The Present Christ - Part 2

Rethinking a Faith Built on Distance

There is a question that does not get asked nearly enough in the life of a believer: What if the Christ we have been waiting for has already arrived?

For generations, the church has carried a particular posture toward the promises of God, hands outstretched, eyes fixed on the horizon, voices singing about a sweet and distant by-and-by. It is a posture rooted in genuine faith and sincere longing. But what if that posture, as well-intentioned as it is, has caused us to miss something extraordinary happening right in front of us?

This is not a question designed to unsettle. It is a question designed to open a door.

The Problem With a Distant God

Throughout history, the people of God have wrestled with the same recurring struggle: when God shows up, He rarely looks the way they expected. The Jewish people longed for a king who would overthrow their oppressors. What they received was a carpenter's son who overturned tables and spoke in parables. He was the answer to everything they had prayed for, and they missed Him because He did not match their theological expectations.

This is not simply an ancient problem. It is a present one.

When we build our entire spiritual framework around a Christ who is perpetually coming but never quite here, we risk doing the very same thing. We reject the present answer because we are so committed to a future one. We explain away the miraculous possibilities of today by deferring them to a tomorrow that never seems to arrive. And in doing so, we leave people around us, people who are suffering, hopeless, and searching, without the most important truth they could ever hear: He is not just coming. He is here.

Theology Versus Truth

It is worth making a distinction that changes everything. Theology is what human beings believe about God. Scripture is what God has actually said. The two are not the same. Theologies shift and change. Organizations revise them annually, adjusting their positions to accommodate the pressures of the moment. But the truth of who God is, who His Son is, and what His Spirit does, that does not shift or change.

The danger is not in having a theology. The danger is in treating a theology as though it were the final word, and then closing your heart to anything the Spirit might want to show you beyond it.

Holy Spirit is described in John 16:13 as one who guides believers into all truth, not some truth, not the truth you already know, but all truth. The word "guides" implies movement. It implies that you have not yet arrived. It implies that there is more ahead of you than behind you, and that the guide is present and active, not distant and waiting.

What Marriage Reveals About the Present Christ

Scripture uses the covenant of marriage to illuminate something profound about the relationship between Christ and the church. Genesis 2:24 and Matthew 19:5 both describe a man leaving his father and mother to be joined to his wife, the two becoming one flesh. This is not merely a social arrangement. It is a picture of something eternal.

Christ left His Father. He came. He gave Himself. He was joined to His bride. Ephesians 5:25-27 makes this explicit, describing how Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, not to be reunited with her someday, but to sanctify her, cleanse her, and present her to Himself whole and without blemish. This is not the language of a distant groom. This is the language of a present one.

Consider what happens in a marriage when the husband is perpetually absent. Wholeness does not come through distance. Healing does not arrive in a letter. The work of sanctifying, cleansing, and making whole requires presence. It requires closeness. It requires the kind of unity that only comes when two have truly become one.

If this is the picture Scripture gives us of Christ and the church, then a faith built on a far-off Christ is a faith that misses the very nature of the relationship it is meant to describe.

Clouds, Air, and Atmosphere

First Thessalonians 4:16-17 is one of the most frequently cited passages when it comes to discussions about the return of Christ. It speaks of the Lord descending, the dead in Christ rising, and believers being caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. For many, this passage is read as a description of a future physical event in a distant sky.

But the Greek word translated as both "clouds" and "air" in this passage carries the meaning of atmosphere. And atmosphere is not a single, fixed location. There are many atmospheres. The atmosphere of a room filled with worship. The atmosphere of a home filled with peace. The atmosphere of a life filled with the presence of God.

Paul wrote these words to the Thessalonian church, a young, grieving congregation worried about loved ones who had died. They feared those people had been lost, cut off from the promises of Christ. Paul's response was not to tell them to wait longer. His response was to give them hope. He was pointing them toward an atmosphere in Christ where death does not have the final word, where the separation they feared was not what it appeared to be, and where the presence of God was more immediate and more real than their grief had allowed them to see.

Receiving What Is Already Present

The invitation in all of this is not to abandon hope in the promises of God. It is to expand your understanding of where those promises live. All of heaven is within Christ. First Corinthians 12:27 says that believers are the body of Christ. Ephesians 1:22-23 describes the church as the fullness of Him who fills all in all. You cannot separate the body from the head and call what remains complete.

A present Christ is actually present. He is not waiting on the other side of some future event to begin His work in you. He is here, in your atmosphere, doing exactly what a devoted groom does, sanctifying, cleansing, and drawing His bride into wholeness.

The question worth sitting with today is simply this: What would change in your life if you stopped waiting for Him to arrive and started receiving what He has already brought?

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[Section 1] label="Main" scheme=0

The Bride and Body of Christ

The Present Christ - Part 2

Rethinking a Faith Built on Distance

There is a question that does not get asked nearly enough in the life of a believer: What if the Christ we have been waiting for has already arrived?

For generations, the church has carried a particular posture toward the promises of God, hands outstretched, eyes fixed on the horizon, voices singing about a sweet and distant by-and-by. It is a posture rooted in genuine faith and sincere longing. But what if that posture, as well-intentioned as it is, has caused us to miss something extraordinary happening right in front of us?

This is not a question designed to unsettle. It is a question designed to open a door.

The Problem With a Distant God

Throughout history, the people of God have wrestled with the same recurring struggle: when God shows up, He rarely looks the way they expected. The Jewish people longed for a king who would overthrow their oppressors. What they received was a carpenter's son who overturned tables and spoke in parables. He was the answer to everything they had prayed for, and they missed Him because He did not match their theological expectations.

This is not simply an ancient problem. It is a present one.

When we build our entire spiritual framework around a Christ who is perpetually coming but never quite here, we risk doing the very same thing. We reject the present answer because we are so committed to a future one. We explain away the miraculous possibilities of today by deferring them to a tomorrow that never seems to arrive. And in doing so, we leave people around us, people who are suffering, hopeless, and searching, without the most important truth they could ever hear: He is not just coming. He is here.

Theology Versus Truth

It is worth making a distinction that changes everything. Theology is what human beings believe about God. Scripture is what God has actually said. The two are not the same. Theologies shift and change. Organizations revise them annually, adjusting their positions to accommodate the pressures of the moment. But the truth of who God is, who His Son is, and what His Spirit does, that does not shift or change.

The danger is not in having a theology. The danger is in treating a theology as though it were the final word, and then closing your heart to anything the Spirit might want to show you beyond it.

Holy Spirit is described in John 16:13 as one who guides believers into all truth, not some truth, not the truth you already know, but all truth. The word "guides" implies movement. It implies that you have not yet arrived. It implies that there is more ahead of you than behind you, and that the guide is present and active, not distant and waiting.

What Marriage Reveals About the Present Christ

Scripture uses the covenant of marriage to illuminate something profound about the relationship between Christ and the church. Genesis 2:24 and Matthew 19:5 both describe a man leaving his father and mother to be joined to his wife, the two becoming one flesh. This is not merely a social arrangement. It is a picture of something eternal.

Christ left His Father. He came. He gave Himself. He was joined to His bride. Ephesians 5:25-27 makes this explicit, describing how Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, not to be reunited with her someday, but to sanctify her, cleanse her, and present her to Himself whole and without blemish. This is not the language of a distant groom. This is the language of a present one.

Consider what happens in a marriage when the husband is perpetually absent. Wholeness does not come through distance. Healing does not arrive in a letter. The work of sanctifying, cleansing, and making whole requires presence. It requires closeness. It requires the kind of unity that only comes when two have truly become one.

If this is the picture Scripture gives us of Christ and the church, then a faith built on a far-off Christ is a faith that misses the very nature of the relationship it is meant to describe.

Clouds, Air, and Atmosphere

First Thessalonians 4:16-17 is one of the most frequently cited passages when it comes to discussions about the return of Christ. It speaks of the Lord descending, the dead in Christ rising, and believers being caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. For many, this passage is read as a description of a future physical event in a distant sky.

But the Greek word translated as both "clouds" and "air" in this passage carries the meaning of atmosphere. And atmosphere is not a single, fixed location. There are many atmospheres. The atmosphere of a room filled with worship. The atmosphere of a home filled with peace. The atmosphere of a life filled with the presence of God.

Paul wrote these words to the Thessalonian church, a young, grieving congregation worried about loved ones who had died. They feared those people had been lost, cut off from the promises of Christ. Paul's response was not to tell them to wait longer. His response was to give them hope. He was pointing them toward an atmosphere in Christ where death does not have the final word, where the separation they feared was not what it appeared to be, and where the presence of God was more immediate and more real than their grief had allowed them to see.

Receiving What Is Already Present

The invitation in all of this is not to abandon hope in the promises of God. It is to expand your understanding of where those promises live. All of heaven is within Christ. First Corinthians 12:27 says that believers are the body of Christ. Ephesians 1:22-23 describes the church as the fullness of Him who fills all in all. You cannot separate the body from the head and call what remains complete.

A present Christ is actually present. He is not waiting on the other side of some future event to begin His work in you. He is here, in your atmosphere, doing exactly what a devoted groom does, sanctifying, cleansing, and drawing His bride into wholeness.

The question worth sitting with today is simply this: What would change in your life if you stopped waiting for Him to arrive and started receiving what He has already brought?