Otherness

It is, I'll grant you, an odd title.  But that being said, if you will read this little work you will find out (odd or not) that it has extensive potential. In the first chapter of the book of the great Apostle John you will find that he describes within that initial writing, three things that failed to recognize Jesus Christ our Savior, what His purpose was and who He was.
 Those three things are 1) darkness which to me represents Satans' powers and plans, 2) the world, where he actively employes those powers and plans, and 3) the Jewish nation, in which everything he does, he works to destroy.  That Jewish nation includes the Hebrew's themselves, the big brother of the Gentile church, which is now grafted into Gods family tree.
Why did so many not see Christ?  I believe those three systems saw Christ the same way as the disciples did (but didn't recognize it).  Let me explain.
When Jesus brought the disciples into His "school of the Holy Spirit", one of the first things they had to learn was how 'other' Jesus was from themselves. I'm sure it didn't come to them at first, and that is why darkness, the world and the Jewish nation didn't get it either. But as the Lord's disciples continued on with Him, they found themselves again and again clashing with His thoughts, His mind, His ways. They would urge Him to take a certain course of action, to do certain things, to go to certain places; they would seek to bring upon Him "their own" judgements, feelings and ideas.  But He would have none of it. All the time He was putting them back on their heels as He would show them how altogether "other" His ways were from their own.
  I believe the disciples probably got really frustrated and Jesus Himself would have gotten frustrated as well but He knew exactly what He was trying to accomplish in them. It's a lesson we will have to learn as well.  That "otherness" which was in Christ, that the disciples had to learn, is also what we have to study and learn ourselves in this school of the Spirit. When we have throughly learned that lesson - the lesson of  "altogether other" or 'otherness' then we can begin constructive work. But at present it is necessary for you to come to the place where you recognize you are 'altogether other' than Christ.  The difference is that we, you and me, move in two, totally altogether opposite worlds than our ordinary mind. This will of man, at its best, is another will. We cannot produce from this nature anything acceptable to God. All that can ever come to God is through Christ alone - it's not in us.
 What I am trying to get into you is this - we need to know that we are one thing and the "otherness of Christ" is another. We must pray that our way of thinking would be transformed and become "other" than what the natural man thinks.

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