The Remedy (1 of 2)

This is part three in a blog series titled, “A Gospel Stripped of Power” by my friend, Michael Dean Beardslee. Read the introduction, part one, and part two if you haven’t already. If you have questions, feel free to ask.

What is required of a community that holds this dichotomy is
nothing short of repentance. The repentance that is required is not a form of
shame or apology; our apology will be in our action. This repentance is the
change of the self and a humbling of the spirit. In submission it recognizes
the holiness of God. It is a dying of the self and taking part in the work of
the Christ whom we serve.

We as a church die to ourselves, and hand over the control
of the church to the lordship of Christ. The Church by nature is now, by
nature, evangelical. It is not merely a gathering place for believers, a
stronghold against the evils of the world. It can do nothing else but testify
the good news. This doesn’t mean that every church, Baptist or Orthodox needs
to send all of their members on worldwide mission. Rather, we need to recognize
what the Church really is. The Church is the body of Christ.[1]
The Christ who is the head of the Church is the living Christ who walked among
men in the first century. We serve a resurrected Lord, one who is living,
present, and continues to work among us.

The work of the True Church, the work that we are a part of,
is primarily the work of the risen Lord. The Church universal is the
earthly-historical form of the living Christ.[2]
We are the hands and feet of Christ involved with the redemption of the world.
The true Church is the church that views itself in this way, not in that God
gave us this mandate and left us to it. The true church recognizes that it is
under the guiding spirit of God. His movements are our movements. His words are
our words. Jesus’ message to the world is our message to the world.

Under this understanding of the Church and the Gospel, our
message takes a different complexion. First, we are sent into the world with
the message of the Good News of what Christ has
done. What then has he done, it may be more of a discovery than one might
think. Paul explains.

“Therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained
access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.”[3]

Jesus took our place. God himself looked upon our sin, our
disobedience, our lack of faith. He looked upon our folly and our separation
from him and decided not too hold it against us. Instead, he became man, taking
on our humanity with all of its finiteness and limits. He took all of that sin,
disobedience, faithlessness, folly, and separation and put them to death on the
cross. In other words, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”[4]
The life of Christ is the story of God overlooking our folly and grabbing us
out of the pit of despair himself. Our hope is the life of Christ, the very
“Yes” of God.

Therefore the life we live, we live as life should be. In
other words, Jesus, by taking on our sin, and imparting to us his life, has
reconciled us to God. We have been brought back into the fold; the folly of man
has been overlooked by God, or better yet, undone by God. We live in the
reality of the resurrection; as we are dead to sin we now live in the present
reality of the resurrection.

Paul understands the Gospel in two ways that we could look
at. First is the idea of salvation. The word, which appears often in his
letters almost always are in the future tense, the concept seems
eschatological. The fullness of salvation is something that is not yet.
Furthermore, this concept of salvation is presented to us in light of the death
and resurrection of Christ. The locus is the work of Christ, and the eternal destination is the byproduct of
what he accomplished. So, in typical pragmatic fashion, the church collectively
asks, “What did he accomplish?”[5]

Paul shows us that there is a present reality about the work
of Christ. This is the language of deliverance. Because of Christ’s work, our
spirit is alive in Christ, presently! This deliverance is not to be understood
in the future tense; hell is not the object that we are delivered from. Rather,
we have been freed from the very thing that condemns us in the first place.
There is where our freedom lies. He tells us, “But now that you have been set
free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to
holiness, and the result is eternal life.”[6]
Paul can only ask his brothers and sisters to live a life of holiness if he
believes there has been a change. To Paul, living life is not a just waiting
game for either death or Christ’s return in order that we experience the fruit
of what Christ did. Not at all, we are to live life as we are only now able to,
in the deliverance from sin.

Consider the idea of adoption. Romans tells us that we
have “received the Spirit of sonship.” This is no arbitrary description of our
present status with God. No, we are co-heirs with Christ. In Christ, God has
adopted us as sons and daughters into his family. The hope that we have in
Christ is one where we share in Christ’s humanity. We share in his death, dying
to sin. We share in his resurrection, being raised into new life. We share in
Christ’s very relationship with the Father, with all the power and future glory
of sitting at the right hand of the Father. Sin has been dethroned as the power of our lives. We are no longer
slaves to sin; instead we are children of God drawn back into a living, active
relationship with him. In summation, the good news is this: We can now live
life as it was meant to be, in all of the fullness and beauty of being able to
call him, “Abba, Father.” The
subsequent separation with the fall of man, has been undone by Christ. And this
work that he did, he did at one point in history, and he did it for all man.
This is the good news.[7]