Homo-sapiens OR Homo-Christus?
Biologists classify living things by “Genus” and “Species”. Man has been classified as “Homo-sapiens” (Genus: homo and Species: sapiens). This is from the Latin meaning “man with knowledge”.
The species of man that lived on the earth from the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden up until Christ’s death, resurrection and the start of His Church was exclusively the Homo-sapiens species.
With the coming of Christ, the planet now began to have a second species of human life on it: the old “Homo-sapiens” and a brand new species which we can call “Homo-Christus”.
This “Homo-Christus” species is what God originally envisioned man to be, but since God did not force man to become this new species and gave him the ability to choose to direct his own life, wrong choices were made by man. The Old Testament is nothing more than the record of man trying to live by his own steam and not having God’s Life.
God, in effect, said, “You think you’re smart enough and strong enough within to live your life by your own knowledge and power? Okay, go ahead and try! Sooner or later, you’ll find out that you don’t have it in you to live a right life. I’ll even give you some specific rules that, if you follow them to the letter, you’ll have a good life. But I can tell you right now that, no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to do it on your own power”.
But God did not leave them in a hopeless situation. He promised that man would ultimately achieve what God had planned for him. BUT GOD NEVER INTENDED FOR “HOMO-SAPIENS” TO CONTINUE! God will not only give up on this species, He will end it! His cure for fallen man is for the total extinction of that species.
That would appear to mean total hopelessness for mankind. But really though, God had a grander design. He would end this species and introduce a new species. Right here on our planet, God would introduce a totally new, completely different biological species of man. Granted, this new species would look like the old species, but inside these two species are very different.
Jesus Christ had God the Father living within Him in a living union. He was a “container”, a “slave”, a “temple”, and “branch” and a “body-part” of the Father. He tried to get the point across to His disciples many times. “I live by My Father.” “When you see Me, you see the Father.” “Apart from My Father, I can do nothing.” “I and the Father are one.”
Christ heard His Father speak to Him from deep within and He listened, and followed. He fellowshipped with His Father within, in a love relationship that the world could not understand. The world saw His power and His miracles but they did not understand that He was a new species from them, an entirely different race. His disciples tried to imitate His goodness but they couldn’t do it. They just didn’t get it! But they couldn’t get it!
The “Homo-sapiens” species was a combination of human indwelt by an angelic nature (Satan’s nature), and the “Homo-Christus” species was human life indwelt by God nature in the form of the risen Christ.
Although we have seen a fantastic population increase in Homo-sapiens since the time of Christ, the truth is that this species is destined for extinction.
This incredible man, Christ, was the only one of His species. He was the most endangered of all species because there was only one of Him! And when He was murdered on the cross, that could have ended His species forever. But by God’s plan, it did not. God could have absolutely destroyed the whole old Homo-sapien species at once, and then launched a whole new Homo-Christus species to repopulate the planet.
But God determined that the new species would be formed gradually from the old species causing a gradual extinction of Homo-sapiens. An individual Homo-sapiens had to choose to die and disappear but immediately reappear as a new Homo-Christus. And God made the requirement for the change of species very simple indeed. Once a sapiens discovered through trial and error that he was just incapable of living a proper life by his own knowledge and power and ability, all he had to do was call out to God for a Savior by believing that Jesus Christ was who He said He was. In the instant that he made that repentance, God changes his species to Homo-Christus. The old man is completely gone and dead, no longer remembered by God. The new man is born again as a new species.
This is what factually occurs. But the new Homo-Christus Christian probably does not understand this change of species at all. The rest of his life is spent coming to the realization of his union with Christ and learning to live totally from the guidance of Christ within. Christ’s way of living His human life was (1) to go to His father’s Life, located in His spirit, (2) to draw upon that Life, and (3) to allow that Life to express itself in this realm through His soul and body.
People look at Christ’s human life and they say that we should imitate or try to follow Him. He lived such a good life totally for others. We must imitate Him, yes. But He was so perfect and we are so imperfect. How can we live such a good life like Him? A Homo-sapiens can’t! And even a Homo-Christus can’t, unless he keeps in constant recognition of Jesus within, and gives all the parts of his life over into the guiding hands of Jesus.
We imitate Jesus, not by trying in our own power to live for others as Jesus did. That is putting the cart before the horse. The “cart” is living a good and proper life by God’s standards. We can’t pull the cart on our own. We need “horse-power” from Christ. By giving Christ the reins, the control and guidance of our lives, we then, and only then, become ABLE to live the Christian life.
But it is with a wink, because we understand that it is really Jesus accomplishing it.
A Homo-Christus still has to live in the world and receive input from the world’s wrong standards. And it is invariably true that there will be times when his mind will be swayed and he will temporarily forget the guidance of Christ within and “do his own thing”, that is, sin! Christ is still there. He does not leave. He just uses this temporary slip-up to once again call his attention to the human weakness. Satan’s nature no longer exists in a Homo-Christus but Satan can still sling worldly darts at him externally attempting to draw his attention away from Jesus within.
But God ultimately controls Satan’s power and even uses the situation of evil for good (Rom. 8:28). Every time this “living for self” takes place, we see our error and return to the shelter of Christ’s direction for our lives. That is what human life as a Homo-Christus is. It is a schoolhouse of learning to depend on Christ living in you, as you, and for you to the world. It is a spiritual growing process learning the life-style of the Family of God to which you belong.
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