1 Demonstrating The Character Of God
SALVATION DOES NOT END WITH THE INDIVIDUAL
We have examined the tension which a non-Christian is bound to feel—the tension between the real world and the logical conclusion of a man’s non-Christian presuppositions. If we are honest, Christians too have a question to face. As people watch us, individually and corporately, and hear our presuppositions, what do they see with regard to our consistence to our presuppositions?
In this concluding section I want to pursue the question of a reality which is visible to a watching world.
As Christians we must consider what the logical conclusions of our presuppositions are. Here we are speaking of apologetics, not abstractly, not scholastically, not as a subject taught in a Christian school but as practiced in the battles of our generation. Christian apologetics must be able to show intellectually that Christianity speaks of true truth; but it must also exhibit that it is not just a theory. This is needed for the defense of the flock of Christ, and also in the positive sense of reaching out to those who are honestly asking questions. What is observable, both individually and corporately, is also included in Christian apologetics. Christians should always have comprehended and considered this; but it is overwhelmingly important in view of the thought-forms of our generation to show that Christianity is not just a better dialectic.
As orthodox evangelicals we have often made the mistake of stopping with individual salvation. Historically the word Christian has meant two things. First, the word Christian defines a person who has accepted Christ as Savior. This is decidedly an individual thing. But there is a second consideration as well. It concerns that which flows from individual salvation. While it is true that there is an individual salvation, and this is the beginning of the Christian life, yet nevertheless individual salvation should show itself also in corporate relationships. This is the Bible’s clear teaching concerning the church and what we find, in some measure, as we consider the church at its strongest through the ages.
When man fell, various divisions took place. The first and basic division is between man who has revolted and God. All other divisions flow from that. We are separated from God by our guilt—true moral guilt. Hence we need to be justified upon the basis of the finished substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet it is quite plain from the Scriptures and from general observation that the separations did not stop with the separation of man from God. For, second, man was separated from himself. This gives rise to the psychological problems of life. Third, man was separated from other men, leading to the sociological problems of life. Fourth, man was separated from nature.
According to the teaching of the Scriptures, the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ is meant eventually to bring healing to each of these divisions: healing which will be perfect in every aspect when Christ comes again in history in the future.
In justification, there is a relationship which is already perfect. When the individual accepts Christ as his Savior, on the basis of the finished work of Christ, God as Judge declares that his guilt is gone immediately and forever. With regard to the other separations, it is plain from the scriptural teaching and from the struggles of God’s people throughout the best years of the church that in this present life the blood of Christ is meant to bring substantial healing now. Individual salvation comes with justification, and guilt is gone at once. Then comes a future day when my body will be raised from the dead, and the other separations will be healed just as completely. Now, in the present life, when men can observe us, there is to be a substantial healing of these other divisions. Substantial is the right word to use because it carries with it two ideas. First, it means that it is not yet perfect. Second, it means that there is reality.
THE VISIBLE QUALITY
The world has a right to look upon us and make a judgment. We are told by Jesus that as we love one another the world will judge, not only whether we are his disciples, but whether the Father sent the Son. The final apologetic, along with the rational, logical defense and presentation, is what the world sees in the individual Christian and in our corporate relationships together. The command that we should love one another surely means something much richer than merely organizational relationship. Not that we should minimize proper organizational relationship, but one may look at those bound together in an organized group called a church and see nothing of a substantial healing of the division between people in the present life.
On the other hand, while there is “the invisible church” (that is, everyone who is a Christian living anywhere in the world), yet the church is not to be hidden away, in an unseen area, as though it does not matter what men see. What we are called to do, upon the basis of the finished work of Christ in the power of the Spirit through faith, is to exhibit a substantial healing, individual and then corporate, so that people may observe it. This too is a portion of the apologetic: a presentation which gives at least some demonstration that these things are not theoretical but real; not perfect, yet substantial. If we only speak of and exhibit the individual effects of the gospel, the world, psychologically conditioned as it is today, will explain them away. What the world cannot explain away will be a substantial, corporate exhibition of the logical conclusions of the Christian presuppositions. It is not true that the New Testament presents an individualistic concept of salvation. Individual, yes—we must come one at a time, but it is not to be individualistic. First there must be the individual reality, and then the corporate. Neither will be perfect in this life, but they must be real. I have discovered that hard twentieth-century people do not expect Christians to be perfect. They do not throw it in our teeth when, individually or corporately, they find less than perfection in us. They do not expect perfection, but they do expect reality; and they have a right to expect reality, upon the authority of Jesus Christ.
There must be communion and community among the people of God—not a false community that is set up as though human community were an end in itself; but in the local church, in a mission, in a school, wherever it might be, true fellowship must be evident as the outcome of original, individual salvation. This is the real church of the Lord Jesus Christ—not merely organization but a group of people, individually the people of God, drawn together by the Holy Spirit for a particular task either in a local situation or over a wider area. The church of the Lord Jesus should be a group of those who are redeemed and bound together on the basis of true doctrine. But subsequently they should show together a substantial “sociological healing” of the breaches between men which have come about because of the results of man’s sin.
The Christian sociological position is that the sociological problems which exist, regardless of what they may be, are a result of the separation that has come between men because of sin. Now the world should be able to see in the church external marks which exhibit that there is a substantial sociological healing possible in the present generation. We can never expect the testimony of a previous generation to be sufficient for our own time. We can point to the wonders of past achievements, but men have a right to say, “This is our moment, this is our history, what about today?” It is not enough for the church to be engaged with the State in healing social ills, though this is important at times. But when the world can turn around and see a group of God’s people exhibiting substantial healing in the area of human relationships in their present life, then the world will take notice. Each group of Christians is, as it were, a pilot plant, showing that something can be done in the present situation, if only we begin in the right way.
Corporate living in the early church was very strong at this point. It was not perfect, but it was strong. The testimony has come down to us that one of the things that shook the Roman Empire was that as they looked at these Christians—a cross section of the wide sociological spectrum in the Roman Empire, from slaves to their masters, and including some of Caesar’s household—non-Christians were forced to say, “Behold, how they love each other.” And this was not in a vacuum, but loving each other in the circle of truth.
REALISM IN EXHIBITION
We must look to the Son of God, moment by moment, for these things; such things cannot be done in our own strength. We must allow him to bear his fruit through us. We can proclaim “orthodoxy” in the flesh, and we can compromise in the flesh. But our calling is a different calling: it is to exhibit God and his character, by his grace, in this generation. We need to show him forth as personal, as holy and as love. It is possible in the flesh to be both orthodox and dead—or loving and compromising. What is not possible in the flesh is simultaneously to exhibit both the justice of God and the love of God—this can only be done through the work of the Holy Spirit. And yet anything less is not a picture of God, but only a caricature of the God who exists.
Demonstrating God’s character must be existential. The existentialists are right at this place, though they are wrong when they say that history is not going anywhere. As far as living is concerned, we are on the knife-edge of time. What will matter is our relationship to the Lord Jesus, individually and then corporately, at this existential moment. What counts, as men look upon us individually and corporately, is whether we are exhibiting God and his character now. The Christian position is not static but is living.
Christ says, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” How could a perfect God say, “Just sin a little bit”? This would be impossible. The standard is God’s own perfection. And yet the Word of God does not leave us with a romantic notion that we must either have total perfection in this life or, if not, that we must smash everything and have nothing. I am firmly convinced that many wonderful things have been destroyed because people have had a preconceived and romantic notion in their minds as to what the perfect thing should be, would settle for nothing else, and thus have smashed what could have been.
How glad we should be for the apostle John when he says, “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father.” There is a tremendous and wonderful implication in that word “we.” John, the beloved apostle, places himself among us. On the one hand, we must stand against all standards lower than perfection. The standards are not arbitrary, but are those which the holy God who exists has given us in the Bible, and we are to take them with total seriousness. Anything less than the totality of these standards will not do. Sin is not to be minimized either in the individual or the corporate life. Antinomianism in theory or practice is always wrong and destructive.
Yet, on the other hand, we must stand against all the romantic concepts of perfection in this life. The Bible does not promise us perfection in this life, except in the area of justification. It does not promise us in this life perfection morally, physically, psychologically or sociologically. There are to be moral victories and growth, but that is different from perfection. John could say “we.” Paul could indicate his own lack of perfection. There can be physical healing, but that does not mean that the one healed is then a perfect physical specimen. The day Lazarus was raised from the dead he may have had a headache, and certainly one day he died again. People can be wonderfully helped psychologically, but that does not mean that they will then be totally integrated personalities. The Christian position is understanding that on this side of the resurrection the call is to perfection, and yet at the same time not to smash and destroy what we cannot bring again to life—just simply because it is less than the perfections that we romantically build in our thinking. For example, how many women have I found—and how many men—who have stomped on a perfectly good marriage until it was dead, just because they had a romantic concept of what marriage should or could be, either physically or emotionally.
PERSONALITY IS CENTRAL
We have been speaking about those things which are vitally important with regard to the logical conclusions of the Christian presuppositions. So far we have spoken about two, the corporate and the substantial. Now we will add the third, the personal.
The Christian system is consistent as no other system that has ever been. It is beautiful beyond words, because it has that quality that no other system completely has—you begin at the beginning, and you can go to the end. It is as simple as that. And every part and portion of the system can be related back to the beginning. Whatever you discuss, to understand it properly, you just go back to the beginning and the whole thing is in its place. The beginning is simply that God exists and that he is the personal-infinite God. Our generation longs for the reality of personality, but it cannot find it. But Christianity says personality is valid because personality has not just appeared in the universe but rather is rooted in the personal God who has always been.
All too often, when we are talking to the lost world, we do not begin at the beginning and therefore the world stops listening. Without this emphasis on personality we cannot expect people really to listen, because without this the concept of salvation is suspended in a vacuum.
If we understand this, we understand the meaning of life. The meaning of life does not end with justification, but is seen in the reality that when we accept Christ as our Savior in the true biblical sense, our personal relationship with the personal God is restored. Every place we turn in Christianity we find that we are brought face to face with the wonder of personality—the very opposite of the dilemma and the sorrow of modern man who finds no meaning in personality. Consider the words of Paul, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all.” It is the personal to which we are brought. First of all there is the personal relationship with God himself—this is the most wonderful, and is not just in heaven but is substantially real in practice now. When we understand our calling, it is not only true but beautiful—and it should be exciting. It is hard to understand how an orthodox, evangelical, Bible-believing Christian can fail to be excited. The answers in the realm of the intellect should make us overwhelmingly excited. But more than this, we are returned to a personal relationship with the God who is there. If we are unexcited Christians, we should go back and see what is wrong. We are surrounded by a generation that can find “no one home” in the universe. If anything marks our generation, it is this. In contrast to this, as a Christian I know who I am; and I know the personal God who is there. I speak, and he hears. I am not surrounded by mere mass, nor only energy particles, but he is there. And if I have accepted Christ as my Savior, then though it will not be perfect in this life, yet moment by moment, on the basis of the finished work of Christ, this person-to-person relationship with the God who is there can have reality to me.