The double helix
Repentance
To match our desperation is the overwhelming grace of God which provides for us salvation. I have been impressed by the very first public ministry saying of Jesus. We popularly think that the Beatitudes were the first time Jesus taught and that was his first sermon. Reading Mathew 3:17 and Mark 1:15 shows us that the popular concept is not right. The first public word Jesus uttered was “Repent". The word is “metanouw", translated, “think differently”. In this current world of swirling politics, divisiveness, turmoil, philosophies of self and even of salvation, this is where we need to start. To repent. To think differently. It is also not just a mental exercise, but consequently a one hundred and eighty degree turn we take in the course of our lives. We turn around and walk the other way. Change our course, choose a different path, never return to the path we were walking on. As individuals, as communities, as nations even, we need to repent.
The second word he said was “follow me”. We are not following a set of rules. We are following a living Lord who walks with us. May we never take our eyes off of Him. We come to him through repentance. We believe Him and therefore follow. We love Him because He first loved us. He goes before us.
Salvation subsequently is what He does inside us.
I am reminded of the basic building block of life, the DNA helix, constituted of two protein chains connected by amino acid bonds. I would like to think of one strand being repentance and the other strand being His salvation, covering each aspect of our unworthy selves and transforming us into producing all that is necessary for life and salvation. The helix does so much in our bodies, and our transformation works all things wonderful in His kingdom. The transformational code is A-T, G-C. Adenine codes for Thiamine, Glycine codes for Cysteine. This bonding holds the code for all life. Whenever one chain presents an adenine amino acid, it links with thymine. Whenever it presents Glycine, it links with cysteine. As a result of the linkages, we have a complete two standard DNA spiral that is now capable of protein synthesis, or multiplication, or translational activities within the cell.
We present to him poverty, He translates that into plenty. We present to him our sinfulness, He translates that into salvation. We present to him unworthiness, He translates that into glory. We present to him failures, He covers that with grace. What do we have in us that we cannot present to Him? And what can we present to Him that He cannot transform? And so, building block by building block, He is transforming us, so that we learn to think differently. We need to learn to think of the great and glorious work that He has done in us that has transformed us into the kingdom of light, so that we see not just our poverty, but our plenty in Him. We see not just our faults and our failures, but the fullness we have of life in Him. To see not just the sin in us and others, but the potential for salvation at work all around and in us. To see not just our impatience, greed, and envy, but the peace and rest that comes from the knowledge of our sonship, and therefore our provisions in Him. One perspectual error to guard against is to regard His finished work isolated from our previous existence. We die to ourselves, so that He may present us faultless in Christ. This is not some mental mantra of self deceptive thinking masquerading as faith. The distinction is vital to prevent us going down a road that amputates Jesus from the equation and we deceive ourselves that we are what we think we are, or believe, or have faith for. That is a false gospel. But we who are dead in our mortal bodies, will be raised immortal. We are crucified in Christ, nevertheless we live, and the life that is in our mortal bodies we live by faith in Him, who loved me and gave Himself for me. This knowledge has to permeate our every cell, and go down into our DNA. We are a new creation, regardless of our original chains of desperation and despair. My father was a geneticist in the forties. One of his sayings was that we cannot change our DNA. We certainly cant, but in many every day ways, God does. Man is today experimenting with the tree of life, changing cutting and snipping DNA, disproving my fathers thesis, but there is no guarantee of the dervish that may be so produced. The translational work God does within us does not produce dervishes, but sons and daughters of the living God, every time. And so it is that a lost and desperate humanity stripped down to its basic building block, where citizenry, race, sex or station is denuded from the equation, has a hope to be found translationally saved from its desperation, because of a cross, at the centre of every helix.
