I Really “Goofed” Up…

 

… preaching the Gospel before one particular group at a Gospel conference a few years ago!

Of course, I have learned that ONLY Jesus, God Himself, can proclaim the Gospel without goofing it up! However, Jesus has decided not to proclaim it without allowing us “clay jars” to participate (2 Cor 4:7), so on we go in the “foolishness of preaching” (1 Cor 1:21) by which people come to understand Who Jesus is and who humanity and creation are in Him in the power of the Spirit! What a miracle of Triune God’s Grace! I love it!!

I was reminded about the incident I want to relate to you because of two great blog posts recently offered up by my friend Jonathan Stepp. He has surely got me thinking and a lot of us talking! To me it is very inspiring and radical stuff (in a positive way) to think about in the Light of the Cosmic Christ! Colossians 1!

Now to the public “goof up” I made.

I was preaching and proclaiming the Gospel Truth about Who Jesus is and who we are in Him. I was saying something like “because Jesus created and sustains everything, whatever happened to him, happens to everything he sustains, which is nothing short of everything. Therefore, when Jesus died, all of humanity died (just like Paul said in 2 Cor 5:14), and when Jesus rose, everyone and everything rose in Him (as Paul and Peter both say -  Eph 2:4-7, 1 Peter 1:3).”

With my next few words I threw out what became a radical Gospel bomb (in following the above Christ-centered and Trinitarian logic), and said something like, “In one real sense, because everyone is REALLY united with and in Jesus, and Jesus is the head of the Church, His actual Body, then EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE, is REALLY already in the Church!”

If you have gone to church for very long or are religious in any supposedly Christian way, then you can imagine how that went over for most of the crowd! Ha-Ha! Understatement! But, to be fair, there were quite a few people who did like it, received encouragement from it and let me know it in very enthusiastic ways! In fact as soon as I finished and went back to my seat, a young woman left her seat and approached me and my family, quickly, to encourage us and let us know how much she appreciated that exact statement!

I call my radical statement a “goof up” for a couple of reasons. It was a “goof” up, sort of, in that the Truth of the One God in the Three Persons of the Father, Son and Spirit, reveals to us in Jesus that there REALLY is distinction within the Godhead and creation. Distinction is important for there to be personal existence and real love. if there were no distinction, I would not be me, and you would not be you. We’d be a single, blobby mess!

If there were only One God Being without distinct persons, then there would be no one else to love or give to. There would only be a single self-centered existence, and that is NOT God because God IS LOVE! The Father must have someone to love for there to be love, and so must the Son and Spirit. God is love because there is Unity without loss of distinction among the Persons. The fancy theological word for this truth is “Perichoresis“. This is what my good friend Dr. Baxter Kruger is always blogging about here.

Therefore, there was something right in people’s negative reactions when I uttered that “goof-up” about everyone being in the church. Part of the stumbling over this is that, In the United States, particularly, we have been trained to think more about our independence than our interdependence. Even the church is a culprit behind people committing the Gospel “crime” of “over-exclusivity” as we constantly overemphasize personal decision, personal salvation and personal prayer time over and against our cosmic union with God and each other in Jesus Christ!

On the other hand…

…I call it a “goof up” in parentheses because, in one real sense of Being and Seeing, we all, REALLY, are who we are in Jesus Christ! Jesus is our Reality and the Truth about Who we REALLY are even if we are blind to it, and/or forever oppose and reject it! Our real life is HIDDEN IN HIM – Colossians 3:3! We ALL REALLY DO live, move and have our being in God- Acts 17:28!! If we can believe that in Adam we are all sinners (and in Adam we all are!), then how come it is so hard for us to believe that in the Father’s Son made human, Jesus, we have all been made righteous?! Romans 5:6-19!

How is it that Adam gets more respect and praise than Jesus? Adam did NOT create us, nor does he sustain us – Jesus does! If Jesus, the One Who created and sustains us, stepped into our shoes and undid the work of Adam, as a human being, how is it that we have not all been positively impacted by His Human Life and Goodness? The truth is, we all have been positively impacted and affected! Romans 5:6-19, again! We REALLY do need to change our minds (repent) and embrace the Good News!

I must admit, I felt “crazy” and a bit weird after saying such a statement myself (it was NOT in my notes!) After all, I have grown up in the church, too, and am a trained Christian pastor for goodness sake! I, however, went where the Christo-logic of the Gospel I was preaching took me, and it has actually been confirmed and stated by other Christian’s too. Check out this post on writings from the Great 20th century Christian theologian Karl Barth! This post describes the wrestling that we go through on the subject of our Inclusion in the Triune Life when confronted by the Gospel of God’s Grace Revealed in Jesus!

Recently I took a church history class and was pleasantly SURPRISED to see that I am not the first Christian to have said or embraced such a “goof up”! Justin Martyr, one of the first Historians and Apologists of the early Christian Church actually took a similar approach and Christo-logic when proclaiming the Gospel to the Greek philosophical culture of his day. In his book “The Story of Christianity”, pp.53-56, Justo L. Gonzalez, writes the following with regard to Justin Martyr:

“According to the Fourth Gospel, this Logos is “the true light that enlightens” everyone. This means that, even before the incarnation, he [Jesus] is the source of all true knowledge. Paul had already said (1 Cor. 10:1-4) that the ancient Hebrews’ faith rested on none other than Christ, who had been revealed to them before the incarnation. Now Justin added that there were also among the pagans those who knew the same Logos, however dimly. Whatever truth there is in the writings of Plato was granted to him by the Logos of God, the same Logos who was incarnate in Jesus. Therefore, in a way, Socrates, Plato, and other sages of iniquity “were Christians,” for their wisdom came from Christ. This is not to say, however, that the incarnation was not needed, for those philosophers of old knew the Logos “in part”, whereas those who have seen him in his incarnation know him “fully.”

What Justin thus did was to open the way for Christianity to claim whatever good it could find in classical culture, in spite of its having been pagan. Following his inspiration, there soon were other Christians who tried to build further bridges between their faith and ancient culture.”

Hmmmmm. “Goof up” or Bridge building? I am sure it’s probably BOTH seeing that the Triune God shares His Truth with the world through “clay jars” and is NOT prevented by any barrier from helping people to see who they are in Jesus, His Son!! Ha-Ha!! (You can find Jonathan Stepp’s blog posts right here and here!)