Transformation: The Death of the Principled.

"God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin."

St. John the Beloved

It is self-justification that holds the individual in darkness. This darkness is not a conceptual reality or a principle, but a relational position. The truth here is grace that enables us to commune in relationship with the Risen Lord, the living Christ Jesus. This grace is not an ideal, a principle, nor a proposition to accept, but it is an affirmation through relationship. Transformation only comes through relationship because it is only through relationship that the deep recesses of a heart are opened. It is not an intellectual assent to proper doctrine; nor is it through the study and application of knowledge that the structure of the heart is reformed; it is fellowship with Jesus alone that purifies a heart. Again, this is not just a theological ideal, but an ideal reality brought forth by trusting in the person of Jesus. The Jesus who knows the depths of evil in a person, and yet, faithfully forgives and accepts that person as he is.

The reason we do not experience transformation is because we do not have true fellowship with Jesus through the Gospel. There is no room for self-justification in fellowship with the One who freely justified the sinner by his costly sacrifice. It is trust that is the foundation for fellowship. For trust moves a person out of hiding and into the light. It is imperative that the individual trust in the loving embrace of Christ, because trust is the mechanism that enables a heart to receive the unbound love and grace of God. If you do not trust me, it does not matter how much I love you, because you cannot receive it. Trust is the door through which love must pass.

Darkness is the heart hidden from God; there self-justification prevails as sin remains unresolved. Grace is the means by which a person possesses fellowship with a God who resolves sin through forgiveness. Fear is the enemy of grace. John the Beloved knew that it is only love experienced in fellowship that can transform a self-justifying heart when he warned, "The one who fears is not made perfect in love" (4:18). Fear is conjured by performance, and no person can be in intimacy with Christ through merit. The goal of grace is intimacy. It is a a relational environment through which we interact with God, not a doctrine or a principle. In the form of a principle, grace justifies sin but it does not justify the sinner.

If it is easier to confess our sin, reveal our weaknesses, and layout our evil thoughts to God, who is perfect and holy, sinless and just, than to confess to my brother or sister who is a sinner like me; then, we must ask ourselves why this is true. The reason is this: we live in darkness wherein self-justification thrives. We are not truly confessing to God. We are confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution (Bonhoeffer). It is confession to another that breaks the chains of self-justification.

A self-justifying man can never be known by others. He must protect his belief that he is strong, worthy, necessary. Above all, he must protect his belief that his sin is less than others. A psychic power struggle exists between individuals as each person attempts to position himself where he can obtain from others acknowledgment that he has made himself something. Confession is the destruction of pride by making sin in the form of abstraction into a concrete reality; it makes the principle of sin into the reality of my being.

"A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of another person."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The journey out of isolation and into fellowship is through the grace in which we must trust. In the fellowship of Jesus, self-justification loses its hold as a person trusts in the truth of grace which demands that he reveal himself in vulnerability to the world. Only in trust, can a person receive the purifying love of Jesus. Only in the purifying love of Jesus can a person put his trust.

It is not the knowledge of Jesus' grace that transforms.

You must trust in the grace of Jesus.

When you trust in the grace of Jesus, you will experience fellowship.

When you experience fellowship, you will be perfected through his Love.