“Because
Christ has long since acted decisively for other Christians, before I could
begin to act, I must allow them the freedom to be Christ’s. They should
encounter me only as the persons that they already are for Christ. This is the
meaning of the claim that we can encounter others only through the mediation of
Christ. Emotional love constructs its own
image of other persons, about what they are and what they should become. It
takes the life of the other person into its own hands. Spiritual love
recognizes the true image of the other person as seen from the perspective of
Jesus Christ. It is the image Jesus Christ has formed and wants to form in all
people.” (Italics mine). Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, Fortress Press, 2015
(Reader’s Edition), page 18.
“Emotional
love constructs its own image of other persons, about what they are and what
they should become,” these words should serve as a reminder to all of us, but
especially to those in teaching, preaching, pastoral care, and in leadership,
that it is not our image that should
guide us in ministry, but the image of Christ; and that the people we serve are
not our people who belong to us but
rather Christ’s people who belong to Him.
Too
often we strive to superimpose our image, including the image or imprint of a
movement or tradition, on others, rather than seek to honor and recognize the
image of Jesus Christ in others, rather than discerning how the image of Christ
is manifesting itself within the body of Christ and its particular members. We
can be more like a cattle round up in which one of our goals is to ensure that
everyone is caught and branded – not with the image of Christ but with our own
image. We have the propensity not to rest in our relationships, or in our
teaching and preaching, until we see the image that we want to see rather than the image of Jesus Christ which He has
placed in everyone who calls upon His name. Rather than preach and model
submission to Jesus Christ we (overtly or covertly) want others to submit to us
– including our movement or our tradition or our latest and greatest and
popular Christian idea.
Yet, along
with the above warning, we are called to know the image of Christ, to see the
image of Christ, and to gravitate toward the image of Christ. We are to engage
others not only where they are in Christ in the temporal, but also seek to help
their temporal experience mirror eternal reality and to see eternal reality
inform temporal experience. Paul writes, “We proclaim Him [Christ], admonishing
every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every
man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to
His power, which mightily works within me,” (Colossians 1:28-29). In Ephesians
4:13 Paul writes, “…until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature
which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” In the Colossians passage we see a
focus on the individual member of the body of Christ, in the Ephesians passage Paul
focuses on the collective body of Christ – we seek the image and fullness of
Christ in each other individually and in all of us collectively.
We
need Bonhoeffer’s warning about “emotional love” but we also need to know and
seek the image of Christ; just as with paper currency – we recognize the counterfeit
by first knowing the legitimate. Questions we can ask ourselves include: “Is it
the image of Christ I am seeking to develop in others, or is it my own image or
the image of my group, or movement, or particular way of thinking? Do I
recognize the work of Christ in others and do I respect that work, even if
(especially if!) it is markedly different from my own experience? Am I submitting
to Christ in this relationship or seeking to have others submit to me? Am I
submitting to others or seeking to have others submit to me? Is it important to
me that Jesus Christ is Lord of this relationship?”
The
Great Commission includes the commandment to make disciples and teach them to
obey all that Jesus Christ has commanded us. The disciples we are to make are
to be disciples of Jesus Christ, and the commandments we teach others to obey
are His commandments and not ours. On the one hand we must ensure that we are not
teaching our own commandments and traditions and movements, and that we are not
making our own disciples. But on the other hand we must passionately strive and
patiently live to make disciples for Jesus Christ and to clearly teach them to
obey all that Jesus has commanded us.
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