Bible Bedrock
“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.” – 1 John 4:17 (New King James Version)
Jesus lived His human life, as the archetypal man, by the Father dwelling in Him (John 14:10)—which was a startling surprise to His disciples who, in their separated human outlook, expected an external revelation when they asked Him to show them the Father. And He went on to say that this was why He had come as redeemer, so that God the Spirit who was in Him would be God the Spirit in an inner unity with all who receive Him. And that was Pentecost—not the outward manifestations, which were but a means; but the end, an inner fixed consciousness of their union with Him.
Christ within. The Holy Spirit within. God dwelling in us—then in that realized union through free choice, in Christ’s cross and resurrection, the human spirit of self-centeredness is united to the divine Spirit of self-giving. “Dead to sin and alive unto God,” man becomes a human expression of God who is love—a perfectly normal man in his perfectly normal environment with his normal human reactions and human weaknesses, yet with God’s strength made perfect in weakness.
But God as the Person can only be a person through persons, so that in this living union in Christ, as He is limitless love so we are love in endless variety of expression, for “as He is, so are we in this world.”
