what is the mission of the church?

Kevin De Young and Greg Gilbert have written a book called ‘What is the Mission of the Church?’.  It has touched a raw nerve in the younger American evangelical scene.   Some have written fairly critical reviews of it (see here for an inventory of these).  De Young and Gilbert have responded here.

The debate is important for it affects what we understand to be our responsibility to society as Christians.  It is well worth taking the time to read the online discussion at the very least.  I have not read De Young’s book but I know my overall position is nearer to De Young and Gilbert than to those in the ‘missional’ camp (followers more of Christopher Wright and N T Wright).  The problem with the more ‘missional’ or ‘transformational’ paradigm, to my mind, is the biblical meta-narrative assumed.   Its advocates believe the story of the Bible starts with creation and see God’s mission as restoring creation.   They are, in my view, wrong in both counts.

• While the biblical narrative begins with creation, creation is not the beginning of the story.  The ‘true’ beginning is only revealed as the plot unfolds.  The real beginning is God’s plan in eternity.   God’s plan is Christ and all who find their election in him, information not available in the story’s first chapter (Eph 1).  In other words, God’s goal was never Adam and the first creation but Christ and the new creation.  The End does not complete the Beginning; the Beginning is simply a prologue for the End.  Adam was only the type, Christ is the antitype.  Or, if you like, the Second Man was always the First.
  

• If ‘transformationalists’ get the beginning of the story wrong, they also get the end wrong too.  The dénouement is not a return to the beginning but a new beginning that eclipses all that has gone before.  New creation is not creation restored or regained, it is creation radically reconfigured.   The missional perspective builds too much on continuity and does not give nearly enough credit to discontinuity.  They do not credit new creation with being just that, ‘new’.

The result of a misread plot is a skewed understanding of the act in the drama where we find ourselves now.  The task of the church is not to transform society but to bear witness to society of God’s new creation by proclaiming the gospel in word and life.  Of course, with the life of Christ in our hearts we will seek to do good to all men, especially those of the household of faith’ (for that is what Christ did) but that is somewhat different from seeing our mission as ‘the flourishing of creation’.  We will of course respect creation as good stewards of it but what we wish primarily to see flourishing is not creation, but new creation, which in my view is a very different thing.

reacting to the sermon on the mount – a spiritual health check

Over the centuries the Sermon on the Mount has been subjected to many interpretations. —the older Catholic interpreters referred to,“two tiers of Christians,” the Lutherans viewed it as  “law to prepare for the Gospel,”the Calvinist as a “mandate for the state,” the nineteenth–century liberals conceived it as “social optimism”, an ethic for socially creating the Kingdom of God,  Schweitzer saw it as an  apocalyptic “interim ethic,” others, more hostile, a pitiful  ethic that negates the core of what it is to be human, and old–line dispensationalism placed it in the end-time tribulation or the Millennium — most today understand it as part of Jesus’ “already but not yet” ethic for the Kingdom of God.

The ‘interpretation’ we impose on the sermon tends to colour how we react to it and how we react says a lot about where we are spiritually.  Below are four reactions.  Which best describes yours?

you despise it

This is the most grave of all reactions to the sermon.  It reveals a heart deeply antagonistic to God.  This reaction was that of the C19 German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche.  Nietzsche despised Christianity and its values.  He considered them weak and demeaning.  Far from dying to self, in poverty of spirit and meekness, man must be assertive.  He must seek power, glory and greatness.  ‘Be what you are’ was his motto, and, as a motto for man in sin, this is massively self-deifying and destructive.  Man is god.  Man is supreme.  Man must dominate.   In personal strength and not weakness is man’s destiny.   The values of the Sermon on the Mount are to be despised as a ‘slave morality’.  Nietzsche’s philosophy met with a fair degree of resistance in his (more Christian) time but it has become the prevailing view of many in the West today.  It is the brazen bold assertiveness of Adam in the garden without pretence or hypocrisy.  Nietzsche is the philosopher whose hubris declared the death of God.  In time of course it was Neitzsche who died, as defiant in death as in life.  His friend, Gast, gave his funeral oration, proclaiming: “Holy be your name to all future generations!”  Adam had come of age.

you admire it

For many over the centuries, however, the Sermon on the Mount has been admired and lauded.  Many moralists of society pointed to the Sermon on the Mount as a blueprint for society.  Gandhi, a Hindu teacher said of it,

‘Of all the things I have read what remained with me forever was that Jesus came almost to give a new law – not an eye for an eye but to receive two blows when only one was given, and to go two miles when they were asked to go one. I came to see that the Sermon on the Mount was the whole of Christianity for him who wanted to live a Christian life. It is that sermon that has endeared Jesus to me.”   

For Gandhi, the sermon presented the ideal virtues of non-resistance and pacificism. Gandhi was influenced by Leo Tolstoy who believed the pacificism of the sermon was a model for society.  The Kingdom of God arrrived as men embraced these values.  In the final analysis, it appears for both, and for many others, the Kingdom of God was not much more than aspiring to the life of the Sermon on the Mount.  Some grasped more than others the impossibly high standard of righteousness the sermon required (Tolstoy renounced all his wealth and became an ascetic in pursuit of its righteousness)  but few grasped that to enter the Kingdom and live this life to any degree one had to be ‘born again’ (Jn 3); the Kingdom is not firstly a life to be lived but a Lord to be trusted.   Death to self and the life of the sermon comes through the death and resurrection of another before it becomes our own.

In the final analysis, the belief of old-time liberals that moral living will bring the kingdom of God perishes on the rock of human nature.  It fails to recognise that the sermon is not compatible with fallen human nature.  Nietzsche had complete clarity in this point; his view of the sermon is more true to human nature as it is however desperate it may be.  Any unregenerate human heart who has an inkling of the thrust of the sermon does not find it is a message to admire but one to fear and hate.  The sermon crushes fallen human nature and leaves it dead.

you are  crushed by it

For many, the sermon is a message of despair.  They read the sermon and they recognise its impossibility.  They feel their powerlessness before it.  It leaves them, as Roms 5 says, knowing they are ‘without strength’.    The sermon acts, for them, upon conscience like ‘law’, that is, it makes them conscious of their sin.  In fact, its very commands incite rebellion in the heart.  They resent it.  Thy are condemned by it.  It makes them fear and resent God.  Lutherans tend to view the sermon this way, or at least many modern Lutherans do.

Now in many ways this is a good thing.  The Spirit of God often uses the sermon to convict of sin just like he uses the Mosaic Law, or our innate values.  Moreover, conviction of sin and a sense of our malaise is a healthy and necessary prerequisite to salvation.  It is far more promising than moral smugness.  Those who believe themselves well have no need of a doctor, only the sick:  the righteous (or those who think they are righteous) have no need of a Saviour, but Christ came to call ‘sinners’ to repentance (Lk 5:32).

But let me make a point in passing.  While the sermon or ‘law’ makes us conscious of sin it does not provide a Saviour or hope of forgiveness.  Indeed, law never does.  Law can only condemn.  It cannot lead us to repentance.  It doesn’t make us hate our sin, only know it and its consequences.  It doesn’t offer mercy or forgiveness (I speak of law, in principle as God’s demands apart from sacrifice).  Only the gospel can do this.  It is the kindness of God that leads to repentance (Roms 2).   It is the assurance of grace that makes repentance even a possibility.  Repeatedly this point is made in Scripture (Ps 78:34,35; Isa 55:7; Joel 2:13; Acts 2:38). Pure law provides only death; only grace shows the way of life.

For the unbeliever therefore, perhaps the first step towards faith, may be to be convicted of sin by this sermon.   For the careless who presume upon God’s grace and treat it ‘cheaply’ the sermon warns of houses built on sand and shakes false assurance.  But what of the ‘believer’?  Should a believer approach the sermon in fear and trepidation?  Should he/she be afraid to read it because it condemns?    Should the heart of faith read this sermon and be crushed by it?  Although many answer yes, I cannot agree.  Christ’s words are never intended to crush his people as they seek to follow him.  They may and should crush the flesh, but not the believer.

you delight in it

The believer rejoices in the sermon.   Like the psalmist in the OT he ‘delights in the law of the Lord’.   His ear is opened morning by morning to hear as one instructed (Ps 50:4).  He does not approach the sermon as a word of law to condemn rather, he comes as one who stands consciously in grace (Roms 5:1).  He rejoices in the fact that his iniquities are forgiven and his sin is covered (Roms 4).  By faith he grasps that he is seated with Christ in heavenly places, holy and accepted and before God in a place of love (Eph 1).  For him there is no accusation (Roms 8:1).  God is for him and who or what can be against him.  He stands secure in the knowledge that nothing can separate him from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus his Lord.

In this security he reads the sermon and his holy soul – the life he has in the Spirit – rejoices in it.  What the sermon teaches his spirit affirms.   This is the life of Christ that pulsates within.   Yes, his flesh rebels against it, but it is this very flesh he wishes, by the Spirit, to put to death.  If his eye offends he desires to pluck it out.  The divine nature of which he is a partaker delights in poverty of spirit and meekness.   It envies godliness.  It lusts after Christlikeness.  It yearns to know Christ and the power of his resurrection expressed in fellowship with his sufferings.  This is the life of faith, the life of a ‘believer’.

Yes, there will be failure.  But, in failure, faith finds confidence that we have an intercessor in the heavens, Jesus Christ the Righteous who restores us.  We know that when we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  Thus, we do not constantly look back in regret, or inwardly in defeat, but we look up in faith, and forward in anticipation as we seek to lay hold of that for which God has laid hold of us.  Faith denies condemnation, accusation, impossibility, and defeat any voice.  It does not doubt or despair or stand condemned but is strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

We live in confidence that what the sermon exhorts us to hear and do God works in us as he enables us to will and do for his own good pleasure.  Thus for the ‘believer’ who lives in gospel faith the sermon is nothing less than ‘the good, acceptable and perfect will of God’ which is his daily meat.

How do you react to the sermon on the Mount?  Do you despise it, admire it, fear it, or delight in it?

ambassadors of a disputed king

Bill Kyles has an excellent article on the hidden glory of the church in Themelios.  Below is an appetizer.

Ambassadors of a Disputed King

As pastors there is much to discourage us. We can feel insignificant compared to the powerful and influential people of our age. We are engaged in what has been called a “perplexed profession” in our modern world, and many are seeking to make it more professional as a result. It is tempting to seek the recognition and validation of the culture around us.

Richard Neuhaus compares our present situation to that of being the ambassadors of a disputed king. Compared with other members of the diplomatic corps at the courts of the world, an ambassador for Christ is in an awkward position. Most ambassadors bear the authority of and are legitimated by the sovereignties that they represent. But the sovereignty of the one we claim to represent is itself in question. The claim is under the shadow of a history shadowed by powerful evidence against his sovereignty. The shadow will not be dispelled, the question will not be answered, until he returns in glory.

The temptation, Neuhaus suggests, is one of relieving the awkwardness of our position by accepting a lesser authority from another kingdom. In other words, we are tempted to play by their rules. We are tempted to use some power of this age—the power of money, academic reputation, political clout, or something else—to make the other members at the world’s court listen to us. But that is just what we must not do, for until he comes, our King is enthroned upon a cross; and he has called us to claim no authority but that of his sovereign, suffering love for the world. We are called to hold on to that mystery of faith.

more luke reversals

We’re looking at the reversals in Luke’s gospel.  God’s Kingdom reverses expectations.  This reversal is made explicit in Jesus sermon at Nazareth in Luke 4.  Luke 4 is perhaps the key to the whole gospel.   It announces the core of Jesus’ mission and the gospel of the Kingdom.  Jesus announces the reversals as he quotes from Isaiah’s prophecy.  Luke frames the quotation in vvs 16,17 and then v20; ‘he stood up… unrolled the scroll’ and ‘he rolled up the scroll… and sat down’. The framing serves to highlight the significance of the reading and announcement itself .

‘When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’”‘ Luke 4:16-21

Jesus assumes the Isaian mantle of the Messianic Servant and announces the gospel fortunes reversed for four groups; the impoverished, the broken, the blind, and the oppressed.  Throughout Luke the Spirit of God in Jesus brings the liberating power of the Kingdom into the lives of needy people. At this initial point the message is one of pure grace.  The prophecy read refers only the exalting of the needy, it says nothing of the downfall of the proud.  Jesus stops his reading in Isaiah before the clause, ‘the day of vengeance of our God’.  It is only as Jesus is progressively rejected that the message of judgement will move progressively into the foreground until in Luke 21, just prior to his arrest, it is explicit.

And so ‘release’ or ‘deliverance’ is mentioned twice (release to the captives… freedom for the oppressed).  The ‘poor’ in Luke are not simply the ‘spiritually poor’ or even the ‘economically poor’, though both may be included.  Rather it is a group generally recognised as outside the boundaries of God’s people.  The Kingdom of God stretches its boundaries to bring in the ‘outsiders’, the ostracized, and the untouchables.  It will include lepers, tax-collectors (like Zaccheus), widows, the ceremonially unclean, the demonic the dead, the deranged, the immoral, robbers and even gentiles*. It is to such lives the power of the Kingdom breaks in.  People like this celebrate and find release.  The Kingdom of Jubilee finds them. People barred are invited.  People rejected are welcomed.  People who have nothing to give are freely given.

There is lesson for those of us who belong to such a kingdom.  We too are to live with the same Kingdom Spirit.

Jesus says to us in Luke 14,

“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

It is hard to believe that a message of hope like this provoked deep hostility; yet it does.  When he warns that if they do not embrace him then they may find that the blessings of the Kingdom pass them by, they are incensed and try to kill him.  The reversals of the Kingdom are already at work; those who are ‘outside’ will by divine generosity and grace be brought ‘inside’ but those who pride themselves on being  ‘inside’ may find themselves ‘outside’.

Luke 13:25-30 (ESV)
‘When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

These are words not simply for Israel but for all who believe they are on the ‘inside’.

* When King David was rejected and hiding in the cave of adullam those who attached themselves to him were the outsiders and ostracized in Israel.   The Kingdom of God is no different.

reversed expectations

Luke’s gospel stresses reversed expectations.  It is about the Kingdom of God and this Kingdom specializes in reversed expectations.  We noted this reversal in a blog a few days ago.  It is signalled right at the beginning of the gospel.  Mary praises God as she reflects on her miraculous pregnancy and exclaims:

‘he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
land exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.’ (Lk 1:51-53)

Simeon points out in Ch 2,

“Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel”

The reversal signs are there early on.  Lowly Shepherds are informed the leaders of Israel are left in the dark.  Messiah is born in a byre not a palace.  His bed is a cattle trough not a cradle. He will grow up in inconsequential Nazareth, not Jerusalem.

In ch 3 the ‘word of the Lord does not come to whose names are in the c1 version of ‘Who’s Who’ (3:1) but to ‘John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness’ (v2). John probably also alludes to the reversal as he heralds the arrival of Messiah and prepares people for his arrival in a baptism of repentance.  He announces:

‘every valley shall be filled and every mountain laid low’

Those who come to be baptised are societies disreputables – tax collectors and soldiers.  However, Herod, the Tetrarch, has John locked up in prison.  The lines are being drawn.  Later Jesus refuses to speak to Herod.  Herod had his opportunity in John and blew it.

Ch 4 signals a more profound reversal.  Ironically, in Jewish Nazareth where he grew up Jesus could do no miracle because of their unbelief. It is in the other towns of Galilee where he is unknown he is initially accepted and blesses with healings.  Another tangible sign of what will become an emerging pattern of reversal is revealed: his own will reject him and others will accept him.  The first shall be last and the last shall be first.

In God’s Kingdom flesh and privilege count for nothing.  God acts only and always in grace.  When we think we are something we are nothing.  Our privilege is more likely to blind us than save us.  In God’s Kingdom it is only ever those who realise they are hungry who are filled and those who feel their thirst who are replenished.  We privileged evangelicals need to take great care that like those Nazarenes we do not despise our birthright.

We shall further explore this reversal over the next few blogs.