AN OUTREACH OF IOM AMERICA | INTERNATIONAL FELLOWSHIP OF EXCHANGED LIFE
September 16, 2015 - In This Issue:
INFORMATION ON JIM FOWLER

Jim Fowler has been a pastor at the Neighborhood Church in Fallbrook, California for the last twenty-three years. His wife, Gracie, and their five children (Philip, Charis, Kirsten, Sarah and Sandi) have been very supportive in Jim's teaching, preaching, and writing ministries.

Jim's educational background includes Manhattan Christian College, Friends University, New College-University of Edinburgh, Bethel Theological Seminary, Palomar College, and Jubilee Theological Institute.

In recent years, Jim has spent much of his time writing, as can be viewed within the resources of his website. He is currently researching and writing several other articles and books.

 Feel free to contact him at [email protected] 

 

Practical Studies
"The purpose of Jesus' incarnational advent and His ministry here on earth as a man was not to establish a new religion, nor to inculcate a new teaching, nor to lay down a new morality system. Jesus came to bring Himself, the presence and dynamic of His own divine being, expressed in the humanity of one perfect man, so that He might be expressed as divine, eternal life in the humanity of all men. The gospel that Jesus brought was entirely Christocentric. There is no message of "good news" apart from the ontological reality of the very Being of God in Jesus Christ who is the essence of Christianity. Christianity is Christ!" - Jim

 Learn More About Jim's Studies:
"This book details the primary discussion of this year's World Grace Summit. I considered the discussion of "Dialectic Formatting" to be of the highest priority of dispelling Universalism in its attack on the true Church of Christ."  
"When Christians say the Christ-life is in them, they do not mean simply something mental or moral. When they speak of being "in Christ" or of Christ being "in them," this is not simply a way of saying that they are thinking about Christ or copying Him. They mean that Christ is actually operating through them..." ("Mere Christianity" Macmillan Publishing. 1978. pp.64-65). -C.S. Lewis

HISTORICAL CHRISTIAN BIBLES 
For over a decade now, Jim Fowler has been collecting Bibles for an exhibit that shows "The History of the Christian Scriptures." A new website has been developed to show featured items in this collection. View at www.fowlerbiblecollection.com 

Christianity IS Christ (part 5)
By Jim Fowler
Disintegration of the Gospel

How important is this integration of Christ's person and work, the integral oneness of His being and action? Is it really of serious import to insist that the unity of His essence and expression be maintained? Should we endeavor to challenge the traditional dualistic detachments of "Christian religion," and upset the religious status-quo that separates Christ from the activity that goes by His name?

This author believes it is imperative that we address the issue of the detachment and disjuncture of Christianity from Christ, for such a perversion constitutes a disintegration of the gospel, the revelation of God in Christ. The issue at hand is but another form of that initially addressed by Paul in his epistle to the Galatians, when he confronted the Galatian believers who were being duped into denying that Christianity was constituted in the life of Christ alone, without any encumbrances of additional belief or action. Paul accused those who succumbed to such disconnected accretions of a circumscribed ritual, of "deserting Christ, who called them by His grace, for another gospel which is not good news at all, but a distortion worthy only of damnation" (Gal. 1:6-9).

If the homoousion issue of the integral oneness of the Trinity was important enough to address at the Council of Nicea in the fourth century; and if the sola gratia, sola fide, sola scriptura, sola Christus issue of the singularity of the redemptive efficacy of Christ's justifying and sanctifying work received by faith was important enough to address in the Reformation of the sixteenth century; then, the issue of the integral oneness of the ontological essence and dynamic expression of Jesus Christ in Christianity and the Church is certainly timely and important enough to address in the twenty-first century.

The disintegration of Christ and Christianity in contemporary "Christian religion" allows the ontological essence of Jesus Christ in the Christian individual to degenerate into an obliging endorsement of history or theology. The dynamic expression of Jesus Christ in the Christian individual is diminished to the dictated exercise and effort of moralism and ethics. The ontological essence of Jesus Christ in the Church collectively is reduced to an organizational entity of ecclesiasticism. The dynamic expression of Jesus Christ in His Body is replaced with the determined enterprise of religious planning and programs. Christianity is, thus, mutilated and mutated by man-made "Christian religion" - which has no value before God (cf. Col. 2:23).

Consider the serious logical consequences of allowing Christianity and Christ to be thus divided, divorced, and disintegrated. Without the recognition of the ontological and dynamic connection and union of Christ and Christianity, there is an inevitable deficient and defective understanding of the Trinity - of God's action in the Christian and the Church through the Son, by the Holy Spirit. When Jesus Christ, the "Righteous One" (Acts 3:14; 7:52) is separated and severed from the dynamic expression of Christian righteousness, with the subsequent insistence on pious performance of Christian living, then...Read Full Article 


Jim Fowler
P.O. Box 1822
Fallbrook, CA 92088-1822

e-mail address:

[email protected] 



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