[aron]

My formative views were affected by being in the LC.. my initial (LC) view was that all were saved, came thru the water & cloud & fire but many (most) perished in the wilderness. (cf 1 Cor 10; Heb 3) They were saved (grace) from Egypt but not saved (faithful in good works) into the Good Land. That's the LC view that I remember. Kinda-sorta saved. Redeemed but not overcoming, not reigning in life.

But then I looked at Moses. Fell in the Wilderness, yet with Christ on the Mountain in Transfiguration. I guess dying outside the Good Land was not so bad if you were on Mount Pisgah (I guess). So over time, after leaving the LC, it evolved. Today, depending on what day it is, or what hour of the day, you will get my thoughts at the moment.

Here's my recent ruminations. In anything, in our Christian universe, as delineated by Scripture text, the reality is in Christ Jesus in his relations with the Father. This is our faith, not in ourselves but in him. So I look at Scripture: I come to do Thy will, O God... Christ is 'doing' but not 'doing', really, because God is doing through Christ. That was Jesus' interpretation of Scripture, as seen in the Gospels. When Christ speaks, it is not Christ but the Father speaking thru Christ.

My point is that to Christ speaking in the Gospel accounts, it is not Christ but the Father. To Christ, there is no "I" to do any work. Christ says, "You (Father) have done this". Christ is merely the obedient vessel of the Father's work.

In some sense, his consciousness has sunk into God, where he can see nothing speak nothing do nothing but the Father's will. Now, we as believers also (by faith) see Christ in the Father. We see the eternal will of God carried out through Jesus Christ. Our will, and our consciousness, begin (fitfully and slowly, I know) to merge with his.

When Christ died, his last gurgled words were "It is finished". If you look at the end of Psalm 22, it says, He [the Father] has done it. The Father's will be done on Earth as in Heaven. There is nothing else, there is no other work. Jesus went around "doing good works" according to his companion Peter (see the gospel message in Acts 10, esp v 38), but all those good works were the Father working out through Jesus. "When you see me, you see the Father". There is only one work, that of the Father, through Jesus Christ.