Thesis 25 We must practice catholicity, not ecumenicity.
The prayer of a righteous man avails much, the Scripture tells us (James 5:16). We know in turn that Jesus was the only righteous man. If we want to know what will come to pass, it would seem, we would be wise to see exactly what Jesus prayed for. In what has come to be known as Jesus’ high priestly prayer, Jesus prays that we who are His would be one, even as He and the Father are one (John 17:11). How are we doing?
While it may be appropriate for us to hang our heads over our petty squabbles and power struggles, we need to reach the right conclusion from our syllogism. That is, we do not affirm that because Jesus is righteous, and He prayed for unity but there is no unity, that therefore the promise that the prayers of a righteous man avail much is a false promise. Instead we affirm that because Jesus is righteous, and because the prayers of a righteous man avail much, that therefore the people of God do in fact enjoy the unity that Christ prayed for. We need to learn to distinguish between institutional unity and spiritual unity. There may be many churches, but the church is one.
While it may be wise to seek to expand institutional unity (remembering that those local bodies that remain independent for the sake of avoiding the “divisiveness” of denominations have simply created one more very small denomination) we do so so that the unity that we now enjoy would be made more visible. We believe, if we confess the faith once for all delivered to the saints, in one, holy, and catholic church. While it certainly may make the unity of the church more visible when we are all a part of one institution, we would be wrong to equate the two. To put it another way, church mergers may be a good thing, and church splits a bad thing, but where two or three are gathered together in His name, not only is He there, but we are all there, because we are one together, and we are one with Him.
What this means in practice is expanding our vision. Our tendency, certainly in Reformed circles, is to begrudgingly acknowledge that there are believers outside the Reformed circles, but to treat those other believers as so weakened as to be insignificant. Yes, we seem to reason, there are Baptists who will be in heaven, Lutherans will make it, but we are the front and center, the part of the church that really counts. The charismatics and the African Methodist Episcopals may have fire in their bellies, but if they were more sanctified like us, they would be more staid and calm.
Catholicity means affirming not only that God is at work in places far from our homes, but that we are one with those in far away places. When the church in the Sudan is being persecuted, we are being persecuted. When the church in China is going through revival, we are going through revival. Recognizing that we are one body means much more than being nice to your neighbor in the pew. It means identifying with your neighbor in the church in Pago Pago.
Of course He does. God not only hears everyone’s prayers, He knows them before they are even spoken (Psalm 139:4). There is nothing God does not hear. We will one day give an account for every idle word (Matthew 12:36). How much more so will we have to answer for every less than idle word, the words we use to address our Maker?
Hear here, however, means simply, “Is aware of.” There are, of course, different ways we use the word. Often we have a more focused understanding, denoting a more focused understanding of whatever was spoken. I do not need to discern if I was an actual believer or not when I was seven years old and prayed that God would give the Pittsburgh Steelers victory over the Oakland Raiders to know both that God was quite aware of what I was asking, and likely relatively indifferent to my heart’s desire.
When, however, I come before my heavenly Father, acknowledging my dependence on His grace, resting in the finished work of Christ, and plead with Him that He would remove from me a sin or a sickness, I know He hears me in the more intimate sense, even if I continue to wrestle with the sin, or fall deeper into the sickness. He hears me as a father hears a son. He is attentive, concerned, joyful that I would bring my troubles before Him. He is eager to bless me, to respond with only love.
Which is not at all how God hears the prayers of those who are outside of Christ. These prayers He hears as an affront, an insult, spitting on His holiness. The issue is not what the unbeliever is asking for. The unbeliever could come before the throne of the living God and ask that He would remove from him a sin or a sickness, and God’s response would still be to take offense. Why? Because to come before His presence without acknowledging our offenses against Him is a grievous offense against Him. It is to see Him as the means to the end of our well-being. It is to minimize our sins against Him.
This truth gets at the reason we end our prayers, “In Jesus’ name, amen.” This is not just some Elizabethan sign off, a pious “Over and out.” It is instead our affirmation that we recognize that we could not even come into our Father’s presence were we not covered in the blood of Christ. We are reminding our Father that we know we are not in ourselves worthy of anything but His wrath. We are reminding Him, however, that that wrath was spent on Calvary. It is because of His suffering for us that we are able to have our prayers not be merely heard, in the sense that the Father is aware of them, but heard in the sense that our Father listens with compassion, concern and a zeal for our well-being.
What though of the prayer of the unbeliever professing His faith? What about when the unbeliever comes to the end of his rope and cries out, “Lord be merciful to me, a sinner”? That, friends, is the prayer of a believer. The prodigal father “heard” the prodigal son’s speech, but paid it no mind as he was too busy embracing his beloved. The same is true of our Father in heaven.
Tell you a little story and it won’t take long
About a lazy farmer who wouldn’t hoe his corn.
The reason why I never could tell
For that young man was always well.
He planted his corn in the month of June
By July it was up to his eyes
Come September came a big frost
All that young man’s corn was lost.
Everybody’s busy. Busy, like wealth, however, is a relative term. My old friend Eddy used to marvel that I took a full load at seminary, while working a full time job. What he didn’t realize was that I had studied rather much of what was covered in seminary when I wasn’t busy, before seminary, as a teenager. Nor did he understand that once I took, “Lounge around the pool reading People magazine” out of my schedule, I had plenty of time. We feel poor because we fail to be grateful for what we have. And we feel busy because we fail to be grateful for what we’re able to do.
We suffer from the folly of Lot. He had received God’s richest blessing, and then got confused over what that blessing was. By living in close proximity to Abraham, Lot drank deeply from the collateral benefits that came his way. His flocks prospered. He had an increasing number of servants to tend those flocks. But those servants found themselves at odds with Abram’s servants, and Lot chose the lot next to the heathen. He thought the wealth came from him. He thought the combination of his shrewd business sense, his eye for fine grazing land, and his hard work was the source of his prosperity. He, no doubt, mentally shook his head at his uncle’s failure to negotiate wisely when Abraham offered Lot the pick of the land. Proudly then he surveyed all that was before him, and chose the green place, conveniently overlooking the rainbow triangle flag flying over the adjacent town. He noticed, no doubt, the lovely window treatments on the homes, but apparently didn’t notice that Sodom’s birthrate was 0%.
I’m not denying that God works through means. Rather I want to affirm that while God was the source of Lot’s prosperity, the means He worked through wasn’t Lot’s hard work. Instead it was the character of his uncle. But more important still, it was the very wisdom of his uncle that was the wealth. What made Lot a rich man wasn’t flocks and herds, nor South Beach property, but that his uncle was a man of wisdom and character. What made Lot a poor fool wasn’t that he failed to tend his flocks, but that he failed to tend his soul.
Here is a great paradox- Jesus taught in paradox, He twisted words that we might see reality, not because we are twisted, but because reality is. Lose your life to gain, be last to be first, die that you might live isn’t a literary technique, but the substance of reality. C.S. Lewis got at this point (actually, I think, in one place or another, he alluded to virtually every point there is to make) in The Screwtape Letters. There Screwtape encouraged Wormwood to encourage his charge to think in grand categories, and to fail to think in the small. A man who can taste the heady draught of a “love for humanity” but can’t force himself to love his neighbor in the pew has already lost the battle. Cultivating a love for humanity, however, is like growing plastic fruit. One need not worry about root rot or bugs, and one can display the “fruit” of one’s labors, but the real deal isn’t there. But Lewis missed an even bigger point. It isn’t enough for the wise man to move his gaze from the amorphous humanity to the neighbor in the pew. If he would do better still, he must turn his gaze inward. What he should be looking to, if he would love both his pew neighbor, and the body of Christ around the globe, is his own soul. The only way to be outward looking, in other words, is to look inward.
Of course there is a deadly and deadening navel gazing. Analysis paralysis is not what I’m calling for. It wouldn’t have done the lazy farmer any good had he, instead of frequenting the parties in the surrounding culture, instead stood in the midst of his growing corn just to look at it. No, we look to ourselves that we might be at work in ourselves. We look inward because what the world needs now isn’t simply one less sinner, but one less sin. The kingdom grows not through, but as we put to death the old man, as we put on Christ.
But there is still another layer of paradox, because, paradoxically, not only does Jesus work through paradox, but so must the devil. We lose our lives when we seek to save them; we become last when we seek to be first. In like manner, the devil is about the business of lulling us to sleep, or encouraging our spiritual sloth. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands, and we are as unconscious as the foolish virgins. The rest he seduces us with, however, is nothing but slave labor. When we are not diligent about the business of bearing much fruit, we are instead busy either making excuses, or pushing rocks up Sisyphusian hills. Changing the world is chasing after the wind. Changing ourselves, in and through the means of grace appointed, is running the race. The devil, who is more crafty than any of the beasts of the field, seduces us into waiting for that beast in the jungle, that one glorious moment of opportunity, where we will usher in the kingdom with our devastating argument, our best-selling book, our cinematic triumph, our Christian president. Meanwhile, the beast is at work in our hearts, where the real battle is, where he turns our gardens into jungles.
All there is is “Abide in Me.” Before we dicker over what this means, let’s remember what we know- we are to bear fruit. The answer to “Abide” is found in “Me.”
For therein is His glory. A certain farmer when out to sow. But this farmer scattered no seed on the rocky ground. This farmer, the one whom Mary “mistook” for the gardener, has promised that having begun a good work in us, He will complete it until the end. The great thing about the call to cultivate fruit is that we are the fruit that He is cultivating. The great thing about the call to working out our own salvation in fear and in trembling is that it is He that is working in us both to will and to do His good pleasure. As we work in all diligence, we rest in the arms of Jesus. And one day, all His bundles will bow, in joy, before Him.
Tim Keller’s excellent The Prodigal God not only potently draws our attention to the oft-missed second half, the story of the elder brother, but it potently answers a question I have long struggled with. What are the implications of the return of the prodigal son? We know he is welcomed, loved, embraced, celebrated. We know he will not be hired on as a servant. But, what? How “in” is he?
Keller points out that some, typically liberal scholars, have actually argued against an atonement on the basis of this parable. No substitute was put in the prodigal’s place. No ransom was paid. I’ve often said that to understand any text we need to look for the sinner in the story, and for Jesus. Keller is quite right that there are two sinners in this story, both of the sons. The Father, as well, is an outstanding picture of the Father. Where though is Jesus?
Jesus is the Elder Brother. No, He’s not the elder brother in the story. He’s the elder brother in reality. Jesus, in telling the parable is not only rebuking the Pharisees for being like the older brother, He is rebuking all of us for being like the older brother. We, at least until our own sins are exposed, proving we are also the younger brother, look down our noses at those less righteous than we are. Wisdom dictates instead that we acknowledge our own sins. Courage, on the other hand, calls for rescuing the younger brother. The Father waited for him. Why did the older brother not go looking for him?
He did. The true older brother did. And He not only found us, but paid the debt we could not pay. There is a reason beyond mere moral indignation that the older brother was bitter. This return could cost him. When the younger brother asked for his inheritance, the father divided his wealth in thirds. One third went to the younger brother. The other two thirds went to the older brother. Whether he already had control of it, or had to wait for his father’s passing is beside the point. For the younger son to be brought back into the family, the remaining two thirds of the father’s wealth would have to be divided again, one third for the younger brother, two thirds for the older.
Had the elder brother in the story had the heart and mind of the true elder brother, he would have rejoiced over the return of his brother. He would have gladly sacrificed his own inheritance, because he would have known he hadn’t earned it in the first place. It had been a gift given to him.
The reason there was a feast for the younger brother and not the older is that the younger brother came to understand the grace of his father. The older brother believed he and his younger brother should have to earn his favor, and, with one more step deep into folly, thought that he had. The church is indeed full of two kinds of people. It is not, however, sinners like the prodigal son and righteous like the elder son. No, the two kinds are these- those who know they are sinners and those who want to earn their way into the kingdom. By all means let those whose sins remain obscure, hidden, be on guard against looking at the scandalous sinners with contempt. Rather let them have the pity and compassion of Christ. But, friends, let those whose sins are out in the open for the world to see, who pride themselves on not being like the Pharisees be on guard against their own pride. Let them not beat their breast like the sinner, while confessing like the Publican, “I thank you Lord that I am not like this Pharisee here. I bewail my sin three times a weak and dress in sackcloth.” Rather let them have the pity and compassion of Christ. The prideful and the pridefully humble, we all depend on His grace.
I I Samuel 15 we read that God regretted making Saul king over Israel.This particular text is just one of several in the Bible wherein we see God describing regret, or remorse, where we see God appear to change His mind. In other portions of Scripture, see for instance , God affirms what seems more plausible to us, that because God is God, He never regrets, repents, or changes His mind. To understand how this can be we must do our best to come to grips with the different ways that God interacts with His creation.
Consier the calling of Daniel in light of the invasion of the Babylonian army. We know God sent that army to punish Judah, but Daniel did well to fight against them. Why would God call Daniel to fight an enemy God Himself sent? This reveals the important distinction between God’s prescriptive or revealed will and His decretive or hidden will. The former refers to His law, what He commands of us. The latter refers to His sovereign, efficacious will by which He brings all things to pass. God’s law, for instance, forbids bearing of false witness. Yet, in Peter’s sermon at Pentecost he affirms that God had determined from before all time that Jesus would be unjustly delivered to the Roman authorities, not only that false witness would be born, but that it would be born against the Son.
We have a similar situation here. Understand that history is God’s story. God is the author of all of history, and touching on His sovereignty, brings all things to pass. His decretive will is always done. But just as Shakespeare not only wrote his plays but acted in them, so God is an actor in His own story. God, for instance, decreed before all time, that He would give you new life, a new heart, the gift of faith. But God the actor, in space and time, actually did this.
With respect to Saul, and the flood, and other instances where God is described as having changed His mind, we have God the author deciding that God the actor would change course. Look at it this way. God the author of history, knew from before all time that Saul would fail. He knew from before all time that He would reject the kingship of Saul. And He knew that He would, as an actor, first choose Saul, and then later, again as an actor, reject Saul. God the actor changed direction, as God the writer had determined from before all time.
Of course the God who writes history and the God who acts in history is one and the same God. We’re just looking at the story from different perspectives. We can move forward with confidence that God’s promises are always yea and amen. We can trust all that He has told us. And we can rejoice that He is not just an aloof writer of the story, but is actively involved in the story, in our stories and in our lives each and every day. The God we worship is sovereign over all things. And He acts in space and time.
