Why Being a Follower of Jesus is not Enough

I’m fascinated by the amount of posts I read by people calling themselves followers of Jesus. As I scan through various blogs from all corners of the Christian tradition I’m increasingly finding people wanting to attribute such a title to themselves. It has a nice ring to it – ‘Follower of Jesus’ in fact I described myself the exact same way when I filled in the ‘religion’ category on my Facebook profile. Are you a Christian? No, I’m a follower of Jesus – it sounds awfully ecumenical, tolerant and free from so many tags and labels that so many of us as younger evangelicals wish to be rid of. Yet in many circles it seems to be taking on a life of its own – a life that may, in reality, be pointing away from the Jesus it claims allegiance too.

When I probe behind the phrase on so many blogs (yes I know I’m being mystical about which specific blogs and posts I’m referring to but I’d rather keep it that way because it has been a general impression of a number of blogs rather than one aimed at a specific post or blog) I discover something that is rather disturbing. It is disturbing by its omissions rather than by what it affirms. Usually these posts speak about Christ’s calls to uplift the poor, look after the marginalized, love one’s enemies, turn the other cheek etc. etc. And at this point I’m loving it and rejoicing in the supreme moral vision of our Lord Jesus that extends to so many of our current issues in this broken world. It’s affirmation and cheering on all the way from my point of view and one finishes such a post feeling convicted to go out into the world and tackle contemporary issues as a follower of Jesus. But step back and take a closer look – what’s missing? When I step back what I don’t often see is a cross, I don’t see nail pierced hands, I don’t see a thorn scraped brow. Ultimately I don’t see the glorious substitution of Christ in my place whereby I can truly call myself a follower of Jesus – because he has purchased me with his very own blood. Rather I see an ethical Jesus, a Jesus who knows right from wrong but has no way to deal with a problem that stretches so much deeper than right or wrong behaviour. I see a moral first century Rabbi inspiring people to be more moral – and it’s deeply disturbing.

A Jesus without a cross is a Jesus that will not transform or cause anyone to benefit from his amazing moral vision. My deepest fear is that people who pursue this type of Jesus will be found one day to not be a follower of Jesus at all – and that would be tragic.

Is it Immoral?

Jenny has an extremely intriguing post. Can you outlaw the act of incest from the Bible without using the Mosaic Law? At the moment I don’t have an answer for Jenny (now does that mean my view on the role of the OT law is wrong? Or is it my view on incest? Or something else?) – think carefully about it before you rush to the Garden of Eden or even Paul’s writings…

My Kingdom Summary…in Luke

Here’s how I concluded my marathon paper entitled, ‘What is the Kingdom of God in Luke’s Gospel?‘:

On one level it is easy to see why this particular subject has generated so much debate and caused scholars to often have little in the way of consensus over some of the issues relating to the kingdom of God. In many ways it is difficult to give a definitive answer to the question posed at the beginning, even when limiting oneself to the kingdom as it appears in Luke’s gospel. However upon a careful reading of the text one can begin to put parameters in place and through these parameters begin to draw the outline of this dynamic kingdom of God. In closing then it would be helpful for us to briefly re-sketch our outline of the kingdom.

Luke paints for us the picture of a kingdom that is built, in part, upon the Old Testament and, to an even more limited degree, Jewish expectation of a liberating messiah who would establish a new age. He places Jesus at the center of his narrative as that liberator, but his act of liberation and restoration far surpasses any previous expectation. For Luke Jesus comes proclaiming a kingdom the purpose of which is to bring restoration to poor and beggarly Israel. Luke’s kingdom however is not limited to Israel but extends beyond to allow for people from the north, south, east and west to enter in. It is a restoration that doesn’t merely overturn the exile but goes to work on the many damaging effects of the fall. It is a kingdom that was present in the ministry of Jesus and that since the cross has been in effect, to some degree, and will continue until Christ returns and consummates the kingdom by complete restoration.

As Christians today we live in the middle of that timing process and as we do we would do well to heed the words of New Testament scholar, Craig L. Blomberg,

‘Understanding this combination of future and present elements of the kingdom gives us both hope and a certain realism about the Christian life and task. On the one hand, we dare not underestimate how much we can accomplish for God when yielded to his Spirit. He wants to create an outpost or colony of heaven – of the world to come – in our lives individually and corporately now in this age. Thus we become the salt of the earth and light of the world. On the other hand, we dare not underestimate the strength of the opposition. We will not Christianize the earth or establish God’s righteousness in any wholesale way in this life; that remains for Jesus himself to do after his return.’ (Jesus and the Gospels: 1997: 286)

Thoughts? Comments?

Complete the Sentence: Universalism

A number of emails have been coming to me from Andre Walters concerning the issue of universal spirituality. Andre has a fairly universal perspective on spirituality and morality, and whilst he does maintain that Jesus is his ultimate exemplar, he does find God present ‘everywhere equally’. In dialogue with him I framed the reason why I do not hold such a universalist approach. My reason is simply that my understanding of spirituality and morality is centered upon the person and work (culminating in the Cross) of Jesus Christ and him alone. Now I have not as yet had a chance to respond to him and give a more meaty reasoning behind those convictions, but I’ve noticed that Andre has taken an interest in the whole subject and so I thought I’d help him out.

Andre seems to be interested in how to relate issues of tolerance and acceptance with the exclusive nature of historic evangelicalism. Now opening a post to discussing these issues can end in a stream of essays from people explaining their points of view. So instead I have a plan to summarize the whole process. You may only post a comment on this post if you first complete the following sentence: I am not a universalist because… or alternatively: I am a universalist because…

Please keep your comments short – essays will be deleted! I’ll start:

I am not a universalist because I don’t think Jesus was a universalist.

Up and Running

I’ve sorted out my laptop woes and the power is back. So blogging should resume as normal. At the moment though I’ve got ethics oozing out of my ears – this is a guaranteed headache course. Haven’t had time to read much of the blogsphere in the last week so I’m a bit behind. Please can I remind anyone that’s interested in signing up for an email subscription to ‘The Gospel Conversation‘ to sign up here. If you know of people who are interested in ministry in South Africa then please put them onto the Gospel Conversation. Anyway, enough for now – need to go and sleep so I can take in the concept of ‘just war’ in ethics tomorrow. Later…

Hill on the Law

Obviously when doing ethics one’s view of the relationship between the Mosaic law and the New Testament believer. Which ever view you take it will impact upon your ultimate ethic for the Christian today. Now as one who’s not to keen on the whole tripartite division of the law of moral/civil/ceremonial (mainly because I think its an imposed framework that Calvin borrowed from Aquinas and not from reading his Old Testament), I found Michael Hill’s brief comments extremely helpful. Speaking about the stage of redemptive history containing Israel and their law he says the following:

“The significance of this stage in salvation history for ethics is often over emphasized. The Law of Moses does not provide a complete and binding guide to Christian morality. On the other hand it should not be dismissed as irrelevant. The basic shape of God’s rule, and God’s just order established at creation, is confirmed and further delineated in the Law. Yet it is delineated in positive and negative ways. For example the people of Israel are told not to commit adultery, a negative command.

Nevertheless the Law gives us, as Christians, a glimpse of God’s just order. Aspects of the configuration of his good order are revealed. There is good reason for the negative aspects being included. The revelation comes to people who have rebellious hearts. Even though God has called them and dealt graciously with them they are still, as Paul puts it, slaves to sin. The negative aspects address this rebelliousness. The negative pattern is exposed in the Ten Commandments. Only three of the commandments are stated in positive terms. The rest are asserted negatively. The sevenfold repetition of ‘do not’ presupposes a spirit of rebellion and disobedience.

While Christians are not under the package called the Law, the moral elements in the Law are part of a continuum that gives shape to an ideal. This continuum reaches from creation to Christ. Many people like to divide the regulations and laws that give shape to God’s covenant with Israel into moral, cultic and civil elements. In this way it is hoped that the cultic and civil elements can be jettisoned with the coming of the New Covenant in Christ, and the moral component retained. However the Bible itself does not operate in this way. The Old Covenant is seen as a discrete unified package with a number of aspects, not parts. These various aspects cannot be unravelled and treated as parts. Moreover the Old Covenant and its Law is seen as a shadow of the reality to come in Christ. The partial gives way to the complete. This is true of the cultic and civil aspects as well as the moral.” (The How and Why of Love, p.74)

To Do or Not to Do

Today I started a two week intensive course on Christian ethics. The whole subject seems like something of a minefield to me – there are so many ifs and buts – makes the whole process of figuring out what the right thing to do is very complicated. Our main text book is Michael Hill’s The How and Why of Love which is a biblical theological approach to Christian ethics – coming from a teleological angle.

After one day of lectures, and an introduction to the subject I was quite fascinated by how much of an impact the whole discipline of hermeneutics makes on ethics. And this is even evident within conservative evangelical circles. Whether you’re a dispensationalist, a covenant theologian or a new covenant theologian will make quite a big impact on your ethics. So although I haven’t got into it yet I’m glad our textbook is by a guy who thinks the Bible is a story of redemption and not a systematics textbook.

The class is going to be given case studies to be taken home and worked on each night – I’ll let you in on some of them and you can see what you think.