Musings on Leadership (2)

 Here is the conclusion to yesterday's letter to a friend on leadership:

The more I ponder it, the more I question whether “leadership” is a helpful subject, a healthy term. I think, as I know you do, that the language we use is critical. Language casts images – either the image of God or the images of man. We will either be grounded in the Logos of God or the logoi of man. Where do we see an emphasis on leadership in the Bible, the way we use the term “leadership” today? And why don’t we have a historical body of teaching and writing explicitly on leadership?

What we have in historical teaching and writing is integrated and holistic; this is what a king should look like, this is what a priest or pastor should look like, this is what a courageous and virtuous person should look like. This is why Chesterton could argue that he learned, as an adult, that what he really needed to know was taught to him as a boy, as a lad – in the nursery of his life. Fenelon writes a story, Telemachus, to convey to the potential future king of France what virtuous kingship looks like.  

I may not be able to put my finger quite on it, but I do think something is amiss with our approach to “leadership”…and most certainly when the church imports utilitarian thinking into its midst. A problem is, of course, that “leadership” sells books and seminars and academic courses – we create monsters who enslave us. When we make something a commodity, when we put a dollar sign on it, when we create an industry out of it – then, even if its beginnings were commendable, we worship a bronze serpent.

If we must use the term “leadership”, then let us acknowledge that the leadership of the Bible is cruciform and is not necessarily successful in the eyes of the church or of the world. Let us insist that leadership not only embrace the Cross, but that it be broken at the Cross. Let us be quick to affirm that Biblical leadership is just as foolish as the Gospel, just as “weak” as the Gospel, just as countercultural as the Gospel. Biblical leadership must be self-effacing so that the only Face that matters will shine forth – the Face of God in our Lord Jesus Christ.

It seems to me that leadership development is peripatetic in nature; we see this with Jesus and associates, with Paul and associates, with Moses and Joshua…dare we say with Elijah and Elisha? It also seems to me that leadership development is primarily about “who we are” and not “what we do”. Princess Elizabeth knew who she was when she spoke the above words to the Commonwealth and her life has followed. Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses is focused on Moses’s spiritual formation, his seeking the Face of God – it is a pilgrimage, a Way of Life.

Leadership is sacrificially sacramental. As Oswald Chambers wrote, we are called to be “broken bread and poured out wine.” A “Christian” leader who doesn’t “get that” isn’t a “Christian” leader. Wherever we are in life, we are called to be the sacrificial Presence of Christ to others – if a “Christian” leader doesn’t get that, then it isn’t “Christian” leadership.

Well…some Biblical paradigms:

Matthew 8:5 – 13. I’ve been teaching this passage for decades in various settings and no one has ever correctly answered the question, “What did the centurion see in Jesus?” The answer is always, in one form or another, “He saw that Jesus had power. He saw that Jesus had authority.”

No one has ever said, “He saw that Jesus was under authority, just as he was, and that’s why he recognized that Jesus had authority – because Jesus was under authority.”

Why don’t people get this? Why can’t they read the passage as it is written? Because of our notions of authority – we have an image of authority that is accountable to no one, the idea of being under authority is antithetical to the American way of thinking, including the thinking of most of the church.

True leaders are under authority as a way of life; organizational, moral, ethical, God’s Word, the Church, peers, brothers and sisters in Christ. Only a fool doesn’t want to be under authority; I’ve been that fool more than once so I think I can write about it.

Then we have Matthew 20:20 – 28. This is our Way of Life. Whether we are with retail clerks, children, the elderly, the rich, the poor, the powerful, or the disenfranchised – this is our calling, our Way of Life. It is also a protection against ego and the intoxication of position and recognition. Show me how a “leader” treats the lowest person in an organization or community, and I’ll tell you about his or her leadership.

John 13:1 – 16: A secure leader washes the feet of his people. But let’s not miss, “He loved them to the end.” Leadership without a passionate and sacrificing love for people is simply not Christian leadership. We might include this in 1 Cor. 13, “If I lead a church or organization to great successful heights, but have not love, I am nothing.” If we are not teaching others how to love, then we are not teaching leadership. (Also John 10:11).

 Proverbs 31:1 – 9: Self – absorbed, or people absorbed? If we are a holy nation and a royal priesthood, let’s pay attention to these words. (The passages in Proverbs that speak of kings and rulers have much to say to us).

1 Thessalonians 2:5 – 12: Why have I never seen this in a text on Christian leadership?

Ezra, Nehemiah, Zechariah, Haggai, and others: The dynamics of collective leadership.

There are only two books on “leadership” that I have kept on my shelf, one is The Making of a Leader, by Robert Clinton; the other is A Failure of Nerve – Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, by Edwin Friedman. The latter is a hard read because of Friedman’s humanistic assumptions, lots of bones to pick through and rocks to move away, but there are gems in it – among them the thought that leaders are to be a Non-Anxious Presence for their people.

I like Clinton’s Christian approach because it is holistic and formative and takes a long view of life. I’ve used it in both business and Kingdom settings.

In conclusion, no virtue, no leadership. Values are only as good as our feelings and pragmatic priorities – virtue is woven into our souls.

We are in a watershed in which all things are being shaken – Christ has something better for us than clinging to flotsam and jetsam. Christian leadership includes a very simple requirement, our lives – it will cost us our lives.

Can we say with Paul, “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.” (2 Timothy 2:10).

In deep love and affection,

Bob

Musings on Leadership (1)

 A friend asked me for some thoughts on leadership. Below is my response.

Dear Friend,

 

I suppose these are akin to Pascal’s Pensées, not in the sense of quality but rather in the sense of a thought here and a thought there.

Circling back to yesterday evening and Ephesians, the initial trajectory culminates, I think, at 4:16…this is coming full circle back to 1:3ff. Our calling is to behold our Lord in His glorious Body, growing up into Him and Him radiating in and through His precious Bride.

As to leadership, this (Ephesians) means that life is about “us” and not about “me”. There is only one Head, and if our vision of leadership suggests anything other than this then we have a problem.

“I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.” Princess Elizabeth, on her 21^st birthday, to the British Commonwealth. Has anything been better said or lived in the natural – (acknowledging that Her Majesty is imperfect)? Most so-called “leaders” never get this – whether within or without the church.

We have divorced virtue and character from leadership, just as we have divorced virtue and character from exegesis, preaching, teaching, and reading and understanding the Bible. The Apostles and Prophets would think this strange, the Church Fathers would probably be viscerally sick, and those Roman, Greek, and other philosophers who pursued and extolled virtue might seek a peaceful island to live out their days.

When we speak of leadership, we tend to speak in functional, pragmatic, and utilitarian terms. When we think we are training leaders, what we are often doing is training people to accomplish goals, to achieve success; to employ strategies, tactics, and the like. If we must be intoxicated, let us be intoxicated by virtue that will remain virtuous no matter the cost – for he (or she) who is not prepared to lose everything for what is good and right and true and honorable and virtuous is no leader; at least not in the Biblical sense (if there is such a sense) or in the classic Greco – Roman sense.

I have long been troubled with our approach to leadership within the contemporary church, with its emphasis on results and not on character. Then, when a leader’s selfishness and immorality is exposed, we are shocked (well we used to be). The fact that we seldom hold a successful leader accountable, the fact that we avert our eyes and close our ears when complaints or questions are raised – and only afterwards, if ever, convene a committee or retain a legal team to investigate sin – which is not just the leader’s sin but a collective sin – should tell us something. Perhaps our motto should be, “Success covers a multitude of sins”?

Among other things, the foregoing mentality has produced moral cowards in the church – people will simply not tell the truth and they will not speak the truth to the popular and powerful; and those who attempt it will usually be ostracized.

But here is another thing, success and power are intoxicating – whether in church, in government, in business, in education, in the local PTA – the closer a person moves toward the inner circle the greater the danger. Therefore, when our thinking on “leadership” is amiss we create a gravitational field that will destroy pretty much everything within its pull.

In the Church there is one Throne and when we approach that Throne we fall on our faces – we do not exalt man, we exalt God.

to be continued....

Heavenly - Mindedness (15)

 

Continuing our reflections on Geerhardus Vos’s Message on “Heavenly Mindedness” from Hebrews 11:9 – 10:

 

This is a hard series to write because Vos’s message overwhelms me. It is so dense and rich that it is difficult to choose the length of an excerpt – it is tightly woven to the point of seamlessness and it is impossible to do justice to the depth, intricacy, and soaring wonder of the vision Vos casts from Holy Scripture. But then, isn’t this a mark of the Word of God rightly communicated? Doesn’t the Bible draw us back again and again to behold the wonder of Christ? Are there not words that have been written and spoken, birthed from the Bible, that have been with us down through the ages?

 

When we read or hear of the glories of Christ in His People and find it difficult to relate to them, we can either say, “That’s not for me,” or we can say, “O Lord Jesus, reveal Yourself to me as You have promised!” A fundamental decision I came to many years ago was this, that if I encountered a disconnect in the Bible between my own life and the life promised to me in Christ, or a disconnect between the life of the Church today and the life and calling of the Church in the Bible, that I would not rationalize away the disconnect, that I would not excuse the discrepancy, but that I would acknowledge it and seek the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I fear that much of our personal and corporate theology is based on rationalized excuses rather than on the Bible – we excuse our disobedience, we excuse our lack of heavenly – mindedness, we excuse our compromise with the world, we excuse our lack of witness…when Christ continually calls us to behold Him in His glory and to be transformed into His image…the image of God and not the image of fallen man.

 

Let me assure you that if you find the following passage to be foreign to your experience, that Jesus Christ wants this heavenly – mindedness to be normative in your life. How do I know this? Simply and prayerfully read John chapters 13 – 17; this deep and holy place is how I know. Allow Jesus Christ to draw you into the depths of His Being, into the holiness of the Trinity. We can trust the all – enveloping and purifying love of God in our Lord Jesus Christ to restore our souls, to teach us to live together in Christ, and to teach us to be a blessing to those around us.

        

“In the heart of man time calls for eternity, earth for heaven. He must, if normal, seek the things above, as the flower’s face is attracted by the sun, and the water-courses are drawn to the ocean. Heavenly-mindedness, so far from blunting or killing the natural desires, produces in the believer a finer organization, with more delicate sensibilities, larger capacities, a stronger pulse of life. It does not spell impoverishment, but enrichment of nature. The spirit of the entire Epistle shows this. The use of the words “city” and “country” is evidence of it. These are terms that stand for the accumulation, the efflorescence, the intensive enjoyment of values. Nor should we overlook the social note in the representation. A perfect communion in a perfect society is promised.

 

“In the city of the living God believers are joined to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, and mingle with the spirits of just men made perfect. And all this faith recognizes. It does not first need the storms and stress that invade to quicken its desire for such things. Being the sum and substance of all the positive gifts of God to us in their highest form, heaven is of itself able to evoke in our hearts positive love, such absorbing love as can render us at times forgetful of the earthly strife. In such moments the transcendent beauty of the other shore and the irresistible current of our deepest life lift us above every regard of wind or wave. We know that through weather fair or foul our ship is bound straight for its eternal port.

 

“Next to the positiveness of its object the high degree of actuality in the working of this grace should be considered. Through the faith of heavenly-mindedness the things above reveal themselves to the believer, are present with him, and communicate themselves to him. Though as yet a pilgrim, the Christian is never wholly separated from the land of promise. His tents are pitched in close view of the city of God. Heaven is present to the believer’s experience in no less real a sense than Canaan with its fair hills and valleys lay close to the vision of Abraham. He walks in the light of the heavenly world and is made acquainted with the kindred spirits inhabiting it.

 

“And since the word “actual” in its literal sense means “that which works,” the life above possesses for the believer the highest kind of actuality. He is given to taste the powers of the world to come, as Abraham breathed the air of Canaan, and was refreshed by the dews descending on its fields. The roots of the Christian’s life are fed from those rich and perennial springs that lie deep in the recesses of converse with God, where prayers ascend and divine graces descend, so that after each season of tryst [intimate private time with God] he issues, a new man, from the secrecy of his tent.” G.Voos

 

I’m going to ask you to ponder the above. What challenges you? What resonates with you? Do you know what it is to commune with our Lord Jesus in the “secrecy” of your tent (an allusion to Moses communing with God in the Tent of Meeting)? Are you entering into your closet to commune with your heavenly Father (Matthew 6:6) as a way of life?

 

Do not be afraid to ask your Lord Jesus to reveal Himself to you in an intimate and personal way. Trust Him. Spend time with Him. Pray to Him. Talk to Him. Give yourself to Him (Romans 12:1 – 2). In Christ you are called to be a child of another world, and that world is beautiful and glorious because in it is the glory of God and of the Lamb – it lights the entire City (Revelation 21:22 – 23).

 

I’ll return to this excerpt in my next post.

 

Love and blessing in Christ Jesus.

Quotes and Questions

 

 

“The idolizing of material prosperity characteristic of Rome [Rev. 3:17] characterizes a whole church.”

 

“What the Nicolaitans and Jezebel are urging is not some minor accommodation to the ways of pagan society Christians have to live in, but complicity in that denial of the true God and his righteousness which characterizes the forces of evil incarnate in the Roman system. No wonder Jezebel is said to “deceive” Christians (2:20) – a word used elsewhere in Revelation only of the devil, the false prophet and Babylon…”

 

“Their [the Nicolaitans and Jezebel] teaching made it possible for Christians to be successful in pagan society, but this was the beast’s success, a real conquest of the saints, winning them to his side, rather than the only apparent conquest he achieved by putting them to death.”   Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, pages 123 – 124. Italics mine.

 

 

Richard Bauckham – On Babylon in Revelation:

 

“The hyperbole makes clear what is at stake in the conflict between the church and the Empire. The conflict truly concerns the coming of God’s kingdom. But the hyperbole also shows that what is at stake in the ultimate conflict of that time is what is always at stake in the church’s history. The beast as the Roman Empire never held truly universal power, but what the beast represents, in a thousand other historical forms, contests the control of God’s world until the coming of his eschatological kingdom. Therefore also the street of the great city, in which the witnesses to God’s truth lie dead at the hands of the beast, need be neither in Jerusalem or in Rome nor even in the cities of Asia. It may also be wherever the unprecedented numbers of Christians martyrs in our own century have died. The eschatological hyperbole gives these symbols intrinsic power to reach as far as the parousia. Furthermore, it is not only the hyperbole that gives the images this power. Because John’s images are images designed to penetrate the essential character of the forces at work in his contemporary world and the ultimate issues at stake in it, to a remarkable extent they leave aside the merely incidental historical features of his world. There are enough of them to make the reference unmistakable; Babylon is built on seven hills (17:9) and trades in a very accurate list of the imports to first-century Rome from all over the known world (18:11 – 13). But they are sufficiently few to make the reapplication of the images to comparable situations easy. Any society whom Babylon’s cap fits must wear it. Any society which absolutizes its own economic prosperity at the expense of others comes under Babylon’s condemnation.” Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, pages 155 – 156. Italics mine.

 

Now that we’ve read the quotes, here’s a question, “What society is wearing Babylon’s cap today?”

 

Here’s another question, “Can you think of a more remarkable victory for the beast, than that of seducing the professing church into the adulation of Babylon?”

 

The Challenge of the books of Hebrews and Revelation

 

The two most difficult books of the New Testament to teach, and for the typical Christian to read (at least in the West), are Hebrews and Revelation. Why is this?

 

One reason, common to both, is that they portray the depth of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings (what we term the Old Testament); they breathe the Old Testament. To hear Hebrews and Revelation taught as they should be, and to read them as they are to be read, to teach them as they should be taught in Christ – requires (with pedagogical acknowledgement to 1 Corinthians Chapter 2 – for Christ will speak what He will speak and teach what He will teach) that the Old Testament seep through the pores of our skin.

 

To teach Hebrews and Revelation without the teacher being at home in the Old Testament is akin to describing the Grand Canyon to others as pseudo tour guides, when our knowledge of the Grand Canyon is from videos and photos, not from actually visiting this natural wonder of the world. The difference between someone who has been to the Grand Canyon and someone who has not, is that if you have been to the Grand Canyon you have had your breath taken away. Frankly, if our breath has not been taken away by the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings we probably ought not to teach either Hebrews or Revelation; unless we purpose to teach them in deep humility, looking for Christ every step of the way, learning the Law, Prophets, and Writings as we go. (Of course, we ought to be teaching in deep humility and looking for Christ always).

 

There is another hurdle in teaching Revelation, one I find almost insurmountable, and that are the popular misconceptions surrounding this letter to seven churches (let’s remember, Revelation is a letter). If we are looking for things other than Christ, then we will not see Christ. If we don’t remember that this is a letter sent by Christ to encourage and warn His People in the first century, then we will not “see” its immediate - historical unveiling of Christ, its telescopic unveiling of Christ, and certainly not its present unveiling of Christ. Misconceptions and second-hand knowledge are always a challenge in teaching the Bible, but perhaps nowhere is this as difficult as in teaching Revelation – we would rather go on an amusement park ride than see Jesus Christ, be faithful to Jesus Christ, and testify to Jesus Christ even unto death.

 

But now I come to the point that spurred me to write this little piece, one particular element that makes teaching and reading Hebrews and Revelation especially challenging – the way we read them. When most of us read Hebrews we read about things on earth that are meant to show us heaven, and when we read Revelation we read about things in the heavens that are meant to show us earth.

 

Another way to put this is that when we read Hebrews we are often reading about earthly events that portray heavenly goings on, and when we read Revelation we are reading about images in the heavens that portray dynamics also occurring on earth. If we read Revelation outside its genre of apocalyptic and prophetic imagery, and outside its Christocentric message – centered on the Bridegroom and His Bride – then we create fanciful stories that are similar to the Star Wars movie franchise – we have new releases every year to keep up with current events and attract crowds.

 

If we read Hebrews and get hung up on the earthly Tabernacle, as many Christians do, then we’ll never see that there is a Greater Tabernacle in the heavens and that that is the Tabernacle that we are called to live in. In Hebrews we see generally earthly things transposed upward, in Revelation we generally see things transposed downward. Both of these books can teach us to live in the commerce between heaven and earth, to live in the “already-not yet.” We are called to see beyond what we see, to wear 3-D glasses if you will, to see Christ in the heavens, in the earth, and in the height and breadth and depth and width of the Word of God. (Note that the Christians addressed in Hebrews and Revelation were both experiencing suffering and persecution).

The crescendo of Revelation’s transposition downward is seen in chapters 21 and 22 (though this fulness is anticipated earlier). The transpositional ascent in Hebrews reaches the summit in 9:23 – 24; 10:10, 14, 19 – 22; and 12:18 – 29.

 

Why is it that our pedagogical response to challenges is to dumb things down rather than to challenge Christians to learn, to grow, to labor in the Scriptures? Why have Hebrews and Revelation become closed books to the much of the church?

Heavenly - Mindedness (14)

 

Continuing our reflections on Geerhardus Vos’s Message on “Heavenly Mindedness” from Hebrews 11:9 – 10:

“Ever since the goal set by the Covenant of Works came within his ken [perception, knowledge, understanding], man carries with him in all his converse with this world the sense of appurtenance [subordinate to, accessory of] to another. This is but to say that supernaturalism forms from the outset the basis of true religion in man. Man belongs to two spheres. And Scripture not only teaches that these two spheres are distinct, it also teaches what estimate of relative importance ought to be placed upon them. Heaven is the primordial, earth the secondary creation. In heaven are the supreme realities; what surrounds us here below is a copy and shadow of the celestial things.

 

“Because the relation between the two spheres is positive, and not negative, not mutually repulsive, heavenly-mindedness can never give rise to neglect of the duties pertaining to the present life. It is the ordinance and will of God, that not apart from, but on the basis of, and in contact with, the earthly sphere man shall work out his heavenly destiny. Still the lower may never supplant the higher in our affections.”  G. Vos.

 

I often find that we want short answers to questions, that we want our curiosity satisfied, and that we tend to view ourselves as biological and mechanical and computeristic entities and things, rather than as men and women created in the image of God, and in Christ restored to that image. Vos’s Heavenly – Mindedness calls us back to the Father’s House, just as the Prodigal Son “came to himself” and was called back to his father’s house.  The pilgrimage we’re on has complexities, tensions, challenges to understanding and growth – this is the nature of becoming who we already are in Christ, and of Christ manifesting all that He is in His people.

 

With this is mind, let’s consider, “these two spheres [heaven and earth] are distinct…” Then, “what surrounds us here below is a copy and shadow of the celestial things.” And then, “the relation between the two spheres is positive, and not negative, not mutually repulsive.”

 

In Psalm 85:10 – 11 we read, “Lovingkindness and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth springs from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven.” This is a glimpse into passages such as Revelation chapters 21 and 22, and Isaiah chapters 25 and 35. It is a glimpse into what Peter styles as “the restoration of all things  about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time” (Acts 3:21).

 

A tension is that while heaven and earth are distinct, they do have a dynamic relationship which looks forward to the day in which creation will be “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). My own sense is that this distinction becomes less and less as the interplay of heaven and earth reaches the consummation portrayed in the above Bible passages. I imagine that this interplay has both progressive and catastrophic elements to it. This is to say that earth and heaven are “distinct” but that the distinction is more like that of a house with two floors (see previous post) than of two entities with an impervious barrier between them. Vos works with this dynamic when he writes, “the relation between the two spheres is positive, and not negative, not mutually repulsive.”

 

An element of this relationship is found in, “what surrounds us here below is a copy and shadow of the celestial things.” This is the language of the Bible and is most especially the language of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

 

In Hebrews 8:5 we have “a copy and shadow of the heavenly things,” in 9:11 we see Christ entering “the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation,” in 9:23 “Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.”

 

To live a heavenly – minded life is to live in the interchange of heaven and earth, it is to increasingly live in the heavenly tabernacle, it is a pilgrimage from what C.S. Lewis termed the shadowlands into the fulness of heavenly reality in Jesus Christ, it is a Pilgrim’s Progress.

The copies and shadows mediate the grace and glory of the heavens to us, and this grace and glory in Christ draws us into an intimate relationship with the Trinity and with one another. Paul writes that we are to “keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:1 – 2).

 

Vos writes of “the duties pertaining to the present life.” These duties are to be seen in the light of the heavens, in the context of heavenly – mindedness. That is, these duties are the duties of the sons and daughters of the Living God. We are called to show the world a better Way.  These duties, this calling, is expressed by Jesus Christ in Matthew 5:43 – 48:

 

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may prove yourselves to be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Even the tax collectors, do they not do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Even the Gentiles, do they not do the same? Therefore you shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

 

To those of us who live in the United States of America, where is the manifestation of our heavenly calling? When we cloth ourselves in the colors of red or blue, or of conservative or liberal or progressive, or of this economic system or that, or of our national flag and not the Cross of Christ – how can we possibly be a blessing to the people around us as the Presence of Jesus Christ? How can we possibly reflect His heavenly glory and our heavenly identity? How can the church be the Church?

 

Those who respond to the heavenly call of Jesus Christ must make it clear that they are seeking a city which has foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God (Hebrews 11:9 – 16). This City is not the United States of America, it is not the earthly nation of Israel, it is not an economic system, it is the heavenly Jerusalem, the true mother (Galatians 4:26) of those who live in the faith of Abraham. We cannot serve two masters or two kingdoms.

 

Make no mistake, as Hebrews Chapter 11 points out, heavenly – mindedness comes with a price (see also Mark 8:34 – 38). Christ gave His life for us, will we give our lives for Him?

Heavenly - Mindedness (13)

 

Continuing our reflections on Geerhardus Vos’s Message on “Heavenly Mindedness” from Hebrews 11:9 – 10:

“Ever since the goal set by the Covenant of Works came within his ken [perception, knowledge, understanding], man carries with him in all his converse with this world the sense of appurtenance [subordinate to, accessory of] to another. This is but to say that supernaturalism forms from the outset the basis of true religion in man. Man belongs to two spheres. And Scripture not only teaches that these two spheres are distinct, it also teaches what estimate of relative importance ought to be placed upon them. Heaven is the primordial, earth the secondary creation. In heaven are the supreme realities; what surrounds us here below is a copy and shadow of the celestial things.

 

“Because the relation between the two spheres is positive, and not negative, not mutually repulsive, heavenly-mindedness can never give rise to neglect of the duties pertaining to the present life. It is the ordinance and will of God, that not apart from, but on the basis of, and in contact with, the earthly sphere man shall work out his heavenly destiny. Still the lower may never supplant the higher in our affections.”  G. Vos.

 

Vos writes that “man carries with him in all his converse with this world the sense of appurtenance [subordinate to, accessory of] to another.” That is, humanity has a sense that there is something higher than what we see, taste, and feel with our bodily senses – there is a higher “sense” that comes into play in our lives. This world is subordinate to a higher world and in the interchange between this lower world and the higher world, the higher world takes priority – in fact, the present world only experiences its fulness, and rightly understands its nature and glory, as it places itself in service to the higher world.

 

Earth is called to serve heaven, and heaven desires to bring earth into completeness and perfection. There is a mutuality between heaven and earth, an ongoing conversation, and perhaps in one sense we have a dance of the bride and bridegroom. Earth is to reflect the glory of heaven, and indeed in passages such as Revelation chapters 21 – 22 we see the consummation of this relationship.

 

However, there is a “however” and that “however” is that much of humanity has had this “sense” that Vos writes of educated and programmed out of it. This brings to mind C.S. Lewis’s essay, The Abolition of Man, in which he writes of “men without chests” – that is, a humanity which is having its heart and soul ripped out of it – so that we have soulless men and women, boys and girls.

 

If memory serves me well, Francis Schaffer wrote of a house with an upstairs and a first floor, but in which the inhabitants only live on the first floor, never venturing upstairs. This is a good image of us living in the material world and never venturing to explore the world of the unseen, never exploring the meaning of life, never nurturing our souls, never walking through the portal that leads from earth to heaven.

 

When the material world is “just” the material world, we lose much of what creation can teach us (Romans 1:20) and we degrade, destroy, and consume the world around us.

 

Vos writes, “This is but to say that supernaturalism forms from the outset the basis of true religion in man.” Can we hear Jesus saying to the Woman at the Well (John 4:24), “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth”?

 

What does this mean for evangelism? How do we speak to a world whose sense of the “other,” the transcendent, the Divine, has been deadened, whose souls have been imprisoned? (Of course, this is primarily in the West and those places where Babylonian Western thinking has been exported – other cultures have their own challenges. We are living in Babylon, Rev. chapters 17 – 18, and don’t know it).

 

For evangelism I think it means that we speak of God’s purpose and destiny for humanity, that we speak of the image of God within mankind – even though that image has been defaced and marred. We must also speak of how God desires to restore His image in us through Jesus Christ. We pray that the Holy Spirit will awaken the latent knowledge within humanity that there is an upper floor, and that a beam of Light will penetrate the heart and soul, growing a desire to discover what is at the top of the stairs. In other words, we must offer hope in Jesus Christ.

 

This is akin to C.S. Lewis’s experience of being “surprised by joy.” A difference is, with many of us, is that any hope and sense of “joy” has been smothered by our materialistic and hedonistic society. We often find ourselves seeking to uncover a sense of “joy” in others, rather than (as Tolkien and Dyson did with Lewis) work with the pursuit of “joy” already active in others.

 

There is a danger in speaking about destiny, purpose, and nature that I want to address. Yes, we were created in the image of God. Yes, God has a purpose and destiny for everyone. Yes, God loves every individual. But unless this message is grounded and centered in Jesus Christ, unless this message is focused on Jesus Christ and not on the individual and not on humanity, then it becomes an idol and false hope. All preaching and teaching must be centered in the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ, for the Gospel is not about us living our “best lives now,” it is about us losing our lives for the sake of Christ and the Gospel…only in Christ do we find the image of God restored in us, only in Christ do we find our purpose and destiny…which in Christ entails, to one degree or another, rejection and suffering.

 

The stairs that lead from the first floor to the upper floor contain a deep awareness of our sins and sin – the things we’ve done and the people we are. It is only as we see ourselves outside of Christ that we can learn to see ourselves in Christ, and the more we learn to live in Christ, the greater degree of revulsion we’ll have when we see ourselves outside of Christ.

 

I am writing about this because there are messages and churches that tell people they are loved and special without calling them to crucified lives in Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:20). (To be sure, there are other caricatures of the Gospel in the professing church). These messages and churches are serving people placebos rather than eternal life in Jesus Christ, and I suppose this is like the false prophets of Jeremiah’s time saying, “Peace, peace, when there is no peace.”

 

Well, I’ll need to circle back in the next post on the above quotation from Vos because there is a bit more I want to cover.