"Clean" (def: If You Have Seen Me, You Have Seen Jesus)

Then Barnabas went on to Tarsus to look for Saul. When he found him, he brought him back to Antioch. Both of them stayed there with the church for a full year, teaching large crowds of people. (It was at Antioch that the believers were first called Christians.) [Acts 11.25-26]

There is something here that is most often overlooked I think but that is worthy of consideration. The believers at Antioch who were first called Christians were Gentiles!

This is seen in its significance relative to what was discussed in my post yesterday about "Christ in me."

Of further significance is the event of Peter's trance (vision, dream) on the rooftop where God, in no uncertain terms said, “Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.” Just like that, in clear language, God leveled the playing field for Jew and Gentile.

Whatever was to happen between people groups following this declaration by God (including what the Bible documents) could only be measured by this standard of equality. If Jews were "clean" and Gentiles were seen as "unclean" before, now, the Gentile "uncleanness" was removed - washed - made clean. The matter, in God's Kingdom, was forever settled: all people would from this point forward be seen equal in the eyes of God.

What unfolds subsequent to this event, is man's attempt at living this out. The New Testament chronicles the struggles that immediately followed this equalization of humanity.

In God's sight, "Christ in me" is all that matters. In man's sight, we might indeed see variations of this. However, the standard was set by God: clean or unclean - but God made all clean. This does not mean God saved everyone, but made everyone eligible to be saved. As the apostle Paul would later document, all believers are made Jews and therefore clean in God's sight. The "cleaning" that God did to all humanity made every people group eligible to be saved through the work of Jesus.

Are the Jews "God's chosen people?" Indeed they are! God sent His Son to the Jewish people! And so, now that God makes all to be "Jews" by declaring them "clean," all are chosen by God to be saved. Paul discusses this in Romans 2 and 3. Even there, it is obvious Paul struggles to convey this new way of thinking with clarity. So, that is why it is so important to see what God said about it as the standard by which every other comment should be measured: “Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.”

Back then to the subject scripture above... Previously "unclean" Gentiles were the first to be called "Christians" or "like Christ." "Like Christ," for a Gentile believer, was a monumental statement carrying the same familiar audacity seen when Jesus said, "The Father and I are one." [John 10.30]

Consider this:

Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? [John 14.9]

To be "Christian," one should, like Jesus said about His Father, be able to say, "If you have seen me, you have seen Jesus."

Whoa!

Father, I want my life goal to be "If you have seen me, you have seen Jesus."