The Holy of Holies (5)

 

 

“You loved Me, before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).

 

“The glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5).

 

There are those who speculate, then there are those who live. No one who ever has been touched by Jesus can explain how or why it happened, not really. We may have insight into our relationship with Him, we may have been given some insight of Him, but we cannot comprehend Him comprehensively. The deeper we know Him, the greater we are enveloped by His majesty and the less we know of some things and the more we know of other things. We lose sight that we may gain sight, and we gain sight so that we may lose sight – for the one sight we seek, the one vision we hunger for, is Jesus Christ the Lamb that we may follow Him wherever He goes.

 

To know Him and to be with Him where He is, brings us to the eternals, to the “heavenly places” of which Paul writes in Ephesians. It brings us to the Beginning (Christ) and to the End (Christ). In the heavenlies, in the eternals, we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ and have been chosen before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:3 – 4).  We can either respond, “Yeah but…” and chase our tails like puppies with speculation upon speculation, flaying with natural reason, questioning how these things can be; or we can embrace the koinonia of the Trinity and the assurance that God loves us and move on with life in Him.

 

Many (most?) of the things we think we need to know, we do not really need to know, life is a question of knowing Jesus, always knowing Jesus, for in Him are “hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). Why is it that we will eat of every tree of the garden except the Tree of Life? Why are we so infatuated with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?

 

Well, here is the thing, when we eat of the Tree of Life we find ourselves in the eternals, participating in the life of Christ Jesus, experiencing the love which the Father had for Him before the foundation of the world, seeing the glory which the Father bestowed on the Son before the ages began. Here is why we might say that the grandest phrase in all the Bible is “in Christ.” For to be “in Christ” is to have everything, and to not be in Christ is to have nothing.

 

That which the world thinks is nothing is everything, and that which the world thinks is everything is nothing (1 Cor. 1:17 – 31; 2:14; 1 John 2:15 - 17). Remember this the next time you watch the news or listen to political and social pundits – no matter what “color” they wear. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil has many colors, including blue and red and purple – they all have poisonous dye in them.

 

When we read John 17:5 and 24 what do we experience? Do we read or do we hear? Do we see letters and words and sentences, or do we see Jesus? Is the passage simply words on paper or on an electronic reader, or is the passage a place of communion with the Trinity? Is the passage confined to the room or place in which we read? A living room, kitchen, bedroom, a deck, or an office? Or is Jesus coming to us and are we coming to Jesus in and through the passage?

 

Are we touching that which was before the ages and before the foundation of the world? Are we entering into the heavenlies and are the heavenlies entering into us?

 

O dear friends, the gravitational pull of earth, of the natural man, of politics and economics and nationalism and entertainment and pleasure and man’s religious tradition are all formidable; yet our Lord Jesus tells us that God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:24). We are taught that as many as are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God (Romans 8:14). It should be clear to us that we are citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:30) and that we live by faith rather than by sight (2 Cor. 5:7).

 

Are we living as the adults in the room of popular Christianity? Or are we still children “tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14)?

 

Unless we have some experience, some measure of experiential knowledge, of the Holy of Holies, of Christ before the ages, I am not certain we can escape and live above the toxicity of the world’s atmosphere, of its hatred, selfishness, cruelty, and blindness; I am not certain we can escape the seduction of man’s religion, including man’s caricature of Christianity, a Christianity without the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ. Is it possible that the more crosses we display, the less like Christ Jesus we become?

 

A few years ago I did a series on this blog in which we explored Geerhardus Vos’s sermon, preached at Princeton Chapel, Heavenly Mindedness, based on Hebrews 11:9- 10. One of the things that struck me as I was working through Vos’s message was the communion of saints. Vos saw that the Patriarchs were experiencing this communion, Vos himself was experiencing it, and Vos was inviting his hearers to experience it. That is, Vos wasn’t simply reading words on a page as he preached Hebrews 11, and he wasn’t asking his listeners to simply exegete the text with him, he was living Hebrews 11, he was inviting others to live in Hebrews 11 with Noah and Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Jacob and Jesus and with one another. Hebrews 11 was a transcendent experience for Geerhardus Vos, as it ought to be with us, as the Upper Room of the Gospel ought to be.

 

As Bonhoeffer writes in The Cost of Discipleship, God has established a holy realm on earth and it is called Christ and the Body of Christ – the Holy of Holies is within His People, within His Son. As with the Stable in Lewis’s The Last Battle, the inside is far greater than the outside, it is immeasurable. We live in the Holy of Holies and the Holy of Holies lives within us…therefore, why do we have anything to do with the unclean?

 

Somewhere Francis Schaffer wrote about us having two rooms, and I think this can be a helpful image. We tend to live on the first floor; the second floor, the upper level, is something we may hear about, we may theorize about, but it is essentially off limits. We don’t think it practical to explore it. Perhaps we have a quick visit once in a while, but it is better to leave it alone and remain on the first floor, after all, we don’t want folks to talk…do we?

 

Yet, when we come to Ephesians, Paul begins on the second floor, in the heavenlies and before the foundation of the world in Chapter One. He begins in the Upper Room and then, in Chapter Four, he answers the question, “The Upper Room is great, but how do we live on the first floor with one another and with the world?”

 

In the Gospel of John the answer to this question of how we should live is answered again and again, we live in the Upper Room, and out from the Upper Room we live in the world as Christ, for He lives in us and we live in Him; He is the Vine and we are the branches, He is our source of life….our only source of life. Our fellowship and friendship with Him is unbroken, for the Word is being made flesh and is living in us and among us, and we are being perfected into one in Him.

 

What does your participation in this mystery look like today?

 

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (33)

 

“How, out of sinful human beings, does God create a community of saints that is totally separated from sin? How can God be defended against the accusation of being unrighteousness, if God enters into a relationship with sinners?” (page 237).

 

Bonhoeffer tells us that we can be separated from sin only through our death. There must be a “killing of the sinner” (page 237). This may shock us. If we react by thinking, “I’ve never heard that!” we need only to look to Romans chapters 1 – 8 to see that Bonhoeffer’s message, his Gospel, is the Gospel of the Bible. Embedded within the Gospel is the truth and glorious news that “the sinner must die” to be free from sin.

 

If we ask, “How can this be?” we will be echoing Bonhoeffer, for this is also his question midway through page 237, “How can this come about?”

 

He tells us this comes about by God becoming human, weaving this in with the theme of “God’s self-justification” and of God being “justified before God” (page 237), working with this theme into page 241 where he will then weave sanctification into the tapestry and work with justification and sanctification together.

 

Since Bonhoeffer refers to Romans 3:21ff in this section, let’s read the entire passage. I have used bold print to demonstrate the emphasis on God’s righteousness and self-justification.

 

21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 but it is the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in God’s merciful restraint He let the sins previously committed go unpunished; 26 for the demonstration, that is, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

 

What questions do you have as you read this passage?

 

What challenges do you see to understanding it?

 

Now for sure the passage needs to be read in its context, that is it ought to be read in the context of Romans 1:1 through 5:11. We ought not to think that we can capture the passage on our first or second or tenth reading, but we can ask our Father that the passage might capture us, our hearts and our minds. I’ve been reading this passage for sixty years and it still has mystery and awe and wonder, I still bow before it…more now than ever before.

 

Bonhoeffer writes, “The death of Jesus Christ is the place where God has supplied the gracious proof of God’s own righteousness, the only place from that moment on where God’s righteousness dwells. Whoever could participate in this death would thereby also participate in God’s righteousness” (pages 237-238).

 

“What happened to him happened to all of us. He took part in our life and in our dying, and thus we came to take part in his life and his dying” (page 238).

 

Bonhoeffer wants to be clear that the Gospel insists that “God alone” is “the one who is righteous” (page 239). The Cross is both a place of judgment and of reconciliation, and it is God’s righteousness which brings about the reconciliation (Romans 3:25 – 26; 2 Cor. 5:19ff). We are to “find yourselves included in Jesus Christ’s death” (page 239).

 

Bonhoeffer refers to the following Scriptures on pages 239 – 240: 2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 10:3; Phil. 3:9; Isa. 54:7; 1 Cor. 1:30; Isa. 7:14; Jer. 33:16; Heb. 6:5ff; 10:26ff; Rom. 6:3; 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; Rom. 6:11. Once again we see Bonhoeffer’s thinking deeply grounded in the Bible. He concludes this survey of Scripture with these words:

 

“Everything has already taken place, not only on the cross of Jesus, but also as far as you are concerned. You have been separated from sin, you have died, you are justified. God has thus completed God’s work. Through righteousness, God has established God’s realm of holiness on earth. This realm of holiness is named Christ or the body of Christ.

 

“God has a community which has been justified, and thus freed from sin. It is the community of the disciples of Jesus, the communion of saints. They have been accepted into God’s holy realm, indeed they are God’s holy realm” (pages 240 – 241, italics mine).

 

I have not attempted to follow Bonhoeffer in the details of his presentation on pages 237 into 241, it is too tightly written and interconnected with various Scriptures to be able to do this in a blog. Indeed, one could possibly write a small book in response to Bonhoeffer’s teaching, especially since he assumes that the reader has a background in the Bible and the terms he is using, such a justification, sanctification, the righteousness of God, the self-justification of God.

 

The idea that God justifies Himself is a case in point, how often do we think of this idea? Do we not live in a world, including a religious world, in which we tend to think that forgiveness of sins can be arbitrary? That if God wants to forgive that He can forgive? Do we really, deep down inside, consider just why Jesus died for our sins? Why couldn’t God have just said, “I forgive you. I forgive all of you. Let’s just start all over”?

 

Do we think that the character of God really matters? O sure, we want Him to be love and mercy, but beyond that does the idea of holiness or justice or righteousness really matter to us? Would it matter to us if God were not holy? Does the Nature of the Divine matter, truly matter to us?

 

When Moses encountered God at the Burning Bush, God said, “Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

 

When God called His People unto Him after delivering them from Egypt, during the construction of the Tabernacle, in giving laws and ordinances for worship, for relationship with Him and neighbors, the overriding message was “You must be holy, for I am holy.” The Message of Leviticus is “Holiness,” the holiness of God and the holiness of His People.

 

The overriding Message of great Messianic Prophet Isaiah is holiness. Just as Israel’s call in the Wilderness was “holiness,” so was Isaiah’s. “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:3). Perhaps nowhere in Isaiah do we see the holiness of God as in chapters 52 and 53, when the LORD justifies Himself and us through the suffering, death, and resurrection of the Messiah.

 

The concluding book and prophet of the Old Testament, Malachi, carries the Message of God’s holiness and a warning not to continue profaning it, and a promise to those who honor it and live according to His Nature, His holiness.

 

Peter cries out to Jesus, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8). Later Peter will emphasize the holiness of God when he quotes from Leviticus, “You shall be holy for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16).

 

The consummation of our pilgrimage, of the Biblical narrative, of our homecoming, occurs in the “Holy City” (Rev. 21:2), a City that “nothing unclean” can enter (Rev. 21:27).

 

The chapter we are considering is titled The Saints, but we cannot know the meaning of the term saints unless we are rooted in the righteousness, self-justification, and holiness of God; for all justification, sanctification, and sainthood must be rooted in the holiness of God – the holiness expressed in the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ – there is no holiness for us outside of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.

 

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

 

 

The Holy of Holies (5)

 

 

“Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am” (John 17:24).

 

“If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:3).

 

“If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also” (John 12:26).

 

What does Jesus mean, that we should be with Him where He is?

 

Does He mean that we should all find ourselves with Him in the Upper Room? In Gethsemane?

 

What is it that we should be with Him where He is so that we may see the glory which the Father has given Him, a glory given in love before the foundation of the world (John 17:24)?

 

In John 12:26 we see that if we follow Jesus that we will be with Him where He is. Where is Jesus?

 

We may recall that in previous reflections we pondered the theme of Jesus going and coming, of Jesus hiding and revealing Himself; of us seeing Jesus, not seeing Jesus, and then seeing Jesus again.

 

What does it mean for us to be with Jesus where He is?

 

Certainly we are indeed to be with Jesus in the Upper Room, in Gethsemane, on the Cross, in the Resurrection, in the Ascension, sitting with Him in the heavenlies. Yes, we are to be with Jesus as He teaches, casts out unclean spirits, heals, feeds the hungry, touches the untouchable, loves the unlovable, and has compassion on humanity. We are to know a transcendence in this koinonia with Jesus, a fellowship with Him and in the communion of saints as we live in Jesus and He lives in us.

 

And this brings us to what it means that we be with Him where He is, for He is in koinonia with the Father, in unity with Him. We see His glory when we join that Divine fellowship and unity, when our biosphere is the Trinity, as we are being “perfected into one” (Jn. 17:23). As we live in the Holy of Holies, as we discover the ground of our being in God the Trinity, as we realize that Jesus Christ is truly our Author and Perfecter, that He is truly our Alpha and Omega, our Beginning and our End, our First and our Last – then we are with Him where He is, beholding the Father, beholding the incomparable glory of Jesus Christ, which the Father has bestowed upon Him, and which He (mystery indeed!) bestows upon us (Jn. 17:22).

 

And here, my friends, is the dance of the ages, the song of the ages; hidden from ages and generations but now revealed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that the Father should bring many sons to glory through the glorious Firstborn Son Jesus Christ, and that He should bestow His inheritance in the Father upon His brothers and sisters, and that we should all, in Him, give ourselves for the life of the world.

 

To be with Jesus where He is, is to live in intimacy with the Father, in loving communion with the Father, in sweet adoration of the Father. To be with Jesus where He is, is to keep our eyes on Jesus, fixing our minds and hearts and souls on Jesus, and in so doing to be transformed into His image as our way of life, as our source of life, and as our destiny in life.

 

To be with Jesus where He is, is to look upon one another as the saints of God, purchased and washed by the blood of the Lamb, perfected in Christ Jesus, made complete in Him. We no longer bring accusation against one another, we do not expose one another, but as Christ’s holy priesthood we cover one another in the confession of the Cross, the Atonement, the New Creation in Christ. The priesthood of Christ covers, we are mediators in Him, we sing the song of the redeemed and teach others to sing it. We baptize in water and the Spirit, not in sewage and the flesh.

 

To be with Jesus is not to wait for another day, though we do anticipate a glorious Day beyond comprehension, but it is to live with Him where He is today, right now. He comes to us every day, He brings us to Himself every day, He draws us deeper into the Trinity every day – we do not wait to participate in the Trinity – the Trinity is our very life today!

 

This is to live in the Holy of Holies; to know the love of God with one another, the unity of God with one another, the glory of God with one another, to experience the joy of God with one another. John Chapter 17, the Holy of Holies, is ineffable for the veil has been rent and we now have free and complete access to intimacy with God in Jesus Christ…always in Jesus Christ.

 

There are holy things and places in John Chapter 17 that cannot be spoken of in human language, but they can be experienced in Jesus Christ and with one another.

 

To “see” John 17 in some measure, to enter into the Holy of Holies, is not to arrive at the end of the Gospel, but rather at the purpose of the Beginning. The rending of the veil was not so that we should enter the Holy of Holies and arrive at the conclusion of our journey, but rather that we might finally get to the Beginning (or perhaps the End of the Beginning?) of our journey, of our glorious eternity in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit…with one another.

 

Right now, this very moment, are we with Jesus where He is?

 

 

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (32)

 

 

Part II of Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship (popularly known in America as The Cost of Discipleship) consists of six chapters, Preliminary Questions, Baptism, The Body of Christ, The Visible Church-Community, The Saints, and The Image of Christ. We’ve arrived at The Saints and Bonhoeffer begins the chapter by declaring that the saints are God’s holy ones on this earth (pages 235 – 237).

 

The first sentence of the chapter is a summation of the previous chapter, “The ‘ecclesia’ of Christ, the community of disciples, is no longer subject to the rule of this world. True, it still lives in the midst of the world. But it already has been made into one body. It is a territory with an authority of its own, a space set apart” (page 235).

 

I suppose I should state the obvious for the few that may read this quotation out of context; when Bonhoeffer writes that the church is “no longer subject to the rule of this world” he does not mean that we can do what we please and ignore the governments and authorities of the world, his treatment of Romans 13 in the previous chapter makes this clear.

 

Bonhoeffer follows his opening statement by referencing seven verses which speak of Christians (all Christians) being saints, holy ones, in Christ Jesus: Eph. 5:27; 1 Cor. 14:34; Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2; Eph. 1:4; Col. 1:22; Rom. 6:19 – 22.

 

Bonhoeffer twice reminds us that this call to holiness was given “before the foundation of the world.” He also writes that, “This is the reason why Christ surrendered his body unto death, so as to present those who are his own as holy, blameless, and irreproachable before him (Col. 1:22)” (pg. 235).

 

He then cites Romans 6:19 – 22 in support of the Good News that the “fruit of being freed from sin by Christ’s death” is that we can now live “in the service of righteousness” (pg. 235).

 

Then our author shifts our focus with the statement, “God alone is holy” (pg. 235). Bonhoeffer moves from his focus on “saints” [holy ones] to the One who alone is Holy. If God alone is holy, how can we be holy?

 

Bonhoeffer has introduced the answer is the seven verses listed above, and he will continue to explore the answer. On page 237 he asks, “How does this come about?...How…does God create a community of saints that is totally separated from sin?”

 

At the top of page 236 he tells us that God is laying the “foundation of a realm of holiness in the midst of the world.”

 

Then we read, “God’s holiness consists in establishing a divine dwelling place, God’s realm of holiness in the midst of the world…” (page 235).

 

In writing of the “community of God’s holy realm,” Bonhoeffer tells us that God has chosen us, made us “the community of the divine covenant,” reconciled us, purified us, and that “this place of holiness is the temple…the body of Christ thus is the fulfillment of God’s will to establish a holy community” (page 236).

 

This reminds us of Ephesians 2:21 in which we see that we are a living building and are being joined together, “growing into a holy temple in the Lord,” being “built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”

 

Peter writes, “You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5).

 

In the chapter, The Visible Church-Community, Bonhoeffer writes of us taking up space in the world, being identifiable, being joined to one another in Jesus Christ, and of being faithful witnesses to the world and support to one another in this witness. We are to be a visible people, not because we have church buildings, but because of our community, our koinonia, in Jesus Christ.

 

Now, in the chapter titled The Saints, we see that we are to be holy as God is holy. We see this pattern in the Pentateuch, first Exodus and then Leviticus. First, in Exodus, we see the People of God called out of Egypt, then the Tabernacle and the orientation of the People to the Tabernacle; then in Leviticus we have the great distinguishing message of God, “You shall be holy for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44; 19:2; 20:7; 1 Peter 1:14 – 16; 2:9).

 

What are our challenges in understanding the Biblical message of which Bonhoeffer writes?  Two immediately come to my thinking.

 

The first is, do I “see” the Church, the Body, the Temple, the Bride as Scripture portrays them, as Christ Jesus sees them?

 

Do I see the Church as an organization (or a group of organizations), do I see it as a building, or do I see us as the Temple, God’s dwelling place in the Spirit (Eph. 2:19 – 22)?

 

The second challenge is, do I “see” the holiness of God (in some measure), and do I see the distinction between the holiness of God and the sin and uncleanness of the world, the flesh, and the devil? Do I distinguish between the clean and the unclean in my own life, and do we as the Church make this distinction? (See 2 Cor. 6:14 – 7:1). Are we living as God’s holy People? Do we even desire to live as God’s holy people?

 

Is our view and vision of the People of God that which is portrayed in the Bible? Are we “seeing” as Paul saw, as Bonhoeffer saw?

 

What other challenges can you think of?

 

Do we “see” that God is establishing a realm of holiness in the midst of the world?

 

Are we participating in that realm?

 

The Holy of Holies (4)

 

O How He Loves Us!

 

“So that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me” (Jn. 17:23).

 

“So that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them” (Jn. 17:26).

 

“Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love” (Jn. 15:9).

 

The overriding theme of the Upper Room is the love of God; God’s love for us, God’s love living in us, God’s love flowing from us to Him and to one another.

 

“We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16).

 

The Upper Room begins with love. “Jesus, knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John 13:1).

 

The Upper Room concludes in love, “So that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them” (Jn. 17:26). We have an inclusio of love, and indeed, not only do we have a literary inclusio, but we see that our life in the Trinity is to be an inclusio of love, that our life with one another in the Trinity is to be an inclusio of love. Our biosphere is to be the essence of God, the love of God, the heart of God.

 

Our love for one another is to be our distinctive witness, the mark of the Christian, the mark of the Church – but it is not just any love, it is the very love of God, “That you should love one another even as I have loved you” (John 13:34 – 35).

 

Jesus reiterates this again when He says, “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:12 – 13).

 

Have we considered the possibility that the best training course on witnessing to the world is a course on loving one another? How can the world possibly see Jesus Christ without seeing His love living in His People? Arguments do not win hearts, love wins hearts. You may intellectually convince me of an argument, but unless my heart follows in love and commitment to Christ, I will not know eternal life. Arguments may draw me to a certain degree, but only love will keep me.

 

Love is the animating force in our life in the Trinity. “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to hm and make our abode with him” (John 14:23).

 

O dear friends, the Father loves us as He loves Jesus, Jesus loves us as the Father loves Him, we are to love one another as Jesus loves us, our love for one another (along with our unity in the Trinity, John 17:21 – 23) is our distinguishing mark, our identifying characteristic, our primary witness to the world.

 

As Paul writes, we can have all spiritual gifts and can engage in all kinds of service, but if we do not have love we have nothing (1 Cor. Chapter 13). Consider that this chapter lies between two chapters that explore our life in community, consider that it is prelude to the great chapter on the Resurrection; Chapter 13 is the animating and motivating life of the Holy Spirit, the love of God, within the Body of Christ (chapters 12 and 14), the Body which participates in the Resurrection, the Second Man, of Chapter 15.

 

No wonder Paul writes, “Beyond all these things put on love, which is the uniting bond of perfection” (Colossians 3:14).

 

To enter the Holy of Holies is to enter the depths of the love of God in Christ, to be plunged into the ineffable depths of the Divine shekinah, to be enveloped in the cloud of glory in which we behold Him and in which we realize that since He laid down His life for us, that “we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (1 John 3:16). When we “see” this, we truly “see” the love of God.

 

How are we to know the fulness of God?

 

“That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:17 – 19).

 

To know the love of Christ is to know the fulness of God, to know the fulness of God is to know the love of Christ.

 

But we cannot know the love of Christ without one another!

 

We “know we have passed from death to life because we love one another”!

 

Once again, “If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:11 – 12).

 

And let us not forget, “The one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20).

 

We need one another so that we may love and be loved.

 

When we approach our Father, whether as individuals, as marriages, as families, or as congregations, it may be that our dear Father has a question, and that question is, “Where are your brothers and sisters? Have you come alone?”

 

As I write this, I am sure that some readers will be saying, “Yes, but…” Some readers will seek exceptions to loving others, some readers will want to maintain barriers with others, will want to find a doctrine, a practice, a teaching, to exempt them from loving others sacrificially, from laying down their lives for certain others.

 

Allow me please to simply point to our Savior, who leads us into the Holy of Holies by washing the feet of the Twelve, including Judas Iscariot. Our Savior, our Lord, instructs us, “If I then, the Lord and Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14).

May I also remind us that within the Twelve were Matthew (Levi) the tax collector and Simon the Zealot, two men on opposite ends of the political spectrum, two men with opposing worldviews; one aligning himself with the oppressive Romans, the other committed to the armed overthrow of Rome – yet Jesus chose them both and their division dissolved in the love of Jesus and they became messengers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ – not a gospel of man or a kingdom of man. (Can you imagine what their first meeting looked like?)

 

Our calling is to love and serve, we can trust Jesus to take care of what follows – even if what follows is betrayal and crucifixion…for most certainly there is also resurrection.

 

O if we only knew how much our Father loves us!

 

Your Father loves you just as He loves Jesus!

 

“Could we with ink the ocean fill,

  And were the skies of parchment made;

Were every stalk on earth a quill,

  And every man a scribe by trade;

To write the love of God above

  Would drain the ocean dry;

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

  Though stretched from sky to sky.”

 

By Frederick Martin Lehman

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (31)

 

 

In the final movement of his chapter on The Visible Church Community, Bonhoeffer reminds us that we are strangers in this world on our way to our heavenly Home. “The Christian community thus lives its own life in the midst of this world, continually bearing witness in all it is and does that the present form of this world is passing away (1 Cor. 7:31” (page 232).

 

“Here on earth, the church-community lives in a foreign land. It is a colony of strangers far away from home” (p. 232).

 

On page 233 Bonhoeffer writes that the church is to be “following only the voice of the one who has called it.” He says concerning the church, “They look only to their Lord. He is in heaven, and their life for which they are waiting is in him.”

 

From the middle of page 232 through the conclusion of the chapter on page 234, Bonhoeffer cites no less than twelve Bible verses that speak of our pilgrimage through the world to heaven, and to how our testimony of Jesus ought to appear.

 

“Christians are poor and suffering, hungry and thirsty, gentle, compassionate and peaceable, persecuted and scorned by the world. Yet it is for their sake alone that the world is still preserved. They shield the world from God’s judgment of wrath. They suffer so that the world can still live under God’s forbearance. They are strangers and sojourners on this earth (Heb. 11:13; 13:14; 1 Peter 1:1).”

 

Of course, the question is whether this describes us, the professing church in the United States, the professing church in the West.

 

Might we be like the Laodiceans in thinking, “‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked” (Rev. 3:17)?

 

Are we a cruciform people? When the world sees us, does it see a people marked by the Cross? Carrying the Cross? Suffering with Jesus for others?

 

Does the world see us at all? Do we matter? When the world does see us, does it see an appendage to a political party or a nationalistic agenda? Should the world notice us, does it see angry people, unmerciful people, people obsessed with worldviews and economic and political agendas, people aligning themselves with the economic, political, and religious forces of the antichrist and Babylon (Rev. chapters 13, 17, 18; 2 Thess. 2:1 – 12)? Are we living as the sheep or the goats of Matthew 25:31 – 46?

 

If Jesus is correct in teaching that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, then what can we say of ourselves? When we gather what do we talk about? If we are not speaking of Jesus to one another then we ought to tremble and call a fast and repent (Joel 1:14ff). If we are not serving “the least” of His people (see Matthew 25:31 – 46), then we ought to confess our sin and change our lives…serving the disenfranchised, the stranger in the land, the poor, the politically powerless, the hurting, the fearful, the hungry, the homeless, the sick.

 

When we stand before Jesus Christ, none of us will be wearing masks to conceal our identities – we will not be able to hide who we really are.

 

Following Jesus is not easy in the United States. We are bombarded with information, with hype and spin, with the peer pressure of agendas, with an Imperial Cult of nationalism, with various cults intent on wrecking our understanding of natural law, common grace, common sense, and human decency. We have been seduced by pleasure and comfort and affluence (or the illusion of these things). We worship at the altars of Wall Street, Hollywood, Nashville, Washington, D.C., Fox News, CNN, and other media outlets.[1] Our churches have imported idols into sacred spaces just as ancient Judah brought idols into the Holy Temple of God; political idols, national idols, economic idols, entertainment idols, idols of pleasure, religious idols.

 

It is not easy to follow Jesus in the United States, it is not easy for a congregation to keep focused on Jesus, the pressure to entertain, be attractive, to grow numerically, to grow financially, to measure ourselves by the standards of the world can be intense. It is difficult for pastors to be faithful when their churches are more attuned to the above idols than to God’s Word and Jesus Christ. How hard it is to serve people who have a consumer mentality, or who have a primarily economic and political mentality. We cannot serve more than one master (Matthew 6:24) – why do we think we can?

 

While we ought not minimize the obstacles to following Jesus as strangers and pilgrims, we should not fail to confess that if God is for us, who can be against us? (Rom. 8:31).

 

Let us not forget that greater is He who is in us, than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4). Nor that we have been given the Holy Spirit so that we might be Christ’s witnesses to the end of the age, and that He is always with us (Mt. 28:20; Acts 1:8).

 

Let us remind ourselves and one another that we are brothers and sisters in the communion of saints, joined to those who have gone before us and to one another across the globe this very day; we are not alone (Hebrews Chapter 11; 12:22 – 24).

 

Let us also realize the while all things around us may be shaking, that those things that cannot be shaken will remain; in fact, the great shaking that we see within and without the professing church is to reveal the Lord Jesus Christ and the City of God (Hebrews 11:25 – 29). We ought to soberly realize that “judgment begins with the house God” (1 Peter 4:17). In Revelation, the Holy City is fully manifested after great judgments and shakings, after God’s People have proven themselves faithful to the Lamb through incredible times and judgments and difficulties.

 

The book of the prophet Malachi portrays the people of God, the church after returning from Babylon, as failing to distinguish between the clean and unclean, as offering to God less than the best, as a covenant-breaking people toward God and in marriage, with an unfaithful priesthood.

 

The church was engaging in sorcery, in sexual promiscuity, they were liars, they did not pay employees a fair wage, nor did they care for the widow, the orphan, or the immigrant! They did not fear God. (Malachi 3:5). These people were not faithful stewards of the resources that God was giving them (Malachi 3:8 – 9).

 

There were even those who were saying, “It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept His charge?” (Malachi 3:14). Doesn’t this remind us of our own approach to church life? We ask, “Where is the profit? Where is the return on investment? Where is the practical result of this action? What is it in for us?”

 

We ask these questions rather than ask, “How shall we follow Jesus? How shall we bear His Cross? How shall we deny ourselves and serve others?”

 

Yet we also read in Malachi:

 

“Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and esteem His name. ‘They will be Mine,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘on the day that I prepare My special treasure [jewels], and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him’” (Malachi 3:16 – 17).

 

“But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall” (Malachi 4:2).

 

God has always had a remnant faithful to Him and committed to each other.

 

Bonhoeffer wrote (as quoted above): “Yet it is for their sake alone that the world is still preserved. They shield the world from God’s judgment of wrath. They suffer so that the world can still live under God’s forbearance. They are strangers and sojourners on this earth (Heb. 11:13; 13:14; 1 Peter 1:1).”

 

Isaiah wrote, “Unless the LORD of hosts had left us a very small remnant, we would be like Sodom, we would be like Gomorrah” (Isaiah 1:9).

 

Shall we live as a remnant, following the Lamb wherever He goes? Shall our Father prepare us as His special treasures, His jewels? Shall we live in the Light of the Sun of Righteousness?

 

“He who overcomes will inherit all things, and I will be his God and he will be My son” (Revelation 21:7).

 

---

[1] Lest you misunderstand me, this is not to say there are not faithful people serving in these centers of power and influence, but it is to say that the ethos and underlying power in these centers is opposed to the Lamb (Psalm 2). The powers of this world are often depicted in the Bible as beasts, even as a combination of beasts, bestial Frankensteins if you will. They devour those who ride them, who serve them, and who are in proximity to them.

The Holy of Holies (3)

 

 

“That they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me” (John 17:22 – 23).

 

“My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him” (John 14:23).

 

“Abide in Me, and I in you” (John 15:4).

 

This is the Way we are to live, in the Trinity, by the Life of God. We live in God and God lives in us. As the Trinity is One, just as the Trinity is One, so are we to be One. We live in the Trinity as individuals, and we live in the Trinity as the Body of Christ.

 

If we are indeed the Body of Christ, we must live in the Trinity, for wherever the Head lives, the entire Body lives.

 

While the Holy Spirit lives within each of us who are in Christ, the Holy Spirit also lives in us as the Temple of God – on Pentecost the Holy Spirit filled the true Temple of God, He filled “us.” He made us the “dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Eph. 2:21 – 22).

 

Jesus Christ is our Bread of Life, we live by His body and blood, we partake of the Divine Nature (John 6:53; 2 Peter 1:4).

 

This is not something we attain to, this is something that we believe, accept, submit to, and confess. We learn to live according to this understanding, we learn to live according to what Jesus is teaching us. We have been raised from the dead in Christ and we now sit with Jesus Christ in the heavenlies (Eph. 2:1 – 10) – He is the basis of our life, He is the sole source of life, and the oneness with one another to which He calls us is our mission in life (Eph. 4:14 – 16).

 

Since Jesus is clear that effective witness is dependent on our loving as He loves (John 13:34 – 35) and being one as the Trinity is One, how is it that we either ignore what Jesus teaches, or provide excuse after excuse why we should not obey what Jesus teaches?

 

In the Holy of Holies we not only find our source of Life (God the Trinity), we also find our mission; we not only find our mission, we find the means by which our mission is fulfilled. To live in the koinonia of the Trinity means that those who live in koinonia with us also come to live in the koinonia of the Trinity (1 John 1:3).

 

As we partake of the life of God, we share that very life of God with others. As we partake of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus, we offer that very same Body and Blood in Christ to others. We share His life with one another in the Body, and as His Body we share His Life with the people of the world.

 

Our calling in Christ is to say with Jesus, “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). The words we speak, the things we do, are not to be done on our own initiative, but are to be what we hear the Trinity speak and what we see the Trinity do (John 14:10). We are to live as Jesus lives, always, always, always. We are to know no other source of life than Jesus Christ.

 

Must this not begin in our congregations? (Phil. 2:1 – 16; Eph. 4:1 – 16; 1 Cor. 12; Rom 12).

 

Must this not begin Christian to Christian? In congregation to congregation?

 

Where is the congregation, the pastor, the movement, the denomination, with the faith and courage to say, “We will live according to the Word of Christ, we will live for the Temple of God (Haggai Chapter 1), we will live in the Oneness of the Trinity seeking the Divine Oneness of our brothers and sisters – no matter what others may do or say. We will give our lives up so that others may live. We will love as we are commanded.”

 

The “new and living Way” that we are called to live is in intimacy with God within the Holy of Holies, the veil has been rent once and for all (Hebrews 10:19 – 25). This is an experience best enjoyed together – there is nothing like unity in Christ (Psalm 133).

 

Yet, instead of moving in this direction, we move away from Him into our own little spheres of religion and practice and parochialism. We think we know better than God. We think God is impractical. We seek solutions in the natural, in the flesh, we do not think the Holy Spirit and the Word sufficient for life and ministry. Rather than living in the Light of the City (Rev. 21:23) we seek and produce lesser lights. Rather than living in the Temple of the City (Rev. 21:22) we build our own temples. How foolish we are and how unfaithful are our shepherds!

 

We do not need to live like this.

 

You, dear pastor, can teach your people to live in the Holy of Holies…as you live in the Holy of Holies.

 

You, dear Christian, can learn to abide in the Vine and allow the Life of Christ to live in you and through you.

 

We all can cry out to Jesus to have mercy on us and restore His Temple, renew His Body, draw us to Himself in the Oneness of the Trinity. We can cry out to God to use us as broken bread and poured out wine to bring others to know Him through Jesus Christ.

 

If we are truly the Flock of the Good Shepherd, then we are already One in Him, why have we been taught to deny who we are? To deny our Oneness? To assume false identities?

 

Ah, what a foolish people we are…how loving our Good Shepherd is.

 

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (30)

 

 

Bonhoeffer emphasizes that the visible church-community must not be conformed to the world, but to Christ. At the bottom of page 229 he quotes Romans 12:2:

 

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed into a new form by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God.”

 

Bonhoeffer writes that we have a “form” that is different form the world, and that “form” is Christ. We are “called to be ever increasingly transformed into the form…the form of Christ himself” (pp. 229 – 230).

 

“If it engages the world properly, the visible church-community will always more closely assume the form of its suffering Lord” (p. 230).

 

Is this true of the Western church? Of the professing church in the United States? Or have we embraced the culture of the world? Are we indistinguishable from American culture - from one of the cultures and movements now within American society? Are we colored red or blue or purple, rather than wearing the righteousness of Jesus Christ, white robes which can only be found at the Cross and in obedience and conformity to the Cross? Are we marked by the dollar sign of the American dream, or by the Cross of Jesus Christ?

 

With Paul, are we crucified with Christ? With Paul, have we been crucified to the world and has the world been crucified to us? (Galatians 2:20; 6:14).

 

Bonhoeffer teaches us that whatever we possess, we are to possess only through Christ…in Christ…and for the sake of Christ (p. 230). We are not to be prisoners of our possessions, we are to hold possessions in trust as stewards of Jesus Christ. Since we are free from possessions and from the world, we are “able to abandon the world whenever it prevents them from following their Lord" (p. 230).

 

On pages 230 – 231 Bonhoeffer references ten verses dealing with our relationship with money and possessions, including, “But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires” (1 Tim. 6:6 – 9).

 

As I read these pages I was reminded of the second chapter of Tozer’s The Pursuit of God. Its title is “The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing.” Tozer deemed our relationship to possessions so critical and foundational to our pursuit of God that he placed it right after Chapter One, it is something we need to deal with and settle, something we need to understand, we cannot serve God and also serve money and possessions (Mt. 6:24).

 

How do we reconcile the Bible’s treatment of possessions and our obsession with them? Do we live as a people who are not owned by money and materialism but rather by Jesus? Do we not measure our lives by what we have, by our investment accounts, by the opulence and attractiveness of our church buildings? Do we measure the lives of our children and grandchildren by their love for Jesus and others, or by their vocations and income?

 

Do we freely give to others – as families and as congregations? Are we placing the welfare of others before ourselves? Why do we raise funds for new building projects for our church campuses but not have the same (it should be a greater!) passion for raising funds to alleviate hardship and suffering in communities near and afar? Have we forgotten that we are to lay down our lives for others? (1 John 3:16; John 15:12 – 13).

 

Are we being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, or to the images of Wall Street, Hollywood, Nashville, Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, Silicon Valley, and the sports world?

 

Are we being formed into the image of the world, or of Jesus Christ?

Are we "assuming the life of our suffering Lord"?

 

The Holy of Holies (2)

 

 

“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one” (John 17:22).

 

How is it that Jesus says that He is giving His glory to us, and yet in Isaiah 42:8 God says, “I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, nor My praise to graven images [idols]”?

 

For sure our God does not give His glory to idols, but do we really believe that He doesn’t? Are we asking God to give His glory to the idols we have made in life and in religion? Do we not have household idols (as ancient peoples did), community idols, national idols, professional and vocational idols? Are we honest enough to consider that we just might have religious idols, Christianized idols? Have we crafted our brand of Christianity into an idol?

 

 Does our speech and teaching reveal our idols?

 

As to the idea that God does not give His glory to another, this can help us understand what Jesus says about giving His glory to us – for in giving His glory to us He does not give His glory to another for we are One in the Father and the Son and in the Holy Spirit. We have no oneness apart from the Oneness of the Trinity. There are not two onenesses.

 

That is, we do not look at the Trinty and see Oneness and then look at ourselves and see oneness; for we cannot have oneness with a lower case “o,” such oneness is impossible. Hence, in Christ we know koinonia in the Trinity, and knowing koinonia in the Trinity is knowing the Oneness of the Trinity; this is ineffable, it is the Holy of Holies.  

 

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

 

Jesus also prays, “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me” (17:24).

 

As the Father gives His glory to Jesus, so Jesus gives His glory to us; so that the world may know that the Father sent the Son and that the Father loves us even as He loves Jesus.

 

O dear friends, let us not forget that we “are all from one Father” (Hebrews 2:11) and that our Father is “bringing many sons to glory” (Heb. 2:10).

 

As Jesus comes to us, as He comes into the world, He comes “to be glorified in His saints,” He comes that “the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you, and you in Him” (2 Thess. 1:10 – 12).

 

Let us remind one another that we are “heirs of God and coheirs with Christ,” that there is a glory “being revealed in us,” and that we are in the process of glorification in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:17, 18, 30).

 

We are the Body of Christ, we are the Bride of Christ; one with Him. Being one with Him, when He gives His glory to us He does not give His glory to another, for we are in the Us of John 17:21.

 

We have seen this coming in our approach to John 17. Jesus gives us a glimpse in John 14:23 in the Upper Room, “My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”

 

Jesus emphasizes our unity in Him with the Vine and the branches, “Abide in Me, and I in you…apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:1 – 5). The Vine, Jesus Christ, is our sole source of life.

 

There is only one person who can live the Christian life, that Person is God.

 

All of our little self-help idols which demand worship, all of our idols crafted into religious images (as Christianized as they may be), all of our pragmatic programs, lead us deeper and deeper into bondage and away from the liberty of Jesus Christ, away from the koinonia of the Trinity, away from glorious Oneness with one another in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

No wineskin can contain the glory of the Holy Trinity, no wineskin can contain God’s unfolding glory; how foolish to force others into straightjackets, how silly not to desire God’s glory rather than glory for our fiefdoms and images.

 

I heard a denominational leader saying that he hoped that 200 years from now his denomination would still be going strong. How much better to hope that 200 years from now God’s glory will be inhabiting His People who have been perfected into One in Jesus Christ? How much better to desire a creditable testimony to the world of the Father’s love for the Son?

 

Now for the dear reader who thinks I’m being a bit harsh, I only ask you to look around you. What do you see? Do you see Christians with a vision of the Church of Jesus Christ? Do you see Christians with an understanding of the Body of Christ? Do you see a People speaking of Jesus, speaking of Jesus to one another, to their coworkers, to their neighbors? Do you see a People whose hearts have been captured by a love for Jesus?

 

Do you see a People for whom the Body of Christ is more important than their denomination, their movement, their doctrinal distinctives? (Please understand, whether someone is in a denomination or is so-called nondenominational is irrelevant.) Do you see pastors in fellowship and in ministry and friendship across organizational lines?

 

Since we do not know who we are, we allow others to define who we are and to enslave us to their idols. Political idols, economic idols, national idols, sports idols, entertainment idols, racial idols, idols of pleasure, idols of possessions, worldview idols (including so-called “Christian” worldviews). We even craft idols from the Bible, such as “End Times” idols.

 

Revelation 11:2 speaks of the nations treading under foot the court outside the temple, the holy city. I wonder if “we” are the perpetrators, if “we” aren’t desecrating the holy city with our foolishness, with our pollution.

 

Are we not like the people in Haggai? These people were released from Babylon for the express purpose of rebuilding the Temple of God, and yet when they arrived in Jerusalem they were only concerned with their own houses (see Haggai).

 

We have been saved from sin and death to follow Jesus, to belong to Him, to be the Holy Temple in the Lord (Eph. 2:19 – 22; 4:1 – 16; 1 Peter 2:4 – 10), to be the Presence of God in the earth.

 

Now I realize that there are exceptions to our self-destructive behavior, but they are exceptions. Thank God for the exceptions, for I think they hold back a measure of the tsunami.

 

Only the Holy Spirit can bring us into the unity that Jesus prays for, we cannot organize this, we cannot program this, in fact, we must come to the end of ourselves, we must confess that “Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it” (Psalm 127:1).

 

To lay down our lives for one another (1 John 3:16; John 15:12 – 13), includes laying down our preferences, our little religious houses, our theological and religious idols…our self-interest.

 

Is this possible?

 

The measure of a man, a woman, a family, a local church, a movement or denomination, an institution, is the measure in which it gives itself for others, the measure in which it lays down its self-interest, it’s life. This is the measure of Jesus Christ.

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (29)

 

“But the older this world grows, and the more sharply the struggle between Christ and Antichrist grows, the more thorough also becomes the world’s efforts to rid itself of the Christians. To the first Christians the world still granted a space in which they were able to feed and clothe themselves from the fruits of their own labor. A world that has become entirely anti-Christian, however, can no longer grant Christians even this private sphere in which they pursue their professional work and earn their daily bread…In the end, Christians are thus left with no other choices but to escape from the world or to go to prison” (page 229).

 

Bonhoeffer writes as darkness descends over Germany, as he sees the church in Germany being swallowed up by the forces of nationalism, as pastors and their congregations capitulate to the demands of the state, aligning themselves with state agendas and abandoning Christ. Christianity and patriotism are becoming one in Germany. This is not the first time this has happened, religion has been used by the state throughout history to help the state achieve its ends, and the myth of Christian nationalism is a powerful seductive tool in both the East and the West. Democracies and totalitarian regimes both use the myth, constructing narratives which professing Christians accept and endorse, leading them away from Christ.

 

Bonhoeffer has forgotten that early Christians were not always able to work to support themselves. In some regions in ancient Rome Christians who belonged to trade guilds, which we might think of as union shops, were expelled from the guilds for refusing to pay homage to the guilds’ patron idols. If you were not a member of a guild you could not engage in that particular trade. Then we have the notable widespread persecution under the Emperor Decius (250 A.D.) in which everyone was required to offer an incense sacrifice to Roman gods in the presence of a magistrate, for which they received a certificate indicating their compliance with the edict. Those who refused were persecuted. Persecutions were often local, sometimes regional, and sometimes (as with Decius) they were across the Empire.

 

In our own day, earning a living as a faithful Christian can be difficult, there are professions and contexts in which Christians are marginalized, and countries in which being a Christian can mean the loss of employment and prison.

 

Whether in “open” or “closed” nations, if there is no conflict between the visible church – community and the world, it means that the visible church – community is abrogating its witness to Christ, for if we are faithful to Jesus Christ there will be conflict and persecution; the servant is not greater than his Master (John 15:18 – 16:4).

 

(When we engage in “marketplace ministry in the United States, are we equipping Christians with Biblical teaching on the Cross, obedience, and suffering for Christ?)

 

 “But the older this world grows, and the more sharply the struggle between Christ and Antichrist grows, the more thorough also becomes the world’s efforts to rid itself of the Christians.”

 

There are two ways to control others, one is through pain and the other is through pleasure. The first is straightforward, “If you don’t do what I want I will inflict pain on you.” In the West this pain may be the loss of employment, denied promotion, the withholding of an academic degree, ostracism, or legal penalties.  

 

The second can be subtle. The pleasure can be in the form of money, promotion, accolades, acceptance, perquisites, entertainment, and good food and drink. It can be open doors leading to proximity to power – the power can be corporate, academic, religious, political…proximity to power can be intoxicating and few people can resist its seduction.

 

Seduction is a greater threat to us in the West than pain. Once we have been seduced by pleasure, our resistance to pain crumbles, we are trapped in the good life, in the American Dream, and the professing church has descended into Babylon. The Cross then becomes an offense to us, even as it is to the world.

 

“Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and seducers will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:12 – 13).

 

Bonhoeffer adopts the Biblical teaching of two trajectories, that of those faithful to Christ and that of those under the domain of Antichrist. The visible – church community will overcome and prevail, the Stone cut without hands will indeed fill the entire earth, bringing an end to the kingdoms of this world. A tragedy is that those faithful to Christ not only face opposition from the world, but from a church that is falling away from the Lord Jesus.

 

“But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1).

 

“Let no one in any way deceive you, for it [the Day of the Lord] will not come unless the apostasy comes first” (2 Thess. 2:3).

 

Here is the thing dear friends, apostasy need not mean the explicit verbal denial of Jesus Christ and the Bible, apostasy can be syncretistic, it can be a blend of Christ and nationalism, Christ and economics, Christ and politics, Christ and a social agenda, Christ and materialism, Christ and religious success.

 

Which is the greater danger to the average professing Christian, a teaching which explicitly denies Jesus Christ and the Bible, or a teaching and movement which blends other elements into Christ and the Bible and thereby seduces our hearts away from Jesus? Which is the greater danger, a movement which appears evil, or one which appears good?

 

If a pastor would not (let us hope) take his people to a brothel, why would he take his people into teachings and movements which draw their hearts away from Jesus Christ?

 

Again, the chapter title is The Visible Church – Community. Bonhoeffer is saying that we must have our own space, for we, as the Body of Christ, are distinct from the world. We are to live and breathe in Christ, we are to be joined to one another in His Body. We are not to be subsumed and enveloped and find our identity in politics, economics, nationalism, materialism, hedonistic pleasure, racial identity, or even in religious tradition – we belong to Jesus and to Jesus alone, He is our Husband we are His Bride (2 Cor. 11:2  -3) and nothing is to come between Jesus and His Bride, nothing.

 

“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the LORD will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you” (Isaiah 60:1 – 2).

 

“Who will separate us form the love of Christ?” (Romans 8:35 – 39).