The traditional understanding of Jesus’ life that I have been immersed in is this. I am a sinner, violating God’s law. That law demands perfect obedience to it by me to enter into heaven, to be saved. John Piper paints this picture. Imagine a large boulder, a rock that is immeasurable. That rock is God’s righteousness, his moral perfection and standard that he demands his creatures live up to. Because I, like all human beings, have sinned against God and do not meet God’s standard, that boulder stands over me as God’s wrath and judgment. The doctrine of imputation comes into play at this point in the metaphor. Jesus has perfectly obeyed the law and has met this impossible standard that God has set and demands. He exchanges with me, by faith, his perfect obedience for my sin. The effect is that this boulder now becomes my rock-solid, immovable foundation upon which I stand before God in his judgment. Jesus now stands under the same boulder and stands condemned by God for my sin. That picture is a beautiful picture that Piper paints, and is very helpful in understanding his doctrine of imputation.

This year, along with some guys at my church, I am reading through the entire Bible in 90 days–I should be done in March. Recently the reading plan completed the Torah, the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. After reading those books I don’t feel like this is the best reading of Israel’s Law. Nor do I believe that it is the most desirable reading of the Law.

Genesis 1 paints a vocation for humanity. That is to be God’s image on the earth, exercising God’s dominion and filling the earth with his image through family. Adam and Eve, as we know, failed to complete this task. When God called Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 the promise of a family living in a land climaxes in the promise that through Abraham’s family God would bless all the families of the earth. Abraham’s descendants would restore humanity to its original vocation. When rescued from Egypt God gives Israel the vocation of the royal priesthood (Exodus 19:6).

Pushing this farther is how God introduces the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. The wording of the commandments indicates that the Law is a moral standard that Israel is to live up to in order to be God’s people and live in the land promised to Abraham. Rather, it is how they are to live because they are God’s people and are going to possess the land.

In Deuteronomy 27 God lists out the blessings and curses for faithfully living out God’s Torah. The blessings climax with God saying that Israel will be so blessed that the nations will have to come to them for sustenence. If Israel is unfaithful to the Law she will not be blessed and will be so dependent upon the nations that they will be carried off into exile.

The picture that emerges is that Israel’s obedience to the Law is about fulfilling Israel’s task, her vocation, Adam’s task. The blessing that God intended to unleash upon the world through Adam will be realised through Israel being faithful to God through Torah. It’s how Israel is to live as God’s people. It’s eschatological.

So when Jesus comes and is the fulfillment of Israel, he is taking on this eschatological destiny. He is observing the Torah in the way God intended so that God’s blessings could come upon the earth. It’s not the picture that Piper paints, as attractive as the picture is. Jesus is bringing Israel’s vocation to pass. He is bringing Adam’s mission to completion. His miracles are part of this blessing that God planned and promised to unleash. The healings and forgiveness and love and compassion are the eschatological blessings being realized.

It’s a question I have had to wrestle with ever since I started to read N. T. Wright. Before reading his work the model Christus Victor wasn’t something I took seriously. Instead I dressed it up within the framework of another model, namely penal substitution.

But Wright has forced me to ask the question a new, “Why did Jesus have to die?” My normal, penal substitution/neo-Calvinistic, conservative evangelical answer would have been along this narrative. Man has sinned and transgressed God’s law. Because of this sinners deserve and will get the just sentence of hell–eternal conscious torment. Jesus came, lived a perfect life and did not violate God’s moral law. He was crucified on the cross and raised from the dead. God exchanged man’s sin for Jesus’ perfect obedience. Jesus’ crucifixion was him suffering God’s wrath–hell–in dying, the wrath for the sins of those who are in Christ. He was raised to prove, justify, vindicate his penal substitutionary death–proved that Jesus’ death did satisfy God’s justice. It was our proof of purchase, our receipt from God to show we are going to heaven. In short, the reason why Jesus died was to take away my sin so that I will go to heaven when I die if I believe in him.

Wright has forced me to grapple with the historical picture of Jesus. To come to terms with the narratives the Gospels have painted of Jesus and the meaning to Jesus’ death within those narratives. That Jesus was born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth. He ministered three years and taught about the “kingdom of God,” painting a picture of what it will look like while implicitly critiquing Israel for failing to be that picture as they were called to be. He was hailed a king on Sunday; condemned and died as a rebel king on Friday, and raised to life on Sunday. In short, Jesus’ death was the climax to Jesus’ ministry to bring about the kingdom of God here on earth.

The challenge is how to put these two narrative strands together in a way the honors both. Are the Gospels Passion narratives (another name for the story of Jesus’ final week on earth, his time in Jerusalem ending in his death) with extended introductions? Or are they something else? How do we take the picture of Jesus in the Gospels and put it together with what Paul and the others say in the epistles? It’s the end all, be all question at the heart of the Christianity. It’s the question I look forward to answering with my high school students this Sunday.

N. T. Wright likens this question and the event of the crucifixion to some of the ancient maps. Like these maps with Jerusalem being the center of the world, so is the cross of Jesus the center of Christianity. How these are put together determines everything.

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

There is much to be said here. Verse 5 bridges the hymn back to what Paul has been talking about. The model that Messiah’s colony should follow is that of their Messiah. The Love and Humility that are to be the central virtues of the colony are shown in the gospel story, the story of Jesus. The relationships that make up the colony, not just personal relationships but those of business practices and those of commerce. This mustn’t be reduced to how one treats his friends or fellow Christians. It is the entirety of human life. The parent-child, husband-wife, employer-employee, teacher-student, business-client relationships must all be built around this narrative, this story. The king must rule and govern according to this narrative, the people governed by the king must follow the king according to this narrative. The whole society and community must be centered on the virtues this narrative glorifies.

The hymn itself contains so much to be digested. From Philippians 2:6 we learn that Jesus existed in form as Yahweh and yet distinct from the person Yahweh. We learn about the place of Jesus within the triune nature of God. He is equal with God in his nature and being and existence. And yet there are at least two distinct persons sharing this same nature, God. There is the father and there is Jesus, both God yet not the same person.

Secondly the hymn teaches the incarnation of God in the Messiah Jesus. Jesus, one of the persons who shares the nature (μορφή) of God, became a man. The hymn doesn’t say that Jesus ceased being God but rather became a servant to God, giving up his rank and status. Just as the Psalms say man is lower than the angels, so Jesus descended down to the level of human. But he didn’t just go down the level of human where he could have rightfully taken and/or established a throne to rule of the entire planet. The incarnation went farther and God became a servant. Not just some one who serves another person voluntarily or is paid for the service. Rather Jesus became a doulos, a slave (μορφὴν δούλου λαβών). He gave up all rights. He so humbled himself that he died the death required of him.

Thirdly the hymn gives us the justification of Jesus, the vindication of Jesus. God exalted Jesus to the highest place and gave Jesus the name above all names, Lord. Hidden in this exaltation is the resurrection. The spirit of Jesus didn’t receive this reward but the whole person, the God-man Jesus. He was raised from the dead and brought before God to receive his vindication before all of the world. Jesus is Lord of the world. He is lord over all lords, even Caesar.

Fourthly, the hymn gives the eschatological goal of Jesus’ mission: the bringing the world under the rule of Jesus. Every tongue confesses and every knee bows. He is their king, not Herod in Jerusalem. He is their Lord, not Caesar in Rome. Jesus, the one exalted to Lord, will bring all the world under his rule and dominion. And not in the providential rule of Jesus as God, but the kingdom of the Jewish Messiah and the Jewish God. And at the confession of Jesus as Lord by all of the world and all who live in it, the father of Jesus, God the Father, will fully display his glory in the whole world being filled with knowledge of him.

Fifthly, this eschatology of Jesus gives the church its mission, to declare to the world that Jesus is Lord–not Caesar. He is the rightful king. They must repent and surrender to him, bowing the knee and confessing the tongue. The church is to be the colony the brings Jesus’ lordship to the earth and shows the world what the lordship is to look like when Jesus bring the whole world under it. And by seeing that lordship on display in the church, God’s imperial colony, they will abandon the domain of sin and death and join the dominion and lordship of the Messiah Jesus.

Thus as individuals we must model our lives after the life of Jesus, being obedient to God to the point of crucifixion. As a community, the church is to be obedient to God to the point of crucifixion. The world must see what it looks like to be obedient to its Creator and Lord. It must see the true strength of humility and love, forsaking the self to look to the well-being of the other. By living lives of other-focused humility and love, the church completes its task of declaring that God has retaken his throne as king.

And when that task is complete, the world will be transformed into a world that not even the Garden of Eden could compare to. It will be the world that God had envisioned Adam and Eve to create. We won’t go back to the Garden because we will go forward to the heavenly city come down to earth with Jesus seated on the throne ruling as a slave to his God and to his people. And it is this slavery that we model our lives after, giving up all rights to any claims we might have in the knowledge that such abandonment will be vindicated with the greatest reward God will give. So let us figure out how to create a society whereby the virtues are not ambition at the cost of the other, but rather humility and love for the other at the cost of the self. Every level of that society will love the other above the self. That will be when we make heaven a place on earth, if I may borrow from a certain song.

12 Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. 13 As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. 14 And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear.
15 It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. 16 The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17 The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. 18 But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.
Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, 19 for I know that through your prayers and God’s provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. 20 I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23 I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. 25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that through my being with you again your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound on account of me. (Philippians 1:12-26 NIV)

The question here in this text seems to be the impetus for the advance of the gospel, that the crucified Jesus of Nazareth is the risen Messiah and Lord of the world. Why share this declaration of good news? Paul has been arrested and his arrest has been the cause for the advancement of Jesus’ Messiahship and Lordship. Men and women have come out of the woodwork to boldly proclaim the gospel of the Kingdom of God and its King. But there are two motivations that divide this group into two camps.

There are those who do so out of love and goodwill, both to Paul and to those around him. They are part of Paul’s partnership whereby men and women defend and proclaim Jesus as Lord, and not Caesar. Through love they boldly proclaim Christ. The second group is another story. They see Paul in prison and the seek to do him harm. They begin to spread the news that Jesus is Lord in order to bring harm and shame to Paul. Their motives are false and insincere. But for Paul, it does not matter. Both are proclaim the good news that Jesus has been declared by God to be the Lord of the world through his resurrection. And Paul rejoices in this, contrary to the intentions of the latter group.

And it’s this joy that Paul has in seeing Christ proclaimed that has John Piper writing books like Desiring God and God is the Gospel. What is Piper seeing? Paul rejoices because of his confidence through the prayer of the church in Philippi and God’s gift of the Spirit of Jesus that he will not be put to shame. Jesus will deliver him (σωτηρίαν, soterian). So Paul has courage to exalt Christ in his own body through life or death. Because for Paul, to live is to represent Christ here on earth and build up Christ’s people–the Philippian church for example–and to die is to go to a state of existence in the very presence of Christ. And that plane of existence is far better than any life here on earth. For Piper, that’s the joy! Paul’s greatest treasure is Christ and we must seek to satisfy ourselves in God through Jesus the Messiah by the Holy Spirit.

But Paul is split between this “greater joy” of being with Christ and living on earth as Christ’s ambassador and the fruitful labor that comes with that. The need and the joy are in tension with each other here. For Piper they are not. Joy in Christ produces the fruitful labor. But I don’t see Paul grounding one in the other in this passage. Rather, I see Paul putting aside the “greater joy” for the “joy” that comes in the needed fruitful labor for the name of Christ among the kingdom-people. I see in Paul a love, mirroring that of his Lord, that looks totally away from the self and towards the Other to provide joy for them.

I might be making too much of this and could be splitting hairs. But I feel like Piper’s form of Christian Hedonism doesn’t understand “love” the way Jesus does and models, nor the way Paul does and models. Paul says in Philippians 3:17 that the Philippians are to follow his model. I think we would be wise and do the same. Our joy is in the fruitful labor that we sacrifice for here and now as Christ’s ambassadors. Is it a greater joy to be in the presence of Christ? Not arguing. But Paul set that joy aside to continue to minister to those who needed him. As Captain Spock from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn said, “The needs of many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” While Utilitarian, there is room for this ethic in a truly Christian view of love–the source for our ethics.

3 I thank my God every time I remember you. 4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. 7 It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. 8 God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. 9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

The first thing I noticed as I read this passage was that the church is a partnership. Paul says he and the Philippian church are a “partnership in the gospel” (1:5). He says that the Philippians “share in God’s grace with me” (1:7). This imperial colony, established by Jesus, is nothing less than Christians partnering together in the gospel, declaring Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:11), defending (ἀπολογία, apologia, apologetics) his Lordship and confirming it. It is Christians partnering together, willing to suffer imprisonment with Paul to defend and confirm Jesus as Lord. There are no lone-ranger Christians out there doing it on his or her own. It is the church together who is most capable of this task. It takes men and women working together exercising their gifts, given by the Spirit, to carry the church forward. It’s the same mission that Roman colonies had, they defended and confirmed Caesar’s claim on the land. And we do the same, not for Caesar, but for the Messiah who is the true Lord of the world.

The second thing I noted in reading this passage was that the church’s mission was eschatologically focused. In 1:6 Paul speaks of God completing the work he began in the Philippians “until the day of Christ Jesus.” Again in 1:10 he talks about being pure and blameless “for the day of Christ.” Our eschatology drives us as Christians and the church. It is the kingdom that God will establish in the future breaking into the present through the resurrection of Jesus and now the people of his kingdom. On the day of Christ God’s reign over the earth will be consummated. What Jesus began God will complete. The church is here to bear witness to God having reclaimed his throne over the earth, and all that is in it. Hence we defend his reign and confirm his reign. We are the sign-post to the world of the future reality here in the present as we await God to complete his redemptive work.

Thirdly, the church is divinely energized and empowered. As Paul says in 1:6, “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Again Paul says in 1:11, [We have been] filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.” God is working through his kingdom-people to bring about the work of the kingdom. He began the work in Jesus and carries it forward through his people. And in each Christian, God works to bring about the work of the kingdom in a way that is unique to each person. Thus he paints a beautiful picture of the coming world that is fully redeemed and under God’s wise sovereignty. Thus we work to show the reign of God through Jesus in our own lives as individuals, but also as the collective colony established by the Messiah to declare to the world that he is Lord. Through us God shows what the world will look like under his wise reign–a world without sin in all of its manifestations. This has implications both politically and socially and economically as well as on the personal level of behavior and person-to-person interaction.

Fourthly, to be the kingdom people who declare to the world that God is now King and Jesus is Lord, and the world should look like with God as King, it requires us to be active in love. Paul prays for us to love (1:9). But that love needs to be “abound[ing] more and more in knowledge and depth of insight [αἴσθησις, judgment].” Our love must be an informed love that is able to discern and judge. And because it is full of knowledge and and correct judgments, love is able to examine and discern what is best (διαφέρω, be of more value), making us pure and blameless when Christ comes to consummate his kingdom work (1:10). The kingdom people declare God’s wise rule through loving this world in a wise and discerning way. The kingdom is shown to the world by the people of God loving the evil world it inhabits. The work that God has begun and will complete in the believer is the work of love.

Which brings to this conclusion, love grounds all things for the Christian and God’s church. It grounds our knowing. It grounds our relationships. It grounds our deeds. But the question that I am left wrestling with is how to articulate such a worldview. Love must be abounding in knowledge. What implications does this have on a person’s epistemology, a person’s way of knowing the world around them? How does one “know” through love? It moves beyond modernity and even post-modernity. But exactly how it does so I cannot figure out. It impacts our political decisions. We vote for which law and which candidates through the lens of love, as it is love which declares the wise sovereignty of God. Which laws and lawmakers run on a platform that will show God’s love for the world to the world? I’m not talking about some law that will create a “Christian nation” but laws to establish the world that reflects God’s reign over the earth. It’s tricky and it requires Christians to be informed and wise to approve what is best, as Paul says. But we seek to know through love how to vote, how to spend one’s wages and earnings and income.

It’s a concept that I have only began to think through and it’s one that I think the church needs to begin to reflect on and develop. We need to understand that our mission can only be accomplished through love. And to do that, to love in such a way that we discern what’s best and therefore be pure and blameless, we must rethink our entire worldview through the lens of love–shown must vividly and completely through the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. God’s love declares boldly God is King and Jesus is Lord. Let us learn how to reorganize our entire existence through the framework and worldview of God’s love.

So I want to start out with some background on the city. The city was established by Philip II of Macedon to take possession of neighboring gold mines as well as establish a garrison on the strategic route between Amphipolis and Neapolis. The city remained autonomous until Philip V of the Antigonid Dynasty brought it fully into the Macedonian kingdom. The Romans defeated the Antigonids in 167 BCE and moved the political power to another city. The city disappears from the record until 42 BC when Marc Antony and Octavian pursued Julius Caesar’s murderers to a plain west of the city and defeated them. Soldiers from one of Octavian’s legions were settled here to colonize Philippi. In 30 CE Octavian became emperor of Rome and settled more soldiers there, possibly members of the elite Praetorian Guard. The idea of the settling soldiers there was to remind the people of the area that Rome owned the land. The presence of the colony was to wave the flag of Rome over the surrounding territory.

And it’s this narrative of Roman colonization that intrigues me as I read Paul’s letter. It’s my conviction that this is a primary narrative through which one is to understand the church and her mission. The church is to wave the banner of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, is the Lord of the world. Just like the presence of Roman soldiers in the colony of Philippi was to remind the region under its authority that Rome was here and ruled over them. It reminded the people that Caesar is lord. I see the church as the same, the church is here to remind the world that Jesus is Lord, not Caesar in his various incarnations today, and he rules over them.

This narrative makes the most sense of the letter to me and I’ll hit on them as I go through the letter. In short, Paul says in Philippians 1 we are to advance the gospel–the message that the risen Jesus is Lord–even chains. Modeling Christ to the world, shining his light (Philippians 2), shows the world how their Lord expect them live. Our citizenship belongs to Messiah’s kingdom, not Caesars (Philippians 3). But I’ll get more into it when I get the specific texts.

It is my sincere prayer that those who read this will be blessed as they journey with me through this letter and learn how to live as proper citizens in Christ’s kingdom.

The title of this post sounds like it’s going to be an exposition of 2 Peter 1:10 (NIV) where Peter says, “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble.” But it’s not. Not exactly, anyways. It is about election and the foundations for approaching the massive terms of “calling” and “election.” They are a major source of controversy for the last 500+ years of church history. The Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate is a fierce one and I don’t pretend to provide the solution to end the debate. What I want to do is provide some things that have come into my mind as I ponder my Calvinism–a belief system I’ve made no attempts to hide.

What has recently come to my mind attention is where to root the terms. And I’m talking about some place other than Scripture. But how to place the term within Scripture. There’s a presupposition in play that I was never aware of having before. But now that my reading of Scripture has changed, it’s not a text that provides systematic theology and the resulting ethics of that system of theology but a narrative that tells God’s story of creation and redemption in Christ, my presuppositions have changed.

The presupposition in question is this. Before I started to delve into N. T. Wright, I was assuming abstract definitions of “calling” and “election.” I presupposed Paul was using these terms in abstract ways, divorced from playing a role in history. God chose, for himself for his own glorious reasons, a people to save from sin and death. I believed Scripture presented an abstract system of salvation and ethics.

But reading Wright has forced me to come to terms with the notion of “vocation.” When God chose Abraham and called him, it was within the context of giving him a vocation. When Abraham’s calling and election was past on to his family, and the nation created with that family, it was a calling and election to the same vocation. To Abraham, the vocation was to bring God’s blessing to the families of the world through Abraham’s family. To Abraham it was to be royal priests. Royal in that they declared the sovereign reign of the Creator to the world and order the world according to his wise rule. Priests in that Israel was to gather before God all the praise and worship of the creation. In short the vocation was to restore the creation to the goal that God had given it in creating it.

Israel’s vocation had a goal. It was a God-centered goal for creation. If one were to ask why did God choose Israel? It was to be the vessel through which God reconciled creation to himself and restored creation to his purpose for it. That was Israel’s vocation to which she was chosen and called within history. It was that calling and election to which Jesus took up as Israel’s Messiah and brought to a climax.

When the Calvinist, and the Remonstrant Arminian as well, asks the question of why did God choose Israel? The answer is always framed in terms of merit and earning God’s choice. The Calvinist will say God did not choose Israel for something within her or because of some action. The Arminian will say that it is because she responded to God’s grace with faith. But the goal of God’s choice of Israel was what, in those systems? What was he hoping to accomplish in his choice? The Calvinist will say to save a people for himself to be the people from which Jesus comes to save us from our sins via penal substitution and imputation and bring us into a far away heavenly existence in the presence of God. God’s purpose in election is to save me.

And this forces me to realize that in going in the abstract route, I’m unconsciously making God’s actions about saving me. He chose me, he irresistibly called me, he justified me, he glorified me. When we read Ephesians 1 and Paul’s use of election there, holiness and blamelessness is not Israel’s task but to personal salvation, positional holiness and blamelessness, and the resulting ethics, living out holiness and blamelessness. Being predestined to adoption of sonship, it’s not about summing all things up in Jesus Messiah and uniting heaven and earth in a new creation; it’s not about fulfilling the royal priesthood. It’s about going to heaven, an otherworldly existence. Same with the Calvinistic reading of Romans 8:29-30. It’s not about carrying forward Israel’s vocation in God’s cosmic scope and plan of reconciliation and restoration.

But in focusing on God’s goal in choosing Israel in the Old Testament, Jesus taking up the Messianic task of bringing Israel’s history (indeed all of human history) to its climax, and the reconstituting Israel as the kingdom-people/church, leaves behind the questions of merit. No God did not choose Abraham for something within the patriarchal figure, either his character or birthright or deeds or faith. Yes the Reformers were right to challenge the Pelagian and semi-Pelagian ways of the Roman Catholic Church. But the Reformation failed to ask why did God choose Israel? What did God seek to accomplish in this choice? What was his purpose and goal? It still stood in the human-oriented, merit theology of its day.

I am grateful for the Reformation. The Reformers were right to seek reformation for the Christian church. However, the Reformation could not break free from the worldview of merit theology–as I am trying to break free of my own worldview that is reactionary to both the Enlightenment and postmodernism. I’m realy trying to come to terms again with election and calling, rooting it in Israel’s history recorded on the pages of Scripture. Understanding Scripture as the grand narrative it truly is, I am being forced to rework all of my theology. I thought I was done with this when I became a Calvinist.

Now on to the post.

I live with two political enthusiasts. One was a former political science major before he switched to apologetics. So as one can imagine, there are many a political discussion had around my apartment. Normal I land on the liberal side more than conservative, meaning I’m not afraid of the government taking an active role to care for the poor in programs like welfare and Medicare. I’m okay with that. I’m okay with raising taxes, especially on the upper class and wealthy to offset our increasing debt and to fund some of these programs. I’m against the war in Libya and want to withdraw from Afghanistan as soon as possible. I’m against abortion and I’m against the death penalty. You get the picture.

Recently, I’ve began to question the whole spectrum from which we derive our political theories and agendas. And the questioning comes from reworking my whole worldview from a Christian worldview. I’m not talking about verse X says I’m to be a Republican or a Democrat. Verse Y says I’m to be liberal and progressive instead of conservative. I mean reading the narrative Scripture, seeing where the Christian narrative began and where it is going, arriving at a worldview that moves the story God is telling in Christ Jesus forward.

And this brings me to Romans 13:1-7 (NIV),

1 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

My roommates seem to delve into an Enlightenment view of church and religion. Christianity is one valid religion to pick from of all out there. But it belongs with religion. Leave it out of politics, economics, science. The Bible gives us our doctrines and our ethics. Political theory comes elsewhere, namely “reason” and “progress.” Now let me say I understand where this “keep the church out of government and keep government out of church” mentality comes from. The church was very abusive of its relationship in the Middle Ages. But I’m having a hard time buying into this dichotomy.

I don’t think the Bible tells us what form of government we should utilize to govern ourselves. But it does tell us the relationship that government has to God and how those who are put in the place of ruler and governing authority should govern and rule. And that relationship, I think given to us here (among other places), is one of God’s servant.

Romans 13:1 (ESV) says that there is only God and his authority. He is the only one who possess true governing authority. Jesus died to demonstrate that God is on the throne, not Caesar. Any government that exists here on earth has been established by God and exercise his authority.

Furthermore, Paul uses two terms to identify governing authorities and rulers, like Caesar. The first is that of διάκονος (diakonos). It’s the term used to identify the office of deacon. Paul calls government God’s deacon. The other term is λειτουργός (leitourgos). It’s a term that means “minister.” In the LXX, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, it was used in reference to personal servants of kings and high ranking officials/persons. In other places in the LXX it is used in reference to people who work in the Temple, like priests and others. Paul uses it in Romans 15:15-16 (NIV) like this, “15 Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me 16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” The term “minister” is λειτουργός (leitourgos). The phrase, “He gave me the priestly duty” is the participle ἱερουργοῦντα (hierourgounta) saying that Paul being a “minister” is a “priestly duty.”

What do I make of this? The government, in whatever form, is to be God’s servant, his minister in priestly duty. And by that I mean government is to serve God and to actively participate in his new creation project began in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Thus there is to be a relationship between the church and state. Not the same relationship of the Middle Ages, where the church controlled the state. But one where the church informs the state of its task so that the state can carry it out. If the church is God’s voice, the state or governing authorities are his arm. Its legislation helps to create the new world that God will bring about in the Day of Christ. It is to exercise God’s authority in the world in a way that reflects the goodness and justice and love God. It creates and maintains this justice.

And thus the question one should ask when voting for candidates for the various offices and on the various issues. What vote enables the government to create God’s new creation here on earth. Who will seek to establish God’s justice here on earth. Who will participate in answering the prayer of Jesus, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”?

As a Christian, I would decry such a view in theory but never in practice. I find myself wanting to talk about “spiritual” matters, issues of “holiness,” and focus on “discipleship” as an individual. But when it came time to participate in the political discussion, on in the issues of homosexuality and abortion did I really ever muster my Christian worldview–and I have to say that was because I was playing follow the leader to those Christian teachers who said these things are wrong.

I would profess that Jesus was King of the universe. But what was Jesus King over in the universe? As I was taught, he was king over my “heart.” He was king in a providential way, guiding history the way he wanted it guided, upholding the laws of the universe to keep it from spiraling apart and everything is destroyed. Jesus kingship was to forgive sins and save people from hell. Christianity was a religion.

To justify this worldview, I would go read the Scriptures. But when the text would accuse Israel of idolatry by seeking salvation from Assyria or Babylon by turning to Egypt, I would take those symbols and turn them into metaphors for personal sins and idols. Now don’t get me wrong, that reading is valid when applying the text to an individual’s situation.

But I have realized that I missed out on the political implications. As I have stated elsewhere, recently I have seen that texts like Mark 10:35-45 aren’t focusing on the debates on atonement theology. Atonement is most definitely there but it is located inside a politically charged statement. In that text Jesus’ atonement is set as the model for exercising governing authority.

I truly believe that the Bible, God’s word, is the place to think about how to do government. In upcoming posts I want to explore, think out loud really, how to do government from. A decidedly Christian point of view. I seriously question much of the political divide in terms of the various ideologies at play in my political setting.

I’m not going to be call so much for a restructuring of the government, like abandoning the representative republic model the US follows. But how Christians should approach this governing body

There is one section in this paper that really caught my attention as a conservative evangelical Christian. Wright observes,

And then they turn the screw: If you let this man go you are not Caesar’s friend. Have you ever felt that argument in 21st-century America or Europe? I have: If you do this, the empire’s not going to like you. And that’s the point at which this great Jewish leadership says, “We have no king but Caesar.” Devastating denial of two-thirds of the Old Testament. You find the same scene — just leave John 18 and 19 for a moment and come to Mark 10. Mark 10, with James and John meeting Jesus, or coming up to Jesus as they’re going up to Jerusalem, Mark 10, verse 35 and following. And they know that Jesus is coming to Jerusalem to become king. And so naturally they want to be sitting at his right hand and at his left. And Jesus says, listen, you don’t know what you’re talking about, actually. And they didn’t, of course, because those who end up at Jesus’ right and his left when he comes in his kingdom in Mark and Matthew and Luke are the two who are crucified alongside him.

But he then says, “Listen, the kings and rulers of the earth lord it over their subjects and exercise a tyrannous authority over them. But it must not be so among you, because anyone who wants to be great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be king must be the slave of all, because the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” And you know we New Testament scholars and teachers, and you preachers, we have all often taken Mark 10, verse 45 and said, “There is our atonement theology — Daniel 7 plus Isaiah 53 equals Mark 10:45; “The Son of Man, who is the servant, who gives his life as a ransom for many.” And we wave it around: “Here is a nice bit of atonement theology.” And we fail to see that that atonement theology is the sharp edge of Mark’s political theology. It is the redefinition of power. It’s the reason why, though the rulers of this world do it one way, you’re going to do it a different way. And Jesus is leading the way in that redefinition of power, all the way to the cross, exactly the same point as the “What is truth?” question in John 18 and 19. You get the atonement theology — boy do you ever — but you get it inside that political theology. And I’ve sometimes said that, and people have said, “Surely this is all about Christ dying for me.” Absolutely, right on, but you get that inside; again, it’s like a Russian doll. You get this Kingdom of God theology, which is a redefinition of what power is all about; inside that you get the meaning of the cross, the full atonement theology; and inside that there is room for every man, woman, and child in the world to find that Christ died for their sins according to the Scriptures. Let’s have the holistic biblical theology.

As I read those two paragraphs I was stunned. Too often Mark 10:45 gets swallowed up in atonement debates between the various schools of thought (Penal Substitution, Christus Victor, Moral Example, Governmental, etc.). Before I get too far into this, let me be clear. When Jesus says, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many,” the “giving his life” is atonement. I’m not denying the use of the verse for debating the atonement, and neither does Wright.

But I do think conservative evangelicals have really missed out on what Jesus was doing in Mark 10:35-45, at least in my experience. Jesus, and thus Mark as well, is not debating the nature of atonement. Mark 10:45 must be read in the light of 10:42-44,

“You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.”

The subject is the exorcise of power within the kingdom versus that of the Gentiles. Jesus is playing a different sort of game than James and John, who ask to sit at Jesus’ right and left hands in the kingdom.

The kingdom that Jesus heralded did not operate the same way Rome did, or the empires before and after her. The King of this kingdom was to be crowned and enthroned by way of the cross and in the vindicating power of God in resurrection. This is to be our King:

I feel like this redefinition of power that Jesus preached in the kingdom, transforming the image of a cross from one of failed insurrection to that of God’s kingdom successfully inaugurated (cf. Mark 8:34-38), isn’t put in its proper place. It gets passed over by preaching on the need to have sins forgiven to avoid going to hell. It gets pushed to the side by the need to preach a moral sanctification.

Again, we need to preach to Christians the need to live out the moral standards that the New Testament has laid down. But it’s about more than that. It’s about a new way of doing things. As Wright would say, a new way of being human. To the sight of the beaten and flogged Jesus presented to the Jewish mob in John 19:5 we read, “So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, ‘Behold the man!’” John shows us the new way of being human, the new way Jesus uses power. He is the true King, only mocked as a failed insurrectionist. He is the true Human. That is the way not of just “Christian discipleship,” it’s the way of the kingdom of God, the new creation.

Now all of this my sound like preaching to the choir, even to my fellow conservative evangelicals. But really think about this. Wright uses the issue of voting and government, so let us continue in that vein. To my fellow conservative evangelicals, when you vote, how often do you side with the political right (aka the Republican Party) and play that power game? We have to be wholly Republican because of the issues of homosexuality, abortion, and marriage. But when one looks at the New Testament and at Jesus, there is a lot there about giving to the poor and “social justice.” Yet you find yourself voting against social justice because it’s liberal.

The government provides a real way to reach out and help the poor but because we have sold out to conservative politics and small government — a government that God has ordained — we vote down bills and representatives who will care for the poor and the orphans and the widows (cf. James 1:27; Galatians 2:9-10). We have power to help the poor, but we don’t use it because we have bought into theories of government not found in the kingdom of God.

All this to say that evangelism is, in a large measure, telling people that the narratives and lenses they use to view the world are wrong. It is the narrative of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (cf. Mark 1:14-15; Romans 1:2-4; 1Corinthians 15:1-4) that they must adopt. Paul makes that clear in Acts 13:13-51 and Acts 17:22-33. But then we must also live out that narrative–in part to show the world that the narrative is supremely more desirable than that of the world–to bring about God’s wise, healing reign.

The kingdom message transcends the “Me and My Sin” narrative that conservative evangelicals have locked in on. In Mark 10 Jesus was questioning not how religion was being done but how politicians were using power. And his reordering was centered around Jesus own death. Politics are done differently under God’s rulership. The traditional political spectrum is subverted by the enthronement of God in the Messiah.

Atonement and forgiveness is there, those who submit to the reign of God are forgiven from their sins. But we are about doing things, living life, differently. The old creation and way of living has passed away and the new way, the way of the Son of Man who became the Suffering Servant and was vindicated by God (note that Jesus combines the narratives of Daniel 7 and Isaiah 53 in Mark 10:45), has come. The Jesus presented by John in John 19:5 is the genuine human standing in Rome’s court charged with the political charge of being king rising up in opposition to Caesar.

It’s time to cast aside these narratives outside the realm of religion and embrace the full narrative the God’s reign through his Messiah. We must not only do religion differently, but politics and the various art forms, philosophy, all of life. As Wright said, we need the holistic message of the kingdom, not the modernist’s reductionism of “Me and My Sin” or the postmodernist’s reductionism “Authentic Spiritual Experience.”

PS: This ended up in a different place from where I started. Sorry.