'Genesis 3 Christianity': And a Look Beyond It

By James Juers

When at last we realize our predicament, that we have engaged ourselves in a lost-cause war with God, it is good news to discover that he has taken it upon himself to create a truce and to effect reconciliation with us. But then a little later it should also occur to us that the heavenly Father had a purpose for making that peace, even at such a great cost. So our search must take us deeper and higher than just being good boys and girls in a dying world. We will come to realize that we have been called to more than just ‘Genesis 3 Christianity’. And so the quest begins!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664251939

James Juers

Jim is just your everyday, run of the mill Christian—if there is such a thing. For more than half a century God has been dealing with him and leading him to ponder that the gospel story of salvation is even greater than when he first believed. Here he shares his maturing thoughts with the hope that the Church’s saints will join in an eschatological striving after God’s greater goals!

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Copyright © 2021 James Juers.

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ISBN: 978-1-6642-5194-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-5193-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021924541

WestBow Press rev. date: 01/04/2022

Contents

Introduction

1   How It Began for Me

2   What Is ‘Genesis 3 Christianity’?

3   The Historical Roots for the Development of Contemporary ‘Genesis 3 Christianity’

4   The Results of ‘Genesis 3 Christianity’

5   Towards An Alternative, A More Complete Christian Gospel

Conclusion

Appendix Chart

Introduction

H ave you ever wondered if our grasp of the Christian faith and its gospel is too small? Years ago J. B. Phillips wrote the challenging little book which he entitled Your God Is Too Small . Some time after reading that book I gave a lecture, with my title’s theme obviously borrowing from him. My title made a related and corresponding challenge— Your Gospel Is Too Small . And I recognize that this present writing has come as a logical maturing in the process of developing such thoughts. Indeed, the story of my life seems to be the continually growing awareness that our perspectives of God and his gospel have never yet been fully appreciated, apprehended, and applied. Our standard paradigm is too small. I would like to see all of Jesus’ disciples begin a new quest to discover more accurately all that our heavenly Father desires and intends to accomplish through Jesus in this present eschatological Church Age. To that end it will be necessary for us to redefine the gospel of salvation to really include, in both theory and practice, more than just the remedial and redemptive works of the atonement-reconciliation of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. It must include the victories that followed with the Ascension and Pentecost as the vital works of preparation for a glorious consummation at Jesus’ Parousia. It will be necessary then to critique, fairly but honestly, the familiar history and dogma that led to the development of that simple and commonly recognized salvation gospel of ‘Genesis 3 Christianity’ . When we at last realize some of the unfortunate results of holding only to things too small , our longing will be to discover a salvation gospel much higher and more effective for God’s purposes and glory. For me that journey began long ago when I was much younger. It caught me unawares at the time. But, out of gratitude and love for Jesus, I was desirous to know Him rightly. And the Quest thus begun has never yet been fully completed. If you have ever felt a concern that your perceptions of God and your understanding and experience of his gospel have been too small , let me share some of my faith travels with the hope that you too will be desirous to know him in the full awe of who he really is.

Vicit agnus noster, eum sequamur!

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How It Began for Me

A s a seminarian I served my vicarage year in Lansing, Michigan. My bishop there at Christ Lutheran Church gave me a gift, a book from his personal library. It was an anthology of sermons covering the two thousand year span of Christian Church history. Although I no longer have the book, I distinctly remember reading homilies by such revered and ancient authors as Chrysostom, messages from medieval mystics and scholastic preachers, and sermons on the then-current disputations over dogmatic theology among Reformation heroes. The surprising thought that came to me at the time was that none of these men presented the heart of the evangelical gospel of salvation as I understood the good news at that time. It was not until I came to the sermonizing of eighteenth century evangelist and Pietist-influenced John Wesley that I began to feel more comfortable and at home with the presentation of the good news as Jesus and Him crucified for our sins. It was in reading the clear Wesleyan message of the forgiveness of sins through Christ’s vicarious blood sacrifice on the cross that at last the preaching resonated more precisely with my own twentieth century gospel understanding of forgiveness, penal atonement-redemption, and divine reconciliation—with resurrection and heaven to follow at last. To my youthful thinking, it was as though it had taken more than a millennium and a half for the church to finally arrive at a clear and functional articulation of the salvation gospel. At the time this curious discrepancy that I sensed between early church teaching and modern evangelical preaching sowed a seed in my soul that has since then sprouted and begun to grow amazingly during the last half century of my life. One might say that I had unexpectedly and without deliberate searching or even desire stumbled upon the ‘until-then-for-me’ unrecognized ‘problem plant’ of ‘Genesis 3 Christianity’ !

In the course of my life, with much study and through repeated experiences, I have come to ponder whether or not we