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When the resurrected Jesus was exalted, he was made the Christ-King in the ultimate sense.
God designed creation in such a way that it requires not just divine rule, but embodied human rule in order to receive God’s complete glory. Creation isn’t receiving that ideal human glory until the resurrected Jesus is officially installed as the Christ. In his royal embodied capacity as a human, he can refresh creation. This refreshment happens when humans are changed by gazing on King Jesus, the ideal human.
Jesus is in the most authoritative position in the universe, at the Father’s right hand in his resurrected body, serving as our King and High Priest.
We must get the idea out of our heads that the gospel is purposed in the first instance toward personal salvation or individual rescue. God loves humans—and yes, God’s unfathomable love is the deepest reason for the gospel—but he also loves the rest of creation. Individuals are indeed rescued in God’s love by the gospel. But they are rescued in part because God needs humans to achieve his creation-wide rescue.
humanity’s choice to disobey became a deadly infection, resulting in a premature glory-failure for creation.
The gospel, then, is the start of the long-awaited heart surgery that saves creation.
the incarnation on its own does not achieve the necessary transplant. The King, through his obedient life, must be a heart replacement by being all that God intended prior humanity to be (recapitulation). He must win the victory via the cross (Christus Victor) by showing a better “by loyalty” way (moral influence) and by carrying the burden of sickness that caused the heart failure for sinful humanity (substitution).
Jesus’s resurrection and ongoing human rule are the heart transplant—the fountainhead of the new creation.
If we don’t first come to Jesus—give our primary mental and emotional attention to his glorious image—then we will never see in the experiential way necessary to bring about the transformation God desires for us. We must allow our vision of what is good, true, and beautiful to be changed by learning Jesus-shaped habits, and then we must embody these changes through discipleship.
This is how the gospel fits into the true story of the world: Within our real space-and-time history, God sent us a saving King who took on our humanity. He won the victory on the cross and was raised to rule bodily so that he could lead the charge of human transformation in order to refresh creation’s glory. So, Jesus’s transformative kingship is changing the world from top down.
we will never understand the why of the gospel until we come to appreciate how Jesus’s kingship meaningfully changes individuals as part of glory’s slow recovery in the world.
Stage 5: Transformative Viewing
These five steps describe how personal change happens through seeing.
1. The Flawless Image Appears
Jesus’s character qualities mirrored the Father’s perfectly—his mercy, justice, and goodness. “Anyone who has seen me,” Jesus declares, “has seen the Father” (John 14:9). When a person truly sees Jesus—his virtues on the inside, not his physical characteristics on the outside—they see all the Father’s qualities in a precise, concrete fashion.
the Nicene Creed asserts that although the Father begets the Son eternally, they are of the same essence or substance (homoousios). The Father, Son, and Spirit always have been, and always will be, the one true God.
2. Viewing the Ideal Image
If we want to be disciples of Jesus we need to cultivate practices that will help us enter into his presence so that we can see. Personal transformation begins when we draw near to Jesus with the intention of discipleship, so we can observe how Jesus lived.
Intentional seeing is necessary for three reasons. First, without intentionality we will only discover the Jesus who we already prefer.
Second, apart from intentionality the true Jesus will remain hidden, buried by secular agendas.
Third, unless we are singularly purposed in viewing Jesus, we will not see enough of him to have our affections changed.
Intentionality in viewing Jesus is imperative, because without it we will never discover what he loves, and why—and in so doing have our own desires forged anew.
In sum, a deliberate and accurate viewing of Jesus is an essential first step toward discipleship. Beginning with Scripture, we must look intently at how the ideal human lived—his teachings, practices, and life trajectory—if we are to have any hope that we might find ourselves reminted into his image.
since the goal is to come and see in order to become his followers, we should take special note of what Jesus explicitly taught about discipleship. What it means to be a disciple is the focus in the following subsections.
Luke 14:27). This means radically renouncing the self’s rights, prerogatives, and comforts in order to serve others—to the point of death. Luke reminds us that cross-bearing is not a once-in-a-lifetime decision, but a “daily” task (9:23).
The basic requirement for being a disciple is, as a deliberate act of loyalty and self-denial, to walk in the footsteps of your King toward the cross, trusting that it will prove to be the path to true life for yourself and others.
the path of the cross is not general self-denial but must be specifically for Jesus.
discipleship is life-giving only when a person seeks to die to the self deliberately “for my sake” and for “the gospel’s sake”
Because it unites us to his death and resurrection power, the way of the cross proves to be the path of liberation as we come under Jesus’s sovereign sway.
(Luke 14:27–30).
(Luke 14:31–32).
Half-measures will fail. Discipleship will cost your all.
the new self we gain right now is permeated by an eternal quality of life that is suited for the resurrection age
Obedience is the hallmark of genuine discipleship.
believing loyalty correlates with obedience to him.
This passage teaches us three things about obedience: First,
Jesus’s authority as King to command obedience is unrivaled.
Second,
The scope of Jesus’s demand for obedience is limitless.
Third,
Because it must be learned, Jesus’s disciples will be imperfect in their obedience.
As the climactic King, Jesus is the embodiment and culmination of all that God intended in giving his prior law.
Disciples keep Jesus’s royal law not to earn salvation, but because they are allegiant. Disciples are able to do this not through legalistic rule-keeping, but through following the Spirit’s lead.
in each case, Jesus radicalizes it to show God’s true intentions. Jesus tells his followers that they are indeed to obey the actual command. Yet they must push beyond superficial obedience in order to live out the foundational reason why God gave that law.
God doesn’t merely want a lack of murder. God wants a lack of the kind of anger and vengeful desire that results in murder.
God wants us to discern his goodness in instituting marriage and in forbidding adultery to such a degree that our lust for extramarital activities is entirely quenched.
In our King, our desire to take revenge should be so distant that we would rather be doubly wronged than to seek it.
Because the King lives out the law’s deepest intentions, disciples of Jesus press beyond superficial obedience to God’s law to a heartfelt obedience.
Jesus’s disciples are to give, pray, and fast not to earn human glory, but in a nonflamboyant fashion to win honor before God.
To imitate Jesus means to attest to Jesus’s kingship.
