The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God

by Dallas Willard

We should be aware of, roughly, five dimensions of our eternal kind of life in The Kingdom Among Us, and these dimensions more or less arrange themselves in the following progression: Confidence in and reliance upon Jesus as “the Son of man,” the one appointed to save us. Relevant scriptural passages here are John 3:15; Rom. 10:9–10; and 1 Cor. 12:3. This confidence is a reality, and it is itself a true manifestation of the “life from above,” not of normal human capacities. It is, as Heb. 11:1 says, “the proof of things not seen.” Anyone who truly has this confidence can be completely assured that they are “included.” But this confidence in the person of Jesus naturally leads to a desire to be his apprentice in living in and from the kingdom of God. Only a sustained historical process involving many confusions and false motivations could lead to our current situation, in which faith in Jesus is thought to have no natural connection with discipleship to him. Our apprenticeship to him means that we live within his word, that is, put his teachings into practice (John 8:31). And this progressively integrates our entire existence into the glorious world of eternal living. We become “free indeed” (John 8:36). The abundance of life realized through apprenticeship to Jesus, “continuing in his word,” naturally leads to obedience. The teaching we have received and our experience of living with it brings us to love Jesus and the Father with our whole being: heart, soul, mind, and (bo...