Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (18)

 

 

On the bottom of page 213 Bonhoeffer briefly deals with heresy. He writes that while heresy may not be always easy to identify, that once it is distinguished that it and its teachers must be confronted, and that means that the teachers, if they do not repent, must be “cast out.” Bonhoeffer cites Gal. 1:8; 1Cor. 16:22; Titus 3:10; and 2 John 10ff.

 

“The word of authentic proclamation must therefore create both unity and separation in a visible way” (page 214).

 

This is a tough issue for most of us to negotiate, as it should be. It should be tough because we ought to care about people, and this means that we care about them knowing Jesus and living in Him, we care about them being in Christian community, we care about them treating each other in love and truth, and we care about the results of our actions and the actions of our community. We want people to understand Biblical teaching and why heresy cannot be tolerated, why discipline is Biblical and necessary. Confronting heresy is not an option, it is obedience to Scripture.

 

It is also tough to negotiate because we all face dangers when confronting heresy, not the least of which is a prideful attitude, our actions and attitudes must always be in submission to Jesus Christ and His Cross, we must be ever conscious that we serve Him and not ourselves.

 

My own sense is that if we are always looking for Jesus, desiring to hear Jesus, to exalt Jesus; if Jesus is truly the center of our teaching and preaching and koinonia; if we glory in the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ; if the entire and holistic Bible is our biosphere in Him; if we are indeed living in community (as Bonhoffer will continue to explore); that our ability in Christ to discern heresy, and thoughts and actions that may lead to heresy, becomes finely–tuned as individuals, families, and church – communities.  

 

The best examples of confronting heresy are found in the New Testament. Many of the epistles (including Revelation) deal with heresy and false teachers, they teach us what to look for and how to respond. It is like foraging for mushrooms with an expert, we learn to identify what is poisonous and avoid them, warning others of them.

 

We are not called to be heresy hunters; we are called to follow Jesus. Our eyes are to be on Jesus, not on evil. We focus on the legitimate, not the illegitimate. If our focus is perpetually on evil, on the counterfeit, we will exhaust ourselves and others, play whack-a-mole, and eventually lose our discernment. We can only discern as we behold Jesus and live by His life in koinonia with others.

 

I have known, and known of, heresy hunters who seem to have lost all sense of grace and mercy and kindness. As James writes, my brothers and sisters, this ought not to be.

 

We should recognize that there is a difference between heresy and imperfect understanding. We all, I think, have areas of imperfect understanding, areas in which our knowledge and understanding and participation in Christ and His Word is growing. In fact, I can’t think of any area of my own life which is not imperfect in understanding, in which I am not (at least I hope I am) growing in Jesus.

 

This is one reason why we need one another, both in local community and in broader Christian community. It is a shame that denominations and movements and traditions don’t crosspollinate; a shame with respect to John Chapter 17, and a shame in that we could learn so much from one another. To those traditions who teach that they have perfect understanding, and that they are the one legitimate voice of God and the Church, all I can ask is, “Really?” Of course, a group need not make such a proclamation to nevertheless act as if they think so.

 

A discussion of heresy seems out of place in America in that there is little appetite for the Bible with professing Christians. Sure, we pay lip service to Scripture, but we don’t really know and breathe the Bible. Many churches have outright rejected obedience to the Bible, other churches are more interested in Sunday morning group therapy sessions, or what amounts to entertainment events, or political and social and worldview movements, or in tantalizing “prophecy” speculations and games.

 

Is community, as Bonhoeffer and Scripture speak of it, vital to the average professing Christian, pastor, seminary professor, and denominational leader?

 

We can forget that heresy often looks very good, it feels good, it promises results…all the time seducing us away from a monogamous relationship with Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 11:1 – 3). As a pastor, my challenges with heresy typically were not with fringe teachers and authors, but with popular (often best-selling) authors and teachers who people were attracted to without seeing the foundational errors in thinking and practice, errors what would eventually lead others far away from the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ.

 

O that we would truly know the Nicene Creed.

 

The fundamental question is always, “Where is Jesus Christ?”

How Can This Be?

 

 

“I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me” (John 17:6 – 8).

 

Is this true?

 

What evidence is there that this is true?

 

Shortly the men Jesus is speaking of will abandon Him. Before the night is over one of these men will deny Jesus three times. These men will soon lock the door of the Upper Room, the very room where Jesus has been revealing the Father to them; they will lock the door in fear and they will cower in fear. In three days these men will disbelieve the testimony of Mary Magdelene, that Jesus has risen from the dead.

 

If we were observers, and knew no more than what transpired between the Upper Room and Easter morning, what would we think of Jesus’ description of the men whom the Father gave Him?

 

Let us note that Jesus is not praying in the future tense but is stating the condition of the men in that moment. “They have kept Your word.” They have received the words of Jesus, which are the words of the Father. These men have believed that Jesus came from the Father. These men have received the manifestation of the Father’s name which Jesus has given to them.

 

Considering the forthcoming actions of these men in abandoning and denying Jesus, how can Jesus say these affirming things about them? How can this be?

 

I’m reminded of Luke 22:31 – 32:

 

“Simon, Simon, behold Satan has obtained permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”

 

Then we have John 16:32:

 

“Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.”

 

Jesus sees the forthcoming actions of the men, but Jesus has also prayed for Peter, and no doubt for the rest, just as Jesus prays for us (Heb. 7:25).

 

Jesus does not see as we see, but we ought to learn to see as Jesus sees. We ought to be learning to not look at the visible but at the invisible, we ought to be learning to not see people according to the outward, but rather the inward (2 Cor. 4:18; 5:16).

 

Jesus sees us in our completeness and perfection in Him (2 Cor. 5:21; Col. 2:10; Heb. 10:10, 14).

 

A friend of mine recently wrote about “a narrative of failure” as opposed to a narrative of redemption, reconciliation, and fellowship. We are called, as priests of the Most High God, to proclaim the Narrative of Reconciliation and Redemption in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:20). We can only do this if we see as Jesus sees, if we see the End from the Beginning in Him – always in Him.

 

This means that our reconciliation and fellowship with the Trinity is an assured reality, even though we may act otherwise, just as the apostles acted.

 

This is the same dynamic that we see with Paul and the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 1:1 – 9, in which Paul addresses the people as sanctified, thanking God for the grace given to them, thanking God that in everything they are enriched in Him, that they are not lacking in any gift. Then Paul writes that Jesus Christ, “Will confirm you to the end, blameless.”

 

Just as John 17:6 – 8 makes no sense if we read it “in the moment,” so 1 Corinthians 1:1 – 9 makes no sense if read in “in the moment.” That is, if we continue reading 1 Corinthians, we see how messed up the people were. They were tolerating and practicing immorality, they were riven with division, there was confusion in their gatherings – these people were the opposite of Paul’s description of them in his introduction.

 

Furthermore, if we continue into 2 Corinthians, we see that they were also being seduced by false teachers who were leading them away from the pure simplicity and devotion which they had in Jesus Christ.

 

How could Paul be so affirming? Would not such affirmation give the Corinthians a false sense of security?

 

Paul saw them in Christ, he saw Christ’s prefect and complete work in them, he saw Jesus Christ as the Alpha and Omega of their salvation. Paul was assured that what Jesus had begun, that Jesus would complete (Phil. 1:6).

 

To be sure there are stark warnings in Corinthians, discipline is to be received and implemented – but they are given, and are to be received, within the Person of Jesus Christ and His perfect work, His complete work, His assured work of salvation.

 

This is one on of many reasons why it is imperative that we use Biblical language and images when speaking to one another, when preaching and teaching. The Bible is clear that those in Christ are saints and not sinners any longer, why do we not believe and teach this? Why do we allow what we see on the outside to determine our language, when God the Father sees us in His Son?

It is ironic to me that I have friends who criticize Pentecostals and charismatics for relying too much on experience, when they themselves rely on experience by insisting that we are still sinners because of our actions, rather than teaching what the Bible teaches, that we are saints in Jesus Christ, perfect and complete in Him, always in Him. We only grow into Christ as we behold Christ, not as we look at our own navels.

 

We would have no hope if Jesus Christ did not see us, speak to us, and have koinonia with us, based on His perfect love, grace, mercy, and work of salvation. This is how we ought to be with one another, it is how we need to be when we look into the mirror – we need to learn to see ourselves and others in Jesus Christ.

 

Let me please share a story from my life to illustrate this. I am anything but proud of this story, but because it may help someone, I’ll share it. Occasionally I have shared this, but not often, it is just too painful, and I am ashamed of it. Yet, as I hope you will see, I am deeply thankful.

 

I once went to work for a firm as COO in which was a woman, I’ll call her “Susan,” who had known me for many years and who was excited to be working for me. The firm was not doing well financially or organizationally, and the pressure was immense. As I look back, I did some things well, and some things not very well at all. This is my nature, I can always see things I could have done better, see things I did that were just stupid, and then, sadly, see things I did that were plain wrong.

 

After I had been with the firm between two and three years I terminated Susan’s employment. This was wrong, I should not have done this.

 

I could share some things that led to this decision, I could share about pressures, I could write about our business relationship, but I don’t want to mitigate the fact that I was wrong. I was morally and ethically wrong. If I did not see this at the time, I most certainly should have seen it.

 

A few years later I needed a job and I needed it badly. Vickie and I had been abandoned by the church we served and had it not been for friends we may well have been homeless. It was a terrible time for us. After many months of trying to find employment, virtually any kind of employment, I found a job in community association management, the kind of work I had done decades earlier. While I was deeply thankful for the job, it wasn’t a good fit.

 

After about a year a position opened at an apartment management company that I thought was a possibility. My age was against me, I was sixty years old. Two people within the company became advocates for me, one was Gloria who had known me for years, the other was Susan. Yes, you read that right, Susan.

 

I was hired and spent the last few years of my business career in a wonderful environment, with a great boss, terrific colleagues, and a group of team members who worked for me that I dearly loved and still very much love.

 

I once asked Susan why she went to the president of the company and advocated for me after I had terminated her with our previous company.

 

She replied, “I knew that the Bob Withers who fired me was not the real Bob Withers.”

 

 Susan saw beyond the moment when I fired her, as shocking as that was for her. Somehow, by God’s grace, she looked beyond my actions and into my soul and saw something worth forgiving and extending grace and mercy to. Susan saw me when I couldn’t see myself.

 

Jesus can say the things He says in John 17:6 – 8 because He sees us beyond the moment, beyond our actions, beyond our fears and uncertainties, even beyond our denial and abandonment of Him. Jesus, our Alpha and Omega, our Beginning and End, sees us in Him as perfect and complete.

 

O that we would learn to live in this assurance, and that we would learn to extend this assurance to others.

 

Given By The Father

  

“I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word” (John 17:6).

 

There are four major threads in the Upper Room in this verse. Can you see them? Read the chapter again, and again, and again, keep reading it and meditating upon it. The Light that is refracted never ends, and its combinations never cease.

 

We see the Name of the Father, Jesus disclosing the Name, the giving of those who belong to the Father to Jesus, and the enigmatic faithfulness and belief of these men whom the Father has given. I write “enigmatic” because it is a mystery, at least to me, how Jesus can make such statements about them. As you read John 17, can you see these four themes? How are they woven together? What other themes do you see?

 

In this meditation I want to explore, “the men whom You have Me out of the world.”

 

We first saw this in 17:2, “that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life.”

 

How might we think about this? Let’s be careful and consider what we know, rather than what we don’t know. That is, let’s focus on what Jesus says rather than on our curiosity, or what others want us to think about. Perhaps we would do well to consider John 6:37 – 40:

 

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”

 

What parallels do you see between John 6:37 – 40 and John Chapter 17?

 

Let’s also note 6:44, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”

 

The Father has given us to Jesus. The Father has taken us out of the world and has given us to Jesus. The Father has drawn us to Jesus. Jesus will lose nothing that the Father has given Him.

 

Above I cautioned us to focus on what we know, not on what we don’t know Let me attempt to explain what I mean.

 

What questions do people normally have when they read the above passages?

 

In my experience, they have two problems; one has to do with “free will,” and the other has to do with “what about those not included?” That is, what about those who have either never heard of Jesus or whom the Father has not given to Jesus?

 

Did Jesus address these questions in these passages? I don’t see that He did.

 

Can we draw logical conclusions to our questions? I don’t see that we can, for our logic is faulty and fallible and our knowledge and understanding are limited.

 

Jesus tells us what He tells us, both in John Chapter 6 and John Chapter 17, so that we might know what He tells us, not so that we may know what He doesn’t tell us. Our problem is not that our curiosity is not satisfied, it is that we don’t believe and live according to what Jesus tells us. Were we to live in the knowledge and reality of what Jesus tells us about our calling and assurance in Him, laying down our lives for one another, loving one another, we would not have the time nor the inclination to engage in perpetual speculation nor would we care to satisfy our curiosity. We would not desire to see every question answered, and we would most certainly realize our cognitive limitations in our current state in this world (the noetic effects of sin).

 

In some way, shape, and form, in some mysterious and Divine fashion, we belong to the Father, we are not of the world. The Father has given us to Jesus. The Father has drawn us to Jesus. Visualize this please. You have belonged to the Father, the Father has taken you and given you to Jesus. The Father has made a gift of you to Jesus.

 

Jesus has received you as a gift from the Father. Jesus has given you eternal life by showing Himself and the Father to you. “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (17:3). “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life” (6:40).

 

Eternal life is relational. You have been called into a relationship with God. The Father took you out of the world, the Father gave you to Jesus. Will you live in this reality?

 

“What about free will?” you ask.

 

Jesus speaks of the will of God, Jesus does not speak of your free will. This is God’s Story, you are incorporated into the Father’s Story, into the Son’s Story, into the Spirit’s Story – your story is enveloped in the Trinity and in the Body of Christ within the Trinity.

 

Consider the total and complete assurance that Jesus gives you by telling you that you are where you are, in a relationship with Him, because the Father gave you to Jesus.

 

“O but I want this to be about me!” we cry. Ah, but this is not about us, this is about Jesus and the Father. To be sure we are in the Story, but we are not center stage, this is not the Good News about you and me, it is the Good News about Jesus Christ. O for sure, it is Good News for us, it is Good News for us all, and as we realize the glory of what Jesus is telling us about the Father giving us to Him, we have the assurance we need to lay our lives down for Him and others. As we realize that Jesus keeps what the Father has given Him, that He guards us, O the assurance and peace and security we have in Him!

 

This also means that, just as Jesus, we need to be about our Father’s business!

 

A fundamental truth and reality of our life in Christ is that we do not belong to ourselves, we have never belonged to ourselves. There are those Christians who live in this knowledge, and those who don’t. Those who do not live in this knowledge live independently of Christ, those who do live in this knowledge live as the possessions of Another, in other words, Jesus Christ is truly Lord of their lives.

 

One of the enigmatic realities of the Father giving us to Jesus is that Jesus the Lamb had to shed His blood and die for us to purchase us (Rev. 5:9 – 10). The Father gave us to Jesus, Jesus gave us the gift of eternal life.

 

What are we giving to others?

Esther, Where Are You?

 

 

As I witness the sellout of the Gospel to political, social, economic, and national interests and idols, and as I wonder where men and women of courage are to be found among those who claim to be servants of Christ (though does anyone claim such a title anymore?), I wonder if there still might be an Esther or two “for such a time as this" (Esther 4:13 - 14).

 

If there are such women and men, there is but one promise for them, and that is the Cross. Rest assured, it is not likely either the “right” or the “left” will spare them, for the otherworldliness of the Cross and Christ cannot be tolerated, no opposition can be allowed to remain.

 

The Son of Man had no place to lay His Head 2,000 years ago, and He has no place to lay His Head or His Body today. There is no political, economic, political, social, philosophical, or national place where the Body of Christ can rest; we will find rest only in Him, only in Jesus, only in our Good Shepherd.

 

Esther was able, with the help of Mordecai, to overcome her initial reluctance to risk her life for her people. She could choose to be the instrument of God’s deliverance, but “if not” Mordecai promised her that God would raise up someone else. I am not sure about our own time; I am not certain of two things.

 

The first thing I am not certain about is that there will be any temporal “deliverance,” in whatever form that might take. This then means that it may be that there are no “deliverers” in the normal sense of the word.

 

We are seeing a great falling away from the Person of Jesus Christ, from belonging to Him, from the Biblical Gospel and call to His Kingdom, to the prostitution of the professing church in the name of Christianity, of so-called Christian worldviews which are Nehustan; they may have had worthy beginnings, but they have been formed into idols.  (A. W. Tozer identified the tragedy of Christians not actually knowing Jesus in The Pursuit of God almost 80 years ago.)

 

Many of those who still profess a Kingdom perspective, seem to think that if they play whack-a-mole long enough that the fog will eventually lift, the sun will shine, and we can go back to the way things used to be (though why we would ever want to go back to that which paved the way for our present insanity is beyond me).

 

When I write “whack-a-mole” I mean a preoccupation with religious (including Evangelical) and gnostic playthings which allows us to avoid speaking a clarion Word to the Church of Jesus Christ and society.

 

I wonder if these folks (those who know better) realize that as long as they avoid calling for complete and total faithfulness to Jesus Christ, as long as they avoid Mark 8:34 – 38 and 1 Corinthians 1:17 – 31, that they really don’t know what they have in their congregations, institutions, denominations, and movements. Or perhaps they do know and don’t want to confront the reality.

 

If the fabric of a congregation can be rent by calling for total fidelity to Jesus Christ, if it can be torn asunder by calling for the Bride to leave behind the movements of this world and be in a monogamous relationship with her Bridegroom (2 Cor. 11:1 – 3), if calling on professing Christians to leave behind garments of “red” and “blue” for the pure white garment of Christ’s righteousness and to be a City set on a Hill – if such preaching is sure to create upheaval – then what do we really have? We have dishonesty built on fear and intimidation; we do not have the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

On the one hand we have preachers who have left the Gospel of Christ and the only call that they really have, the call to present the Church as a pure Bride in a pure marriage to her one Husband. On the other hand, we have the people at the foot of Sinai insisting on golden calves to worship.

 

Is deliverance in such an atmosphere possible?

 

I don’t think so. I may be wrong, I hope I am wrong, but I don’t think so. I don’t think we would stand for returning to Jesus Christ. I don’t think we’d stand for pastors and teachers and other leaders insisting on us returning to Jesus. I think that, having mounted the beast, we now must ride the beast until the beast devours us. (Is it possible to have renewal outside old wineskins?)

 

As Revelation demonstrates, there are times when the only way to victory, to irenic and ironic victory, is via martyrdom. To be sure witness, martyrdom, takes many forms, but none of these forms are pleasant.

 

This means that any Esthers among us must walk alongside Daniel’s three friends, and that their credo must be, must always be, “But if not” (Daniel 3:18). It means that deliverance likely lies on the other side of this life, in that City where Christ and the Father and the saints await us. It means that the faithful “consider the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt” or Wall Street, or Hollywood, or Capitol Hill, or than anything this world offers.

 

It means that we confess that we are strangers and pilgrims and that we are seeking a country of our own (Hebrews 11:13 – 16). Such a testimony is in opposition to political, economic, and social movements – for it recognizes the kingdoms of this world and their systems for what they are, opposed to Jesus Christ (Psalm 2; Daniel 2; 1 John 2:15 – 17; Revelation chapters 17 – 18).

 

We seek good for all mankind, but we do not deceive ourselves as to the systems of this wicked world.

 

The overcomers of Revelation overcome by the blood of Lamb, by their testimony (of Jesus), and by not loving their lives, even unto death (Rev. 12:11). Run from any preacher, any pastor, any teacher, any professor, any fool who would tell you otherwise! Run, run, run from those who would spare you the Cross of Christ, and run to Jesus, embracing Him and His Cross (Matthew 16:21 – 23). O dear friends, if we are not learning to die with Jesus, then we are not learning to live with Him (2 Cor. 4:12; Gal. 2:20; 6:14).

 

If a man or woman meets God, it is not likely that person will ever be the same. Since Jesus is God, how is that we are still of this world, when we claim to be Christians? How is it that we dress ourselves in “red” and “blue” and seek to destroy one another? O dear friends, there are only two reasons why professing Christians act this way, the way of the enemy (James 3:13 – 18); it is either that we have never really met Jesus Christ and surrendered our lives to Him – living under His lordship, as His possessions, or it is that we have left our first love (Rev. 2:4).

 

To be faithful to Jesus Christ means that we must “go outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Heb. 13:13). This is the religious camp (both on the “right” and the “left”), it is the political camp, the nationalist camp; it is the camp of the world – it means that we identify with Jesus and preach Jesus and Jesus alone…and to be sure, that will incur the enmity of the world around us, in all of its forms…and yes, we will likely find ourselves put out of the synagogue (John 9:22, 34).

 

And yet, and yet, there will be those who see Him through the darkness and vitriol and hatred and cacophony…and on that Day those men and women and children will say, “Thank you. Thank you for showing me a better way, the Way of Jesus, the Way of the Cross. Thank you for showing me Jesus.”

 

One thing we can say with surety concerning potential Esthers, those who seek to spare their lives need not apply.

 

“As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15).

 

What about you?

 

“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1 – 2).

While my intention is to call us back to Jesus, and only to Jesus; if I have offended you, then I have made my point. Let us return to Jesus, He awaits us, He will restore us so that we can restore others. The Cross is always offensive, so that we might come to the end of ourselves and find Jesus. 

 

“For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2 – 3).

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (17)

 

On page 210 Bonhoeffer tells us that the Body of Christ takes on visible form in the preaching of the word, in baptism, and in the Lord’s Supper; all three of these are sacramental, all three of them mediate Christ Jesus, and community in Christ, all three form us as Christ’s community. While forgiveness of sins is indeed present in the sacraments, Bonhoeffer writes:

 

“Nether the gift of baptism nor the gift of the Lord’s Supper is fully understood if we interpret them only in terms of the forgiveness of sin. The gift of the body conferred in the sacraments presents us with the Lord in bodily form dwelling in his church – community” (page 211).

 

On pages 211 – 213 Bonhoeffer touches on expressions and forms of the visible church – community. He does this both quickly and in-depth, yes, this seems like a contradiction. He does it quickly in that he points us to a number of Biblical considerations in just three pages, but he also does this in-depth if we will read and ponder the Scriptures to which he points us. There is no point in reading Bonhoeffer is we are not going to read the Bible, if we are not going to read and ponder, in context, the Scripture passages which are his frame of reference and his authority.

 

“This community is a differentiated whole. The body of Christ as church-community includes both differentiation and a common order. These are characteristics essential to the body itself. A body lacking differentiation is in the process of decomposition” (page 211, italics mine). Bonhoeffer cites Romans 12:5 and 1 Corinthians 12:12ff.

 

Bonhoeffer is saying that the visible church-community will have common expressions everywhere it gathers, and that it will also have expressions peculiar to its time and place. These expressions ought to all originate in Christ and be sustained by Christ, and we can anticipate that they will change over time – after all, the visible church-community is the Living Body of Christ; it is a Person, yes, a unique Person, but nevertheless a Person.

 

On pages 211 – 213 Bonhoeffer cites around 30 Scriptures to help us see the visible Body of Christ and understand the Holy Spirit’s working within us as God’s People. He emphasizes that the “order” of the church is of “divine origin” and that it is intended to serve and not to be served. The offices of the church are appointed by God within, but not by, the community. “Even where the church-community itself assigns offices, it does so in complete submission to the guidance of the Holy Spirit (Acts 13:2)” (page 212).

 

Bonhoeffer holds that “different congregations require different offices or ministries.” This is, I think, a high view of the organic Nature of the Body of Christ and the Headship of Jesus. Bonhoeffer trusts Christ to lead and care for and form His Body – that is a higher trust than most of us are likely to have ourselves and tolerate in others. Bonhoeffer writes that the “specific form [of our visible expression] is open to change” (page 212).

 

Can we imagine a local church climate in which congregations are seeking to sense and respond to the Holy Spirit and our Lord Jesus as a way of life? A climate in which we are open to changes in the forms of our expressions, in ministry offices, in the forms of our gatherings?

 

Bonhoeffer sees all ministry offices and gifts as functioning “for the benefit of the church-community,” and as being “servants of the church-community” (page 212). This is hardly a picture of the clergy – laity dichotomy that we see today, or of the sacred – secular dichotomy.

 

A visible church-community is more than a group of people who gather to listen to others, to give money, to pray as they are given permission, and to whom baptism and the Lord’s Supper is a routine.  We are to be living and vibrant expressions of the Incarnation, members of one another and members of Christ Jesus. We are to each share the grace of God and the life of Christ with one another – we all have faith and hope and love to share. We ought to be encouraging one another in the koinonia of the Body of Christ (Ephesians 4:14 – 16).

 

There is always a cost of discipleship, both as individuals and as a people. Those who follow the Christ of the Cross will always be a minority among professing Christians, as will those groups of disciples who seek to be expressions of the Body of Christ – new wine cannot be contained in old wineskins.

 

The Church of Jesus Christ must always be separate and distinct from the world, for its Nature is Christ and He is transcendent.

 

Bonhoeffer’s German contemporaries sought to maintain the status quo, most of them rejected his Biblical teaching as they sought alliance and accommodation with the social and political and military forces around them.

 

Just as we are doing today.

Glorify Together

 

 

“Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5).

 

Jesus’ communion with the Father begins, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You” (17:1).

 

The glory of the Father is the glory of the Son, and the glory of the Son is the glory of the Father. As we will see in verse 22, the glory of the Trinity is given to us in Christ. Sadly, much of the story of humanity is the story of us, “exchanging the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man” (Rom. 1:23). Do we not see this today in our society? Do we not worship the image of man, of ourselves? The conflicts we see within nations and among nations is a conflict about which idol we will worship.

 

Jesus seeks no glory apart from the Father, in fact, the Father is the glory of the Son. Jesus recalls the glory He had with the Father “before the world was.” This not only takes us back to the very beginning of the Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being,” but it also takes us through the Gospel of John.

 

“’My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.’ For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God” (5:17 – 18).

 

“I Am the Bread of life” (6:35).

 

“I Am the Light of the world” (8:12).

 

“I Am the Good Shepherd” (10:11).

 

“I Am the Resurrection and the Life” (11:25).

 

“Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham came into being, I Am,” (8:58).

 

One of the mysteries of the “I AM” statements is that, while the glory of the Father was pouring in and through Jesus in the Incarnation, the bestowal of the “glory which I had with You before the world was,” was yet to come.

 

This takes us to Philippians 2:5 – 11 in which we see that “He [Jesus] emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.” Hebrews 2:9 – 18 also speaks to us of Jesus being “made like His brethren in all things.”

 

As Jesus Himself asked the disciples on the road to Emmaus, “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” (Luke 24:26).

 

Jesus is emptied, in a fashion we cannot understand, in the Incarnation, and He is restored to the glory which He had with the Father before the world was through suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. We behold elements of this in Scripture, we see refracted Light through this, we even participate in this mystery ourselves, but I think it beyond our comprehension – such is the greatness of the glory of God and of His Story, for this is truly the Story of the Lamb – He includes us in His Story, but He is the Story, the Message, the Gospel – the Lamb is the Light, not me, not you, not us.

 

We are called to enter into His glory as we participate with Him in His suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. This is a Divine koinonia (Phil. 3:10), this is our inheritance (Rom. 8:16 – 18). Mystery of mysteries, in doing so, in touching the eternal glory, in receiving the glory which Christ bestows on us (John 17:22), we touch the I AM THAT I AM, and in touching Him we touch the “glory which I had with You before the world was.”

 

Well, as Paul writes, there are some things which are not lawful to talk about (2 Cor. 12:4). I think this is because of our propensity to profane and make merchandise of the holy, and also because some things are simply too beyond us for human words. But then, what do I really know?  

 

Let’s consider that we are changed into the image of Jesus Christ “from glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:18) and that this occurs in the liberty of the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor. 3:17). This resonates with the “freedom of the glory of the children of God” in Romans 8:21. Let us also consider the progression we see in Romans 8:30:

 

“These whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called,  He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

 

The Father is indeed “bringing many sons to glory” (Heb. 2:10).

 

That which we had lost and fallen short of (Rom. 3:23), is now being restored in us, in Christ, always in Christ (Rom. 5:1 – 11).

 

As we look forward into eternity, we see that the Bride has the glory of God (Rev. 21:10) and that the glory of God illuminates that Holy City (Rev. 21:23).

 

If you ask me what the “glory” is, I cannot answer you. O for sure it is the Presence, the all – enveloping Presence of God. For sure, His holiness and purity and Otherness, His love and mercy and grace, His Essence. But who has words for the Ineffable? We must fall on our face speechless at times, at other times we can but raise our hands and hearts and cry, “Holy, holy, holy.”

 

I think this, that only fools merchandise and sell such things, and for sure there are fools aplenty within professing Christianity. Wise men and women are circumspect in touching and communicating the Holy, they fear to take liberties with holy things, with sacred things, for they are servants and not masters, they follow the Lamb, the Lamb that was slain.

 

I also think this, that one touch of the Shekinah is worth a lifetime of “worship and praise” songs, for when the Other touches you, you know you have been touched – and you know you had nothing to do with it – you were touched because it pleased Him to touch you.

 

You can no more speak of these things than you ought to speak of that which transpires between a husband and wife in their sacred chambers…but we have so profaned our religion and made merchandise of it that it challenges us to conceive of such things…well, the Song of Solomon may help us with this…perhaps.

 

O that we would return to our purity of devotion to Christ! (2 Cor. 11:1 – 3; Rev. 2:4).

 

John 17:1 – 5 is the first movement in the Holy of Holies of Chapter 17. As you mediate on these words of Jesus, allow the Holy Spirit to draw you into the heart of your High Priest, into the Presence of the Lamb, into the glory of the Father.

 

As you read this passage aloud, can you hear the Voice of Jesus?

 

Can you see Him speaking to the Father?

Accomplishing the Work

 

 

“I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do” (John 17:4).

 

Gethsemane lies just ahead, with its plea, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me.”  Beyond Gethsemane is the mockery and torture of Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate, and Herod. Beyond them looms Golgotha. Yet, Jesus speaks to the Father of “having accomplished the work.”

 

Already Jesus is seeing beyond the Cross, already He is seeing His joy and prize, already He is beholding the Face of the Father as He anticipates declaring, “It is finished.”

 

We are reminded that on the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus discussed with Moses and Elijah “His departure which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31). We know that Jesus, “for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb. 12:2).

 

Let us recall that Jesus said, “Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour” (John 12:27).

 

Paul displays his Master Jesus when he writes, “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness” (2 Tim. 4:6 – 8).

 

Paul sees himself as an offering, just as Jesus saw Himself. Paul knew that his hour had come, just as Jesus knew. Paul had a sense of having accomplished his calling, of doing the works which Christ gave him to do, of finishing the course, even though trial and execution awaited him, just as it awaited Jesus. Paul saw beyond imprisonment and execution, to the crown of righteousness, just as Jesus saw beyond the Cross to the joy that lay ahead.

 

Prior to his letter to Timothy, Paul writes to the Philippians while in prison, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14).

 

Just as Jesus glorified the Father by completing the work which the Father had given Him to do, and just as Paul glorified Christ Jesus by completing the work to which he was called, so are you and I to glorify the Father and the Son by accomplishing the work to which we have been called. Let us never forget that Jesus says, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21; see also 17:18).

 

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

 

We all have a destiny in Christ, a calling in Christ, a purpose in Christ.

 

There are at least four ways we can think about the “good works” which God has prepared for us, all of them constitute a holistic calling. The first one is what I’ll term “general good works,” that is, “good works as our Way of Life in Christ.”

 

We see this in Matthew 5:43 – 48, in which Jesus teaches that we are to love our enemies and pray for them, and to “greet” or bless all people, the evil and the good, the righteous and the unrighteous, so that we may be the sons of our Father in heaven. Jesus tells us that we are to let our light shine before men, “That they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 5:16).

 

Similarly, Paul writes, “Let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith” (Gal. 6:10; see also John 15:8, Titus 2:14; 3:8).

 

Then we have the good work of witnessing for Jesus. For sure this work is twofold, consisting of both word and deed, they must not be separated, each is vital. We are called to make disciples of all peoples, teaching them to obey what Jesus has taught (Mt. 28:18 – 20). That witness is inherent is discipleship is seen in Mark 8:38, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

 

Paul asks, “How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard?” (Rom. 10:14).

 

The third element of our calling to good works is our placement in the Body of Christ (Rom. 12, 1 Cor. 12, Eph. 4:14 – 16; 1 Peter 10 – 11). We all have a part to play in the Body of Christ, we are members of one another, we truly need one another to be complete. We need each other to function in the Body so that we may all grow up into Christ and be a faithful witness to the world. Each one of us has a facet of our Father to display to the others. Each one of us has a unique deposit of the grace of Jesus within us that the rest of us need in order to be whole, and in order to fulfill our own callings.

 

This is not so much about what we “do,” as about who we are. Our worth is not in what we do, it is in who we are. Who we are will be expressed in what we do, but we must abide in the Vine if we are to “do” anything of lasting value (John 15:5).

 

This is an ever – growing experience, this discovery of the works of God, the calling of God, including within the Body of Christ. Our roles may change, the way we play those roles may change, our understanding will hopefully grow and mature, we will learn from others, we will learn from our mistakes, we will learn and be encouraged when things go well. We ought to never be stagnant, but ought to be in God’s process of being transformed from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:17 – 18; Rom. 12:1 – 2).

 

And this leads to the fourth element of working the works of God, and that is that these works which God has laid out for us lead us into the image of the Firstborn Son (Rom. 8:29). That is, we are called to do the works that Jesus did, and does, and…in some sense which is still a mystery to me…we are called to do “greater works” (John 14:12). This encompasses the work of the Cross, again a mystery, but we see this in “death working in us, but life in you” (2 Cor. 4:12), and in “I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” (Col. 1:24).

 

I imagine there are other facets embedded in the idea of us being “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” Can you think of other elements to this?

 

What about those of us who have gone our own way for much of life? What about those of us who have done nothing but sit in a pew year after year, who have never shared Jesus with others, who have not really lived in the Word of God, not really prayed and interceded for others? What about those of us who have frankly lived as if our lives belonged to ourselves rather than to Jesus? What about those of us who have missed opportunity after opportunity to walk in the works which our Father has purposed for us?

 

I find great encouragement in Matthew 20:1 – 16 in the sense that our Father is merciful and gracious and generous. Now I’ll say that were I an eleventh-hour laborer, I’d be happy with an hour’s pay; actually, I’d be happy and thankful to just be allowed to serve for one hour whether I was rewarded or not, the opportunity to serve would be reward enough.

 

I have missed many opportunities over the years, I have missed years of opportunity. I am afraid that I have been like the second son in Matthew 21:28 – 31. Yet, I have also been given the merciful opportunity to learn to be as the first son, and I hope that I am that son in some measure. Life can be complicated…yes?

 

Let me please share something with you, Jesus Christ is our Redeemer, and we can trust Him. Christ can redeem our missed opportunities, He can redeem our disgusting selfishness, He can bring us out of the depths to which we have plummeted, He can restore the wasted years of our lives (Joel 2:25). But let us make no mistake, we must acknowledge our sin and disobedience and turn to Him, following Him according to His call to discipleship (Mark 8:34 – 38). This is not a religious game, this all has eternal consequences, both for ourselves and for those around us – our faithfulness to Jesus Christ matters to others.

 

Am I glorifying the Father by accomplishing the work which He has given me to do?

 

Are you?

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (16)

 

 

“The body of Christ takes up physical space here on earth” (page 207).

 

“A truth, a doctrine, or a religion needs no space of its own. Such entities are bodyless. They do not go beyond being heard, learned, and understood” (page 207).

 

“The body of the exalted Lord is…a visible body, taking the form of the church – community” (page 208).

 

The Body of Christ is more than a group of people who believe the same thing, it is the actual, physical, Body of Jesus Christ – visible on earth, taking up space on earth; to touch a member of the Body is to touch the Person of Jesus Christ. The Incarnation continues in the Body of Christ.

 

Bonhoeffer writes that the Body is made visible through preaching the word (Acts 2:42), we are to “continue in the apostles teaching.” Since the foundation of the church consists in the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20), all teaching and preaching must be based on this foundation – we must continue to teach what the apostles and prophets taught, which is founded upon Jesus Christ, always Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3:11). (See pages 208 – 209).

 

Then he writes, “The Word of God seeks out community in order to accept it. It exists mainly within the community. It moves on its own into the community. It has an inherent impulse toward community” (page 209).

 

“The Word moves along this path of its own accord. The preacher should and can do nothing more than be a servant of this movement inherent in the Word itself, and refrain from placing obstacles in its path” (page 209).

 

What is the “Word” of which Bonhoeffer writes?

 

It is what we read of in John: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

 

It is, as Bonhoeffer notes on pages 209 and 210, that which John wrote about, “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life” (1 John 1:1).

 

This can be a challenge for us, for it may be that when we think of the “Word” that we think of only the Bible, that is, it may be that we do not “see” the Word as the Word, that we do not “see” the Bible as…mysterious as it may be…the Living Word of John 1:1 and 1 John 1:1…it may be that we see only paper and ink. It may be that we see only one dimensionally, rather than in the Holy Spirit.

 

Perhaps the personification of Wisdom in Proverbs Chapter 8 (and elsewhere) can help us with this, a passage long understood as revealing Christ. I do not understand this mystery, anymore than I understand baptism or the Lord’s Table or the Incarnation or the Trinity; but just because we may not understand something, does not mean that we cannot “see” it and experience it.

 

To be sure, it usually takes time for our vision to mature, for us to develop an eye to see these things, but isn’t this often the case with growth and appreciation?

When Bonhoeffer writes, “The Word of God seeks out community in order to accept it,” he points us to Christ the Word, coming to earth and to us to bring us to Himself and the Father, thus creating community within Himself, inhabiting His Body, His Church, His Temple.

 

The “movement inherent in the Word itself,” is the Divine Life of Christ, and preachers are to be servants of this movement, we are to submit to Christ the Word, not seek to manipulate, dominate, or dictate, but rather to submit and serve and cooperate. We ought not to put obstacles in the path of the movement of the Word, nor to restrict the movement and expression of the Word.

 

Now this can be a bit frightening, for it means that we give up control; we do not abdicate responsibility to obey and teach, but we do give up control to Christ and the Holy Spirit. This is, by its nature, uncomfortable for most of us, for who knows how God will surprise us? We like control, not surprise.

 

It also means that we are not called to apply the Word of God, it means that we are called to obey the Word of God. If I can apply something then I can control it, as a teacher I am tasked with proclaiming the Word and making disciples; in Christ I call us to obey the Word, to obey Jesus Christ.

 

I realize some may not see the distinction, but it is important to me in our pragmatic culture to attempt to make the point. I want to inculcate obedience to Christ and the Cross, not pragmatic application. I want to stress our servanthood, we no longer belong to ourselves but to our Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

 

Bonhoeffer tells us that the Word “can no longer exist in isolation from the humanity it has assumed…Jesus Christ himself has come to be present in our midst in the power of his body” (page 210).

 

This is a high view of the Incarnation which we are unaccustomed to. While there may be traditions which are more comfortable and familiar with this vision than others, even in those few groups the average person doesn’t really live in this awareness. We simply don’t live in the spiritual realm, we don’t experience the supernatural, the numinous, the Other. While our forefathers may have lived naturally supernatural lives, experiencing the communion of the saints, we have become so earthbound that these things can be difficult for us. What was once natural, is now unnatural.

 

(I am reminded of the series on Geerhardus Vos’s Heavenly – Mindedness from a few years ago. Vos took us on a naturally supernatural experience of Hebrews 11:9- 10. I kept thinking as I was reading and writing, “We don’t talk like this now, we don’t think like this now, we don’t experience this now. In fact, we often discourage it.”)

 

To encounter the Word is to encounter Christ, and to encounter Christ is to encounter the Word. When we encounter the Word, when the Word comes to us and we are drawn to the Word, we must submit and obey (by the grace of God). The Word does indeed create community – see John Chapter 17. If we submit to Him we will be drawn deeper and deeper into the koinonia of the Trinity.

 

My own sense is that this is why we often find deep fellowship outside of our own movements and traditions, for when we gather with those outside our home boundaries and wineskins, we are usually gathering with those who are hungry for Jesus and seeking to serve Him and others. Again, this is just my sense; it has often been my experience.

 

There is always a risk, in the natural sense, in submitting to the Word of God, for we just don’t know where our Shepherd will lead us. O yes, we can trust Him, and He will always care for us; but He will also always draw us to His Cross…for reconciliation with God and with one another, for our source of Life in Him, and as our Way of Life as we lay our lives down for others.

 

As I have written before, Bonhoeffer is dense and there is no substitute for actually reading what he writes in its full context, we are only touching some highlights, only trying to keep the signposts in focus.

 

This is quite challenging to me, and I hope to you.

 

 

This Is Eternal Life

 

 

“This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:2).

 

How does the Son give us eternal life? By bringing us into a relationship with our Father. We may have different perspectives and language to describe this, but whatever that might be, we ought to be wise enough to understand that the Bible uses expansive language for this relationship, so expansive that it takes 66 books and numerous authors over centuries to express it. Even within the Gospels, we see actions and language that refuses to be confined, refuses to be codified, and frankly refuses to be systematized – for God is God and we are not, and the purpose of the Bible is to reveal God and bring us into a relationship with Him, into the Nature of the Divine, that we might be “partakers of the Divine Nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

 

As Tozer writes in The Pursuit of God, “The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts” (page 10).

 

Do we use the language of relationship, or do we use the language of the classroom when we speak of Scripture and of the Trinity? Do we use the language of relational knowing or the language of knowing data and information when we speak of God?

 

What Jesus says about the apostles in John 17 makes no sense. How can Jesus say that they have kept the Father’s word (17:6)? How can He say that they “truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent me” (17:8)? These men will shortly abandon Jesus and will lock themselves in the Upper Room – this time not to share bread and wine with Jesus, and not to hear the glorious words of Jesus drawing them to the Father – but they will cower in this very same room for fear. These are hardly the actions of men who fit Jesus’ description in verses 6 and 8.

 

These statements make no sense unless we learn to see as Jesus sees, hear as Jesus hears, and receive the wisdom of God that makes no sense to the world, including the religious world (1 Cor. 1:17 – 2:16).  

 

Somehow, some way, these men, did indeed have eternal life and did know the Father; that relational knowing of Jesus and the Father would carry them through their fear and anxiety and doubt and uncertainty and momentary unbelief.  There was no real doubt about this (17:12).

 

We have eternal life in knowing the Father and Son, not in simply knowing about them. We can know the Scriptures and not know Jesus, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me” (John 5:39).

 

Seminary graduates can know the Scriptures and not know Jesus. Elders, deacons, Sunday school teachers, seminary professors, pastors, bishops, metropolitans, and popes can know the Scriptures and not know Jesus. Longtime church members can know the Scriptures and not know Jesus.

 

On the other hand, an illiterate man or woman may very well know Jesus and know Him deeply.

 

As my old friend George Will used to point out, but which I didn’t understand at the time, the position of those with head knowledge toward those who are not “educated” is often that of the synagogue leaders toward the blind man Jesus healed, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?” (John 9:34).

 

I know I have written this before, but more likely than not, when I am in a small group or Sunday school class and am listening to the group, I hear people talking about God as if they are talking about George Washington, they are talking about someone they study and read about, but not about someone they actually know and are in a relationship with. The idea of the Holy Spirit revealing Jesus Christ to them through the Word of God is about as foreign to them as thinking that the picture of Colonel Saunders will jump off a KFC box and ask them how they like his recipe.

 

Yet, John writes that to have koinonia with him and his companions is to have koinonia with the Trinity (1 John 1:3)! How far we have fallen from Biblical Christianity. Why have we rejected Jesus’ invitation, indeed His call and command, to enter the Holy of Holies of intimacy with the Father, Himself, the Holy Spirit, and with one another?

 

When we know the Father, we know Him as “the only true God,” and we have some sense that He has sent Jesus Christ. I write that we have “some sense” that the Father sent the Son, because the depth and mystery of that reality ought to be ever dawning upon us – if we think we can encapsulate the Message of the Incarnation into a statement or two, we are foolish. Yes, we can and ought to appreciate the Nicene Creed, perhaps no finer creed has ever been produced and if we actually saw what it says we would be a better people in Christ, but the Creed is a framework for unfolding mystery, it is a highway with guardrails, it sets the stage for greater glory and travel, it keeps us safe and also points us onward and upward and deeper. The inside of the Creed is greater than the outside.

 

When we know the Father and the Son and the Spirit as the only true God, then we look to no other god and no other message, no other gospel. This singularity of devotion, this true Monotheism (Mark 12:29 – 30), sets the person who knows God apart from those who know only religion, including “Christian” religion. This is one reason why a church setting can be an uncomfortable place for a Christian to be, for she or he can be in a place where people talk about God but who do not speak of Him as if they actually know Him. They may identify as members or adherents of a particular brand of Christianity, but they do not identify as disciples of Jesus Christ, as those who belong to Him and whose lives belong to Him and to Him alone.

 

If we understand that the Father sent the Son, then we must grapple with the fact that the Son sends us as the Father sent Him (John 17:18; 20:21). Are we living lives of obedience to this calling? Are our lives cruciform as that of the Incarnate Son?

 

Perhaps there are two types of people in a church building, those who live as if their lives are their own, and those who live as owned by Jesus Christ, those who are the property of Jesus Christ.

 

To recognize that the Father sent the Son, to truly “see” this, must mean that at some point we confront the fact that Jesus sends us as the Father sent Him, and that our lives are not our own, we have been bought with a price (1 Cor. 6:19 – 20).  This necessarily means that we embrace the Cross and the Way of Suffering for Christ and others. We learn to exchange our cushioned pews and seats and coffee bars and Sunday morning entertainment for the Cross of Christ with its rough-hewn wood and nails and mockery – so that others may live in Jesus. Make no mistake, we must die so that others may live.

 

Eternal life is knowing the Father and the Son, and sharing the Gospel is bringing others into this eternal koinonia, bringing them home to the Father’s House. O the joy of the Father’s House! The joy of living every day with Jesus! The joy of the Holy Spirit! The joy of the koinonia of the saints!

 

It is said that we don’t know what we don’t know.

 

Well, now we know.