By Bryan Elliott, M46 Mininstries
PART 2: What I Discovered
In Part 1, I shared the questions that wouldn’t let me go—questions born from taking God’s majesty seriously. Jesus declaring “The Kingdom of God is within you” before the cross shattered my assumption that we were ever truly separated. Now, let me show you what I found when I dug into church history and the original Greek.
A Powerful Foundational Truth
Before any discussion of awakening, metanoia, or theological shifts — we need to establish the one reality Paul couldn’t stop repeating. Over 160 times in his letters, he returns to the same phrase: in Christ.
Not “toward Christ.” Not “working for Christ.” Not “hoping to reach Christ.” In Him. Already. Now.
This isn’t a theological position to debate. It’s the settled foundation Paul laid under everything else he wrote.
What the Early Church Actually Taught
Here’s what stunned me: the awakening message isn’t new. It’s ancient.
When I studied the early Church Fathers—the theologians closest to the apostles—I discovered they taught something very different from what I’d inherited:
Origen of Alexandria (185-254 AD) taught apokatastasis—the restoration of all things. He believed God’s redemptive purposes would ultimately embrace all creation.
Gregory of Nyssa (335-395 AD), one of the Cappadocian Fathers who helped define the doctrine of the Trinity, wrote: “The goal of a virtuous life is not to become like God, but to recognize that we have been made like God and to live accordingly.”
Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD) taught that Christ’s salvation extended to all humanity.
Athanasius (296-373 AD), the champion of Trinitarian orthodoxy, declared: “God became human so that humans might become god”—not God in essence, but partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).
The Eastern Orthodox Church has been teaching theosis (union with God) and participatory salvation for two thousand years. They never stopped reading Greek. They never went through the Latin filter.
The awakening message isn’t heterodox (wrong belief). It’s actually more orthodox than the Latin-filtered tradition many of us inherited. We’re not departing from historic Christianity—we’re returning to it.
How Did We Miss This?
The answer isn’t conspiracy. It’s history.
Jerome (400 AD) translated the Greek New Testament into Latin (the Vulgate), and it became THE Bible for Western Christianity for over a thousand years. One translation choice tells the whole story: Jerome translated metanoia as paenitentia. “Paenitentia” became “penance.” “Penance” eventually became “repentance”—literally “re-penance,” implying repeated acts of sorrow and atonement.
A Greek word meaning “transformation of perception” became a Latin word meaning “feel sorry and do something to make up for it.”
That single translation choice shaped a millennium of Western spirituality.
Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) is arguably the most influential theologian in Western Christian history. His writings shaped Catholic, Reformed, and Evangelical theology for sixteen centuries. But Augustine didn’t read Greek well. He worked primarily from Latin translations. His theology of original sin, total depravity, and the massa damnata (the condemned mass of humanity) became Western orthodoxy.
Meanwhile, the Eastern Church—still reading Greek—emphasized theosis (union with God), a more hopeful view of human nature, and salvation as healing rather than legal transaction.
Same New Testament. Different source languages. Different Christianities.
The Reformation recovered justification by faith. Revolutionary. But the Reformers were reacting AGAINST Catholic works-righteousness. Their emphasis landed on forensic justification—a legal courtroom declaration—rather than participatory union. They recovered grace but kept the anthropology of human wretchedness.
The treasures were buried, not destroyed. Every Greek New Testament still contains metanoia. Every manuscript still records Paul’s perfect passive participles. The evidence waits for anyone willing to look.
We’re not inventing a new gospel. We’re recovering an ancient one.
What I Used to Believe
For years, I preached what I was taught. And I believed it deeply:
You are a sinner. You were born separated from God. You deserve eternal punishment. But Jesus took your punishment, and if you accept Him, you can be forgiven and go to heaven when you die. I later understood the Kingdom of God is now which led to the writing of As in Heaven.
That’s the gospel I received. That’s the gospel I shared. And let me be clear—it bore fruit. People encountered Jesus. Lives changed. I’m not here to attack it or the sincere believers who proclaim it.
But something was off.
I couldn’t articulate it at first. I just knew that the “good news” left me anxious rather than free. I was saved, but I encountered many Christians wondering if they were saved enough. Trying harder. Rededicating. Managing sin. Performing for a God who, deep down, they weren’t sure actually liked them.
If this was the “abundant life” Jesus promised, why did it feel so much like a treadmill?
The Greek That Changed Everything
I’m an engineer by training. I like to go back to the source. So I started digging into the Greek—the original language of the New Testament.
What I found shook me.
Metanoia — the word we translate “repentance” — doesn’t mean “feel sorry and change your behavior.” It means meta (beyond, together with) + nous (mind, perception). A transformation of how you see. A mind-shift. An awakening.
Hamartia — the word we translate “sin” — doesn’t just mean “doing bad things.” At its root, it suggests living below your design specifications—missing the mark of who you were created to be. Sin is identity amnesia, not cosmic rebellion.
Tetelestai — Jesus’ final word on the cross, “It is finished” — is in the Greek perfect tense: a completed action with permanent, ongoing results. Not “it is paused until you accept it.” Finished. Done. Permanent.
And then this one undid decades of religious conditioning:
“Deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23)
Religion turned this into endless self-crucifixion—daily dying, constant mortification, repeated self-destruction. But look at what the Greek verbs actually say:
- “Deny” uses the Aorist Imperative (arnēsasthō) — meaning “get it over and done with!” A one-time decisive action, not repeated dying.
- “Take up” also uses the Aorist Imperative (aratō) — “lift up your cross once and for all.” If it were Present Imperative, it would mean continual action. But it’s not.
- “Daily” doesn’t connect with “take up your cross” — it connects with “follow”! The daily aspect is the companionship, not the crucifixion.
- “Follow” uses the Present Imperative — THIS is the ongoing, daily action. Close companionship. Walking with Him.
The Mirror Study Bible captures it: “Get over and done with any idea of self that contradicts your true I-am-ness! Lift up your cross once and for all, by seeing it mirrored in mine! My cross is your cross!”
And here’s the kicker: After the cross, Paul NEVER tells believers to “take up your cross.” He declares it DONE. “You died” (Aorist tense). “Your old self was crucified” (Aorist Passive)—something done TO you, not BY you.
Jesus invited them to something that would become finished. Paul announces what IS finished.
Word after word, I discovered that the Greek said something more beautiful than what I’d been taught. The good news was actually better than I’d heard—and it aligned with what the earliest Church Fathers taught.
→ Continue to Part 3: The Beautiful Gospel