The Remedy (2 of 2)

This is the last post in the blog series “A Gospel Stripped of Power”.  Read the intro., part one, part two, and part three.

With Christ leading the church, we can no longer begin our
evangelism with the thing that separates a man from God. Christ himself is
within himself the answer of why we cannot. In Christ, we see that God
confronted man in his heathenism, in his folly, darkness, and separation from
him. But also in Christ, we see that God himself took the initiative to look
past these things. God views this man to whom we are speaking from the
perspective of what he has already accomplished in Christ.[1]
In other words, we cannot obscure the “yes” of God in Jesus Christ, with a “yes-but”.[2]
We must consider our fellow man on the same ground on which we stand, delivered
from the wages of sin and reconciled back to God because of Christ. We cannot
start with condemnation, Jesus doesn’t.

Therefore our message in no way can be condemning. The word
that comes from Jesus’ lips are God’s “yes” in the face of the mankind’s “no”.[3]
And so should our message be. We view this man as one that Jesus died for, who
has ownership of the freedom found in Christ, but does not yet know it. Our
work is the joyful proclaiming of this paradox of man, that he be awakened of
his freedom in Christ, that he lives as he now can, and find his true
individuality in finding Jesus Christ. In his awakening he embraces God, a God
of flesh and blood that meets him where he stands. He meets this God in Jesus
Christ.[4]

Thus is the reality of the Christian within the Church. And
how much more joyful is this message, a message carrying the hope of truly
experiencing life by experiencing the fullness of all reality in God. This life
is the witness of the members of the Church to the world. The world, blind to
the freedom they have in Christ confronts him when they confront the church.
This confrontation with Christ is the thing that will lead the lost to
repentance, for in confronting the holiness of Christ, one can only see what is
wrong within himself. Only in this way can we understand the missional nature
of the Church. Anderson puts it this way:

“The Church’s mission is not to build
up an empire or kingdom that it controls but to experience and express the
kingdom of God through the lives of its members as well as the various groups
and organizations that they form.”[5]

When we gather in worship, when we celebrate Christmas and
Easter, when we live life, we are in fact witnessing to the truth of Christ.

It seems to me that when considering the good news of
Christ, the idea of spreading the word is all the more exciting; the way that
we understand the Gospel of Christ will affect the way that we view those that
we outreach to. The conversion of an individual into Christianity is not just a
change of mind or simply a prayer for eternal security. No, this conversion is
an awakening. It is a complete renewal. Becoming who you are as a child of God
isn’t just gaining the power to do better and sin less. Rather, what is gained
is completely new life.[6]

This conversion is the Spirit, guiding the person into a
place where he or she sees and understands what God has done for him. This
conversion takes place in the entire being of the person; it is life, as Paul
said, apart from the vice of sin. It is truly life, because life is only truly
life when it is life with God. And how beautiful is it to witness this work of
Christ! Sin’s power is broken; this life made new is life in the sense that it
need not be influenced by sin. In other words, this life is life as it was
meant to be, restored to God, in communion with him, and finding its identity
in him. In this new life, we are free to worship as we never could. This new
life is empowering. We have been given the privilege to take part in this
awakening in others; this is how we are to understand evangelism.

With the understanding of the gospel as we have just
discovered it, we experience perhaps a new sensation. It is liberation. It is
liberation at not feeling as though we need to carry the weight of Christ’s
work on our shoulders. It is liberation at participating with him in his work.
It is liberation at being in communion with a dynamic living savior in a
vibrant and progressive faith.

More so, we do not have to worry as much about the question
of pluralism in the modern age. In fact, we may embrace it. The gospel of
Christ we have learned meets man on their own level. This is the crux of the
gospel, God became man. The solidarity he shown is the same solidarity that we
show our fellow man, understanding them in the framework of both our own
humanity and the lens that God views them. The fear of pluralism is that the
truth of the gospel is compromised. But as we have learned, the Church does not
carry Christ and his news around in a briefcase, confronting people and opening
its contents. The Gospel of Christ is not boxed in. Instead it seeks out man,
on their own level. The story of redemption seeks to permeate time, age, and
race. [7]
With Christ at the helm we need not fear this confrontation of cultures. [8]
In the True Church, under the Lordship of Christ, Christ takes our briefcase
from us and invites us to follow him.

And we follow him to the corners of the world. We can escape
the religious exclusivism created out of fear for reaching the people of the
globe with the redemptive love of God. [9]
We are already familiar with Christ’s command, “Go therefore and make disciples
of all nations.”[10] Jesus
Christ could have left the believers of the world as just that, simply
believers. But he didn’t. Instead, he defines the church with this great task;
we are not left as bumbling beings wandering around in a meaningless euphoria.
Rather, we are unified in our belief, set apart for the purpose of the
spreading of the Good News. So in
essence, this task defines us a collective unit under Christ. And this church,
not being able to be separated from it, can only be measured by it.[11]
But now we understand the fullness of our message, “He, Jesus Christ…in totality
and fullness [is] the content of this task. His person, His work, His revealed
name, the prophetic Word by which he proclaims himself within it, is the matter
at issue in its task.”[12]
We proclaim the name of Jesus, not because he is the means to an end, but
because within him only we are made righteous and reconciled to God.

I cannot help but feel, with all of the joy that the Gospel
brings to me, that this reveals a certain failure within the church. This essay
should have never had to be written. It reveals in some sense a misuse of the
great joy that we carry, a misuse that extinguishes the joy for most. It shows
us our effort to contain and steal the gospel of Christ from Christ. And a
gospel without Christ is an idol. It becomes minimized, trivialized. People
loose interest, and get bored. The hope in sanctification is lost, reduced to
“trying harder”. Philippians tells us that the gospel, even when presented not
in its proper way will still hold power; indeed, I saw grace even in the
version I was presented. But how empowering would it be to truly understand the
Gospel as new life, in daily communion with God? How empowering would it be to
a congregation?

May we begin to see the Gospel of Christ as a living
powerful gospel. May we seek his face when we wake and pray our thanksgiving
when we sleep. Let us begin to see the world, man and nature as one bound to
God in Jesus Christ and may we continue to worship, discover, and share God as
we now can.