Karl Barth says, if you are not in Christ, you will lapse into non-being, because anything that is, is in him.

Everything is in Christ. So if you have a question about whether any other human being is in Christ, let me settle it; they’re in Christ. That is just the truth about creation.

We as religious people end up with a very small Jesus. We think of Jesus as a response to Adam’s big problem. In fact Adam ends up in Protestant circles being way more powerful than Jesus ever thought of being.

In denying relationship, we created the one God alone.

Genesis starts with good, good, good, very good.

Does anything that is not good originate in God? No. Where does it originate? The not-good originates in us. In Hebrew Adam perceived that he was in separation.

Jesus is constantly going after the problem of aloneness which is a lie. Aloneness is the first not-good because it’s a lie. The God of Trinity has never been alone. If we build a theology on an alone God, all of a sudden every word means something different.

“Holiness”, in the alone God theology, is the antiseptic purity of God, some high level of perfection that you’re not, This is separation. But the Trinity God was holy before there was any sin. So holiness fundamentally has nothing to do with sin.

Everything about the language we use has to be rooted in the relationship that is the Trinity or we end up swinging over to the the solitary-being-image of God.

The truth is that creation is created very good and is created in Christ. “Not anything that has come into being has come into being apart from him.” Everything is held and sustained in him. This is the mystery of John 13 through 17 that boggles the mind. We’re included.

The cosmic Christ comes into our humanity and submits to the Father and the Spirit. And he comes into this world that is full of darkness as the light with a connection with the Father and the Spirit.

We don’t have any record in Jewish history of any Jewish person referring to God as “my Father” prior to Jesus as a twelve-year-old.  It would not have been taught in the schools; it would not have been taught in the culture. When Jesus in the temple says, “I have to be about my Abba’s business, my Abba’s work…” this is the first time anyone ever referred to God as Abba. Jesus is already incredibly aware of his family of origin.

What is your family of origin? Let me tell you, it’s the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We get caught half way in the story line, in the darkness.

The thing with Adam is that, even in Christ, he turns his face away from relationship and declares he’s alone. This is even before Eve’s brought out. This is why sin entered the world through one man.

He’s not alone. He is surrounded by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

A lot of what we are going to say is the conflict between this Trinity God of relationship and the alone God which we created.