Saturday 14 June 2008

Peace, perfect peace

In the latest edition of Leadership Journal, Tim Keller critiques the idea 'the simple gospel'. Can we still really speak of one simple gospel? And how do the individual and corporate/cosmic elements of the gospel interact?

Keller's emphasis is, I think, helpful and well worth reading and thinking upon. Too often I meet Christians who are under the impression that they have been saved, that the planet will one day be destroyed, and so in the meantime they just kind of whistle waiting for Jesus' return when they will 'go to heaven'. Their gospel is individualistic and merely spiritual. And, in response, many non-believers are unsatisfied with the mere ethereal spiritualisation that they perceive Christianity to be offering.

The Bible seems to pay much more attention to a wider 'peace' than we often do. It's true that the gospel brings our justification and peace with God (Romans 5:1). Wonderfully, we can now approach God as father rather than our enemy, truly reconciled as we are. But this is only the start of the 'peace' in Christ which the Bible writers seem to envisage. Individuals receive the wholeness that they were created for when they are brought back as creatures to the Creator. Not only this, but humanity is restored to be at peace with each other, reconciled as we to each other are through the cross. We have a taste of this now through the church (note the diversity in Acts 13:1 and the theology of Ephesians 2:11-22), and look forward to the fulfilment of this reconciliation in the new creation. The great crowd of Revelation 7 will not be split upon any social distinction, completely reconciled as we are through the cross.

I think there's a wider 'peace' still. The point of God's covenant with Noah in Genesis 8-9 seems to me to demonstrate that God's final will is for peace and harmony in an ideal new creation. Again, there's an eschatological dimension to this: it's Christ's victory on the cross dealing with human sin, the very thing which led to the corruption of the present creation, that gives us hope for its redemption (see Colossians 1:20 and so on), but implications of this future 'environmental shalom' seem to be almost entirely overlooked in most of our gospelling. Perhaps in guarding ourselves against falling into an over-realised eschatology, we miss presenting something of the gospel's fullness. Yet this fullness is something which many unbelievers crave.

As someone involved in regular evangelism, I've found presenting this technicolor gospel difficult. It's difficult to speak present the societal and environmental implications of the gospel evangelistically within their correct eschatological framework, and demonstrating them clearly through the lens of the cross. Keller's hints on preaching at the end of his article are helpful. Krish Kandiah's book Destiny is perhaps the most helpful evangelistic book I've found that links these themes together. Does anyone else have any other ideas?

3 comments:

Dave K said...

As someone involved in regular evangelism, I've found presenting this technicolor gospel difficult. It's difficult to speak present the societal and environmental implications of the gospel evangelistically within their correct eschatological framework, and demonstrating them clearly through the lens of the cross.

Difficult, very difficult. Challenging to me as I have agreed with the importance of the new creation for a while... but how has that affected my witness? Probably not very much.

I need to do more thinking about how I can celebrate that the gospel is bigger than us in witness.

However, is part of the problem the concerns of non-Christians? They generally do assume that Christianity does not have relevance outside of the private sphere/after life. Probably this is partly our fault. But recently I have been more mocked for believing in the resurrection of the body, than belief in the existence of the devil, the truthfulness of the gospels and any thoughts on people's eternal destinies.

Always looking for excuses :)

peterdray said...

However, is part of the problem the concerns of non-Christians? They generally do assume that Christianity does not have relevance outside of the private sphere/after life. Probably this is partly our fault. But recently I have been more mocked for believing in the resurrection of the body, than belief in the existence of the devil, the truthfulness of the gospels and any thoughts on people's eternal destinies.

Agreed. One of the times recently I've seen the eyes of a friend glaze over was when I was talking about our physical hope of resurrection. I think to many it all seems a bit science fictiony. I think that this is partly the fruit of the Enlightenment idea that 'physical' and 'material' can be split, but that this divide is underlined by many Christians.

I think that when, perhaps, Christian proclamation about the new creation is matched obviously in the way that we live then it would make much more sense.

Dave K said...

I think that when, perhaps, Christian proclamation about the new creation is matched obviously in the way that we live then it would make much more sense.

Well said.