Thesis 04: The Objective and Subjective aspects of the Ancient Trinitarian Gospel.
This month’s thesis will be authored by my brother-in-law, Brannon Nix. If there’s anyone I know personally who has walked the ancient path and lived out the Trinitarian gospel through life’s highs and lows, it’s him. What makes it even more special is that he’s family—he’s my brother. I hope you enjoy this month’s essay, which powerfully captures the heart of the undiluted gospel.
The salvation revealed in the gospel has two elements. If we lose either one of these elements, we end up in two different kinds of errors that are predominant in western modern preaching.
Firstly, the salvation of Jesus Christ is an objective truth of something He completely finished as us and for all mankind. The salvation of the human race is complete, yet it’s not automatic and comes to us personally.
For this reason, we labor and strive because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe (1 Timothy 4:10).
Jesus has saved us, but we do not have to accept that fact. We can reject His truth, the faith and reject the salvation that already took place in the life, death, resurrection, ascension and the commissioning of the Spirit on all flesh.
Secondly, the salvation of Jesus and His finished work has to be received subjectively and made personal in our hearts, and minds, through an awakening.
We are to go and tell people what He did and how they were included in His work. The reason we preach and tell people about their salvation is because it is not not automatic; it has to be personalized through faith by a personal alignment with the truth so that, by the Holy Spirit, we can participate in fellowship with the Trinity, being made aware of the self-revealing God as we become willing to relate in this relationship of Christ already within us.
The two errors that flow from not understanding the objective reality of Scripture and the subjective response of faith to the objective truth are detrimental. I know this sounds complicated, but once you see it, everything else about true evangelism becomes easy and effective.
If we only preach the objective truth of salvation, we end up as intellectual universalists, not really knowing God, or we end up in the error of Calvinism with limited atonement, telling people that God chose a few elect to go to heaven and billions to fry in hell for all eternity.
On the other hand, if we only preach the subjective truth of salvation, we risk falling into the error of Arminianism, where salvation is thrown back on the individual to choose God and save themselves by their own faith, turning salvation into a work.
These groups have been arguing about who chooses salvation for 500 years. The answer is neither. It’s an incomplete question.
The real question that we should ask, as highlighted by our early church fathers, is: What happened to us and for us in Jesus Christ’s finished work? Who is Jesus, and how can we participate in him and what he has finished in sanctifying our union in the Trinity. Putting our faith in Jesus doesn’t save us. Jesus saved us 2000 years ago, and putting faith in His finished work allows us to experience salvation and live in relationship with the Trinity.
A lot of Christians are living in false hope, thinking that because they believe Jesus is real, and because they confess their sins at an altar, they are guaranteed a spot in heaven when they die. I believe heaven is real, but if we are not experiencing the Holy Spirit, who is the atmosphere of heaven in the present, then we are not walking in salvation. Religion has blinded us. When someone tells you that you must do these things—“works”—to be saved—get born again, become a new creation, invite Jesus in, get sanctified, or fast and pray more to get free—these people are bewitching you and putting you under the curse of the law. They are falsely instructing you to re-accomplish what Jesus has already finished.
“We are called to simply trust that Jesus did it all for the sake of union, communion, fellowship, and intimacy with us.”
The gospel of freedom declares that Jesus has made us a new creation, that all humanity was given new birth through the resurrection, that Christ is in all people, that God has forgiven all people, and that Jesus has made us all holy, sanctified, and innocent. All humanity is in union with God, and we have been restored to the glory from which Adam fell. He put in us everything needed for a life of godliness.
This is where we place our faith: in the finished work. Jesus did this for us so that we would lose all of our excuses to remain in dysfunction and live this life walking in the Spirit, participating in His divine nature, and acting in love—living in heaven on earth, helping people be unveiled and realize what Jesus accomplished. When we align with what Christ did, the Holy Spirit encounters us, granting us the ability to walk in the truth by grace alone. So, objectively, Jesus has saved humanity and is in all humanity, but not everyone knows, and they are veiled from the truth. Our job is to preach what happened objectively so that people know and have a choice.
Putting our faith in Jesus doesn’t save us. Jesus saved us 2000 years ago, and putting faith in His finished work allows us to experience salvation and live in relationship with the Trinity.
Faith is required, but not as the Arminian proclaims. Faith doesn’t recreate the finished work of Jesus, nor does it get you into union. Faith sees what happened, discovers what has always been true, and allows us to experience it personally and subjectively. We agree with His faith about us. We discover what happened and align with it.
The Gospel is true but not automatic. It is fulfilled in our hearing, and our faith is placed in what He has already done.
Also, for the record, faith doesn’t get you born again. His resurrection rebirthed everyone (1 Peter 1:3). The gift of faith that God gives us allows us to participate in Christ seated with Him in heavenly realms. “That even though we were dead because of our sins, He gave us life when He raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)” Ephesians 2:5
Before the cross people were in a delusional existence labeled fallen Adam who was literally in Christ, a mystery hidden. After the cross, Jesus put that Adam humanity to death, and now we are in Christ as a new creation, in the heavenly realms face to face. This is the gospel. Our faith does not reaccomplish this over and over. The life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus was a universal act that included all of the human race in his body. The incarnation alone accomplished a new creation.
2 Corinthians 5:18 says, "All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled everything to himself.
What is all this? It says in the previous verse 2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" ( and God did all this)
All are in Christ.
It is because of him (Jesus) that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 1 Corinthians 1:30
Jesus was a global impact. It is finished.
Such an impact that he brought humanity and God into a Holy renewed union. Faith sees this and participates in what is true. Unbelief rejects this and blocks participation.
Why don't we get it?
God did it!
We cannot say “In Jesus” without first saying all things, live, move and have their being in Jesus Christ. (Acts 17:28)
Faith doesn’t save us. It’s not the one good work. Faith allows us to participate in a salvation that happened over 2000 years ago. In the person of Jesus, we have been restored to an objectively innocent state in the presence of God, and we are reset to God's original plan to live as His sons and daughters on earth in union with the Trinity.
This side of the cross no one is born in Adam's sin. All babies are born sanctified new creations in a redeemed union with Christ. The devil is deceiving the nations through the “in adam lie” and the western Church is keeping people stuck in a false reality.
You were born with a perfect Spirit, a perfect soul, in a mortal body.
God formed you in the womb, and placed your perfect Spirit in the Zygote.
You were born from above before you came to earth.
You have always been perfect, holy and sanctified. Thanks to Jesus and his incarnation.
You have always had Jesus, His Father and the Holy Spirit living in you.
He is The Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot grasp, because it has neither seen him nor known him; but you know him, for he dwells with you and he is in you.” (John 14:17)
The kingdom is with-in.
Some translations add “will be in you” but it’s not there in the original text.
Jesus was telling His disciples that the Holy Spirit was in them and will be with them. HolySpirit is omnipresent, yet the world is unaware because of a veil put on them by the enemy.. (Aramaic Bible in Plain English)
On that day, you will know that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you.” (John 14:20) we discover Christ in us.. We discover our sonship. We realize our divine origin through the awakening power of the Spirit in our consciousness.. The mind wakes up to HolySpirit .
Hence to know God is eternal life. To know in your knower.
No one taught you this as a little child. No one told you that God was your Father, that they were in love with you and that they were with you the whole time.
The anti christ and religious leaders who are deceived by that religious Spirit teach that we are born separated from God, that we are born cursed sinners, and that we have to grow up and decide and choose to invite Jesus into us. They teach that after we do this God gives us a perfect Spirit somewhere in heaven.. It's a false narrative.
Jesus became sin so that we would be restored to right relationship. All people are in union with Jesus, and His incarnation revealed that and sanctified our conscience to experience that union.
Sin hurts your spirit, and consciousness. It can make you feel separated from God, but God is not separated from anyone. God holds all things to gather. God healed our sense of estrangement by restoring our innocence.
Colossians 1:16 In-Context
For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:16-17
For in Him we live and move and exist [that is, in Him we actually have our being], as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children. Acts 17:28 Amplified Bible (AMP)
You have always been God's Child.
Hosea, the prophet, foresaw our restored innocence 700 years before Noël (the birth of Jesus). “After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, so that we may live in His sight.” (Hosea 6:2).
Thirty years after the resurrection of Jesus, the Apostle Paul reminds the church at Colossae that Hosea’s prophecy was fulfilled and that Christ's death reconciled all people with God, making them holy, blameless, and flawless.
Christ lived in our place and on our behalf as the representative of humanity. “He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation—” (Colossians 1:22).
His birth was the beginning of a new creation and a perfect life on our behalf and in our place. His death was the circumcision of the flesh (Colossians 2:11). He put the old man of sin to death on the cross. He eradicated the Adamic humanity and left it in the grave; by His resurrection, He brought forth a new humanity in union with Him.
In His ascension, a new humanity is placed on the throne, and we are repositioned to the original authority and dominion that Adam lost, far above all principalities and rulers. We are seated right there with Him as our authentic selves, and we are restored by adoption, infused with the divine nature into sonship. The Holy Spirit testifies that we are the sons and daughters of God (Romans 8:16).
Our old, depressed, fearful, and anxious selves have died. Our critical, religious, hateful nature was put to death. Every lustful, addictive, and impoverished aspect of our old man was killed with Christ. The generational curses were hung with Him on the tree so that, through Him and His work, we could walk in His blessing as a new race of people, reset and rebooted back to God’s original thought.
When Jesus rose, He rose within us, and the Gospel is the power of Sozo to those who, by the Spirit, believe, align with the finished work, and subjectively participate in the life of the triune God. In God's faith, we have now been fully restored and made whole through our union with Jesus. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who is living in me, and by His faith, I am participating in the life of my design. Ephesians 1:4 says that we were chosen in Him, holy and blameless, without fault.
Now that all things have been fulfilled and are being fulfilled, we get the privilege to enjoy all that Christ has accomplished in His finished work on our behalf. He has restored us to the perfect will of God. It is finished, and people need to know what Christ has done in reconciling the world to Himself so that they can hear, awaken, experience the new birth, come out of darkness, be reconciled, and participate in this divine union.
In conclusion, as we align ourselves with the completed work of Christ and agree with the truths that God recognizes, the grace of the Holy Spirit equips us to embody our authentic selves. When we walk in the Spirit, creation reacts in servitude, allowing us to experience the blessings that Christ has secured for us, leading to a life that is blissful, healthy, complete, and full of glorious freedom. The difference between freedom and bondage is simple.
