PARADISE REGAINED - III

THE PLACE OF COMMUNITY

Thinking about how we can participate in the benefits of Christ’s redemption must begin with thinking about the matter of community. That is difficult for present day Americans, because our society has become so pervasively individualistic. Since at least as long ago as the 18th century, Americans have increasingly ordered their personal lives by a belief in the autonomous human personality. The trend has been powerfully accentuated by twentieth century psychology with its emphasis on self-fulfillment. Bellah et al, in "Habits of the Heart", express it in this way: "Americans understanding of the autonomy of the self-definitions on one’s own individual choice. For some Americans. . . tradition and a tradition-bearing community still exist. But the notion that one discovers one’s deepest beliefs in and through, tradition and community is not very congenial to Americans. Most of us imagine an autonomous self existing independently, entirely outside any tradition and community, and hen perhaps choosing one." (p. 65)
In modern times the two poles which have governed human thinking and so influenced the development of culture have been (1) the autonomous human personality and (2) the scientific method. These two are mutually repulsive in the same way that like poles of two magnets are. One cannot be a true believer in the autonomous human personality and still believe in the final dominance of the scientific method, for the scientific method, if followed to its logical conclusion, regards humans as merely high-class animals and so destroys any autonomy they might claim. The tension between these two poles of though is a sign of God’s judgement, just as the confusion of languages was at the tower of Babel. It is also the most fundamental explanation for the violence and hopelessness that have come to characterize modern culture.
By contrast, the worldview that pervades the Bible is one of creation, fall and redemption through Jesus Christ in the communion of the Holy Spirit. Humans were created (and continue to be created) in the image of God. The covenant was broken when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, but the covenant or community principle was not thereby altered. It is still true that we cannot be all we were meant to be outside a covenant in relation to Him. Calvin understood this form of the Bible and expressed it in the first two sentences of The Institutes: "True and substantial wisdom principally consists of two parts, the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves. But while these two branches of knowledge are so intimately connected, which of them precedes and produces the other, is not easy to discover." In other words, we cannot really know who we are unless we know God, and the better we know God, the better we will know ourselves. This is a far cry from the autonomous individuality that Bellah et al says is the primary characteristic of modern Americans.
The covenant or community principle is inescapable in the Bible. The original covenant, broken by our first parents in the Garden, was renewed after the flood with Noah, his family and the entire creation (Genesis 9:9-10). Then in Genesis 12 God established a covenant with Abraham. From that point through the entire Old Testament, we have the story of the covenant people who were the descendants of Abraham. However, the people did not live up to the terms of that covenant, and a new and better covenant was promised in the darkest days of their captivity in Babylon. That covenant was established with the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ, on behalf of all those who would come to God through him, and it was sealed with his blood.
It is not surprising, then, that when the New Testament describes the way in which individual humans can enjoy the benefits of Christ’s work on their behalf, it does so in terms of entering into a community relation with Him. Let us notice how the Bible talks about enjoying the blessings of the "Good News."

SOME IMPORTANT SCRIPTURE

John 1:12 puts the matter in very simple terms "But as many received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name." Our interpretation of this verse is often colored by modern scientific understanding of what is involved in believing. Belief is taken to mean mental assent on the basis of irrefutable empirical evidence. This is a devastating reduction of the meaning of receiving Christ. The verse does not say that we are to accept as valid (even though they cannot be empirically validated at this point in history) certain propositions about Christ. It speaks of receiving Him. When a woman receives a bridegroom as her husband, she does much more that accept certain legal facts about their new relationship. She enters into a communion or community with him. So it is with receiving Christ. When we receive Christ, we are empowered to become children of God because He is the Son of God. Our sonship is established by His. We enter into something which He, acting on our behalf, has purchased for us. We are identified in the eyes of God with Him, and we enjoy the forgiveness of sins and the new life that He made possible by His life, death and resurrection. John 1:12 does not speak of receiving salvation, or receiving certain information about Christ (though that is involved), but of receiving Him. A very personal relationship is involved.
Matthew 11:28-30 throws a helpful light on what is involved in receiving Christ. "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Here the new relationship is prefigured under the image of the domesticated ox teaching a young ox how to work. Christ is the old ox; each of us is the young one. We become harnessed alongside Him to learn how to do the work we are called to. He teaches us to recognize and respond to the commands of the Master. Step by step, lesson by lesson, Christ introduces us to a new life of service.
That wasn’t what we thought we were getting into was it? We thought that Christ was freeing us from the condemnation of our sins and that now we were set loose to do whatever we would like to do. But that isn’t the way life works. As Bob Goudzwaard pointed out in Aid for the Overdeveloped West (now out of print), a basic Biblical rule is that all people serve god(s) in their lives. The freedom we think we have is not absolute, but a contingent freedom. Only God has absolute freedom, for only He is the true God Human freedom always has boundaries to it. If we serve God, the boundaries are the law of love, love to God first and to the neighbor second. As the banks of the stream enable it to move swiftly toward its destination, or the rails of a railroad permit a heavy train to move smoothly towards the next station, so Christ’s yoke sets us free to become all God means us to be. If, however, we serve idols, then we are involved in the most frustrating of all services, the end of which is death. But there is no other way for a human to live. We spend our lives in the service of some god or gods. If we are not yoked to Christ, we serve some idol. The alcoholic thinks that liquor will provide him with freedom. Instead, it introduces him very quickly into an addiction from which he is powerless to free himself. And addiction is not limited to alcohol or drugs. There are endless addictions, none of which can ever provide true freedom. To be yoked to Christ is the only true path to liberty.
It is worth noting that the implications of the yoked oxen figure. To come into a personal relationship with Christ does not promise idleness. It leads to service, He lived a life of service, and we follow in His steps. We do so in harness with Him. We follow in His footsteps. He shows us how to go and ultimately brings us into the Father’s House forever.
Revelation 3:17-20 emphasizes in another way the message that receiving good news involves a close personal intimacy with Christ. "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art the wretched one and miserable and poor and blind and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold refined by fire, that thou mayest become rich; and white garments that thou mayest clothe thyself, and that the shame of thy nakedness be not made manifest; and eyesalve to anoint thine eyes, that you mayest see. As many as I love, I reprove and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."
The fire in which Christ’s gold was refined was his cross. The white garments he offers were fashioned by him in his life on earth. They are thus human garments tailored to cover our shameful nakedness. The eyesalve he offers enables us to see the world as it really is and can be, in its lostness and in the restored vision of a Christian view of all things. These deeply needed blessings are promised to us if we hear his voice and open to him the door into a common meal. What else can that meal be but the communion of the Lord’s Table where we eat his flesh and drink his blood? Our only true hope is Christ in us, the hope of glory. And the ground of that hope lies in the intimacy of our new relation to Him.

Editor: Al Greene
Alta Vista College

Alta Vista
1719 NE 50th Street
Seattle, Washington 98105
Phone: (206) 524-2262
Fax: (206) 524-1837

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