The next pair of opposites which cannot “separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus” is: “nor angels, nor principalities” (Rom. 8:38).
There are two possible interpretations of the meaning of angels and principalities. In the world of Paul, the mystery religions, particularly Gnosticism, had built up between man and God a hierarchy of angels and principal powers as intermediaries. You could not get to God except through them. They were beneficent, but blocks on the climb to God—you had to go through them. Paul sweeps away these intermediaries when he says: “There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). We do not have to get to God—God comes to us in Christ. Jesus is a mediator only in the sense that He mediates God to us. When you take hold of Him you take hold of God. He is not a third person standing between us and God—He is God available. When we stay in Christ we stay in God. When I deepen the Christ-consciousness I deepen the God-consciousness. They do not rival or push each other out—they are One.
Men, even in Christianity, stop this side of getting in Christ and stay in themselves, in a system, in ritual, in rites and ceremonies, and feeling orphaned from God, set up intermediaries to intercede with God for them. Hence we find some Roman Catholics believe there is a hierarchy between man and God: the priest, behind the priest the church, behind the church the Virgin Mary, behind the Virgin Mary Christ, behind Christ—God! You cannot get to God except through these angels and principalities. They “separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.” The remedy? Go directly to Jesus. He is the Door.
THE PRAYER
O Divine Redeemer, so close that all I have to do is to step out of myself into Thee. In Thee I have no need of an intermediary. Thou art immediate, nothing between. So the intermediaries drop off—irrelevant. I thank Thee that in Thee I have reality. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY
I go through Jesus to everything good that this life or the next holds.
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One Response
People, “even in Christianity, stop this side of getting in Christ and stay in themselves, in a system, in ritual, in rites and ceremonies.” Even E. Stanley Jones believed that we need more than church. A church search and a religious place to perch is not enough. “Stay in Christ.” Learn to be continually conscious of His presence, power, and reality. Search: The Joy of Early Christianity.