The great divide that occurred between the church of the east and west was centuries in the making. Sociopolitical differences, language, culture and doctrine all played a part in what eventually resulted in what we call the The Great Schism of 1054.
In my journey back into the history of the church, one thing I am seeing more and more is that the differences in the way Christianity is practiced comes down to this one place in history.
Lauren Green, in the foreward of Hank Hanegraaff’s book, Truth Matters, Life Matters More, says, “Jesus’ church suffers for what divides us. Because a long the way, through two thousand years, his adherents have tacitly echoed Pilate’s rhetorical query, ‘What is truth?'” Incremental departures from the truth of Christ’s Church have created wide fissures, first dividing West from East, then Protestants from Roman Catholic. Then a plethora of Protestant denominations, where today the fissures are still splintering off more microdenominations based on things that have nothing to do with the truth of the gospel but have more to do with the human desires; where feelings have replaced facts.”
My intellectual and spiritual journey has increased my appetite for truth. I don’t want more fissures. I don’t want more division. I want more truth, absent from human desires. And despite my feelings or even other’s opinions, I want facts to bring a deeper connection to my Creator for me personally but even more for the church that is my Lord’s.
The Gnostics of early Christianity perpetuated the belief that flesh is bad and spiritual is good. This heresy tainted basic doctrine on things like the goodness of the material world, the dual nature of Christ being both God and man and the virgin birth.
The West has been deeply influenced by this philosophy. The practice of mortification of the flesh and self- flagellation developed to punish the flesh and subdue it rather than nurture it as the temple in which God dwells (1 Cor 6:19-20).
The remnants of this still reach us today.
Flesh is something to shed not something God will transform.
A couple years ago during my Uncle Pat’s memorial service, the pastor so emphatically declared the bodily resurrection that he even spelled out B-O-D-Y. That challenged some of the undeveloped theories swirling around in the back of my mind. I am pretty sure I have said, “One day I’ll get a new body.”
Guess what. That’s not true. I won’t get a new body. God says clearly that he will transform this one.
Jesus told Thomas to touch him. Why? To prove he was back in a real, tangible physical body.
Paul said, We groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for… the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:24).
The Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory (Phil. 3:21).
Unfortunately, one of my favorite rousing hymns eludes to a false image of our resurrected self. “When the shadows of this life have gone, I’ll fly away; Like a bird from prison bars has flown, I’ll fly away.” Our body isn’t a prison of the soul that we will break free from.
The church of the East formed a much different view based on the fact of Jesus’ bodily resurrection. “Just as Christ’s resurrection was a physical resurrection (Luke 24:39), this general resurrection of the dead will also be a physical resurrection, a reunion of soul and body, and the return of the human person to its natural unified state.”
Here’s another beautiful and neglected fact, Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved (Eph. 2:4). We don’t have to wait to be alive in Christ. It’s happening right now.
Heaven is a destination not a place of communion of with God.
Years ago I read or heard a Francis Chan quote that has lingered with me. He asked, “Would you still want to go to heaven if God wasn’t there?”
Whoa. Would I? I am so focused on all my grief and sorrow evaporating while I run around on a gold street that I forget that it is God’s presence that eclipses the pain. One moment with him anywhere is what its about.
I’m sorry to put the songs of the last hundred years on blast, but here we go. “I’ve Got a Mansion Over the Hilltop” doesn’t mention God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit one time. Jesus does say he will prepare a place for us but we can’t forget whole point is being with him.
“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:3).
Communion is a thing to remember Jesus not experience Jesus.
This is huge. In my Protestant experience, the doctrine of transubstantiation is ridiculed. I don’t understand it. I can’t elaborate. But I believe that, while Jesus did say, “do this in remembrance of me” he also said, “this is my body” and “this is my blood.”
Saint Paul developed this a bit further in his letter to the church in Corinth. “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16).
If we simplify the partaking of the bread and the cup to a symbol that represents Christ, we dishonor him and the divine call to participate in the body and the blood.
With that, my journey will continue. I continue to seek Christ, the way, the truth and the life.
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