Ray D Brown

Not of the World Ray D Brown

"They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world" (John 17:16). God has always had a people distinctly different from the peoples of the world-not better but different. The entire Bible is a cohesive, comprehensive canon of sanctification, culminating in the gospel of Jesus Christ and him crucified. What we commonly call the "high priestly" prayer of Jesus Christ is his prayer for all who believe in him. "Sanctify (or set apart) them through thy Truth: thy Word is Truth" (John 17:17). A Christian is one who lives by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God and not according to the standards of this world system. True Christianity is Christ consciousness. Only an awareness of the cross of Jesus Christ in the harrowing truth of its raw austerity can keep me loyal and accountable to God's gift of amazing grace in his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. His cross is my cross, and it is your cross. Only the preaching of the cross of Jesus Christ can keep the miracle of redemption alive. Our identity with the death, burial, and resurrection of the LORD Jesus Christ is what makes us different. We are the continuity of the love of God in Christ extended to the worst of humanity; truly, a love not of the world. A Christian is one who lives to perpetuate this love of God in the earth. Conversely, what this book calls mainstream Christianity in America fundamentally lives for themselves. Someone must say so. Someone must tell contemporary, worldly conciliatory, and carnally compromised Christianity that God is a Holy Spirit whom the LORD Jesus Christ emphatically said the world cannot receive (see John 14:17). In this age of all-permissive grace, a Christian is identified by their living according to the truth of God's comprehensive Word and by a marked separation from this world system. "If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (see 1 John 2:15). Indeed, and as this book without apology declares, the love of the Father is Christ.