I have long contended for understanding the new birth as an ongoing process (rather than solely an instantaneous experience). The process of seeing the world clearly as we enter the reign of God is (like birth) filled with trauma.
History does not exist in a paradisical world where time has no meaning. Without birth, death, and all the violence in-between, there is nothing to record for the bliss of every moment is continual, without disturbance. Life in paradise is peaceful, joyful, without need or desire.
Truth is the judgment of the cross on the world, in this world we crucify God daily to our systems as we face our struggle to survive in a hostile world. When truth is silenced, the voice of God is crucified.
The Lord taught his disciples to pray with a model prayer. The prayer affirms the oneness of humanity under the love of God our Father. The prayer teaches us that God’s reality is apart from the daily experience of humanity.
In Scripture, it is not the language of law that communicates God, it is not the philosophers strenuous exercise in dialectics that communicates God - it is the prophets poetry, the wiseman’s story, the language of the song….
