Hey, Wait a Minute!

I have just finished telling you that the grasp of happiness I have been long speaking of comes from a union with God. And I had earlier told you about how the first people to have had that happiness made available to them miraculously spoke the praise of God in a language other than their own.

But your first question to me will probably be: if that actually did occur, and a union with God is possible to any human being on the planet, anywhere on the planet, why is the world still the messed up place it is? Why doesn’t it reflect that fact? And didn’t Christianity eventually go on to commit an obscenity called The Spanish Inquisition? And etc. etc. etc, ad nausuem.

This is a fair question, for which I have multiple answers.

The first answer is that when a union with eternal God occurs with a creature that still exists in time, the union takes on some of characteristics of time. I.e., beside the part of the union that is unalterable and unbreakable, there is also a process of growth over time. The apostle Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit of God as being a "down payment" at a given point in time, and not the whole lump sum at once. And the apostle Peter speaks of growing in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. Part of the union involves growth.

The second answer is that human beings still have free will. They can refuse this union. Or on entering into it, they can seriously impede its growth if they are stubborn enough. The fact is that even though the Holy Spirit of God has taken up residence in a human being, He, in a sense, shares space with that human being’s broken Chicagoland version 1.1 (or "carnal nature," or "old man," as Paul calls it).

Every person today who has this union with God through the spirit of God has to make a decision every moment of his waking life as to whether he will be ruled by the Spirit of God, or the carnal nature. And he makes this moment by moment decision on the basis of faith in the fact that it is possible. As the apostle Paul puts it:

"put off concerning the former conversation (i.e. "way of life") the old man (the carnal nature), which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind."

The quality and quantity of that decision making, and the degree of faith that each decision requires, is what makes the growth rate of the union vary from person to person. No one becomes Christ-like over night. But many people insist on remaining spiritual infants all their lives.

And my next to last answer is: not everyone who professes to have this union has this union. Christianity had started out in its original form in "the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace." But it eventually ended up with an apostle being excommunicated from his own church.

"I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not." (3 John 1:9)

This was something the apostle Paul predicted would happen in time.

"For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." (Acts 20:29-30).

And one of the startling things that the apostle Paul is on record as saying is:

"The Lord knoweth them that are his."

I.e., he himself had seen that people had started coming into the Christian assemblies who were after earthly rewards (money, status, power) rather than the union with God.

And even while the apostles were still alive this declension was on-going. And it caused Christianity to split up into hundreds of denominations and traditions, all competing with each other and being nasty to each other. It was then that the more spectacular signs of spiritual union began to fade, and Christianity became more of a private experience of the soul.

"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."

Through out the history of the Christian community, there have been individuals and institutions capable of great evil, but also individuals, who are exemplars of great good.

And my final answer is: there are still a great many people who are ignorant that this spiritual union is possible. That’s why Christian communities continue to send out missionaries to various places on the globe. This is no longer just about sending people of European descent to Africa and other places like it. In 2002 there was a visitation of African preachers to "darkest" Fort Worth, Texas, courtesy of the Church of Christ. As it is said, "Whatever goes around comes around."