12.3 Learning Christ
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Take My yoke upon you and learn out from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light (Matthew 11:29).
Before I knew my full and perfect union with the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ living as me, this injunction to “learn Christ” was entirely beyond me. I’m no good at all at “learning Christ.” Yet now, having turned around entirely upon the Mercy Seat, now become Father through me, together with me in all things, learning Christ has become something entirely different. It is no longer a question of my “getting it right,” but rather, I am simply learning what I already am.
Where I Belong. I want to continue, now, with this concept of belonging, inside “members of one another” inside the local church. Yet with this added thought, that we have before us a wondrous task, a task that will last forever, and that is to learn Christ, Christ as me, Christ as you, and Christ as us together.
You see, I, personally, belong in a classroom as a student and as a teacher. I love to teach, and I love to learn. Many teachers place “correcting” as the end goal of their teaching. My son took a writing course from such a one. He wrote his paper as best he could and received a failing grade. There was no explanation of why, nor any re-teaching. I abhor that approach to teaching.
Christ IS Many. Let’s set before our thinking the entirety of 1 Corinthians 12:14-27 in light of learning Christ as members of one another. Christ is a many-membered Body.
For in fact the body (Christ) is not one member but many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be?
But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.
Already True. Being members of one another is already true. Yet I have never known these verses to have any applicable meaning in any church experience except Christian community. And the problem in my own community experience was our Nicene theology that placed this truth of the body as something to be attained by human performance.
“Learning Christ” has nothing to do with “making Christ part of our lives.” Being members of one another is already our only reality. Our only lack is that we do not know what is. Learning Christ, then, is an ongoing unfolding of the knowledge of what we already are. Learning Christ is forever.
Our Classroom. Until we all reach [or – arrive at the destination of] the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, into being a complete or perfect man, into the measurement of the maturity of the fullness or completion of Christ (Ephesians 4:13 – JSV).
The completion of Christ is the Church, in actuality, that body described in the passage from 1 Corinthians 12. Yet the other aspects of Christ are always in full operation inside that completion. We are learning the knowledge of the Son of God and that learning very much includes learning Christ as one another. Christian Community, Church by Father, is the real classroom wherein we learn Christ.
Finding Purpose. In our present season of solitude, our learning even of Christ as me must be limited and incomplete.
Consider a spark plug. A spark plug has a knob on one end and a little hooked bar on the other end. That spark plug can learn what it is in itself all it wants, but it will never know what the knob and the bar are about in its solitude. When the spark plug is put into its place in the engine (in the body), it discovers that the knob is where another member fits. And then, wham, through its togetherness with another member, power slams through the spark plug, power it could not know by itself. And suddenly, the spark plug knows what the hooked bar on its other end is about. It’s about sending forth the piston, a nearby member, and the purpose of the car.
Working Together. And here’s the thing. That spark plug was 100% perfect in itself, “Christ as a spark plug.” Yet Christ is far more than one spark plug. And the spark plug, knowing Christ in a measure, did not know either Christ or itself until it was working together with other members and until power was flowing through it to do the work of the purpose of the car.
Now, learning the power flowing through us in the gathering together and knowing the work that is the purpose of Christ in the earth, are the subjects of upcoming sessions. Here we want to place the concept of “members of one another” into the classroom, into “learning Christ.”
A False Image. Inside the writing classroom, I am an effective, even gifted teacher. And in the college classroom, teaching writing to incoming students who did not write well, I had an enemy. The enemy of writing well was in the minds of those students, planted there by their former writing teachers, especially those inside Christian schools. That enemy was the false image of “perfect grammar” as the definition of writing.
I have never before considered this connection between writing and church, but it is completely parallel. The enemy of learning Christ in the church is the false image of a “perfect Christ,” something no one actually knows.
A False Form. The enemy of writing well is the false image of an outward form of a so-called “perfect grammar” that is contrary to the very purpose of words and writing. And thus my writing students, sitting in my classroom on the first day of the semester, believe they cannot write BECAUSE they do not know grammar.
But almost no one knows grammar – especially writers. Grammar is the field of clerks, not writers. Stephen King and John Grisham give no thought to grammar, they hire clerks to worry about grammar. The only way to really learn grammar is to be an English teacher, and most who teach grammar never connect with the purpose of writing, thus they teach a false form of writing.
From One to Another. The purpose of the flow of words is to convey a thought from my mind to your mind, so that we together can share the same thought. Sometimes my flow of words succeeds in imparting to you the thought in my mind. But often it does not. When the thought in my mind does not transfer into your mind through my words, then my effort has failed.
Christ is the connection between two humans and among many. Christ is not an image of a “perfect human.”
In the writing classroom, I set before my students a pathway of specific exercises that first instantly bypasses the enemy of “perfect grammar” in their minds. And then I lead them to prove to themselves that they are writers, that they can write well. Half way through the course, my enemy is cast down; now I can teach them to write college essays.
The Fullness of Christ. And here is the amazing thing. Once I have succeeded in leading my students to prove to themselves that they are good writers, only then does their grammar begin to improve.
Paul said that Church is the fullness of Christ, but Church is also the classroom of Christ, where we learn His knowledge. When you come into Church, that is, into Christian community, I do not measure you by some sort of “perfect Christ,” but rather, by Christ as you. I receive you in exactly the same way that Jesus receives me. And as a teacher, my goal is to convince you that every part of your life is Christ, already living as you. And my enemy is your image of a “super Christ” outside of yourself.
What You Know. The first rule of writing is to write what you know. My first assignment is to write about one’s self, but regarding a specific action experience, something the writer clearly KNOWS. Thus, in a sense, I teach them writing as them. Yes, writing begins as words flowing out of the reservoir of all words. But we know those words only as they become ourselves.
My strategy failed only once, with a man who was steeped in the religiosity of Nicene Christianity and who so believed that he was “fallen short” that he could not present himself in his words. When I rejected his convoluted religious statements and required him to present only himself, he stopped coming to class. – Contempt for the human is the rebellion of Adam.
The Purpose of Writing. Then we come to the heart of writing. Why do we write? What is our purpose in writing? My first writing assignment has a very definite purpose. I want my students to convey the entire sense of a personal action experience from their memory to their reader’s understanding. I want their readers, starting with me, to be there with them, to experience the same thing as if it is happening anew.
I have said that I do not write for you nor do I write for God, but only for myself. But what does that mean? Do I write only to put words on paper? Not at all. My whole goal in writing is to transfer my joy of the knowledge of Christ from my mind and heart to yours, that we might learn Christ together.
Effective Writing. The most effective writer I have ever read is Fyodor Dostoevsky. In one chapter in The Brothers Karamazov, the written words upon the page vanished entirely for me. The page itself was no more. I was that boy on that train track. It had become my own experience. When I finished the chapter, my mind drifted back to the fact that I was reading, and I was astonished. For the act of reading had vanished from me through the experience.
That is the purpose of writing.
Grammar is a tool to that purpose, certainly, but only one tool of many. As a tool, grammar serves its place. But if grammar becomes the master, then the purpose of writing vanishes, and it becomes only boring drivel.
(As an aside, Dostoevsky is also the most dangerous of writers, for he will take you into rebellion against God. Stephen King is most like Dostoevsky of modern writers, that’s why I don’t read Stephen King. I have no desire to go where he will take me.)
The Purpose of Christ. The purpose of Christ as every Word God speaks is Father made known. The purpose of Christ living as me is Father made known. The purpose of Christ flowing reciprocally between you and me as a Spirit of power is Father made known. The purpose of Christ as a many-membered Body, members one of another, is Father made known.
If Father is to be known by human performance, then God will never be known, and sin will continue forever. Father is known through our faith, through our confident expectation that God, in fact, IS – that all our connections together ARE Father showing Himself to all.
The Purpose of this Lesson. Now, here is my purpose in this lesson. I want to convey the understanding that life together is a classroom in which we are free to learn Christ as He is, in all that He is, in ways far beyond anything we could know of Him all by ourselves.
And my strategy as a writing teacher is to turn the student’s own mistakes into their own path to effective writing. By my faith that they can learn to write well, I turn their own mistakes to their good. Yet, every time, when I assign the final draft of their Personal Narrative, I wonder if they will really come through. And every time, I am just blown away by their final papers.
My students are effective writers.
Constructing the Roof. In most of learning Christ, I reject utterly any thought of “fixing” myself. The reason is the power of the false image of the “super Christ” to cause us to fall short in our imagination. Yet Christ is also us together. And the great enemy of life together is the “need,” coming from Adam’s pretending, to “fix” one another.
Let’s construct the sheltering roof in one overflowing picture. On one side is the solid foundation, grounded in love, of casting down all accusation against you, of receiving you as Jesus to me. And on the other side is the solid foundation, grounded in love, of the absence in me of any need to pretend or to force obligation on you (loving not a false self).
Free to Learn Christ. And from one foundation to the other is stretched the overarching roof of the governance of Christ inside of all our interaction together. And inside that sheltering roof, we give of our own supply as life to one another through the Spirit and through the acknowledgement of every good thing inside of each other.
Inside of this context we are utterly free to “learn Christ,” including every element of “learning to get along.” And we are free to learn Christ because Christ is each of our own personal stories, that is, Christ lives as us, including as all of our many mistakes. In this place alone, we are then free to “adjust” our conduct in such a way that we learn Christ together, bearing with one another in love.
Members of One Another. There are many things that are part of you, of your makeup, things of which you might be aware, but with little idea of their purpose. Those parts reveal their purpose only when you are connected to me and me to you as Christ flows among us.
We are members of one another, and we belong together, not as cogs in each other’s wheels, but together as one glorious purpose. That purpose is Father made known. To belong means to share a place together. To belong requires 100% commitment whatever the cost and 100% liberty from all imposing obligation. To belong is to be members of one another.
Where It Fits. I find myself compelled to add one final thought, to place this entire session into the whole.
I have barely scratched the surface of “members of one another.” I have dropped so many important thoughts that should have been included. And some of those things I hope to see coming into upcoming sessions. – Christ is always too much. Yet in writing this session, I have placed this phrase into my heart and understanding in a way it has never been.
We cannot learn Christ by writing or studying this course, but only by life together as members of one another. My goal in this course is to ensure that it is only Christ we are learning in our gathering together into Him.