Incarnation and Crucifixion

Interesting discussion in the previous post.  Much of it is over my head.  I’m not really looking to push beyond the bounds of orthodoxy – whatever that means – not saying that any of you are, but you could be.  ;)

As I said in my post on The Future of the Church, I believe that we will begin to see more and more discussions about redefining the gospel, eschatology, and the approach to Scripture.  There is currently an interesting discussion about the gospel at Scot McKnight’s blog.

I prefer to emphasize the simplicity of God’s story.  Yet in many ways the Christian message has not included the essence of God’s intention for creation.  My quest isn’t for knowledge as much as it is for understanding, and of course that being limited by my ability to understand.

Thanks to Paul for his contribution in the comments of the previous post.  At his blog, he is writing an interesting series about Dr. Baxter Kruger’s book, Jesus and the Undoing of Adam.  From Paul’s blog…

“If Adam and Eve had not ‘disobeyed’ would Jesus have come and died for human redemption?”

The Incarnation and death of Jesus was not a response to the failure of Adam and Eve, but an expression of something else much bigger and reflective of the whole purpose of creation.

In Jesus and the Undoing of Adam, Kruger makes the point that the birth, life, death, resurrection was not first a response to sin – a kind of Plan B or Plan C – this way:

The death of Christ is part of a seamless movement that began in eternity with the Father, Son and Spirit and reached fulfillment with the exaltation of the human race in the ascension of Jesus …. If we are to understand why Jesus died, what happened in his death and what it means for us today, we have to go back to eternity, to the astonishing decision of the Father, Son and Spirit to include us in their circle of shared life.  For the reality that drives the coming of Jesus Christ and pushes him to the cross is the restless and determined passion of the Father to have us as His beloved children. The first thing to be said about the death of Jesus Christ is that he died because God the Father almighty loves us with an implacable and undaunted and everlasting love, a love that absolutely refuses to allow us to perish. (p.15)

The Christian God is interested in relationship with us, and not just relationship but union, but such a union that everything he is and has – all glory and fullness, all joy and beauty and unbridled life – is to be shared with us to become as much ours as it is His. The plan from the beginning, in the Christian vision, is that God would give Himself to us, and nothing less, so we could be filled to overflowing with the divine life. (p.17)

Part of what John means when he tells us that Jesus Christ is the Word of God is that there has never been a moment in all eternity when God wanted to be without us. The man Jesus, the incarnate Son, is not an afterthought or afterword. Jesus, the incarnate Son, the humanity of God, is the eternal foreword. The relationship between God and humanity that was hammered out in Jesus Christ was not a second plan. This relationship, this union between God and humanity in Christ, is the plan of God which precedes creation itself. God has always purposed to become flesh. (p.17)

Behind creation, figuring as the driving force of all activity, as the one thought at the forefront of the divine mind and the preoccupation of the heart of God, was the decision to give human beings a place in the circle of the Trinity. Before the blueprints for creation were drawn up, the Father, Son and Spirit set their heart and abounding philanthropy upon us. In sheer grace, the Triune God decided not to hoard the Trinitarian life and glory, but to share it with us, to lavish it upon us. (p.19)

Another, not necessarily contradictory, perspective on substitutionary atonement from Bob Hyatt, What Does It Matter Why Jesus Died?…

But without the substitutionary death, there’s certainly no substitutionary life, that is if Jesus didn’t die for me, He most certainly didn’t live for me either, and I’m left to cobble together my own righteousness, rather than understanding that I live in His; that His perfect life, his holiness and righteousness is what I get in the bargain of the cross.

All through the OT, God had promised a Messiah, someone who would come and bring peace, healing, wholeness, and restore justice and fairness. From Genesis, all the way up to the early chapters of Isaiah, this anointed one is talked about. Then you get to the middle part of Is. ch. 40 and on, and he appears- it begins to describe Him, bringing what was promised, bringing salvation to the nations.

But when we hit ch. 53 something tragic, something appalling happens. The one who was supposed to bring an end to violence becomes the victim of violence- the one who was supposed to end injustice becomes its victim. “Pierced” for us.

And the question is- How could this be the Messiah? It contradicts everything else that’s been said about Him to this point! How could the Messiah bring an end to injustice and violence and the brokenness of the world… by being broken Himself?

But… the whole thing begins to make sense when we get our Trinitarian thinking straight… If this is Immanuel, God With Us, then… God in human flesh is the only one who can say- My life is My own and I willingly lay it down- no one takes it from Me. And He laid it down- for us? This isn’t God crushing His unwilling Son- this is the Judge Himself voluntarily taking the place of the guilty condemned.

If God wasn’t going to pay us back for the wrongs we do to each other and to Him, then He was going to have to pay. He would suffer. And the cross, as gruesome as it was, showed that in stark reality. There- for all the world to see, our hatred, our violence, God’s love, God’s forgiveness… God suffering on our behalf.

What do you think?

• If the incarnation is God’s intention for reconciling creation in Christ, where do evil, sin, and the crucifixion fit in God’s eternal plan?
• Was sin inevitable or perhaps inherent to humankind?
• Was redemption ultimately necessary so that our relationship with God would never be based on our own merit?
• Is redemption about something beyond recovery from the Fall?

Calling All Arm-Chair Theologians

Sorry about my absence.  While I was sick in bed for a week, I was wondering about this and thought that perhaps some of you would have answers, thoughts, or ideas.

Given:

• The incarnation of Jesus as part of God’s original plan.
• The crucifixion of Jesus as part of God’s rescue mission.

Thoughts and Questions:

• Had the fall not occurred, what would adoption into God’s family and becoming the Bride of Christ look like?
• Choice would be necessary either way.
• Maybe failure on the part of mankind was inevitable.
• Would this mean that redemption was also part of God’s original plan?
• Given foreknowledge, omniscience, etc. perhaps it doesn’t work to talk about God in terms of plan A and plan B.

I’m sure you all stay awake at night thinking about these things. :)

What do you think?

The Future of the Church

Perhaps only in my fevered brain does all of this make sense, but this is how the dots are connecting for me.

In spite of The Coming Evangelical Collapse, I feel hopeful about the church.  It may not be an easy time for denominations and institutions because survival will require many changes to the typical way of doing business as church.

As to the hand-wringing (or rejoicing) over the collapse of evangelicalism, I agree with Brother Maynard that this represents a narrow perspective of the church in general.

In point of fact, it is the USA which is perhaps the last Western nation to become, and come to grips with a post-Christendom reality. On this basis, the more global our culture becomes, the less relevant evangelicals will appear, coming across instead as a North American and especially US-American expression of faith. Moreover, the subtle suggestion that evangelical=Christian (with a North American bias) is no longer inclusive enough even for most North Americans.

However, the backlash against evangelicalism extends to the overall perception of Christians, and I would suggest the impact is beyond the USA.

Fueled by the Christian Right’s political meddling, the Catholic sex abuse scandals, violent expressions of Islamic fundamentalism, and George W. Bush’s unpopular “faith-based” presidency, anti-religious sentiment is on the rise in America. -  Godless America?

In the midst of this shift, the rising trend of New Calvinism creates a home for those who desire the conformity and control of traditional religious frameworks.

Being forced to the margins will give the church an opportunity to redefine itself and its message to something that more accurately reflects the heart of the gospel.

In a recent Shapevine video, Darrell Guder explained that by the fourth century there was no more preaching that centered on the kingdom of God.  The message and practice of the church became more focused on structures and systems to manage salvation.  (Brother Maynard has transcribed the full quote here.)

This, my friends, is where we lost our way.  And this will be the key to survival for future expressions of church.  I am firmly convinced that discussions of ecclesiology must be centered on the kingdom of God rather than on structures, models, and methods.

In the future landscape of the church, those churches that survive will be the ones that reprioritize their existence to the building of the kingdom of God rather than their own kingdoms.  We will see this expressed through a variety of structures and models.  However the common factor will be an understanding of their identity as the people of God and their raison d’etre to express the kingdom.

As I’ve said all along, I believe that the emerging and missional movements are both spirit-led responses to the needed reformation of the church.  Whether one ever joins the movement or uses the terminology, the essence of emerging and missional will be a part of the future of the church.

Emerging

Richard Rohr listed this as one of the characteristics of the emerging movement.

“a conclusion that many of the major concerns of Jesus are at major variance with what most of our churches have emphasized”

In a post entitled, The Emerging Kingdom, this is what I said about the emerging movement…

I believe that the emerging movement, knowingly or unknowingly, has been a part of a transformation that God desires in the church. Many have followed in obedience to an intentional shift that they perceive in what God is doing.

One aspect of this transformation is a greater understanding and revelation of the kingdom of God and our identity as the people of God in relation to His kingdom.

There are aspects of the emerging movement that may fall short of fully emerging, and aspects of the movement may systemize…However, possibly under the radar, there will also continue to be a movement of God’s people living into the prophetic imagination of expressing His kingdom on earth.

Missional

It doesn’t matter what you call it, but there is no doubt in my mind that the future of the church must be truly missional and incarnational, not missional as an add-on program. The point is not whether we adopt the labels, but that we rediscover who we are as the people of God, that we learn what it means to be agents of His kingdom.

The entire concept of being missional flows out of an understanding of the kingdom of God and knowing our role and place within the kingdom. From the post, What I See…

Like the church and christians of the early days, these believers, with a renewed understanding of their identity as the church, have begun to spread the message of the gospel of the kingdom in a more grassroots and organic way.

They have been released to demonstrate the kingdom. They have taken the message of redemption and reconciliation out of the church building and into the streets and avenues of the world, bringing the kingdom into the lives of those who are outside the church.

This humble style of ministry has the potential for viral multiplication and expanding the peace of the kingdom in a much greater way. Millions of average believers are taking responsibility for their role in ministry, realizing that they are released to be an incarnational presence in their spheres of influence.

The following are what I see as key markers, characteristics, and points of emphasis that we will see in the continued conversation about the reshaping of church. These are areas that must be addressed by churches in order to be a part of the future of the church rather than the prophesied decline.

Challenges for the Future Church

1.  Redefining the gospel

In the future of the church, we will see both the understanding and the expression of the gospel expanded from the gospel of salvation and rightly reinterpreted as the gospel of the kingdom.

As explained previously in my post What I See…

I see that the understanding and definition of the gospel is returning to the holistic message of the kingdom that Jesus gave us. Many have begun to question the gospel message that is limited to personal salvation only, viewed solely as an escape from eternal damnation.

We realize that salvation and the gospel of the kingdom is a message of redemption that includes but also surpasses a one-time decision. There is a greater revelation of God’s heart and desire to see the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

2.  Redefining church

The future definition of church will be expanded to acknowledge and include forms outside of traditional institutions as legitimate and valid expressions of the Body of Christ.  There will hopefully be a greater appreciation and support for one another as we learn to properly discern the Body and co-labor in the work of the kingdom in every way that it manifests.

It is vital that we grasp our calling as an alternative society within the culture.  This is a portion of a statement from Hal Miller quoted on the Reimagining Church blog:

Christianity is culturally relevant when it offers a qualitatively different society. Jesus called it “the kingdom of God.” Paul saw its first outlines in the gathered disciples of Jesus, and so he called them ekklesia – we translate it “church”…

Imagine a group of people gathering to help each other in the common task of seeing God’s kingdom incarnated in their work, in their families, in their towns, in their world, in their midst, and (rather than only) in their individual lives. This gathering is ekklesia. It will be relevant to its world because it lives the life of the kingdom in the world, not apart from it.

Can we realize our role to be a true embodiment of the kingdom here and now?
From the post Stolen Identity – Or Maybe Just Misplaced…

There is, however, a deeper underlying question…

“As the people of God, who are we?”

Herein lies the importance of rediscovering a theology of the kingdom of God, of awakening to an understanding of who we are as God’s people. The present reality and nature of the kingdom of God has mostly not been understood.

However, if the very gospel that Jesus gave us is the gospel of the kingdom of God, and the church has not understood the kingdom, then what the heck have we been doing for all these years?!

Instead our identity has been shaped by organizations and denominations, and we have become much more comfortable with the question, “what church do you go to?” than the question, “what is the kingdom of God?”

It is because of a lack of understanding of the kingdom that we have not understood our identity as a people. We do not know where to place ourselves in God’s story.

3.  Redefining structures

The defining question in regard to church structures will shift from “how to do church” to “how to participate in the kingdom.”   A kingdom perspective will change our view of the role and purpose of the organized things we are involved in.

A relevant question from Jason Clark…

The question is not whether you can avoid being an institution; the question is what kind of institution can we imagine that will support the purposes of who and what we are trying to bring to others?

The success of institutional forms of church will depend on their adaptability to change and upon resisting the institutional instinct toward self-preservation.

Will churches be able to restructure in a way that releases rather than collects and consumes resources? In the future church, the net flow of time, money, and other resources will be outward rather than inward.  This may prove to be the greatest hurdle for established institutional churches.

Churches who are willing to adapt will find themselves fully involved in what the Spirit is doing. There is great potential for institutional churches to equip, facilitate, and release their members into missional expressions of participation in the kingdom of God.  The question is whether that potential will be realized.

4.  Redefining eschatology

It is important to move the discussion of eschatology from the realm of end-time events and reframe it in the context of God’s intended plan for creation.  This will be vital in reframing our identity and theology in order to begin living the eschaton.  In Surprised by Hope and From Eternity to Here, both Wright and Viola challenge us to understand the bigger picture of God’s intent for creation.

NT Wright is correct in saying that our eschatology – our understanding of God’s future plan – is necessary for shaping our missiology and ecclesiology.

Where does God intend this entire project to go? How do we shape the church to be the people of God’s mission for the world?

As we understand where the creation project was always designed to go, that in turn gives us a sense of what the mission should be, in order that then the mission can give us the shape of what the church should be.

If we have a mission-shaped church, we must have an eschatologically-shaped mission.

My thoughts in this post, The Good News of the End Times…

When we misunderstand the story, we don’t live rightly within the story, and we certainly don’t communicate the right message about our King and His Kingdom. In reading different endtime scenarios, I couldn’t shake the feeling that so much of it is based on a distorted view of both the existing and future nature of the kingdom of God and rulership of Christ.

Surely Jesus Christ is and will be Lord over all. Yet we can see throughout scripture that His is an alternative kingdom, a kingdom of love, restoration, and wholeness.

Maybe we have been reading through the wrong lens, and the fullness of the kingdom really is everything Jesus said it would be, and the end times are the fulfillment of all that He promised, life on earth as it is in heaven.

5.  Redefining the approach to Scripture

Tailing on those thoughts, a narrative view of Scripture must be embraced.  Propositional approaches to Scripture and doctrine based upon proof-texting divorced from the wider context of God’s story will be inadequate for the theology of the future.

There will be many battles waged over this point in regard to modernity/postmodernity, truth, inerrancy, and the authority of Scripture. The point where the narrative of the kingdom challenges tradition or fundamentalism will be insurmountable for some.

Let me add that the authority of Scripture must remain in the Word of Truth Himself.

Alongside the importance of understanding God’s big story will be the conviction that faith extends beyond mere belief and that the practical expression of our faith is the demonstration and embodiment of the Scriptures we espouse.

6.  Redefining unity

The future of the church will not be found where artificial barriers to the kingdom still exist.  A defining characteristic of  life in the kingdom will be the manifested reality of Galatians 3:28, where there is no longer distinction between jew or greek, slave or free, male or female.

Unless we truly realize our need for the voice of “the other” we will not be motivated to move beyond existing cultural or doctrinal boundaries.  The future church will include the voices of those who have not typically been heard from in theological circles.  It will reflect diversity with an emphasis on shared allegiance to the Lordship of Christ.

The church will be a reflection of the unity and diversity modeled by the trinity.

The church is the community of believers who possess divine life, that lives under the kingship of Christ, that is living by the life of God’s kingdom and expressing it together…the family of god, the visible image of the triune god, his family on earth in reality. – Frank Viola, From Eternity to Here

The Gospel of the Kingdom

I hope you don’t mind that I share some of the things I am currently reading.  It helps me to save some of the thoughts here that I want to remember.

Lately, I’ve been reading and listening to quite a bit of NT Wright.  I am actually new to his work – a fact which totally irritates me – but that’s another topic.  I love his understanding of the gospel and the kingdom within the larger frame of God’s story.

Thanks Bill for this link.

Paul’s Gospel and Caesar’s Empire

By N.T. Wright
Center of Theological Inquiry (1998)

For Paul “the gospel” is the announcement that the crucified and risen Jesus of Nazareth is Israel’s Messiah and the world’s Lord.

The gospel of the true God, then, unveils the covenant faithfulness of this God, through which the entire world receives health-giving, restorative justice.

If Paul’s answer to Caesar’s empire is the empire of Jesus, what does that say about this new empire, living under the rule of its new lord?

It implies a high and strong ecclesiology, in which the scattered and often muddled cells of women, men and children loyal to Jesus as Lord form colonial outposts of the empire that is to be.

…an advance foretaste of the time when the earth shall be filled with the glory of the God of Abraham and the nations will join Israel in singing God’s praises.

…modeling justice and peace and unity across traditional racial and cultural barriers…

It claims to be the reality of which Caesar’s empire is the parody.

You might enjoy this earlier post of mine about finding our identity within a proper understanding of the gospel of the kingdom.

Spiritual Formation & Discipleship

I don’t remember where I came across the link to this article, maybe in an email.

The Making of the Christian

Richard J. Foster and Dallas Willard
Christianity Today (9/16/2005)

Willard: Spiritual formation is the process of establishing the character of Christ in the person. That’s all it is.

You are taking on the character of Christ
in a process of discipleship to Him
under the direction of the Holy Spirit
and the Word of God.

What sometimes goes on in all sorts of Christian institutions is not formation of people in the character of Christ; it’s teaching of outward conformity.

You don’t get in trouble for not having the character of Christ, but you do if you don’t obey…It is so important to understand that character formation is not behavior modification.

Foster: …many Christian institutions have a system by which you find out whether you’re in or out. Sometimes it’s rules, sometimes it’s a certain belief system.

Willard: Spiritual formation is for developing a heart that is one with God…The business of the church is to bring that about…

Forget about perfection. We’re just talking about learning to do the things that Jesus is favorable toward and doing it out of a heart that has been changed into His.

In what context do spiritual formation groups usually function?

Foster: Sometimes they go to the same church; sometimes they don’t. Some group members don’t go to any church. It doesn’t matter. We bless the organized church structures and their meetings. But if there are 10,000 others that meet outside of these ecclesiastical structures, that’s wonderful too. The kingdom of God moves forward in lots and lots of ways.

Willard: …if we’re really concerned about reaching the world for Christ, we have to bring the church—which is the people of God—to permeate society. You can’t tie it to a building. That’s where we started. We went to buildings, but it was about community. It was Christ coming upon preexisting community and redeeming it where it was.

Read the entire article here.

Read further thoughts on this topic in my earlier post Disciples or Converts.