Challenging Times

I’ve suggested that many contemporary ‘evangelical’ Christian writers will talk about the Kingdom of God coming, and about social justice here and now, but they seem to have lost sight of the question of the individual’s fate after death. And I’ve suggested that we’ve played down the importance of individual sin, either by not mentioning it at all, or by playing up structural (institutional) sin.

I also notice in a lot of contemporary ‘evangelical’ Christian writing a tremendous reluctance to say anything about God’s judgment. (In fact – cart before the horse – I believe the reason people are reluctant to say anything about sin is that it carries with it some implications about judgment).

But the Bible is never so squeamish. In Ephesians 2:3, Paul says bluntly that we were by nature objects of God’s wrath.

Well, OK. Maybe that’s just Paul.

Or not.

In Matthew 5:7, Jesus tells his followers:

‘Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the pharisees and teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.’

A couple of verses later (verse 22) he warns that anyone who is angry with his brother will be in danger of judgment, and anyone who calls his brother a fool will be in danger of the fire of hell.

It makes me feel deeply uncomfortable – but I can’t get away from the fact that Jesus said it. It wasn’t in the middle of a parable. As far as I can see, it wasn’t a metaphor for something. In chapter 7, he says (v. 13-14):

‘Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.’

However politically incorrect it is, however disturbing, when I try to read the Gospels as open-mindedly as possible, I can’t escape the conclusion that Jesus believed that all people will be judged by God, and that some people will ultimately be rejected by him. I find this a terrifying thought.

There’s an old saying that the Good News is only Good News in the context of the bad news that precedes it. Is one of the reasons we’ve lost the plot about the Good News that we don’t have the courage to say anything about the bad news of God’s judgment?

In my last two posts in this series, I expressed my concerns that, with all our talk about the Kingdom of God, we are losing the plot when it comes to the destiny of individuals after death.

(OK. I accept that this is not either/or, but both/and. I think it’s the current crop of writers who are making it either/or, because they are talking about changing the world now, at the expense of being concerned with the personal salvation of the individual. For example, in ‘Everything Must Change,’ Brian McLaren says as much, explicitly and repeatedly.)

I want to push this argument a step further:

There’s also a resounding silence on the subject of sin. It is rarely mentioned at all. If it is mentioned, it is almost always in terms of ‘structural sin’ or ‘institutional sin,’ rather than personal sin. (Structural sin is nice, because I don’t have any personal accountability for it.)

And once again, we are losing the plot. We are sinners. Bringing it right down to brass tacks, I am a sinner, and that is the heart of my problem.

In Matthew 7:11, Jesus says:

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

He isn’t making a theological point about our sinfulness – he’s talking about God answering our prayers. And almost in passing, he says ‘though you are evil.’ He doesn’t need to justify it. It isn’t up for debate. He takes it for granted that his hearers are sinners.

In 1 Timothy 1:15, Paul says (- I’m not going to get into a debate about the Pauline authorship of 1 Timothy! -):

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst.

I wonder whether one of the main reasons for the decline of the Church today is that we are losing the plot – we simply don’t have the guts to talk about sin any more.

In the first two posts in this series, I argued that a lot of contemporary Christian writing ‘moves the goalposts,’ from the question of an individual’s destiny after death to the issue of righting what’s wrong with the world here and now.

One of the clearest examples of this is Brian McLaren’s recent book ‘Everything must change.’ In it he says again and again that the Good News is not about people being rescued from this evil world, but about bringing in the Kingdom of God ‘on earth, as it is in heaven.’

This kind of thinking plays down the importance of individual salvation, and plays up the idea of making the world a better place in this life. And it is, quite simply, wrong:

Possibly the earliest Christian document that we have is Paul’s letter to the Galatians. (1 Thessalonians may be earlier – no-one can say for sure.)

Within four verses of the beginning of this earliest of letters, Paul says that Jesus

… died for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live.’ (Galatians 1:4)

There’s nothing here about making the world a better place, or bringing in God’s kingdom. Rather, there’s a recognition that the world is (and always will be, as long as the present order of things lasts) an evil place, from which individuals need to be rescued. (Literally, it’s ‘evil age,’ not ‘evil world.’ I don’t think this changes the argument.)

The point is that individual salvation does matter. People’s destinies in eternity do matter. Our primary business isn’t to try to change society. It is to seek to save individuals. We don’t bring in the Kingdom of God – only God does that. Our job is to announce the arrival of his kingdom, and to invite people to submit to his rule.

John’s Gospel talks about eternal life. Matthew, Mark and Luke talk more often about the Kingdom of God (or Kingdom of heaven – the meaning is the same).

It’s important to think clearly about what ‘Kingdom of God’ means.

Quite a few writers talk about us bringing in the Kingdom of God here and now, by working to alleviate poverty, injustice, and oppression. But they don’t have much to say about eternity. It is all about this world and this life.

It’s right for us to strive against poverty and injustice, because this reflects God’s own character.

But we aren’t going to bring in the Kingdom of God by doing so.

Talking like this about bringing in the Kingdom of God may come from either ignorance or confusion, or from forgetting that there is both an ‘already’ and a ‘not yet’ aspect to God’s rule.

Jesus is pretty clear on the ‘not yet’ aspect in the Sermon on the Mount, when he says things like

‘Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the pharisees and teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.’ (Matthew 5:20)

Or:

‘Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers.’ (Matthew 7:21-23)

How can anyone spin Jesus’ words here to be about anything other than the end of time?

The ‘Kingdom of God’ is not primarily something that happens in an individual’s life now, nor is it something that we can bring in as we work for justice and peace and freedom from poverty. It is primarily something God is going to bring in at the end of time – it is an eschatological reality, to use the technical phrase.

When we lose sight of this and focus exclusively on social issues here and now, the danger is that we stop bothering about the eternal question: will people get into the Kingdom of God? And this really does mean we’re losing the plot.

‘Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to live, and only a few find it.’ (Matthew 7:13-14)

This is the first of what I hope will be a short series of related posts.

I’m concerned that, out of a genuine desire to be contemporary and relevant, we may be losing the plot of the Bible’s big story.

I’ve read several books recently by respected leaders and theologians, where what they don’t say has been more important than what they do say.

For example, there’s often a deafening silence about the question of the individual’s eternal destiny. OK, I know it’s an unfashionable question, but it still strikes me as being of some personal interest and concern.

I can illustrate my point by talking about the phrase ‘eternal life.’ This is used about sixteen times in John’s Gospel, eight times in Matthew/Mark/Luke (but some of these are parallel accounts of the same event), and eighteen more times in the rest of the New Testament, including half a dozen in John’s letters. In other words, it’s a favourite phrase of John, and is used somewhat, but nothing like as much, by the other New Testament writers.

The rhetoric about ‘eternal life’ often goes like this: It’s talking about a different kind of life here and now. It isn’t talking about what happens after we die. This rhetoric is often backed up by an appeal to the underlying Greek phrase which literally means something like ‘life of the ages.’

What this doesn’t say is more important than what it does say: ‘Eternal life’ clearly includes the idea of a different kind of life which begins here and now. But this isn’t all it means. You can’t just ignore or throw out the main meaning of the adjective. First and foremost, it is about eternal life – life that lasts for ever. It is about what happens after we die.

This is not an either/or choice. We are distorting the Bible when we dismiss or ignore the central nature of eternal life – that it is life that lasts for ever, extending beyond the grave.

The trouble is that as soon as you say this, it raises nagging and disquieting questions about what will happen to us after we die. And I think it’s largely out of a reluctance to take on these questions that some writers dodge the bullet about eternal life.

But quite simply, the most important question you will ever face is: what is going to happen to you when you die? When we lose the plot about this, and start making other issues central, we are in danger of proclaiming ‘a different gospel,’ as Paul says in Galatians 1:6-7.