1. I realized that I cannot stop studying and meditating on this glorious gospel truth of the believer’s union with Christ. It is the very means for renewal through the Holy Spirit as I engage with union with Christ as the greatest gift the Father has given to His children through the finished work of Christ at the cross, His resurrection three days later, and His ascension to heaven after forty days. And ten days later, on the day of Pentecost, the Promised Gift of the Father to the Son for His children came with the sound like a “rushing mighty wind”! Christ became so present to His people on Pentecost day, just as He promised during the Supper and Garden discourse the night He was going to be betrayed. Only John records Jesus’s words in detail beginning from his gospel in chapters 13 through 17.
2. Reminding and renewing myself in the gospel is a reality. It is a reality repeatedly and daily if I am faithful to study and meditate and pray over the essence of the gospel; Christ has come, Christ has died, Christ is risen…for me! Really and actually. In this post, I produce my engagement with this glorious gospel topic through Simo Peura’s article in the New Finnish Interpretation of Martin Luther’s theology, a gem of a book that continuously refreshes my heart with the very Person, Presence and Power of the Holy Spirit. The editors of the articles by Simo, Tuomo Mannermaa, Antti Raunio, and Risto Saarinen, of the Finnish Academy for Luther Studies are Carl E Braaten and Robert W Jenson, and this book has continued to bless and nourish my soul since it first arrived from the now defunct Book Depository company in the UK, back during Covid-19 multiple lock-downs on 15th July, 2021.
3. (Pg 85), “The true trinitarian God does not isolate Himself, He is according to His nature and name, Emmanuel, God with us” (note that I have embedded my commentary with the text written by Peura in this instance). He is near us. He is in every breath we take. He breathed in man the breath man of life man breathes. Christ is present in a spiritual way when a believer is born-again by the Word of God and Spirit clothed by that Word.
4. (Pg 86) “God becomes present and begins to live in us at the moment He creates true faith in us as we “hear” (Rom 10:17) the voice of the Son of God calling out dead people from their spiritual tombs (John 5). The voice of Jesus is Spirit-clothed and Spirit-powered. It is the voice of God raising the dead through the Word that created the universe, and now re-creates new lives through His gospel word.
5. God’s presence in us is made possible the moment faith as given through God’s grace that is activated in our hearts. The perception of a man’s thoughts are found in the heart, Jesus said, referring to the judgemental Jews as He healed the paralytic man let down through the roof as recorded in Mark’s gospel, chapter 2.
6. This faith is a gift of His grace contained within Himself and transmitted through the spoken Word of the truth of the gospel clothed with the Spirit of the Living God.
7. The essence of Martin Luther’s phrase, “in ipsa fidei Christus adest” is ; “This is the true faith of Christ and in Christ, through which we become members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones (Eph 5:30).”
   1. “There in Him we live, move, and have our being (Acts 17:28)”
   2. “Hence the speculation of the sectarians is vain when they imagine that Christ is present in us “spiritually”, that is, speculatively, but is really present in heaven.”
   3. “Christ and faith must be completely joined”. I take this phrase of ML to mean that without the Living Word from the Written Word, faith is absent. God’s Word, both written and Living by the indwelling Spirit, makes faith what it is, the means by which the believer overcomes the world (1 John 5:4 & 5).
   4. “We must simply be in heaven; and Christ must be, live and work in us.”
      1. Isn’t this what Phil 2:13 says? “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work (do) His good pleasure”?
8. “He lives and works in us, not speculatively or as an idea (cf Jam 2:17, “So also, faith, if it has not works, is dead by itself”), but in the MOST PRESENT and Effective way”.
9. Neo-Kantianism and the Aristotelian remaking of Christian theology have led to a “functional deism” amongst Christians. This “functional deism” is the controlling factor in theology and church life and has been so for centuries!
10. Thanks to centuries of church leadership-pastors and theologians-steeped in this functional deism, the church is incurably (except to fulfill God’s prophecies of its renewal to face the last-days) fragmented at a heart level and unable to live out its “true ontological reality” of its union with its head, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what Martin Luther strove to address, and the Finnish theologians have done a masterful job is producing the categories of thought to help us reclaim this glorious truth of the believer’s union with Christ, and all the amazing and gracious benefits that come with is as heirs of God in ontology and teleology (being and purpose), and co-heirs with Christ.

Franklin Morais came to the Lord 48 years ago. He was saved in a Pentecostal church, but spent his formative years, including marriage and two daughters, in a full gospel church that was charismatic. He then heard the sermons of the late Rev Dr Timothy Keller from the Presbyterian Church in the United States, and over the months of hearing sermon after sermon, experienced the gospel, the faith once given to the fathers, that utterly transformed him. Franklin worships at Holy Trinity Bukit Bintang currently, and is an itinerant gospel preacher and teacher. He is also a part-time lecturer in Counseling, Psychology and Education with HELP University, Kuala Lumpur.

He can be reached via moraisfm2018@outlook.com, and via his social media handles.