Scribal Christianity or Christ?

 

I first read A.W. Tozer when I was a teenager. His book, The Pursuit of God, is a Christian classic worth pondering throughout our lives. Tozer had a prophetic element to him in that he constantly challenged us to look to Jesus and beware of our man-made religious and theological status quos. He saw how our theological traditions could trump Jesus Christ and the Bible, and how scribal theological correctness without experiential relationship with Christ could trap us in a dry and parched Christianity.

 

Last night I concluded my reading of a dissertation presented to the faculty of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in March 2018, by James Joshua Tancordo, its title is A.W. Tozer: A Mystical and Confessional Evangelical. In the dissertation Tancordo explores the relationship between Tozer’s unapologetic mysticism and his affinity with Roman Catholic mystics, with his confessional Evangelicalism. Throughout the dissertation Tancordo is asking, “Was Tozer a confessional Evangelical?”

 

(I am just a bit amused by the term “confessional Evangelical,” because while many Evangelicals might consider themselves “confessional,” a great number of Evangelicals are of such an independent mindset that the concept of being “confessional” is foreign to them – in fact, they would no doubt resist it. However, Tancordo does a nice job defining what he means by the word “confessional,” though I think there might be a better word or description for what he means; I don’t think we can use the word “confessional” in its normal sense to describe Evangelicals, at least in the United States.)

 

As often happens with me, what I read last night helped me think about something I’ve been pondering. Also, yesterday, as I was rereading Greg Beale’s commentary on Revelation and his treatment of Christ’s prophetic message to the church of Ephesians, I read something else that spoke to the same subject – so Beale, Tancordo, and Tozer all gave me some help yesterday – thank you brothers.

 

I am not sure that I’m going to do a good job of explaining myself, and so I hope to look to Beale, Tozer, and Tancordo to assist me, but let me begin with this thought:

 

When I was a young Christian, sharing Christ with others, including church-going folks, contained the understanding that, “There is a difference between knowing about Jesus Christ and actually knowing Jesus Christ. There is a difference between knowing information about someone and having a relationship with that person.” This distinction has remained with me throughout the years and I have used it in sharing Christ with others in conversation, in teaching, and in preaching.

 

As I write this I am thinking of John Roughly, a man dying of cancer who I visited a number of times. During my first visit with John, I pointed out the distinction between knowing about someone and actually knowing the person, actually being in a relationship with that person. During my second visit, John told me that he had thought about the distinction and that he wanted to know Jesus Christ – he came to know Jesus and a few months later John died in the arms of Jesus.

 

In considering the distinction between “knowing about and actually knowing” I often mention my meeting the great baseball Hall of Fame player Stan Musial, and meeting former NASCAR racer Shawna Robinson. Though I had occasion to meet these two people, and though I recall each fleeting meeting, I am certain that neither of them remembered me after our brief encounters – simply meeting them was not the equivalent of having a relationship with them. This is a point I often make because people can misconstrue religious experiences or church attendance with a relationship with Jesus Christ (consider the Parable of the Sower).

 

In addition to the above, we can also know people, including Jesus Christ, but know them in an infantile way or a juvenile way, or even in an immature – adult way. We can know others in degrees, in limited ways; I suppose this is the way we know most people, the way most relationships are. Paul spoke of one day “knowing as I am known,” and he also chided others for remaining infants in Christ – there is a distinction between the former and the latter and we ought not to confuse the two and excuse ourselves, or others, if we are found among the latter for any length of time. Most professing Christians really do need to grow- up.

 

Now I want to add another layer to this, and that is the terrible realization that we can know the Bible and not know Jesus Christ at all, and that we can know the Bible quite well but not know Jesus Christ very well. Consider Jesus’ words in John 5:39 – 40:

 

“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.”

 

Consider also how Jesus revealed Himself through the Scriptures in Luke Chapter 24, both on the road to Emmaus and later in Jerusalem; seeing Christ in the Scriptures was a new experience for the people with Jesus – as it should be with us on a continuing basis.

 

My point is that knowing the Bible and knowing Jesus are two different things, and while we may be uncomfortable in actually saying this aloud, or writing it, it is nevertheless true. The Bible can be alive or it can be inert, we can be alive to the Bible or we can be dead to the Bible, or deaf or blind to the Bible. If we are not seeing Jesus Christ throughout the Scriptures then we have a diminished understanding of the Bible, for seeing Jesus Christ is the true measure of seeing and experiencing the Bible as the Word of God that unveils Jesus Christ and transforms us into His image (individually and collectively).

 

I have a dear friend who recently “saw” the beauty of 2 Peter 1:4, God has given us “precious and magnificent promises [the Scriptures] so that by them you may become partakers of the Divine Nature...” The thing is that we often seem to garner Bible knowledge without partaking of the Divine Nature, just as the scribes and Pharisees did – and let us make no mistake about this, if we are partaking of the Divine Nature then we ought to be experiencing the Divine Nature – notwithstanding all the talk of “positional truth” which is often a cover for our lack of experiencing the “precious and magnificent promises” that God has given us in Christ. Did John know what he was writing about when he wrote, “We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us…By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit” (1 John 3:24b; 4:13)?

 

Is the indwelling Trinity (see especially John chapters 14 – 17) real or not? If it is real then let us not play theological games to explain away our anemic Christianity – if eating pizza or ice cream is more real to me than partaking of the Divine Nature then I think we have a problem.

 

I do not comprehend the nature of the Bible, and I would be a fool to attempt to fully explain its nature. It is the Word of God and yet Jesus Christ is the Word of God. As ink on paper it can be alive and the conduit of life, or it can be a source of judgment and the conduit of death, and it can also be…it seems…inert. As precious as the Bible is, however, the Bible is not Jesus Christ. I meet Christ in the Bible, Christ comes to me through the Bible, I meet my brothers and sisters in the mansion of the Bible, I revel in the Bible, I cry in the Bible, I dance in the Bible – the Word convicts me, encourages me, unveils Christ’s glory to me...but this is all only as the Holy Spirit illuminates God’s Word (John chapters 14 – 16; 1 Corinthians chapters 1 – 2).

 

As Jesus says, we can search the Scriptures thinking that by knowing them we have eternal life, yet if we do not see Him in the Scriptures all our searching is of no avail. This is not only true of scribes and Pharisees, this is also true of us, including those of us who purport of have a “high view of Scripture.” If we do not believe this is true of us who have a high view of Scripture, then we are in a dangerous place, a scribal place – for we are espousing a scribal Christianity.

 

To be continued….