meet the real us as we are, to share their life with us. That's the heart of the gospel.

So that's what we are to do with other people. We're to embrace them and meet them where they are and share the truth with them. I don't mean that put ourselves in abusive situations as Jesus did. I think because of what he did, we can move forward. But I don't mean that as a pattern of, "ok therefore I'm supposed to go, stir up trouble and let people just crucify me because that sound like a good way to meet Jesus or participate with Jesus." I mean that we embrace people where they are, we accept them as they are. It's not our position to judge them or to clean them up.

Our job is to meet them where they are and accept them in their brokenness and to tell them who they really are – which is back to the truth that will set Mrs. Fidget free... is "Yes, you are accepted just as you are. So you don't need to invent this ideal motherhood and you don't need to impose this vision of yours on your family. So you don't need to destroy relations in your family because of your own need here." You begin with "you're included." You begin with "I am acceptable," "I am special" because Jesus came and found me.

**JMF:** So how do we look at the difference between believers and unbelievers?

**CBK:** Well, the first distinction is not that believers are in and unbelievers are out. Jesus has embraced the human race and indeed the entire cosmos in himself. He is the one in and through and by whom it was created. Now he's stepped into it and he's brought his relationship with the entire cosmos together in himself. He has given us a place in his relation with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. That's who we are. That's our identity. We don't make that so. Whether we believe it or not believe it, doesn't change the fact of who we really are in Jesus. He's done this in beautiful and sovereign grace.

So now the question is: Where are we in our journey of understanding that, and that's where the distinctions like – not inside, outside – but the distinction of believer and unbeliever become important. Because there clearly are people who are raising their hands saying, "Jesus I don't want to see things the way I see them anymore. I'm still fumbling around and my life may not look any better on the outside than the person who says, 'I don't want anything to do with Jesus.'"

But there's a difference in terms of orientation of what they're doing. The best I've ever heard anybody saying in my travels is, "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief." I've never heard anybody saying, "Well, that's the way it used to be until I got saved, or I got the Holy Ghost. Now I don't even have to pray about my own belief" — we're struggling.

Believers are people who know that Jesus is the answer. We just don't know how? We don't know what it really means yet. That's where we grab each other's hands and say, let's walk with him. Unbelievers are people who are looking somewhere else to experience their salvation, but it doesn't change the fact of who we really are and what's happened — it changes our experience. Mrs. Fidget invented a legendary idea of motherhood and imposed it on the whole family, so much so that it killed the family, and when she finally died, they were relieved because they could be themselves.

So the distinction between unbelievers and believers is important as long as that doesn't mean inside-outside. (That's the way it's been used many times in centuries is that, we are the true church, we're the true faith system – you're outside till you do it and jump through the hoops here; you're not included.) The gospel message is that the Father's Son has come and he has received us into his world. Whether we see it or not, this is what's happened. Now, where are you in your journey to understand that between becoming a true unbeliever, towards a true believer. There's way gray there. Lots of people want it to be black and white: "Here's how you can tell. This is it." Every time we draw a line in the sand, we hurt people and ourselves too.

**JMF:** Union and communion, is that a similar...

**CBK:** Union and communion is a great way of talking about the difference, because _union_ is what is. Jesus has established us as joint heirs with himself. He has come and found a way to connect with us, to relate to us, and that's who we are – who are people who belong and who are united with Jesus Christ.

_Com_ munion is as we begin to see this more and more, saying, "Jesus, I want to walk with you. I see something good here about me and you. I don't know what it means, but I want to walk with this. And oh, by the way, there's some other people; we're going to walk with them." That opens the door for deeper and deeper communion, which is where we are participating actively on our own rather than blindly. Even though when I say it that way, it still sounds sort of Christian arrogance because there's so much of Jesus going on in the world whether people see it or not.

**JMF:** That's how we can understand the fact that sometimes unbelievers seem to be better friends, more loyal, more faithful, kinder than members.

**CBK:** You will see the love of the Father, Son and Spirit as it's manifesting itself in people out here who are "unbelievers," you either see that as the love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or you find yourself in a position where I'm now have to have this _Christian_ love and it has to be vastly superior to the way this father loves his children. Or, I don't really have it.

The real truth is that, the Father, Son, Spirit's love is being shared with everyone on the planet and it's trying to come to expression through our unbelief, and wrong belief and through our hopefully-sometimes-getting-close-to-being-real belief. It's expressing itself. Once you see that, then you can begin to see what's going on inside of people, because Jesus is that big. We're not going to meet Jesus face to face and scratch our heads, and say: "Jesus, you need to forgive me because I really, really over-estimated you. I just didn't realize how small you are. I thought you were bigger." That's not what's going to happen.

When we meet Jesus, we're going to say: "Man, I've grossly under-estimated your place and role in the whole scheme of things. You are the one who knows what love is. You are the one who shares your love and your burdens and you for care with the whole human race and I see it everywhere trying to come to expression, but we're all broken and blind, and sadly, we all keep poisoning it, but you keep sharing it and you keep working with us and we're going to get to see who we really are in terms of Jesus."

I don't think anybody right now would qualify as a believer. Jesus is the true believer. The rest of us are: "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief." Then you got people who are saying: "Oh I don't want anything to do with this just yet." Most of the time you got that, is because of problems that has happened through churches, of abuse and things like that, through parents... Most of the time, when I talk to people about Jesus being the Father's Son who has come to share his life with us – people don't have a real problem with that, except religious people who want this hard line in the sand or in the dirt between those that are outside, those that are inside. It's a huge question.

**JMF:** Sure, if Jesus were not our life and were not our righteousness, we won't have any anyway. Same with belief, if he were not the believer, what would we have?

**CBK:** We wouldn't. And if Jesus (Calvin says this on his commentary on John 1:4) "In him was life and life was the light of men..." Calvin says that if Jesus were to detach himself from the human race, the entire human race would disappear.

**JMF:** So would everything.

**CBK:** Everything would be gone.

**JMF:** Everything is upheld by him.

**CBK:** That's the way we started: where are these people who are creations of Jesus, who are included in Jesus' faith and courage and in his _parrhesia_ and his life and his anointing in the Spirit – where are these people in their journey to understand that? Where are they? Well, they are all unbelievers and believers in all kinds of things. The Holy Spirit is someone that straightens out this mess, and helps us come to know who we really are by coming to know who Jesus is. That's the light.

The light is always shining: Jesus is the one who's done this. This is who he is. And as we come to see him and know him, we're coming to know more about who we are. Then that changes the way we are relating to one another, like it would change the way Mrs. Fidget related to her family. If she knew who she was and how she was loved, then this whole world of illusion, the pressure to create this and maintain this world, to give her some sense of identity, goes away. So now she's in a whole different place with her kids, she can actually care about them, in what they want. If it is cold meals that they want, then she'd derive great joy in giving them cold meals. And if they don't think she could do the laundry they could ship it away. And they won't get suck in to her neediness and her world of brokenness and trying to find some semblance of meaning. She's free then to give her life for them — and that's the way the kingdom works. It's beautiful. The simplicity of it but then, man, you start pulling on that thread, the whole world comes undone.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

back to table of contents

## Where Is God in the Darkness?

**J. Michael Feazell:** When unbelievers are good, where does that come from?

**C. Baxter Kruger:** I think that's a fantastic question. If you grew up (like I did) with Calvinism, then you would look at people who are outside of the church and say "that's not really goodness. I don't know what it is, but it's really depravity, because it's really sin."

But if you pan back to the Trinitarian gospel, you realize that Jesus has included the whole human race in his life with his Father and in his anointing in the Holy Spirit, and therefore we ought to see the fruit of that inclusion in people whether they have worked it out theologically perfectly or not. I think that gives a much better perspective, because what you're looking at is the love that the Father, Son, and Spirit share with us freely. They're not concerned about getting credit all the time. They share that with us, so that we can be filled with their music, and we can experience their life and their love in our families.

The Holy Spirit's mission is now to bring clarity to that, not to create it, but to bring clarity to it. Jesus says in John 12:46, "I have come as light into the world so that you may not remain in your darkness" because he has included us. We're in the dark about it, and Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to convict us so that we can begin to know what's going on. That goodness comes from the only circle of goodness in the universe, and that's the goodness of the Father, Son, and Spirit, whether or not people can give you a theological account for that. That's the way I see it.

**JMF:** So by the same token, all goodness that there is comes from God — love comes from the love relationship...

**CBK:** ...of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Truth, goodness, life, beauty, music, harmony — these things come out of the Father, Son, and Spirit relationship, and are shared with us and are seeking to express themselves in our lives.

**JMF:** Which illustrates the point that when we're good, when goodness comes through us, it's not our goodness. This is God's goodness. He gets the credit, not us.

**CBK:** In terms of origin, it is really important to realize that goodness...comes from the Father, Son, and Spirit. Several years ago I had a pastor friend that called me, and there was a tragedy in the congregation. I think a father had died and left three or four, five kids and mother. The whole church was just overwhelmed with burden for this family. The pastor called me and he said, "I don't understand, Baxter," he said, "Where is God in all this? Here we are feeling this burden, I feel this burden, yet where God in all this?"

I said to him, "Number one, you're asking two questions. The first question is, why did God let this happen? I don't think anybody has the answer to that. The second question is, given that this man died, where is God in the midst of all this suffering and pain?"

I looked at my friend, and I said, "Hang on here a minute. Are you actually suggesting to me that this burden, this overwhelming burden that you feel for this family, that your congregation feels, are you suggesting that that has its origin in you? That you are this good of a person, that you are burdened this deeply for this situation? Or could it not be that God is the one who is burdened, and he shares his burdens and his joys with us all, and we are involved in participating in the unfolding of his concern for this particular family, this particular fold of sheep?"

That makes way more sense to me. Otherwise we have to take credit for it, and then we think it's really us, and then our burden is better than your burden. And we have creativity better than your creativity, rather than seeing it as all of a piece, and being able to celebrate that and help people participate in it. That makes a lot more sense to me.

**JMF:** I know you're working on a novel, we've talked about that before, is there anything about that that you could share with us — a little tidbit or preview?

**CBK:** Yeah, I'll tell you how it starts. I have a recurring dream...one of the characters in the novel...I have a recurring dream. In my dream I'm in the woods. I don't know if I'm hunting or why I'm there, but I'm standing looking at a farmhouse that's old, old, old — like 100 years old — and there's hardly anything left there — a couple of cypress plants, a little piece of what would have been a window, and one rafter that looks like it's being held in midair, suspended. I don't know where I am and what I'm doing. I'm standing, and this thing is so old there's trees and vines and bushes growing up in the inside of it.

I'm looking through this little window in my dream, and I suddenly see a green ghost, radar green, weird green. It's looking from behind the tree inside the house at me, and it doesn't want me to see it. It's terribly, horribly sad — like it makes me almost heave, to feel the sadness of this thing. Then I always wake up. I wake up with this feeling of this horrible sadness. That's the way the story starts.

Then I actually do go hunting, and I shoot a deer, and I go get it, and it gets up and runs off in the woods. So I'm chasing this deer and trying to find it, because it was a big buck, and I don't want to listen for the rest of my life to people abusing me about not being able to kill the big deer. So I'm running through the woods, then I crawl through the woods, and I come up under this tree, and I'm thinking, trying to find this trail to the deer, and all of a sudden, there's the farmhouse. It's not a dream, it's real.

Then I'm sitting there wide-eyed and stunned and trying to figure out what in the world is going on, and the ghost appears. So, long story short, I go home, I'm trying to figure out what this is about. At 3:30 in the morning I get a phone call from a man in Australia whose daughter is in trouble. She's read some of my books, she wanted to talk to me...what's happened? She tried to kill herself, why'd she try to kill herself? She's incredibly sad, some green monster, some green creature keeps hanging around the shed and makes her feel incredibly sad.

So the whole question then is: what is this thing? Where does it come from? How in the world can its sadness come on me and her, and how are we going to get grips of this? So there I'm having conversations with my old professor in Scotland who is now in glory, but he gets resurrected in a book, and we have a long conversation about some of this, and I talk to people in Australia and people around the country while I'm trying to pull together an answer to find out, because it's not a theological question, this is a gut-wrenching question. We've got to find some solutions to this, or this girl could die, and I could, too.

That's the basis of the book — works all the way through toward a resolution. I am introducing all of the concepts that are in my other books but almost in reverse. The concept of the perichoresis, sharing in Christ's life...the other question is how the green creature's sadness is shared with me and this other girl.

**JMF:** So have you got a timetable on it? Is there a...

**CBK:** I'm going to finish it.

**JMF:** How close are you?

**CBK:** I'm two-thirds done now. I'm planning on going back and spending as much of December as I can to finish it up. Then I'll go through oodles of editing and whatever along the way. But we'll see.

**JMF:** So what moved you to want to start the project?

**CBK:** Ever since I finished _Across All Worlds_...the very end of that book is a narration of a discussion that a man has with Jesus. He thinks he kills himself, he wakes up, he's not dead, he meets Jesus, and they have a long conversation. That was one of the easiest things I've ever written. Ever since then I wanted to take that idea and write it as just a great story.

I want it first and foremost to be a story that's just a great read, but underneath it is all the message and the truth and insights that have been given over a period of time. That book was finished in like 2003, and I've been thinking about it ever since, but I did not have the particular plot line that I was looking for. I was sitting one night here six, eight weeks ago, and it just sort of hit me where I need to start. So I sat down and did the first 15, 20 pages. Just right there, just (thump)...and been working on it ever since.

**JMF:** We'll look forward to seeing it. Let's talk about _Across all Worlds: Jesus Inside Our Darkness._ What lies behind this book?

**CBK:** That book is where the light and light and love of the Father, Son, and Spirit, theologically outlined, and the trauma of human life and brokenness meet. This is in some ways the story of my life — how Jesus meets us in our darkness, not in our theological Sunday-anity. But he meets us where we really are, and that scares us, because the minute he comes showing up in our darkness, then we begin to know this is darkness.

I remember years ago when my wife and I were first married, and we got into a debate about the color of the apartment walls. I had said well, look, Linda, obviously white. She said no, they're off-white. I said no, they're white. So I snagged a piece of typing paper, walked up, and just confidently slapped it upside the wall and instantly knew that they were very off-white. I wasn't even close.

So I think when Jesus comes to us to meet us, to love us in our darkness, his light shines and we suddenly know that no matter what we want to call what we've been living, this is darkness and this is dead. This is not light. So there's this crisis that happens.

This book is about Jesus meeting us in that crisis and loving us because he wants the broken parts of us to come to know his Father's love, and he's determined to get inside of that in the Holy Spirit. In some ways it's a sequel to _Jesus and the Undoing of Adam_. And there's another paper called "Bearing Our Scorn: Jesus and the Way of Trinitarian Life" that follows that book, and so that's almost a trilogy. That paper's available on our site for free right now.

**JMF:** That's thegreatdance.org.

**CBK:** Yeah, go to _thegreatdance.org,_ and it will take you to the mother ship i.e., thegreatdance.org will link you to perichoresis.org, where the paper is available]. [It's also at [ https://web.archive.org/web/20150413164527/http://perichoresis.org/downloads/free-essays/4-bearing-our-scorn/file.]

**JMF:** In the book on page 29, you begin chapter 5 with this, "Reconciliation is not about Jesus suffering punishment so that the invisible, faceless, and nameless God up there somewhere can forgive us [which is very much in the back of the minds of many people] — it is about the Father's forgiveness, in action, entering into our estrangement and its hell, penetrating the fundamental problem of sin. As James Torrance would say, 'The Father does not have to be conditioned into being gracious,'" and you say, 'There is no sense in which he needs to be coerced in order to forgive," which is so much...

When we pray it's like we beg, and we're not sure he'll forgive us, so we beg some more. And we keep on saying it until we finally get it out in some way that kind of almost convinces us that maybe that was good enough — like we're asking the boss for a raise or something. "Forgiveness is first," you write, "Overflowing out of the way in which the Father, Son, and Spirit love one another. From this forgiveness arises passion for it to be known and received."

**CBK:** That, to me, is at the core of a proper view of reconciliation and atonement. Adam and Eve sinned, they failed, they hid from God. In falling, they had already become ashamed, and then they projected their shame onto God. They became guilty, they projected their guilt onto God. So they're creating a mythological deity in their heads. That's who they're hiding from, because the Lord is the greatest philanthropist in the world, and how on earth could you possibly think evil of the Lord who had created all of this and given this to them, but in two seconds they go from being believers in the goodness of the Lord to actually believing he is the enemy to be avoided at all costs.

So, for me, the question from Genesis 3 all the way through the book is: how is the Lord actually going to reach Adam and Eve in their darkness and in the bushes? Forgiveness is not about how can we do something to get God off our backs or change God. That's the whole fallen mind's view of forgiveness. The Father, Son, and Spirit forgive us the minute that we sin, that we failed. But they see that we can't receive that, that we can't believe that, that we're not about to say okay, I've been forgiven, I want to have a relationship again. So they're trying to find a way to take that forgiveness and earth it inside of us in our darkness so that we can actually experience it.

They're not going to rest with some legal fiction where the Father says, okay Jesus, enough suffering, I forgive them, because that doesn't do a thing for Adam and Eve in the bushes. They're still scared to death. There's no communion. So forgiveness, and J.B. Torrance is right about this, forgiveness is first, and then comes a determination on God's part and the Father, Son, and Spirit's part, that we actually get to the place to where we can receive it and experience it as forgiveness. The whole Bible is about that passage — to incarnate the forgiving love of the Father, Son, and Spirit so that we can get to the place where we can experience that love as love and forgiveness that it is. We've turned the whole thing upside down in the Western world with our legalisms. It's pathetic, terrible.

**JMF:** So the gospel is about restoration of relationships, not about keeping laws and rules.

**CBK:** It's completely about relationship. Always has been, always will be. We're the ones that have created this system where we think somehow God needs to be changed. I think the entire Old Testament sacrificial system was never for God's benefit. It was never designed to placate an angry God — it was always designed to let Israel know that there is a way of forgiveness here just long enough so that we could have a little bit of relationship.

In the end, the guilty conscience is never addressed in Israel's sacrificial system, and it's addressed in Jesus because the way he comes to have a relationship with us and the way he deals with our guilty conscience is he actually allows us to dump our guilt on him. We brutalize him and humiliate him, and he accepts us, thereby meeting us as we actually are in our brokenness.

He can deal with the guilty conscience because he's standing inside it with his love for Papa and with his love for the anointing in the Holy Spirit. That seems to me to be the heart of the early church, although it's a very modern way of saying it. It's not an early church way of saying it, but it's the same values, the same understanding, I think, as the early church — non-legal, relational, passionate about adoption, we're going to do this, we're going to pay the price of whatever it costs in order to meet the human race in this darkness and confusion.

**JMF:** Of all the books that you've written, is there one that you can point at and say, that's the one that gave me the most satisfaction, and I felt like I really got across... I'm sure all of them have a degree of that...but is there one special one that stands out to you?

**CBK:** If you forced me to say it, I would say that the little book which was originally two chapters, but the InterVarsity edition of _The Parable of the Dancing God_. It's a little pocket book. It cuts into the Western legalistic vision of God. It helps people see the goodness of Jesus' Father. That's the whole gospel to me. So if you force me to pick one book, I would pick that one.

Then I would pick sections in other books, like the first chapter of _God Is for Us._ I think probably everything I've ever known is crammed into one little sequence on adoption and total purpose. And then the book _Home_ is on John 14:20, which is my favorite verse. It's about what we're really longing for — to participate in life in the Father, Son, and Spirit.

In some ways my favorite of all is _The Secret,_ because it was the hardest thing I ever wrote, and it's like I was determined to get it in 20 pages, because it was way more difficult to write than a 300-page book. There's sections in _Across All Worlds,_ sections of _The Great Dance_ , but if I had to pick one book, it would be _The Parable of the Dancing God,_ which, by the way, is now in Portuguese and Chinese, and it's being translated into Spanish, and it's already been translated into German, but we're getting that translation verified. It just has a life of its own.

**JMF:** You call it _Parable of the Dancing God_ and then also your other book, _The Great Dance_.

**CBK:** Right. You'd think I was a dancer...

**JMF:** Yeah. How does the word "dance" figure in these titles?

**CBK:** The story of the prodigal son...the shocking, stunning part of the story is the father's love for the boy, and he's embarrassing himself by running, which you don't do in that culture as an elder statesman. He's dancing in joy over the return of his son, so there's a reason [the book is titled] _Parable of the Dancing God_ because the whole story is about who God really is...

Jesus is in conflict with the Pharisees, and he's saying, look guys, you're hurting these people by telling them that my Father is like this, and this, and this. You're wrong, sit down and be quiet. I'm going to tell you some stories here about who God really is and what God is really like. So that comes to me as just an obvious way of talking about God the Father in this story here — as a dancing God.

Then some years later I wrote _The Great Dance_. That's a sweeping panoramic book that goes from why God made us, who we are, what's going on, how our lives work, and why the Trinity...that God is Father, Son, and Spirit, created us to share in that adoption, those main themes. But I was looking for a central metaphor that could capture some of that. That phrase, the great dance, is used in various places in history, particularly though in a couple places in C.S. Lewis, where he calls it not _the_ great dance but a kind of drama or dance where he talks about we are going to be filled with the three-person life of the Trinity. That's at the back of _Mere Christianity._

Some people think that the word _perichoresis_ means dance, which it actually doesn't, but some people try to translate it that way, so there's some confusion there. T.F. Torrance asked me about that, and he said he didn't understand. He didn't like the concept of "the great dance" close to "perichoresis" because it seemed like I was supporting the view that _perichoresis_ means _the great dance,_ and it doesn't. It means mutual indwelling, it means creating space for one another and dwelling in one another. But that is just a metaphor that came to me, and it seemed like it worked on many levels with different people. I knew the Baptists don't particularly like it, but...

**JMF:** Well, the prodigal son, when he comes home, and the first thing the father does is give him all the emblems of sonship while he's expecting or only barely hoping for slaveship so he can get a meal. He gets the shoes, he gets the ring, he gets the robe — he's the son. And the celebration is a dance, a party is thrown.

**CBK:** A huge one. So that emerges there, and then this one is just, I was thinking, trying to think of a single image that captured something of the part of the heart of that book. I came to that, and it was brought up to its own in that sense.

**JMF:** I think Madeline L'Engle and others have used the analogy of the great harmonies, the song of the universe, the harmonies of the stars or however she puts it...

**CBK:** Spheres.

**JMF:** ...that depict a similar kind of a concept — of this everything working together and being part of a great...

**CBK:** There's a book on physics called _The Cosmic Dance,_ where he [Giuseppe Del Re] says in his book that physics has come to know that the Newtonian model (that the universe is like a great huge organized machine) is a metaphor that doesn't really work in the way that the universe really is. He says scientists have come now to see that the universe is more like a great dance. That's the actual words that he uses. So it's been around.

I wanted something that captured that vitality and the beauty and the goodness of the life of the Father, Son and Spirit and helped us see that that's why they made us, is that we could be part of it. To find a single metaphor is hard to do.

**JMF:** Sure. All the most beautiful things that human beings experience...you can look at, that give you joy, whether it's a beautiful panorama of a wonderful scene of night sky...you can see beauty, you can hear beauty in great music and experience movement...dancing is something everybody can do, but not everybody can play great baseball or racquetball or whatever. Dancing is something that everybody can do. Regardless of your skill level, everybody can sway to the music, tap their foot, get into the movement, feel like they're a part of a dance.

To me the beauty of it is that all those good things we can experience...and they're all in the context of sharing it with others. You look at a great thing and you think, you think of the people you care about the most — wow, I wish my wife could see this, or boy, I know who would really like to see this. We take pictures so we can share them with other people. It's like I can't take this in alone. This is something that's bigger than me. But all this is built into the fabric of the universe by the author of the universe who is in this dynamic love relationship that's of a movement — an inner penetration that never ceases.

**CBK:** The great dance is an image that helps us think of vitality in music and movement and life. It helps us begin to realize that this is what's going on inside of us. It's not necessarily just dancing. It is vitality. In the very beginning of the book, I talk about the river of living water that seems to be flowing through all of life that I experienced when I was 12 years old on my bicycle, that I knew playing baseball, that I knew in romances — something ancient and vast and deep and beautiful is running through the middle of all this, that all of this is a part of.

Then in time I came to call that not just the river of living water but to call that the great dance. It's just saying that's the life of the Trinity. That's the river running through it all, is the life of the Trinity and the music of the Trinity, the beauty of the glory of the goodness and the light and the fellowship to come out of it. That's what's being given to us in Jesus. The great dance alights and is seeking to come to expression in millions of ways in us as persons, unique ways as persons. It's the Trinitarian life, it's the great dance, it's the river of life, and it flows from the Father, Son, and Spirit relationship.

**JMF:** Isn't that where we feel the joy? When we feel joy, as opposed to say, happiness, or a temporary sense of pleasure in something. But a sense of abiding joy comes from that place.

**CBK:** It's the same as we were talking about, you know, with respect to our participation. Our sharing in the life of the Father, Son, and Spirit doesn't look the same way for everybody, but this is the source of it. For some people it's going to be passion for whales, and for some people it's going to be passion for their families and fatherhood and motherhood — making things, caring for people, being a human person engaged in caring for the poor. This is all the ways in which that life of the Father, Son, and Spirit is being shared with us, and we're expressing it in unique and diverse ways.

Learning to see that for what it really is is not just some people being good and therefore because the "save the whales" people care about the whales, and the rest of us don't, they're therefore better than the woman who cares about making bread for her neighbors. And vice-versa.

A lot of times if somebody cares about seeing that dogs aren't mistreated in town, people will tend to say well, there are _people_ being mistreated in town. How can you care about the dogs? And yet, everybody has their own journey, their path, and their makeup that allows them to be an expression in a certain way.

**CBK:** That's right. If you can recognize it, then you can see the genuine burden of people who are concerned for whales and the burden of the people who are concerned for stray dogs and animals that are being abused. You can see the genuineness there, which is the life of the Father, Son, and Spirit, and you can see the abuse of that. But if you can recognize it for what it is and not let it become a competitive superiority/inferiority kind of thing — now I recognize who this is, and I even recognize it on Sunday morning and the preacher's stammering attempt to talk about grace. I can hear it in a 5-year-old girl's attempt to play the piano. It's not perfect, it's not professional, it's not technically correct, but there's something going on in it that's really good, that's really beautiful, and that's the life of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

You see it in the people's care for an animal. You see it in people who are growing crops in Kansas to feed the rest of the world and the people who are concerned for the whales. That's just beautiful. That's where your eyes are opened and you start seeing Jesus and his Father and the Holy Spirit everywhere all around us. I tell people, you've got to take your church glasses off. You've got to take your secular humanity glasses off and look at what's going on — the river of living water, the life of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

The great dance that they share is in us, and is seeking to express itself in us and in our lives in very unique and beautiful ways. Honor it, respect it. Relate to _that,_ not to whether or not the person has degrees, or education, or money, or prestige, or lives in this part of town, or is this race, or is this sex, or whatever. Relate to the life of the Father, Son, and Spirit and honor that that you see emerging, and help it. Help it come forward, because it will be a blessing for all of us when it comes forward. That's what I see.

**JMF:** That's the same thing Paul said when he talked about Christ in us — the hope of glory.

**CBK:** Exactly. Colossians, where he says, "The mystery has been hidden, God has made known and given to me to proclaim Christ in you. The mystery is Christ in you, the hope of glory." The hope of being included in the glory of God has been given to us in Jesus, because he's come to dwell in us and share his life with us.

There's a huge pressure that gets taken off of us on our religious side when we realize that we're already included and that Jesus did this. He just says, trust me, walk with me, and you'll bear fruit in this that you can't even conceive of without even trying to bear fruit just from walking with me. There's a great relief of not having to be the person who gets everybody saved... I'm free to be me and I'm free to help the farmer be the farmer.

**JMF:** And that means that Christ is in everything we do. We can take joy in his presence even in our leisure activities, our sports, or whatever...our cooking, our sitting down to eat.

**CBK:** This striving that you see in so much Christianity is not Jesus. This is coming from darkness. There are times when the Christian life is painful, there are times when it's full of burden. But the striving to make these things happen for God is from the darkness. Jesus says, "come to me when you want out from that, and I'll give you rest for your souls. Come walk with me, take my yoke on you, I'll show you how to have some fun here _and_ get some stuff done. I'll show you how you can get water and I can change it into wine." Now you try that all you want at home, but you're not going to get from the water to the wine, because that's what he does.

He says participate in me, walk with me, I'm gentle, I'm humble in heart. I'm not about servitude and all this striving and keeping everything right for God. That's just not how this works. You come walk with me and we're going to go fishing tomorrow. You come walk with me, we may bake bread for your neighbor tomorrow or we may make a fishing lure, or we may write a book, or we might just sleep in, and we might care deeply about people who are in Thailand who are being trafficked...kids that are being taken away and sent into sex trades. We may get very involved in that. I've got plenty of people I've got involved. But you walk with me, I'm not going to wear you down, because it's my responsibility, I'm just going to give you a part in it. It's beautiful. You'll get way more done walking with me this way than you will striving to get everything right for God and keeping everything right for God.

That's sometimes I think why people are just so put off with Christianity — we talk about the joy of the Lord, you know? It's like, give me a break! Let's just have a vision where we can recognize the life of the Father, Son, and Sprit emerging in people, and we want to help that. We see how it's getting turned over here, and we're opposed to that. What are we going to do about that? Let's ask Jesus what he's doing about it and participate. It's just way simpler. It's not as complicated now, and the straining and striving is very burdensome, very not Jesus. It's our fallen imagination.

**JMF:** Well, thanks for your time again. It's been great to have you here, great to talk, and we appreciate all the good stuff.

**CBK:** Great to be back. Make sure you tell Joe, Tony, and the boys and folks I said hello. Good to be with you.

**JMF:** We've been talking with Dr. C. Baxter Kruger, founder and director of _perichoresis.org._ I'm Mike Feazell for _You're Included._

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## About the Publisher...

Grace Communion International is a Christian denomination with about 50,000 members, worshiping in about 900 congregations in almost 100 nations and territories. We began in 1934 and our main office is in North Carolina. In the United States, we are members of the National Association of Evangelicals and similar organizations in other nations. We welcome you to visit our website at www.gci.org.

If you want to know more about the gospel of Jesus Christ, we offer help. First, we offer weekly worship services in hundreds of congregations worldwide. Perhaps you'd like to visit us. A typical worship service includes songs of praise, a message based on the Bible, and opportunity to meet people who have found Jesus Christ to be the answer to their spiritual quest. We try to be friendly, but without putting you on the spot. We do not expect visitors to give offerings—there's no obligation. You are a guest.

To find a congregation, write to one of our offices, phone us or visit our website. If we do not have a congregation near you, we encourage you to find another Christian church that teaches the gospel of grace.

We also offer personal counsel. If you have questions about the Bible, salvation or Christian living, we are happy to talk. If you want to discuss faith, baptism or other matters, a pastor near you can discuss these on the phone or set up an appointment for a longer discussion. We are convinced that Jesus offers what people need most, and we are happy to share the good news of what he has done for all humanity. We like to help people find new life in Christ, and to grow in that life. Come and see why we believe it's the best news there could be!

Our work is funded by members of the church who donate part of their income to support the gospel. Jesus told his disciples to share the good news, and that is what we strive to do in our literature, in our worship services, and in our day-to-day lives.

If this e-book has helped you and you want to pay some expenses, all donations are gratefully welcomed, and in several nations, are tax-deductible. If you can't afford to give anything, don't worry about it. It is our gift to you. To make a donation online, go to www.gci.org/participate/donate.

Thank you for letting us share what we value most — Jesus Christ. The good news is too good to keep it to ourselves.

See our website for hundreds of articles, locations of our churches, addresses in various nations, audio and video messages, and much more.

Grace Communion International  
3129 Whitehall Park Dr.

Charlotte, NC 28273-3335

1-800-423-4444

www.gci.org

### You're Included...

We talk with leading Trinitarian theologians about the good news that God loves you, wants you, and includes you in Jesus Christ. Most programs are about 28 minutes long. Our guests have included:

Ray Anderson, Fuller Theological Seminary

Douglas A. Campbell, Duke Divinity School

Elmer Colyer, U. of Dubuque Theological Seminary

Gordon Fee, Regent College

Trevor Hart, University of St. Andrews

George Hunsinger, Princeton Theological Seminary

Jeff McSwain, Reality Ministries

Paul Louis Metzger, Multnomah University

Paul Molnar, St. John's University

Cherith Fee Nordling, Antioch Leadership Network

Andrew Root, Luther Seminary

Alan Torrance, University of St. Andrews

Robert T. Walker, Edinburgh University

N.T. Wright, University of St. Andrews

William P. Young, author of _The Shack_

Programs are available free for viewing and downloading at www.youreincluded.org.

### Speaking of Life...

Dr. Joseph Tkach, president of Grace Communion International, comments each week, giving a biblical perspective on how we live in the light of God's love. Most programs are about three minutes long – available in video, audio, and text. Go to www.speakingoflife.org.

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##

Grace Communion Seminary

Ministry based on the life and love of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

Grace Communion Seminary serves the needs of people engaged in Christian service who want to grow deeper in relationship with our Triune God and to be able to more effectively serve in the church.

Why study at Grace Communion Seminary?

 Worship: to love God with all your mind.

 Service: to help others apply truth to life.

 Practical: a balanced range of useful topics for ministry.

 Trinitarian theology: a survey of theology with the merits of a Trinitarian perspective. We begin with the question, "Who is God?" Then, "Who are we in relationship to God?" In this context, "How then do we serve?"

 Part-time study: designed to help people who are already serving in local congregations. There is no need to leave your current ministry. Full-time students are also welcome.

 Flexibility: your choice of master's level continuing education courses or pursuit of a degree: Master of Pastoral Studies or Master of Theological Studies.

 Affordable, accredited study: Everything can be done online.

For more information, go to www.gcs.edu. Grace Communion Seminary is accredited by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission, www.deac.org. The Accrediting Commission is listed by the U.S. Department of Education as a nationally recognized accrediting agency.

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## Ambassador College of Christian Ministry

Want to better understand God's Word? Want to know the Triune God more deeply? Want to share more joyously in the life of the Father, Son and Spirit? Want to be better equipped to serve others?

Among the many resources that Grace Communion International offers are the training and learning opportunities provided by ACCM. This quality, well-structured Christian Ministry curriculum has the advantage of being very practical and flexible. Students may study at their own pace, without having to leave home to undertake full-time study.

This denominationally recognized program is available for both credit and audit study. At minimum cost, this online Diploma program will help students gain important insights and training in effective ministry service. Students will also enjoy a rich resource for personal study that will enhance their understanding and relationship with the Triune God.

Diploma of Christian Ministry classes provide an excellent introductory course for new and lay pastors. Pastor General Dr. Joseph Tkach said, "We believe we have achieved the goal of designing Christian ministry training that is practical, accessible, interesting, and doctrinally and theologically mature and sound. This program provides an ideal foundation for effective Christian ministry."

For more information, go to www.ambascol.org

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