[Underneath this post is a growing concern to understand what has happened in the narrative, what is the divine trajectory, who we are in our new creature, and what does "body of Christ" mean.]
What’s at stake here?:It would appear that what is at stake here, and has been for almost 1900 years, is "the way". When you look at the Gospels and Christ’s message to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand it seems like an odd way to "evangelize". Where’s the four spiritual laws and the Roman’s Road? But what if we were to realize that this Kingdom that he speaks of is not something future, or just while He was here, but something he had brought to earth in a very real and powerful way? While granted it is a kingdom that is partially but not fully revealed it begs us to start asking some tough questions. Hopefully it has driven us to realize some pretty profound advancements that were made by Christ himself that directly apply to the living out of the human existence. Things that were not typically done or even understood in the Old Testament.
It is a basic doctrinal claim that Jesus was both fully human and fully God. But we have refused to practically flesh out what Christ has revealed to us about the kingdom. Was his life what the Creator intends humankind to be and to do? or just what he wanted us to believe? If you go back and consider this in the light of the garden account it radically shifts ones thinking. What if Adam and Eve lived solely to do the will of their Father and were fruitful in multiplying the image of God in their seed? This acknowledgement, that Christ demonstrated who I am to be and what I am to do, has basically been swept up with the rest of the "unrealistic" dirt on the floor of Christian religion and tossed in the trash can of irrelevance. "I’m not Jesus!" How can we who claim doctrinally Christ’s divinity and humanity acknowledge so little authority (see Mt 28:18) to this One who showed us what it means to live a human life in accordance with the will of God?
The typical response by the "unbelieving believer" is, "Hey, let’s be realistic here, none of us are Jesus!" The implication in this statement is that Christ’s expectations cannot be taken seriously as an ethic we would ask of everyone - or even anyone, including me! "I know myself, we reason, and I could never subject myself to these expectations. This is failure waiting to happen." (referring to walking on water, healing people, raising folks from the dead, casting out demons, and even greater things than these!)
Are we courting Apostasy?:Have we not reached such a state of existence that it’s common for even are pastors and leaders to lay claim that they are not saints they’re just sinners like the rest of us saved by grace? Are we saints or are we sinners? Is this just a mental perspective or is their real physical implications behind this question? What I mean is a saint is what is referred to in the opening of many of the Epistles. A sinner is someone who has blasphemied the Holy Spirit. A saint is one who will sin but their spirit responds in brokeness and contrition to "the Way". Listen to how Paul describes it to us, "Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that we must no longer walk as the world does, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alientated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way we learned Christ! - assuming that we have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." (personally translating Eph. 4:17-24 to the here and now)
Should we not grieve along with the Holy Spirit and groan with the rest of creation? Sons and daughters of the second Adam this view of our current existence is not of the LORD but of the evil one! Rebuke it in the name of Christ… repent for the Kingdom of God truly is at hand!!! Rise up saints and lay claim to what Christ has afforded you. You are not who you think you are.
Here’s where the rubber meets the road:Because I want us to dive deeply and profoundly into this discussion and really engage ourselves to move forward in this journey out of the land of "Make Believe" (where it’s more important to believe than be or do). We must be about finding and living in "the way"! It’s time to pack up camp and move out and experience the Truth and the Life. In essence Christ has said to the children of the wilderness, the path out of the desert and into the promise land has been found come lay hold of the power of God unto salvation!
If we take the view that is stated at the opening of this discussion we have to overlook or "spiritualize" (my least favorite word in Christendom) the New Testament claim that the people of God are the "BODY OF CHRIST". We balk at the concept that we are the continuation of the ministry and work of Christ right in the midst of real human history… right in the midst of oppression, injustice, violence, and greed… right in the midst of political unrest, terrorist attacks, urban sprawl, pop culture, and the list goes on. Instead we must embrace something much more tame and managable where we sit and wait on a kingdom to come later at the return of Christ - deeming the Lord’s prayer irrelevant or just an attitude of the heart and not one of real physical life.
For deeper conversation and further journey:My question to us was going to be where are the engaged evangelicals? where are the people of "the way"? Where do we find them? By Christ’s own admission (Mt 5:14-16) they should be easy to spot because they are a city on hill, and it should be leading others to glorify God. But no… we don’t find them do we? Have we been trodden under foot by the context of the culture that we live in… because we are not salty? Have we instead found a way to live out doctrine that doesn’t impact lifestlye and ethics.
What do we do when we suddenly realizes that our priority as the church is about religious practice not absolute surrender, compartmental spirituality not wholistic lifestyle, full of wanting to but not willing to, teaching right doctrine but never living right ethics? How does the salt regain the saltiness that it has lost? Christ declares that it cannot it must be thrown out. (Mt 5:13) And the church today is being trampled under the feet of a post-modern culture… and to be honest I’m filled with joy and at the same time scared to death!
We have been pushed to the farthest corners of culture.
Church.
A sentence all in itself and all by itself.
We’re the home of the trivial faith and the nominal allegiance. A faith where we strive to be relevant without having to be revolutionary… Where we talk of the crucial but offer it at a fraction of the cost. Where we deliver the message but in the end nothing is reconciled.
We’re not about "the way" anymore. I’m afraid we’ve forged another way. This way allows us to twist the message of God’s grace. Instead of changing the lifeless and pathetic condition of our hearts of stone it merely allows our hearts to sit on a more glorious pedestal and worship our own selfish desires - guilt free. Our obedience to God appears to be more like a happy coincidence, where our selfish desires and his holy commands conveniently happen to intersect. So we find ourselves picking and choosing the laws that suit us while avoiding those that don’t allow us to indulge our favorite desires. In the end we’ve laid a hold of what we always wanted. A life where no one tells us what to do - not even God!
The church if it wants to live is going to have to die and be reborn through brokenness and contrition. It must surrender its very life, and not care that it has lost it, so that we might find it again and be known again as people of "the way". Our silent admission is that "the way" is not practical and doesn’t translate into the real world. Have we lost our Way? And there is also a quiet migration away from church by a remnant. They know it is everything they hate and yet they know it’s exactly the agent which God is choosing to use. As a friend of my has said, "Where to Lord?"
Great epic change must happen first within the very life of the body of Christ - and I would add, within this very part of that body (me)! Each part must surrender and say, "Today I will change myself. For my life and ministry is not about changing people but demonstrating change in myself. I now know that God has changed the economy by which the world operates. I now embrace the grace awakening which is Christ. He is changing me and I am engaging on a journey with Him." In other words pack up camp we moving on to right living and not just right thinking… a right doctrine that embraces a right living!
God’s jealousy is for today!:At this point, I want to bring the concept of God’s jealousy (zeal) back to the forefront, as some of you might have already figured. His jealousy in the OT is unmistakable. And His jealousy in the NT is no different only channeled differently. Let me explain it like this. Those who have been enlightened and received Christ have stepped out of the darkness. They no longer seek to hide from the presence of God (see Genesis 2-3 narrative compared with John 1 and 3) but desire to come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been wrought in God.
There is a zeal that the Bridegroom has for us His Bride to stir in us and remind us of our true image. For we had been created by God and we were good. But now we have been re-created in Christ and we are the hope of glory. We now are awakened to God’s kingdom that is now at hand and must realize that we are "His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (Eph 2:10) We must realize that our Bridegroom has given completely of Himself to "redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works." And that this new focus and work is to be embraced in the here and now as we "wait for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." (Titus 3:11-15)
And as Paul reminded Titus we should declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority… and let no one disregard us! So as we look at the current state of the church, one that has shown moments of arising from its slumber through the reformation, and ask is a new reformation needed? I’m finding myself wrestling with really hard questions when I consider the Kingdom of God being here in power right here and right now. How have I been "sleeping with the enemy"? How have I "slept around" on our Bridegroom and not embraced His way as "the Way"? What tensions in the current culture have I not faced but avoided? Do I come to people in clever speech and tight apolgetic arguments or armed only with Christ as my message and the power of God. What aspects of "the way" have I conveniently labeled as unrealistic and not practical? My heart becomes sad but hopeful for He has promised that He will still remaining faithful, even when we are faithless.
The Kingdom of God is now!
Your brother in Christ,
JC
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