Fullness, emptiness and witness

What does a life that bears witness to the gospel look like?

How would we have to live before people would ask us the reason for our hope?

These seem like crucial questions to me.  I've heard so many sermon applications - and I dare say preached a few - which just don't appreciate the enormous difficulty here.  Be honest and don't fiddle your expenses at work.  Who do you think I'm working with, that this would set me apart in any way?  Care for your family, love your spouse, be selfless, treat your kids well.  Sounds good, but will just make me like 90% of the people I know.  Folks are good, moral, decent - on the whole.  They have their struggles and their moral failings, but I'm going to find it hard to outperform them morally - and if I do, how will that point to Jesus?

Should there perhaps be a fullness to the Christian life?  That must be part of it.  It must look different to do all the normal things of life but filled with the Holy Spirit.  That's why I have taken to praying, every morning, that the Spirit might fill me, my family, the members of my church.  The presence of God will inevitably make a difference, right?  Of course, the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ; he will make our lives cruciform, self-sacrificial, in ways that are distinctly uncomfortable.  But also, fullness.  A life that doesn't wear out or get thin.  There's something here about being able to see the beauty in everyday things.  Might people not notice that?

But then I wonder whether we might not need a degree of emptiness as well?

Imagine you're walking through empty countryside.  Coming over the brow of a hill, you see a tower - but a tower that is unlike anything you've ever seen before.  At the ground floor, the walls seem barely to touch the earth.  The first and second floors have only one wall each.  At the third storey, a turret juts out improbably; is it even attached?  And up and up it goes.  Walking around the base of the tower looking up, it's hard to see how this works.  How is this tower standing?  And then more careful observation reveals that the tower is... twisted, somehow.  As if it were built around something, something you can't see.  Intrigued you investigate further, trying to trace out the shape of this apparently absent something.  It seems to have a regularity to it; there is a curious solidity to the absence.  And so the question changes, from 'how is this tower standing?' to 'what is holding this tower up?'

I wonder whether people ought not to be looking at us and wondering what is holding this life up?  I wonder if our lives should be so built around the reality of the gospel that it is just impossible for anyone who doesn't take the active presence of Christ into account to see how or why we keep going.

That might mean deliberate emptiness.  If we structure our lives as everyone else does - around family, career, home - how will they tell that we are sustained by Christ?  If we just assume that we'll get married and have kids like everyone else; if we assume that it will be right to follow career wherever it leads; if we plan to keep on upgrading our homes much as everyone else does - why would anyone ask questions about a life like that?  Where are we deliberately - and visibly - leaning into the reality of the Lord?

Was this perhaps why all those hermits fled into the desert?  When it became easy to be a Christian, when the persecution stopped, when the simple act of believing stopped not making sense to unbelievers - then they started to deny themselves things which they themselves confessed to be entirely legitimate, in order to demonstrate that it was the Lord who upheld them.  Where are the examples of that today?

I feel deeply privileged to have a number of friends who are seeking to live faithfully to Christ whilst wrestling with same-sex attraction.  I think I see in them an example to us of what this life would look like.  A life which foregoes some of the things which those around us imagine to be the very heart and meaning of life - to show that in fact the heart and meaning of life is Jesus.  I feel rebuked by their example, to be honest.  What have I given up for the Lord?  Where are my dreams different from those who don't know him?

Where is my life so shaped around the gospel that it looks impossible from the outside?

The work done by a doctrine of creation

It can be easy for the doctrine of creation to function merely as a backdrop - establishing a baseline, as it were, to make it easier to see the effects of the fall.  Yes, God made the world, and yes, it was good; but that's all in the past, and this side of Genesis 3 what matters is just pulling souls out of the wreckage before the whole thing goes up in smoke.

But a robust doctrine of creation - of the view that God made all this stuff and that it is therefore good, because it bears the mark of its Creator and serves his purposes - is so much more important than that.

Doctrinally, you can't make sense of Jesus without a sound doctrine of creation.  The idea that God the Son took on flesh makes no sense except in a scenario where God the Maker is still concerned for the stuff he has made.  The emphasis on stuff that pervades the gospel accounts - the physical healings, the miracles of food and wine, baptism and Supper - is inexplicable without a God who has not turned his back on his creation, or had second thoughts about the sheer physicality of the thing.  And then the resurrection - why all the insistence that it was with a real body that Jesus appeared after his crucifixion?  Why the eating of fish, the barbecue on the beach?  This is all such earthly stuff for the risen Son of God to be involved with, don't you think?  I wonder if a lot of the aversion which some people have to the idea of incarnation and resurrection actually comes from a sense that it just isn't spiritual enough for their idea of god.

The Christian hope also depends on our doctrine of creation.  Jesus rose in a physical body, and will return to raise our bodies and to renew the whole physical creation.  It is a new heavens and a new earth we're looking forward to, not an ethereal floaty existence as disembodied spirits.  Because God loves this creation he has made, he will redeem it.  All creation groans together in anticipation of that glory; it's a shame if Christians aren't excited at the prospect.

Ethically, there are a whole range of issues which Christians will tend to neglect without a firm doctrine of creation.  Environmental stuff, of course, but it goes a lot further than that.  I'm sure some of the debate a couple of decades ago about the right balance between evangelism and social action sprang in some measure from a deficient doctrine of creation: a sense amongst some that what matters is souls, not bodies or social systems or politics.  But if God is the Creator, all those things matter.

Most recently I've been thinking about how lack of a decent doctrine of creation makes our witness and evangelism harder.  It's easy for Christians to become interested only in 'Christian stuff', to the neglect of the world around.  Whether it's the person who can talk intensely about Christ and the need to be saved but has nothing to say about sport or art, or the person who sees value in reading theological tomes but has never enjoyed a good novel - it all serves to make Christianity seem anti-creation, anti-stuff.  Our lives are impoverished if we go even a little way down this road, and then who will want to join us in our impoverishment?

So anyway, God looked at everything he had made and saw that it was very good.

Advent I: Contentment?

How do we hold together the Bible's call to be content in all circumstances with the fact that the Bible itself points us towards a glorious future hope for which we are to be yearning and looking forward?  How can we be content in the here and now, whilst acknowledging that we don't now have the one thing which we truly need and (at least sometimes) want - the presence of the Lord Jesus?  How can we be content in a broken world that is full of both suffering and evil (not to mention our broken selves, which are similarly stuffed full of woe and wickedness), whilst seriously and genuinely waiting for the redemption of creation?

The answer must have something to do with the relationship between the first and second coming of Christ.  One way of thinking about this relationship might go something like this: Jesus came to get the ball rolling on salvation, and he will come back to put the finishing touches to it; in the meantime he is, through the church, carrying on the plan.  On this scheme, I can understand the discontent that we are meant to feel - it's the discontent of a half-done job - but not the radical contentment to which we are called.

I think the Biblical relationship is more like this: Jesus came to accomplish salvation; there is nothing left to do, and the point of the continuation of history is just to give space for people to come to acknowledge his salvation, enjoy it, and bear witness to it.  His second coming will be to reveal that salvation as it has already been accomplished, thus rolling back the darkness of sin and suffering which still clouds our view of his victory, and vindicating both himself and all those who have trusted in him.  Contentment, then, is based on the accomplished work of Christ - everything needful has been one.  Yearning is based on the hidden nature of this accomplishment - we want to see him glorified!

And if that's right, then one aspect of advent must be mission.  We want to see him in glory, acknowledged and worshipped for all he has done.  That will happen, and we can rest in the knowledge that it will happen.  But a part of our waiting will surely be to bear witness in the darkness to his great light, so that we already see him glorified in the lives of people who come to know him.

We don't know people

There is a lot of angst to be seen amongst American friends and acquaintances today, who are dismayed at the progress of Donald Drumpf.  One of the things that I notice coming up a lot is this: "who are these people?  Nobody I know is voting for him, so who is?"  I've just been reflecting on the fact that hardly anyone I knew was voting Tory in the UK last time around, and yet here they are, in government.  My Facebook feed was filled at the time with people saying "how can this be right?  We don't know anyone who voted for them!"

My conclusion is this: I don't know many people, and the people I do know are not representative of society at large.

Implication: the perspective I have on things is very narrow.  If I draw conclusions about where society is, or where society is going, based on the circle of my acquaintances, I will probably be wrong.  I need to stop being baffled by the fact that there are lots of people out there who think very differently from me and my 'set'.

Application: I need to try to understand people who are coming from very different positions from mine.  I can't just write them off because they don't match the type of people with whom I regularly rub shoulders.

Obviously the application goes beyond politics.  How can I present the gospel to people I don't know or understand?

Work to do.

Defending the Indefensible

I've had two conversations recently which have steered me into dangerous territory.  In the first one, I think I was being checked out as a representative of Magdalen Road Church.  What sort of people were we?  In particular, since we seemed like lovely people (that wasn't said, but surely it goes without saying), we surely weren't like those 'hellfire and damnation' Christians that you might find across the southern states of the US?

In the second conversation, I was being asked why - why on earth? - a Christian Union would restrict itself to having male speakers.  Surely this is hugely sexist and unethical?  Shouldn't religious people be showing the way forward, rather than perpetuating bigotry?

There are several things about these sorts of conversations which could become awkward.  For one thing, nobody much likes talking about hell; and in the current climate, nobody much likes talking about women and the church either.  Both are difficult.  Moreover, neither topic easily leads you into the main thing which, as a Christian, you want to talk about: the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ.

What was difficult about both conversations for me, though, was that I sympathise with the questioner.  I know exactly what is meant by a hellfire and damnation Christian, and I surely do want none of it.  I can also guess why a CU might bar women from speaking, and I think it's defective theology.  I'd love to be able to distance myself from both groups.  The person I'm speaking to wants me to do that too.  In both cases, they are predisposed not to think me an idiot, or (I hope) a bigot.  They are willing me to say that, no, I am not like these people, and in fact my brand of Christianity is much better than theirs.  Which, let's face it, I am at least partly inclined to believe that it is.

But instead I have to stand up for these folks - more than that, I have to show the closest solidarity.  Because they are trying to follow Jesus, trying to understand the Bible and apply it to their lives and their world.  If they've got some things wrong, goodness knows so have I.  I have to reply knowing and feeling in my heart that I am talking about brothers and sisters of mine.  I stand with them.  I don't have to say they're right about everything, but I need to be careful.  The desire to look good has to be suspected whenever it pops up.  I do want people to think well of me.  But if I sell my (to my mind erring) brothers down the river in order to get that, what happens next?  Sell my Lord as well?  It's not so different.

Great Commissions (2 of 2)

The second way to understand the two Commissions is the standard in Reformed circles, as far as I can tell.  The view is that the first (Genesis) Commission still stands, and is still basically definitive for our understanding of God’s intentions for humankind, even fallen humankind.  Human beings are still commanded to fill the earth and subdue it, with every advance in culture, science, and technology which this implies.  Christians are to be particularly involved with and interested in these things, since they receive them not only as the apparently obvious ingredients of a satisfying human life but also as the command of God.  This is not at all to deny that the fall has marred every aspect of what human beings do in response to this Commission.  It is, however, to say that the command still stands nonetheless, and that it ought to be obeyed, despite the fact that it can never be obeyed perfectly.  Something of value will be kept in all human striving that corresponds to this Commission.  The concept of common grace generally comes into play here.

The second Commission is understood against this background.  Given the broken nature of creation following the fall, the first Commission cannot be fulfilled, in the sense of fully and perfectly executed, but human beings alone.  God must step in to make it possible again, and he does so in Christ.  Christ’s work is about the redemption of all creation, and its restoration to its original potential.  Therefore, Christians are bound not only to engage in first Commission work, but also to join in the second Commission task of preaching Christ, through whom alone the first Commission can be fulfilled (eschatologically, for the most part).  As an aside, a good introduction to this view is the little book Creation Regained by Albert Wolters.

This view also has much to recommend it.  Not least, Christians who hold it are likely to live more interesting lives than those who hold the first view, and this may well have the effect of making their evangelism more effective; their engagement with the ordinary work of humanity has the potential to commend the gospel.  Independently of this, they are surely correct to see more in Genesis 1 and 2 than a wistful memory of a long-dead world.  With this perspective, advocates of the second view are equipped to avoid the secular/sacred divide that more or less inevitably follows from the first view.  Still, I’m not sure this view has it completely right.  I worry that it has the potential to make the gospel of Christ merely a means to an end, and the lordship of Christ a secondary rather than a primary concern.  This is a danger, not an actuality - I don’t think people actually go this far, or at least not explicitly.  But I think it is a valid concern; the gospel is not an afterthought.  Add to that, I’m not sure the framework of creation restored can contain the eschatology of the Bible - the end promised to us seems, to me, to be much more than the beginning.  

The third view, which is mine and therefore saved to the last so that it seems more impressive, rests on the insight that chronology is not always the key.  The second Commission, on this view, is really the first, and the first is the second.  To clarify, we’ll call them G-Commission (for Genesis) and M-Commission (for Matthew).  Rather than seeing G-Commission as basic, and M-Commission as a necessary addition in the face of sin, the third view sees M-Commission as basic.  The spread of the kingdom of Christ, through the evangelization of the nations, is - and always has been - the central purpose of everything that exists, including human beings and everything that they can do or produce in conformity to the G-Commission.  This is not to devalue the G-Commission; rather, it is to provide it with a secure place.  Although advocates of the second view see value in both Commissions, I do not know how they can hold them together.  It seems to me that either one or the other will necessarily be without foundation and arbitrary.  It is all very well to say that the G-Commission is still in force, but I wonder what that can even really mean after the fall.  And I wonder what relation it can really have to the M-Commission.  By contrast, this third view holds the two together because it sees the fulfillment of the G-Commission occurring as, and only as, human creativity is brought under the lordship of Christ.  This does not mean that cultural artifacts and the like which are created without reference to Christ lose all their value; it simply means that Jesus is Lord over them whether their creators like it or not, and so they can brought in some way - whether by appreciation or critique - within the orbit of the church as the community which knows and bows to his Lordship in the here and now.  (This involves a rethinking of common grace; it is not a kind of basic grace which is independent of the gospel grace of Christ - rather it is the overflow of the gospel, or perhaps just the gospel as it applies to those who do not know it or acknowledge it).

I think this is a better way of understanding the relationship between the G-Commission and the M-Commission.  It keeps the main thing - the Lordship of Christ and its recognition amongst the nations - as very definitely the main thing, and it securely grounds everything else by relating it to this great divine project.  It fits better with the shape of the doctrine of creation, as I understand it.  Most importantly, I think it lets us live as Christians - set free from every concern which is not Christ, whilst recognising that Christ means more than we might initially think.

(It occurs to me, at the conclusion, that this whole post is probably just a way of saying that I am a supralapsarian; if that doesn’t mean anything to you, lucky you).

Great Commissions (1 of 2)

Reading chronologically is not always the best help when it comes to Biblical interpretation.  Thanks to a stimulating Awayday with Magdalen Road Church, where Julian Hardyman helped us to think through what it really means to live for Jesus every day, I've been mulling over the relationship between Matthew 28 and Genesis 1-2, and in particular what Julian called the Two Great Commissions.  It seems to me that there are at least three ways of seeing the relationship between these two Commissions, and that the one we pick will have a huge effect on what we think it means to live as a Christian.

Firstly, the two Commissions - what are they?  The first, chronologically speaking, is the instruction and permission found in the two creation accounts in Genesis.  This could be called the creational mandate, or the cultural mandate.  Humanity is to expand and advance, both numerically and in terms of control over creation.  They are to steward the resources of creation, making responsible use of everything that God has given them.  This will involve creativity, craftsmanship, thought.  Humanity is commanded and permitted to thrive, and to enjoy the fruits of their gentle work within the world that God has made.  The second Commission, and the one which is more commonly referred to by that name, is the sending out of the Apostles, and through them the Apostolic Church, to bear witness to Christ, making disciples who are baptised and taught to follow everything that Jesus has said.  This Commission, unlike the other, is delivered to a limited group of people, although the intended beneficiaries are not limited.  In a way, it too involves expansion and advancement in numbers and in ways of being community together for the world.

The first way of understanding the relationship between these two Commissions is to say that the latter nullifies the former.  Genesis 1 and 2 stand as testimony to God's original intention for humanity, but after Genesis 3 there is nothing left of that intention.  The fall raises an impenetrable barrier between that world and our world (a cherub with a flaming sword, perhaps?) which makes it useless for us to even think about the mandate of Genesis 1 and 2 except in the context of reflection on what we have lost, and therefore how much we need Christ.  Those who hold this viewpoint tend to think that evangelism is the only worthwhile thing to be doing - everything else being simply the necessary prerequisites for evangelism.  If you have ever heard someone use an argument like ‘what does it matter what great works of art we create when there are people going to hell all around us’, they probably hold this view of the relationship between Genesis 1-2 and Matthew 28.  (The wonky eschatology follows on logically).

I think this viewpoint has a lot to recommend it (it used to be mine).  It takes the fall seriously, it takes seriously the fact that we cannot even imagine a world in which work was always blessed and human effort was not constantly subject to futility.  It also takes seriously the urgent need for the gospel to go out.  However, I am convinced that this is not the biblical view.  For starters, in both Old and New Testaments, numerous activities are endorsed and commanded which bear no relation to evangelism, the extension of the church, or the plucking of brands from the fire.  Moreover, this view of the relation between Genesis 1-2 and Matthew 28 (or, indeed, the rest of the Bible) implies that God has abandoned his creation to destruction, choosing to save a few souls from the wreck.  That just doesn’t fit with the declared intentions of God for his creation in Scripture.  Genesis 1-2 still matters for more than just a reminder of what we have lost.

The other two perspectives to follow shortly...