(Getting Past Ourselves — Part I & II are based upon II Corinthians, chapters 5, 6)
Our need to “sell what we have—salvation” is a fundamental mis-reading of the gospel. It is a confusion of means and ends.
The Baptist came offering a repentance of water. It was life giving but rested on a critique of the Jewish Temple and faith as corrupted, forsaken and was calling all Israel to repent of their unrighteous ways so a path could be cleared for the Messiah. His ministry grew from within the dessert community of the Esseenes who abandoned the church as irredeemable and became a small separatist community, believing themselves the remanent faithful Isaiah spoke of.
What shook John the Baptist was when he, Jesus—the Messiah of Promise—asked to be baptized by John. Unthinkable! Wrong! “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?,” he asked. Jesus response was in essence. “I have come to enter the chaos of human sin“ (represented by water, historically). “Allow it for I must fully identify with humanity in all their sorrow.” Troubled, the Baptist relented.
Nor would it be the last time John would be troubled with Jesus and his mission. Both were prophetic in nature, focused on the now breaking in Kingdom of God. They both took their Que from Isaiah 61: 2, “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn” Whereas John perceived the day of God’s coming as full of danger and would warn of “the day of vengeance of our God,“ for all who are unrepentant, Jesus would see his mission as proclaiming “the year of the Lord’s favor, to comfort all who mourn” (Isaiah 61: 2).
As the Baptist approached his own day of judgment at Herod Antipas’s hand, he sent his disciples out to make sure Jesus really was the One prophesied, as he had not seen in Jesus the “wrath” he had expected. On both this occasion and when presenting himself to his hometown synagogue, Jesus quotes from Isaiah 61: 1-2. “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn…”
“to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,” (Isaiah 61: 1-2 NIV).
On each occasion, defining his own mission, Jesus leaves out “the day of vengeance of our God“.
Why?
The Baptists message was “Repent and avoid the coming wrath!“ Jesus message was “Behold, even now the Kingdom of God is breaking in upon you. It is around you, with in you. Repent. so you may see for yourselves and enjoy the Goodness freely given to all—especially the vulnerable, the weak, those unseen,” (The upside-down blessings of the Beatitudes in both Mathew and Luke is the foundational introduction of Jesus New Kingdom mission).
The Baptist is driven by a desire to remove any obstacles that would prevent the Messiah’s coming. The message is to live separately, removed from the corruption of government, the Scribes, the Pharisees and the Sadducees who cooperated with Herod Antipas and by repenta prepare for the coming “Day of the Lord.” it is a ”repent, then” message—avoid the wrath that is coming!
Jesus is driven by love, whom he declares is The Father! Come, see. taste. Join in the celebration that God is good and here now and you are not forgotten!” It is a “everybody’s in, so respond in kind to the goodness of God” message.
..if only we had followed Jesus
Repentance is not what we do in order to avoid judgment. Repentance is not the end, but a means to another end; Clearing enough heart space to see clearly how good is God!
Israel and the Churches mission is one and the same. To live and declare the goodness of God and just how near is God’s kingdom. We are to literally look for where God is breaking in and enjoy and celebrate the reign of love still being born. Literally everyone is inside this good story!
In II Corinthians chapters 4,5 we are given our charge:
1) In Christ’s life, teachings, passion, death, resurrection and now in his continuing prayers for each/all of us—We are reconciled to God. All of us.
The most radical of Wesley‘s understanding was right here. He taught that the originating sin of our first parents and subsequent marring of God’s image and all the wounds that follow are covered by Christ‘s blood and forgiven. In other words, God is reconciled to every human. We ar all in Christ, in that sense—justified.
The only sin for which our justification is provisional (only) is for personal sin. That by definition is relational. In other words God’s heart is kindly bent in our favor.
Then. Wesley argued that God’s Spirit is intimately involved with ours enabling every human, though marred by Adam‘s sin, to make truly sacrificial love possible, together with the ability to see and obey God’s active work to help us live into tis breaking in kingdom.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:17-19 NIV).
2) The coming of this new age removes all the barriers of us verses them. We are all in! “The other” has been banished.
“So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer” (2 Corinthians 5:16 NIV).
3) Repentance is our response to God’s generous love in our world, not a condition.
“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again” 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 NIV)
4) Repentance (Sanctifying grace) is the ever deepening work of God in us, around us, through us to allow God’s reign of love to fill the earth as it is in heaven.
“Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:2-3, 9-10 NIV)
5) Sacrificial love (Sanctifying works) is how Love responds to injustice, prejudices, insult. This is where the cost of Following Jesus is realized and in doing so we are entirely given over to the Spirit by love for others.
”But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you” (2 Corinthians 4:7-8, 10-12 NIV).
6) Works and faith are saving in that in both God is graciously redeeming each child and filling the earth with the Shalom of God.
“Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:1-2, 5-7, 13-15 NIV).
7) All of our life is to be lived as God’s representative on earth—and is premised on the “sacrificial love of the Son” who entered fully into the death of our sin in order that we might become the life of God renewing the earth.
“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” 2 Corinthians 5:20-21 NIV).
In this way where God’s reign of love keeps breaking in, children at play with other children in their neighborhood, even as their parents watch, work, laugh with one another is a “saving work” In the community. It is a space where heaven breaks in. Thats all, nothing more. We don’t donit to attract others to us “for what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:5-6 NIV).
If love is understood as “The end”—that it is, all may relax and enjoy God’s Kingdom together. Ofcourse conversations of the deepest kind will take place and in moments that are human, wounds exposed, we who know the the goodness of our Savior can listen and walk alongside as fellow traveler. In those contexts as appropriate we will share of God’s renewing work in our life, though the greater joy is watching it unfold in our neighbors life, sometimes unaware. Being entire given over to the Spirit is no longer the goal, but is restored to its proper place of “just getting us out of the way” so we can participate in the real expo; Heaven coming to earth.
“All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:15 NIV).
This is the heart of the “New Evangelism.”
Blessings! Terry :)
See my Podcast (Visual) developing these themes further, called: “Getting Past Ourselves” —The New Evangelism
https://youtu.be/ER5ZIsh3DsE
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