Kindness and Truth

“Do not let kindness and truth leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.” Proverbs 3:3 (NASB).

Kindness without truth lacks definition; truth without kindness is devoid of life. Truth without grace is a body without a soul; kindness without knowledge and discernment is uninformed and uninforming.

Paul writes to the Philippians that their gentleness should be known to all men (Phil. 4:5), and he writes to Timothy that “The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient with wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition…” (2 Timothy 2:24 - 25). James writes that the wisdom from above is peaceful and gentle (James 3:17 - 18). In Psalm 18 David says to Yahweh, “Your gentleness has made me great.”

We live in anything but a gentle society, and sadly the professing church is often no different. We think that having the “truth” permits us to bludgeon others, but then our truth is no better than the truth of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day - it is a “truth” that crucifies.

Those who live in the truth of Jesus Christ are not interested in crucifying others, but they do seek to crucify themselves by the grace of God as they put to death, again by God’s grace, those elements within themselves that are antithetical to the nature of the Lamb of God.

In Proverbs 3:3 the father tells the son to not allow kindness and truth to leave him and to hold them closely to himself. Kindness helps to protect us against our propensity to be judgmental and condemning. This does not mean that we do not recognize sin as sin and evil as evil and good as good and truth as truth - but it does mean that our knowledge and discernment are exercised in charity and humility, without envy and with a desire for redemption. When a physician identifies an illness he does so to heal and not to kill.

When our society is engulfed in vitriol, from the highest levels of government to the lowest of the masses, we are a people most to be pitied. When professing Christians swim in these toxic waters what can we think but that the eagles now think themselves chickens pecking at the ground and living in dung, oblivious to their surroundings.

We are called to be kind, and if we cannot be kind then let us not speak, for to speak the truth without kindness is to pollute the truth and bring disgrace on Jesus Christ. We ought to fear the vitriol of society the way we should fear drinking water contaminated with dung - and if we would not give a neighbor contaminated water to drink, why would we give our neighbor contaminated truth? Why would we give our congregations contaminated truth?

The water that Christ gives us from His throne is pure water, undefiled; it is holy and sacred. The rivers of living water that He places within us are of the Holy Spirit - ought we not to fear introducing pollution into such Water?

While the idea that we should do “random acts of kindness” is admirable; the follower of Jesus Christ is called to live a life of kindness and truth, to be deliberate in his actions and thoughts, to be careful in his words and deeds - and to freely give his life for Christ and those around him. The life of a Christian is not to be random, but to be one of deliberate discipleship, denying himself, following Jesus, and blessing both the thankful and the unthankful, those who can see and those who can’t (Matthew 5:43ff).

When others drink from our lives...what does the water look like? What does it taste like? What are its effects? When we speak the truth is it flavored with kindness?

Are we a kind people?

Reflections on Bonhoeffer’s Life Together – 110

“The day of the Lord’s Supper is a joyous occasion for the Christian community. Reconciled in their hearts with God and one another, the community of faith receives the gift of Jesus Christ’s body and blood, therein receiving forgiveness, new life, and salvation. New community with God and one another is given to it. The community of the holy Lord’s Supper is above all the fulfillment of Christian community. Just as the members of the community of faith are united in body and blood at the table of the Lord, so they will be together in eternity. Here the community has reached its goal. Here joy in Christ and Christ’s community is complete. The life together of Christians under the Word has reached its fulfillment in the sacrament.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, Fortress Press, 2015 (Reader’s Edition), page 97. [Italics mine.]

This is the final paragraph of Life Together, Bonhoeffer’s concluding words, his goal, the culmination of his thought in Life Together. There is an inclusio in that the book begins with life under the Word and it concludes with life under the Word reaching its fulfillment.

Life Together reaches its fulfillment in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and yet the entire journey has been sacramental, for the essence of life together is receiving Christ Jesus through one another – the nature of the Body of Christ is the nature of God in Christ; the nature of relationship in Christ is receiving Christ from one another. The Lord’s Supper is an affirmation of who Christ is, of who He is in us, of who we are in Him, of who we are in Him in one another. We anticipate the fullness of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb as we sacramentally participate in that Supper.

We sacramentally participate in the Supper, we sacramentally leave the Supper, we sacramentally live with one another, we sacramentally live in the world and toward the world, we sacramentally return to the Supper – and thus we travel this pilgrimage. God’s presence is with us and in us; we are in the world but not of the world; we lay down our lives for one another as Christ laid down His life for us; we love the world as God loves the world; the Incarnation continues to work itself out in us, Christ’s Body; the New Jerusalem continues its descent and outworking in us and through us; and as we seek Christ’s daily appearing we, His people, are transformed and conformed into His image and likeness for the glory of the Trinity.

We “joy in Christ and Christ’s community.”

“When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.” 1 Corinthians 15:28.

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will live among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them…’ ” Revelation 21:3.

“For even as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.” 1 Corinthians 12:12.

“…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 of the fullness of Christ.” Ephesians 4:13.

“…the riches of the glory of this mystery…which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Colossians 1:27.

Amen.

Reflections on Romans 4:1 - 5:11 (9)

“...having been reconciled, we shall be saved by (in) His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.” Romans 5:10b - 11.

J.B. Phillips translates “saved by His life” as “through His living in us” and I think he hits the mark by translating the Greek preposition with “in” rather than “by” - “in” is the natural translation and it conveys the Divine reality of God living within His people. This reminds me of Galatians 2:20 in the sense that some translate “I live by faith in the Son God” rather than “I live by the faith of the Son of God” - while either translation conveys an important truth, the difference is significant. If “Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20) then His faith lives in me as well and the life I live is not solely mine, but it is more importantly Christ’s.

Thus with Romans 5:10, our reconciliation includes an exchange of life, our old life dead in trespasses and sins for the His Divine life, and our holistic salvation is worked out (Philippians 2:12 - 13) as Christ lives in us. Jesus Christ takes our old life on the Cross on Good Friday and gives us His life on Easter morning.

It seems that we often fight God’s reconciliation in our minds our words our actions. God says that He has reconciled us through His Son and we tend to say “Yes but.” God pours out His love in our hearts by the Holy Spirit and we say “Yes but.” God declares us justified in Jesus Christ and we say “Yes but.” We often have excuses to not really believe in the perfect and complete and comprehensive work and love of Jesus Christ. God has rent the veil that barred us from the Holy of Holies and we try to sew it back together.

A man-centered way of thinking will lead us to a system of works and we will say “Yes but,” but when we live Christocentric lives and think Christocentric thoughts and submit ourselves to the Word of God in Christ then we must confess that “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).

How radical is this reconciliation? Verse 11 leads us to the “therefore” of verse 12, and verse 12 leads us out of Adam and into Christ - it is nothing less than a complete and total change of our identity with the celebration of that identity reaching the crescendo of Romans 8:38 - 39; we are the objects of God love in Jesus Christ.

We have nothing to do with our being reconciled to God, God acts toward us and upon us and within us and through us; by God’s grace we respond. Since we have thus been acted upon, we ought not to think, as the Galatians did, that at some point we take things upon ourselves and seek growth and maturity through our own efforts and devices. Christ is everything and we are nothing, but in Christ God has made us His sons and daughters and the Father has made Jesus the firstborn among many brethren. By God’s grace it is our calling to live as His sons and daughters - to live as those who have received the reconciliation.

The security that we have in God’s reconciliation allows us to stop thinking about ourselves first and foremost and to lay down our lives for others. It allows us to live as the New Jerusalem, being the City of God in flesh on the earth as we live by and in the Holy Spirit. The Incarnation of Bethlehem expands and grows and transcends race and economics and social status and the prejudices of the First Man (humanity) as the Second Man (the Christ humanity, 1 Cor. 15) walks this earth in His Body. Our natural eyes will deceive us, but as we learn to see with the eye of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 4:16 - 18) we are transformed from glory to glory in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 3:17 - 18).

In Jesus Christ we have been reconciled to God. We are being saved completely by the life of Jesus Christ (see the three tenses of our salvation in 1 Peter 1:1 - 5).

Little wonder Paul is exulting and rejoicing as he writes this passage (Romans 5:2, 3, 11) - I can see him stopping and dancing around the room from sentence to sentence, from thought to thought.

I need to stop now and do a little dance myself. Would you care to join me?

Reflections on Bonhoeffer’s Life Together – 109

On page 96 as Bonhoeffer moves into his concluding focus in Life Together, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, he writes about the special place confession one to another has in preparation for the Supper.

“It is the command of Jesus that no one should come to the altar with a heart unreconciled to another Christian…The day before the Lord’s Supper together will find the members of a Christian community with one another, each asking of the other forgiveness for wrongs committed. Anyone who avoids this path to another believer cannot go to the table of the Lord well prepared.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, Fortress Press, 2015 (Reader’s Edition), page 96.

Here Bonhoeffer is not only talking about confession of our sins one to another, but going to brothers and sisters against whom we have sinned and asking their forgiveness – Bonhoeffer points out that this is more than an apology, this is confession of sin.

In my own life I have stood before the communion table and asked forgiveness of someone in the congregation more than once before I could administer the bread and wine. Why? Why could I not have done this privately? I could have done it privately before our worship gathering if I had been convicted of it before then, or if I had been both convicted and had had time to do so before our worship gathering. In each instance I believed that if I proceeded in serving the Lord’s Supper without asking for forgiveness that I would be profaning the Table and serving the elements as a hypocrite.

So we have both the practice of confession of our sins one to another, a confession in which we hear the Word of Forgiveness in Christ; and we have the practice of going to a brother or sister against whom we have sinned and asking their forgiveness for the wrong, the sin, we have done against them. The is the path to the communion Table, and while we may struggle with the former practice and not be prepared to embrace it, we must not evade the latter practice, otherwise the roots of bitterness and sin will work their way deep into our souls. Tender and new weeds are easy to pull, deep-rooted weeds are difficult and can be dangerous to the good plants of the garden.

“What brought the accusation of blasphemy against Jesus was that he forgave sinners; this is what now takes place in the Christian community in the power of the present Jesus Christ” (page 97).

While I realize that some of us may resonant with the above, and others may reject it out-of-hand, I hope we will ponder Bonhoeffer’s words for they could not have been lightly penned, not in the context of the book Life Together; whether we agree with him or not I think it proper to give Bonhoeffer the courtesy of thinking about what he has written. Confession to one another is important to Bonhoeffer and we should ask “Why?” Bonhoeffer concludes his book with a focus on confession and the Lord’s Supper – why does he do this? Why is this so important?

If we are indeed the Body of Christ, if this is a present reality, if the Trinity lives within His Body, then as He is so are we in this world – whether we believe it or not, whether we consciously experience it or not. The Tree of Life in Revelation Chapter 22 is a picture of a tree, like the Aspen, which grows through its root system; one tree has become many trees yet the many trees are the one tree and they are genetically identical. The Aspen tree is considered by some to be the largest living thing, with the Pando “clone” over 100 acres in size and weighing around 14 million pounds – surely the Body of Christ dwarfs the Aspen tree.

Too often we recoil at a thought because we have seen it misunderstood and misused, we ought to know better – what riches in Christ have we forfeited because of this thinking? And just because my lack of faith may cause me to pragmatically think, “I’ll never see that in this life,” does not mean that I should not hope for a fuller expression of the glory of God in Christ in His people – just maybe God will surprise me as He has surprised others.

If we are a “royal priesthood” and a “holy nation” then we ought to discover what that means. (Peter does not write in 1 Peter 2:9 that we are a nation of sinners). John writes that Jesus Christ “has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father” (Revelation 1:6 – see also 5:10; 20:6). Surely the New Testament writers understood what the image of a priest would convey, surely when the writer of Hebrews calls Jesus our High Priest, rather than simply “our Priest”, he understands that a High Priest is surrounded by other priests. The NT teaching of the “priesthood of the believer” takes the OT priesthood and transposes it upward in Christ – yet this is not an individualistic priesthood, this is not a priesthood where people serve in isolation from one another, this is a priesthood, it is a communion, a fellowship, with our High Priest as our Head. Little wonder that Peter writes that we ought to be “good stewards of the manifold grace of God” and that when we speak we ought to speak as the “oracles of God” – for we have been made a holy nation and a royal priesthood.

Our world needs the Body of Christ functioning as a priesthood, the Body needs its members functioning one to another as a priesthood. Sadly we fear and we do not function. We are afraid to be who we are in Christ – we prefer the safety of Egypt. Slaves need not take risks, they are secure in their bondage.

“For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are the children of God,” (Romans 8:14 – 15). Better to live a moment in the freedom of Jesus Christ than a lifetime in chains.

Let us not fear to be who God has made us in Jesus Christ. Let us not fear to be the kingdom of priests, let us not fear to be Christ’s royal priesthood.

There is a sad irony that as we approach the 500^th anniversary of what is commonly thought to be the beginning of the Reformation that we give but lip service to the priesthood of the believer which Luther sought to restore. Are we any better than the children of those who killed the prophets (Matthew 23:29 – 31)?

Bonhoeffer left confession and the Lord’s Supper for the end of his book because he considered that in this “the community has reached its goal,” a thought that we will explore in the next post. 

Reflections on Romans 4:1 – 5:11: (8)

“For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:6 – 8.

“Helpless” (being without strength), “ungodly,” “sinners,” and then in verse 10 “enemies.” Christ died for these people; who are these people? We are these people. We all once “were,” many still are, many are no longer – but we all once were. Christ died for us all, for God so loves the world that He gave His only begotten Son and He does not desire that any should perish but that we all might come to repentance – but not all receive the justification and reconciliation that God has proffered in and through Christ Jesus. This is a deep mystery to me and I do not purport to understand it, I only see glimpses – it is as the Grand Canyon, each overlook presents a particular vista and perspective. It is as Yellowstone, microsystems within a mysterious park. It is as Grand Teton National Park, there is no doubt as to where the mountains are – so do the love of God and the Christ of the Cross tower above all else - their majesty is unmistakable.

We were helpless, we were without strength; if we thought ourselves to be something, in truth we were nothing – in one sense we were as babies, unable to care for ourselves. In another starker sense we were enemies of God – let there be no mistake about that, God did not reconcile friends to Himself, He reconciled enemies. In the earlier chapters Paul has demonstrated that there is no one righteous, not even one.

When parties are at war the goal of each party is to destroy the other, to win the war by military action. Yet God’s goal was not the destruction of His enemy mankind, but rather its salvation and reconciliation. While we were rebelling against God, God was loving us. When Jesus teaches us to love our enemies He is calling us to live and love as God, He is calling us to live as the Trinity (as the Trinity lives in us). He is calling us to manifest the Divine Nature in our relationships to those who continue to be God’s enemies. God reconciles us by and through His love manifested in Jesus Christ and His Cross.

Can we see ourselves helpless and God loving us? Can we see ourselves as ungodly and God in Christ dying for us? Can we visualize ourselves as sinners and enemies of God and God reconciling us to Himself – to be in intimate relationship with Himself?

God’s love is passionate, it is pursuing, it is longsuffering – consider that Jesus took the sins of the world on Himself on the Cross – all of the evil deeds ever done, all of the evil ever thought, all of the filth which hearts have ever pondered – the Holy Lamb of God bore all of our sins, took them on Himself. Consider that Jesus, the Lamb, not only took our sins upon Himself, but He took us – and all that “us” means – upon Himself, into Himself – the core of our individual and collective beings, evil enemies that we were – He enfolded us within as He died and was buried so that we all might die in Him and be raised in Him (Romans Chapter 6).

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him – 2 Corinthians 5:21; it is on this basis that Paul in 2 Corinthians pleads for his readers to be reconciled to God – the basis of God’s love in Christ on the Cross; “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died, and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.” (2 Cor. 5:14 – 15).

To lose sight of who we were is to lose sight of the love of God which bridges the chasm of sin and death, which defeats our rebellion and hatred, which bore the hideousness of our deeds and ourselves on the Cross. For those who have yet to come into a relationship with Jesus Christ – let this encourage you to see how great God’s love for you is, how greatly He desires you to know Him and the depths of His love – He desires that you begin a new life in Him and that you learn to allow Him to live in you and through you – He desires that you experience the peace and joy of knowing that your sins are forgiven and that you have an eternal future in Jesus Christ.

Helpless we were when Jesus died for us, when He called us; helpless we are outside of Him; “…much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5:10).

Are we living in the “much more”? In the “much more” of His love, His grace, His reconciliation, His Holy Spirit, His empowering new life?

Let us live in more of the “much more” today. 

Reflections on Bonhoeffer’s Life Together – 108

Regarding confession one to another, Bonhoeffer notes that there are two dangers that we must be aware of; the first concerns those who hear confession and the second has to do with the motive and attitude of those confessing. He does not think that one person should hear the confessions of everyone else; the person may become overburdened, hearing confession may become routine, and there may be “unholy misuse of confession for the exercise of spiritual tyranny over souls” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, Fortress Press, 2015 (Reader’s Edition), page 95.)

I am particularly sensitive to the latter danger, having seen abuse of position on more than one occasion and having heard and read of it more than I care to think about. Bonhoeffer also counsels that only those who themselves confess their sins to others should hear the confession of others, writing on page 96, “Only those who have been humbled themselves can hear the confession of another without detriment to themselves.”

Perhaps Paul is reminding us of our propensity for self-justification and for comparing ourselves with others when he writes (Galatians 6:1-3), “Brethren, even if anyone is caught in a trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” What is the temptation Paul speaks of? While it may be a temptation to engage in the same trespass that another Christian is caught in, I think it may also be the temptation to think ourselves better than others, especially better than the brother or sister caught in the trespass – the latter is the way I read this passage while not denying the possibility of the former.

If I am to hear the confession of a brother I must do so in both the knowledge of the completeness of the Atonement and the knowledge that outside of Christ there is nothing good or righteous within me; the knowledge of the Gospel enables me to speak the Word of Forgiveness to my brother; the knowledge of my own soul outside of Christ enables me to identify with my brother and to not think that I am better, for without Christ I am nothing, I am worse than nothing…I am capable of hideousness – my sins nailed Jesus to the Cross…let me never forget that.

Concerning the person who confesses, Bonhoeffer warns that “For the well-being of their soul they must guard against ever making their confession into a work of piety” (page 96). That is, there is nothing meritorious in confession; as Bonhoeffer writes, “The forgiveness of sins is alone the ground and goal of confession.” He goes so far to write, “Confession understood as a pious work is the devil’s idea.” This is, of course, true of any action that we clothe with the idea of merit, with the trappings of self-justification – a danger which we all (I think) (and which all traditions and practices) must be aware of – we have a propensity to justify ourselves and if we are bitten with actually thinking and living in self-justification then we have been bitten by a viper and our pride will swell and poison will course through our system.  

Bonhoeffer believes that confessing to one another is essential in life together, but he also knows the pitfalls involved in the practice – the dangers are great but so are the rewards – the rewards of living life together in unpretentiousness, at the foot of the Cross, in the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ – where we all stand before Christ, and in Christ, as those who once were sinners in rebellion against God, but who are now saints washed by the blood of the Lamb wearing robes of righteousness.

“Worthy are You to take the book and break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with your blood men from every tribe, and tongue and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.” Revelation 5:9 – 10.

Reflections on Romans 4:1 – 5:11: (7)

 “And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance proven character; and proven character hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Romans 5:1 – 5 (NASB).

Tribulation/suffering; perseverance/endurance; character; hope that does not disappoint or let us down or put us to shame – why? Because God’s love has been poured out [from God] into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

“Through the Holy Spirit” – life in the Spirit is amplified in Chapter 8, but here we see the role of the Holy Spirit in our formation into the character and image of Jesus Christ (8:29), a role which will be expanded upon in Chapter 8, to the point where we can say that we are sons and daughters of God through and in the Holy Spirit. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God” (8:14). The Spirit of sonship lives within our hearts, the very love of God for God is love.

This love sustains us and draws us into Christ in our suffering, developing endurance within us as we submit our will to the will of God; our submission to the will of God (by the grace of God) places us in the position for God to form the character of Christ within us (both in affirmation and negation), and as we allow the Holy Spirit of God to work out the will of God within our inner selves our hope in God grows deeper and brighter and into a heavier substance, reaching beyond the veil (Hebrews 6:19; 10:19ff)) – and the love of God draws us onward and upward and ever deeper into the Trinity.  

Affirmation in Christ confesses the complete and perfect work of Jesus Christ, the fullness of the Atonement – “By this will [the will of God manifested in Jesus Christ] we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10). We affirm the transforming power of the love of Christ (Ephesians 3:14 – 19). We affirm the “already – not yet” (Romans 8:30; 1 John 3:1-3).

Negation is found in our denial of “self” – “…If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). We also practice negation when we confess our sins (1 John 1:9 – 2:2). We live lives of negation as we continually consider ourselves “dead to sin” and then live lives of affirmation when we consider ourselves “alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11).

The process of transformation into the image of Jesus involves both affirmation and negation, a vision of Jesus Christ and a repudiation of who we were/are outside of Christ. The sculptor must free the image embedded in the marble by chipping away at all that is not of the image.

“We have come to know and believe the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16). Coming to know the love of God is a process, it takes time and it takes experience, and much of the experience can be in the form of tribulation and suffering – we don’t really understand this love that the Holy Spirit has poured within our hearts; we don’t understand and accept the deep assurance that it brings, we don’t really understand its nature, and we don’t comprehend the unwavering character of God’s love – not at first, not most of us anyway.

This is a love so “other” than we are that it loves its enemies (Romans 5:10) and not only loves them, but loves them to the point of drawing them into intimate relationship – of dying so that its enemies might live. Ought we not to humble ourselves and bow our knees before such love?

Reflections on Bonhoeffer’s Life Together – 107

“The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot comprehend this one thing: what sin is.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, Fortress Press, 2015 (Reader’s Edition), page 94.

On page 95 Bonhoeffer tells us that in the presence of a psychologist we can only be sick and that psychology does not know that we are “ruined” by sin and need the healing that comes with forgiveness in Christ. “Another believer views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the cross of Jesus Christ.” Our baseline need is not therapy but confession of sin and forgiveness.

He goes on to say that when we live daily in the Cross that we will lose the “spirit of human judgmentalism.” “The death of the sinner before God, and the life that comes out of death through grace, becomes a daily reality for them.” For the Christian this is Romans Chapter Six in practice, considering ourselves dead to sin and alive to God, living in our identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For the person who does not yet know Jesus, before we can arrive at Romans Six we must journey through Romans chapters 1 – 5:11; we must repent and trust Jesus Christ for forgiveness and new life – for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Then comes the great transfer of Romans 5:12ff.

Bonhoeffer writes not just as a theologian and pastor, but he also writes as the son of a famous doctor, Karl Bonhoeffer, who was chair of the department of Neuroscience and Psychiatry at a Berlin Hospital and whose research is still cited in psychiatric papers. Dietrich grew up in an academic and theological environment, so when he writes about what psychology can’t do in identifying sin and offering hope through Jesus Christ he writes with an integrated perspective.  “The psychologist views me as if there were no God” (page 95).

Of course in our own time there are counsellors and psychologists and psychiatrists who are Christian, the challenge is at least twofold – the first challenge is whether the Bible is the foundation and the context of their thinking and practice. For unlike physiological medicine which treats the body (though it should also treat the whole person), these practices treat the inner person and there is simply no other foundation upon which a practitioner of the inner person ought to build, and no other context within which he ought to serve, than that of the Bible and its anthropology and its doctrine of God.

The second challenge is the therapeutic mindset of the professing church; just as we have been taught to reach for a pain pill with every ache and at the first sign of discomfort, so we have been taught to run to counseling if things go awry within us or with others, or to watch the latest therapeutic video presentation or read the latest popular therapeutic book or attend the hottest new program for making our lives and relationships better. This mindset is so embedded within much of the professing church that we may not be able to extricate ourselves from it. We instinctively turn to counselling before we turn to Christ and His Word in the community of believers, in life together.

It is the Word of Christ that must form us and heal us and transform us into His image; our goal, our aim, is not to feel better but to be more like Jesus. Are we living obedient lives to Jesus Christ? Are we submitted to the Word of God? The Biblical self-image is not that “I am special” it is that Christ is everything and that when I am in Christ that I have all that I need – and yes, He has especially made me (Psalms 139), but let me not be deceived about who I am outside of Christ, outside of Him I am the greatest sinner who ever lived. I am not called to be preoccupied with myself, I am called to love God and others and to lay my life down for Christ and my brothers and sisters.  

In my own service to others in pastoral work, when I learned to ask, “Where is the lordship of Jesus Christ in your marriage?” things took on an entirely different perspective with husbands and wives in marital difficulty. Then there could be confession of sin, then there could be healing, then Jesus was Lord and He was bigger than the marriage – and not only could the husband and the wife repent and confess, but the marriage could repent and confess. Yes, I could still coach them in communicating and decision-making and in other areas of marriage, but that was secondary, the lordship of Jesus Christ was first and that meant confession.

Just as there are healing properties in our physical bodies, so are there healing properties within the Body of Christ, in life together; learning to confess our sins one to another and praying for one another that we may be healed (James 5:16) presents us with an image of those properties in action. A healthy body is a body in which the parts are in balance and relationship, one in which every part, every element, is fulfilling its God-designed purpose. Can we not see that this is who we are as God’s people? (Ephesians Chapter 4).