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I.
September/October 2023 Vol. 32, No. 5
RETRIEVE 08 REFORMATION OUTTAKES | Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, Pericope, Covenant: Tales of Wolfgang Musculus| by Zachary Purvis
12 ESSAY | Are We There Yet?| by Michael Horton
II. CONVERSE 24 INTERVIEW | Resting in the Already as We Await the Not Yet | an interview with Phillip Cary
III.
PERSUADE 30 GLOBAL THEOLOGICAL FORUM
| The Supremacy of Christ and His Present Kingdom | by Aruthuckal Varughese John
38 ESSAY | Supremely Fitting: The Beauty of God in Redemption, Our Beauty in Sanctification
| by Jonathan King
IV.
ENGAGE
50 BIBLE STUDY | Something Beautiful: Grace
Bringing Blessing to and through Suffering
| by J. D. “Skip” Dusenbury
56 BOOK REVIEWS
On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living , by Alan Noble
| reviewed by Joey Jekel
Uncommon Unity: Wisdom for the Church in an Age of Division, by Richard Lints
| reviewed by Matt Boga
Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture, by Christopher Watkin
| reviewed by Stephen Roberts
Endsheet illustration by Raxenne Maniquiz
Since Modern Reformation appreciates a full theological conversation, we’d like to hear your thoughts about what you’re reading in the magazine. So please write to us at letters@modernreformation.org. Due to limited space, please keep your letter under 400 words (letters may be edited for length and clarity). Letters will be published two issues later. We look forward to hearing from you!
Reformation readers are familiar with the theological language of the “already” versus the “not yet.” When the authors of the Bible described salvation, they portrayed it as a foretaste of a redemption we will fully receive at the final judgment and consummation of all things. Ever since God promised that the Seed of the woman would crush the Serpent’s head to liberate humanity from bondage to sin and death (Gen. 3:15), God’s people have been saved through faith in Jesus. As written in Hebrews 11:13, everyone who has ever believed in Jesus the Seed has truly been saved. But before he came, they didn’t yet have the revealed fulfilment of the mystery; they “all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar.”
The resurrection of Jesus marked the inhistory and in-person arrival of the fulfilment of God’s promise to his people. His resurrection, however, also revealed something even more astonishing: the undying, embodied splendor that all who belong to him will enjoy upon his second arrival at the end of the age.
You might think that Jesus showing up to fulfill God’s promises and usher in the beginnings of glory would have diminished the tension of the already/not-yet situation. But if anything, present anticipation of the final fulfillment of redemption becomes even more pronounced in the New Testament. There, the authors recognized that Jesus is the world’s perfect, once-for-all sacrifi ce but that we still await all things being openly subjected to him as the world’s rightful king (and to us as coheirs of the kingdom with him, Heb. 2:7–9). They recognized Pentecost as the living power of the age to come poured out by the risen Jesus breaking into the present age, the day of salvation previewing the day of the Lord
prophesied by Joel (Acts 2:14–21, quoting Joel 2:32). When we believe the good news of Jesus, the same Spirit poured out at Pentecost becomes the living, powerful deposit within each of us guaranteeing our personal share in the riches of glory inherited by the saints (Eph. 1:14).
If you aren’t familiar with the language of the already and not yet, you’re certainly familiar with the reality of what this means as we live in this tension every day. In this time between Christ’s first and second comings, it’s easy to feel like we hear “Not yet!” from God a lot more than we hear “Already!” More spiritual hunger than satisfaction. More anticipation than experience.
While it’s true that the not-yet reality will be far better than we can imagine, this doesn’t mean that our Lord has left us with mere crumbs here and now. A foretaste would hardly be a foretaste if it wasn’t a small but genuine morsel of the true feast! Firstfruits aren’t the whole harvest, but they’re also not something else entirely. That’s why in this issue of Modern Reformation, we’re focusing on “The Already.”
In Jesus, we are already dead and raised. Every Lord’s Day, we enter into the heavenly throne room—and in the Supper, we taste the eternal feast. Throughout the week, we groan along with the rest of creation in anticipation of the revealing of the sons and daughters of God on the Last Day. We don’t need to downplay our future blessings in heaven in order to emphasize our current blessings in Christ. Indeed, they are one and the same—blessings to which we are now fully entitled and which we will then fully enjoy.
Brannon Ellis Executive Editor
THE FEEL OF
TO
. 1 Common dust and clay and grass accompanied many of his formative experiences like sod stuck to a child’s knee. In late 1527, he left the Benedictine monastery where he had spent his youth. From Lixheim, Alsace, above the northern foothills of the Vosges Mountains and the source of the Moselle River where Riesling grapes ripen, he moved southeast, carrying, besides a handful of coins, his own bed to spread on a patch of bare earth that had been smoothed and packed firm.2
When Musculus reached Strasbourg, he took up temporary residence in the house of Theobald Nigri, an evangelical preacher in the city. Musculus was gifted and eager to help the Reformation. For years, he had been reading Luther—that earthiest of Reformers—so much that his Benedictine brothers affectionately called him their “Lutheran monk.” In 1518, he had even openly received packets of Luther’s books at the monastery. But Musculus had neither university training nor as yet a firm grasp on Greek or Hebrew. Strasbourg already seemed packed with Catholics, evangelicals, and Anabaptists alike—and he also struggled with personal doubts, wondering whether he had abandoned the monastery’s solid ground only for God to abandon him.
After arriving in Strasbourg, Musculus married his former prior’s niece, who had traveled with him from Lixheim as his fiancée. Soon, she was pregnant and Musculus signed up for the only employment he could find: digging ditches. Strasbourg’s magistrates intended to strengthen the city fortifications and were actively recruiting men for the back-breaking toil of scraping, gouging, carrying dirt, and hauling building supplies. The night before his first day on the job, Musculus visited the excavation site. When he returned to the house of his landlord, Nigri, he was greeted with a note. Martin Bucer, the great Strasbourg Reformer, was beckoning him to the city cathedral—a structure that seemed to extend from terra firma into the clouds. There, Musculus met Bucer, who introduced him to the powerful burgher Jacob Sturm.
On Bucer and Sturm’s recommendation, Musculus received a temporary appointment as preacher to a rural parish church. Every Saturday for months, Musculus walked twelve miles to the village of Dorlitzheim, the dirt path dignified into a thoroughfare. He preached on Saturday evening, three times on Sunday, and returned to Strasbourg on Monday. It was not an easy call. Some
years before, a gardener from the city had come preaching the evangelical gospel to the congregation. When the gardener fixated on Jesus’ words in Matthew 15:13—“Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots”—the peasants hanged the town priest. Yet Musculus persisted. Perhaps it was still better than digging ditches.
In the city, Musculus’s situation began to improve. He moved in with Bucer and worked as his personal secretary. He studied Bucer’s prodigious writings and enjoyed access to his large library—mountains of material to fill gaps and repair divots in his theological learning. Before long, he found more co-laborers —Wolfgang Capito and Matthäus Zell—to aid in the church’s reform. For his efforts, Musculus reaped a great harvest. He soon surfaced as a leading Protestant Reformer in Augsburg, where he revised his biblical languages and added Arabic for good measure; he then served as professor of theology in Bern and as an influential ecclesiastical adviser.
Yet Musculus won greater praise for his work as a biblical exegete and theologian, tending the Bible’s own teeming acreage for cultivating doctrine and life. He published fruitful commentaries on Matthew (1544), John (1545), the Psalms (1550), the Decalogue (1553), Genesis (1554), Romans (1555), Isaiah (1557), 1 and 2 Corinthians (1559), Galatians and Ephesians (1561), and Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and 1 Timothy (1564)—the last of which he was at work on when he succumbed to fever and returned to dust a few days before his sixty-sixth birthday.3
Musculus’s books reveal how deeply Reformation Protestants engaged with the entire exegetical tradition: Irenaeus, Augustine, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Peter Lombard, Hugh of St. Cher, Thomas Aquinas, Nicholas of Lyra, Denis the Carthusian, Erasmus of Rotterdam, John Major, Philip Melanchthon, and countless more members of the church catholic who left rich, forested legacies from which to prune and cull. Throughout Europe, Musculus found a wide and receptive audience stretching from German East Frisia to Little Poland, from Francophone Neuchâtel to John Knox’s Scotland.4 John Calvin, in the preface to his own Psalms commentary, ranked Musculus with Bucer as the best Psalms interpreter of the era, who “by his diligence and industry has earned no small praise in the judgment of good men.”5
As a theologian, Musculus left a lasting imprint in his Loci communes sacrae theologiae ( Commonplaces of Sacred Theology ), a massive work of systematic theology first published in 1560, revised the next year, and soon translated into English and French. He wrote it over the course of a decade while honing his abilities as a biblical exegete. The authorities in Bern, where he then taught, commissioned the text to serve as a scholastic manual of theology—a handbook for students. Musculus purposefully adopted a pastoral and biblical-theological approach to this academic task.6 With pick and shovel, Musculus had attended carefully to pericopes concerning the Noahic and Abrahamic covenants in his commentary on Genesis, and now he shaped that exegetical yield into doctrine in his Loci communes.
What makes his Loci communes unique is that it was, among other things, the first Reformed system in which the “covenant” received its own distinct chapter.7 True, Musculus did not treat the covenant idea as an organizing principle for his theology or as the Scripture-generated architectonic structure of Reformed thought—as, for example, the Westminster divines later confessed in 1646. But Musculus did carve out a clear place for covenant as a particular, well-cultivated topic or doctrine within his system. He also used the doctrine as a kind of method for navigating the relations between various topics: Abraham, Moses, and Christ; the Old and New Testament; justice and grace; election and reprobation.8 Musculus conceived of two kinds of covenant, or what he called more precisely the “twofold covenant of God,” made up of “general” and “special” aspects. He described the general covenant as that which God “fixed with the entire fabric of the world, and all those who inhabit it, so beasts as well as men, also with day and night, winter and summer, cold and heat, planting and harvest, etc.” Musculus connected this general covenant with creation and with God’s preservation of the world after the flood. Because it involved the regular order of nature, it could be called “earthly and temporal.” 9
Next, Musculus explained the special covenant: While the general covenant of creation “does not continue beyond the state of this world which at last shall be destroyed,” the special covenant is “everlasting.” For, he argued, God has “condescended to ratify it with the elect and believers.” This covenant is special because it concerns “all the elect and believing in Christ . . . the true seed of Abraham and children of the promise.” Musculus referred to the new name given to Abraham in Genesis 17, as well as to Romans 9 and Galatians 3. He also pointed the reader back to “the beginning” of redemption—that is, when the first promise of salvation was given to Adam in Genesis 3:15. In this special covenant, God made the promise “I will be God to you and to your seed after you,” and so God committed himself not only as creator “but also as savior.” 10 Musculus moved from creation to redemption, from perpetual planting and harvest to the promise of the Seed.
Under Musculus, the twofold doctrine of the covenant began to sprout, even if his general covenant was not identical with the more fully developed doctrine of the covenant of works.11 Strikingly, though, Musculus also started to describe, if not fully expound, the law-gospel distinction within a covenantal framework as one of the topics that followed his presentation of covenant: “The law warns, urges, and curses; the gospel preaches grace and remission of sins to those who believe.” 12 In this regard, he sits among a range of formative theologians who provided essential mineral elements to the Reformed tradition, including Calvin, Heinrich Bullinger, Zacharias Ursinus, Caspar Olevianus, Andreas Hyperius, and Robert Rollock.13
Plenty of evidence suggests that Musculus amply contributed both to Reformation exegesis and to the development of covenant theology at a critical
juncture for Protestantism. He died in Bern in 1563, one year prior to Calvin in Geneva and one year after Peter Martyr Vermigli in Zurich. Thomas Cranmer long tried in vain to recruit Musculus to teaching posts in London, Canterbury, and Cambridge. Other invitations came from Augsburg, Strasbourg, Marburg, Neuberg an der Donau in Bavaria, and Poland. Yet when the University of Heidelberg offered Musculus a post in theology, he replied, haltingly humble and earthy to the end: “I am a man educated in a monastery, and not distinguished with the degree of a Master, still less of a Doctor.” 14 A far cry from a ditch digger, he ended up doing the work of the Lord in the trenches nevertheless.
Zachary Purvis (MAHT, Westminster Seminary California; DPhil, University of Oxford) teaches church history and theology at Edinburgh Theological Seminary.
“I cannot deny that these places might have been more finely and eloquently written, and so have suited refined and delicate heads. But I thought it best to content myself with my meager ability and to set forth those things which are clear and true in a plain and easy kind of style and speech for the simpler sort.”
From Musculus’s Preface to the Reader in Commonplaces
1. The title recognizes a debt to John Updike, “Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, a Dying Cat, a Traded Car,” The New Yorker, December 16, 1961.
2. Biographical material here and throughout is drawn from Musculus’s son, Abraham Musculus, “Historia Vitae et Obitus Clarissimi Theologi D. Wolfgangi Musculi Dusani, S. Litterarum apud Bernates professoris,” in ΣΥΝΟΨΕ festalium concioncum, authore D. Wolfgago Musculo Dusano, eiusdem vita, obitus, erudita carmina (Basel, 1595); in comparison with Reinhard Bodenmann, Wolfgang Musculus (1497–1563), Destin d’un autodidacte lorrain au siècle des Réformes (Geneva: Droz, 2000); and Wolfgang Musculus (1497–1563) und die oberdeutsche Reformation, ed. Rudolf Dellsperger et al. (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1997).
3. Paul Romane-Musculus, “Catalogue des oeuvres imprimées du théologien Wolfgang Musculus,” Revue d’Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses 43 (1963): 260–78.
4. See Craig S. Farmer, The Gospel of John in the Sixteenth Century: The Johannine Exegesis of Wolfgang Musculus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
5. John Calvin, In Librum Psalmorum Commentarius, in Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. G. Baum, E. Cunitz, and E. Reuss, 59 vols. (Brunswick: Schwetschke, 1863–1900), 31:13. See also Herman J. Selderhuis, Calvin’s Theology of the Psalms (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 25n17; Marc van Wijnkoop Lüthi, “Druckwerkeverzeichnis des Wolfgang Musculus,” in Wolfgang Musculus (1497–1563) und die oberdeutsche Reformation, ed. Rudolf Dellsperger et al. (Berlin:
Akademie Verlag, 1997), 379–85.
6. Herman Selderhuis, “Die Loci Communes des Wolfgang Musculus: Reformierte Dogmatik anno 1560,” in Wolfgang Musculus (1497–1563) und die oberdeutsche Reformation, 311–30.
7. Wolfgang Musculus, “De foedere ac testamento Dei,” Loci communes in usus sacrae Theologiae candidatorum parati (Basel, 1564), §14, 141–46.
8. Jordan J. Ballor, Covenant, Causality, and Law: A Study in the Theology of Wolfgang Musculus (Göttingen: Vandenhock & Ruprecht, 2012), 58.
9. In support, Musculus referred to Genesis 8 and 9 and Jeremiah 33. Musculus, Loci communes, §14, 142.
10. Musculus, Loci communes, §14, 143–44.
11. For one recent discussion of primary and secondary literature on this, see J. V. Fesko, The Covenant of Works: The Origins, Development, and Reception of the Doctrine (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).
12. Musculus, Loci communes, §20, 168.
13. See, e.g., Andrew A. Woolsey, Unity and Continuity in Covenantal Thought: A Study in the Reformed Tradition to the Westminster Assembly (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2012); R. Scott Clark, “Christ and Covenant: Federal Theology in Orthodoxy,” in A Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy, ed. Herman J. Selderhuis (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 403–28.
14. Wolfgang Musculus to Thomas Erastus, 1553, quoted in Farmer, The Gospel of John in the Sixteenth Century, 4n11.
ART QUESTION, PART PROTEST , the plaintive cry “Are we there yet?” punctuates any family vacation worth talking about. Clearly, we’re not where we were, but we also haven’t arrived at our highly anticipated destination. After a few hours, parents may wonder, along with their children, why they left the comfort of home in the first place. They’ve seen the website. Friends have told them how great the place is and assured them of the wonderful experiences they’ll have. Uprooted from the familiar and yet far from their journey’s end, the middle of the trip is where we get testy with one another. It’s easy to look for offramps to quench our thirst for immediate gratification. Even otherwise unspectacular distractions appeal to us. Outlet malls, McDonald’s, the World’s Largest Ball of String—anything to interrupt the boring drive. We find in this family ritual a homely analogy of our pilgrimage to the Everlasting City. On the way, it’s easy to grow impatient—with each other, ourselves, even God. We’ve heard the good news. The brochure has been read to us every week, and in our daily devotions we’re reminded again and again of its “solid joys and lasting treasures.” We have everything we need for the trip. We are washed in baptism and refreshed in the Supper, as Christ spreads a table for us in the wilderness of this pilgrim journey. Yet the routine can start to feel pretty boring. Our friends, the prophets and apostles, have consistently told us where we’re headed: “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor. 2:9). But are we there yet?
Although they had just witnessed God’s mighty acts of deliverance from Egypt and provision in the desert, the Lord’s people almost immediately wanted to return. “Sure, we were slaves, but at least it was home. And oh, the leeks!” God miraculously provided them with water from a rock and manna and quail, but they still complained. I read these stories with unease because I see myself among the comfortably complacent. Then there are the outright scoffers: “They will say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation” (2 Pet. 3:4). It’s a dangerous thing to become bored of the trip; it’s far more dangerous to come to believe there is no promised destination after all.
Most dangerous for sincere believers, however, are the distractors. “Of course, Jesus is the center. But we also need these other things over here. Grace? Of course. But aren’t those things over there more interesting?” Paul warns us against being so easily distracted:
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having
begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? (Gal. 3:1–6)
Suffering and then glory: that’s the path we follow by faith in Jesus’ footsteps. But in the middle of the journey, the most banal or even dangerous distractions dazzle. We’ve left the comforts of home, but we haven’t arrived at our destination. We get restless and quarrel and grumble. Instead of fixing our eyes on Christ, we’re lured by off-itinerary attractions. This is why we need to be reminded time and again of the blessing we’re promised upon our arrival and how much of it is given to us to enjoy now
In this essay, I’ll reflect on what is often called the already/not-yet tension in biblical eschatology as it applies to individual Christians, the church, and the world. In the Scriptures, eschatology is not restricted to “last things.” In fact, right at the beginning, humans were created with a great destiny laid before them if they survived their trial. Instead of patiently enduring the journey by hanging on God’s every word, our first parents questioned and then rejected God’s road map. Drawn to the serpent’s billboards advertising instant gratification, they took the nearest exit. But God did not withdraw his promise of glory, nor did he chop down the tree of life. Instead, he prepared a history in which he would bring redemption through his incarnate Son, the last Adam. Our destination is a city, not a garden, but the tree still stands in its midst (Rev. 22:2). Thus the whole Bible is eschatology: the prospect of glory ahead if we do not turn away from God’s word.
***
Like most readers of this magazine, I am a Gentile. Historically, that means my imagination’s default setting is to picture heaven as a sort of vague “afterlife.” When I die, I hope my soul flies away to another world of light and spirit, leaving behind forever my earthly body along with the rest of this dusty globe down below. Maybe I’ll become an angel and win my wings like Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life. Yet this Gentile picture is hardly biblical. In the Bible, creation—even the dusty parts of it—are “very good.” To be human is to be embodied. Upon death, our soul will be kept in God’s care while our body in its corruptible condition returns to the dust. However, the soul is not meant to be separated from the body and this intermediate state will not last forever. We will be raised in glory. The whole creation—this world God made—will be restored beyond its original luster.
While we as heirs of Greek philosophy tend to think in terms of Two Worlds—an eternal, spiritual heaven and a temporal, physical earth—the Hebrew prophets speak of Two Ages: the present age and the age to come. 1 God
alone is eternal; the rest of us, from angels to ants, are creatures bound intrinsically to time and space. The exiles in Babylon were buoyed ultimately not by an afterlife somewhere else but a future this-worldly promise of resurrection, vindication, and everlasting rest from violence, sin, death, war, and injustice:
On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. On this mountain He will swallow up the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; He will swallow up death forever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face and remove the disgrace of His people from the whole earth.
(Isa. 25:6–8)These are not different worlds, but different epochs marked by different regimes. Jesus and Paul frequently invoke these categories. 2 Jesus did not speak in terms of an “end of history” but “the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). Paul says that this present age lies under sin and death, blinded by “the god of this age” (2 Cor. 4:4), with the whole creation subjected to corruption because of humanity’s sin (Rom. 8:19). However, the age to come is marked by immortality, incorruption, righteousness, peace, and joy in fellowship with God and each other.
So let’s return to our family vacation refrain, recast in the language of the prophets: “Are we living in the last days yet?” The answer is yes, we’ve arrived. The prophets spoke of “the last days” when the Lord’s mountain would rise above all others and the nations would stream into it (Isa. 2:2). They longed for a new covenant of forgiveness and new birth by grace alone (Jer. 31:31–37), when the Spirit would be poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28–32). The New Testament tells us that we have been living in “these last days” since Jesus rose from the dead (Acts 2:17; 1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 3:1; Heb. 1:2; 2 Pet. 3:3, etc.). His resurrection started the clock, and time is running out for “this present evil age” (Gal. 1:4). Jesus’ return in glory marks the transition between the two ages.
How much of the age to come can we expect in these last days of this present age? Election and justification do not have a “not yet.” These gifts of our union with Christ do not have any further fulfillment. The references to both occur in the aorist tense: a completed work in the past. Justification is not the “already” portion of something yet to be completed in the future. In this declaration of the gospel here and now, I hear God’s final verdict on judgment day. Thus the future judgment is realized fully for me now in justification. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). There is no further installment on our election or justification.
But while we’ve arrived at the last days with Jesus’ resurrection, we still await his return. Until our full enjoyment of our destination in the new creation, we still long for the completion of our journey. Just about everything else but election and justification awaits a future fulfillment in the age to come. It’s true that Christ’s redeeming work was completed once and for all in his life, death, and resurrection. No one redeemed by Christ in his first advent will
Election and justification do not have a “not yet.” . . . Just about everything else but election and justification awaits a future fulfillment in the age to come.
be unredeemed at his return. With respect to the accomplishment of redemption, it is finished. Yet Scripture also promises us that our “final redemption” is completed when our bodies are raised (Rom. 8:23). We find all three tenses for reconciliation in a single verse: We have been reconciled by Christ’s death and therefore are now reconciled, guaranteeing that we shall be saved by his life (Rom. 5:10). God has reconciled sinners to himself objectively, but the complete enjoyment of this gift will be realized in the fellowship we enjoy with him face to face (1 Cor. 13:12).
Throughout the ages, spiritualists have reduced the promise of bodily resurrection to a merely inward regeneration, emphasizing being “born again” as something that strictly concerns the fate of our immaterial souls. Some react by downplaying the new birth as concerned with only individual renewal, and they focus instead on a wider redemption of creation. The Bible neither assimilates the outward to the inward nor the inward to the outward. Rather, it distinguishes the regeneration of each as phases of a complete salvation. A good example comes from Paul in 2 Corinthians:
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (4:16–18)
In this present age, the outer condition of the world—including our bodies— is corrupt, decaying, and dying while simultaneously we have been raised spiritually (cf. Eph. 2:1–5) and are being conformed more and more to Christ’s likeness. On the outside, we look like we’re falling apart, but we’re inwardly alive and growing younger. In saying that “the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal,” Paul is not following Plato. His visual contrast between visible and invisible is based on a historical contrast between the already and the not yet: what we see now versus what we will see up ahead. He is not saying, “Our bodies are wasting away, but we’ll finally get rid of them and be invisible and eternal forever.” Instead, he’s telling us, “For now our body is in a condition of corruption but then it will enjoy a condition of glory.” He makes this point explicitly a little later:
For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—
On the outside, we look like we’re falling apart, but we’re inwardly alive and growing younger.
not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. (5:1–5)
Paul uses stereotypically Platonic language, but in a distinctive and perhaps even playful manner. Christians look forward to our heavenly home, but only “if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked.” What? This should surprise us Gentiles. Why should we be worried about being naked if we have a glorified spiritual existence? Right now, Paul says, we’re burdened and we groan in our bodies, “not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” In other words, these corruptible bodies will be raised incorruptible.
The body was never the problem in the first place. Sin was the problem, and it’s made itself visible in our bodily suffering. If the soul lived forever without its body, it would be “naked”—a horrifying thought to Paul, even if attractive to Plato! The gospel is not that “what is mortal” is finally left behind but that “what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” We need to be liberated not from our bodies but from their mortality and corruption.
In short, this same body that groans because of its suffering will one day rejoice because of its glory. Outwardly, there is nothing powerful and glorious about individual believers. Yet we are being inwardly renewed day by day. God’s security deposit on “this very thing,” Paul says, is the indwelling Holy Spirit. We believe this not because we can see and chart it or broadcast it on the evening news, but because we hear the good news of God’s promises that never fail.
***
There is no worldly power and glory for the church on the global stage. Yet through means the world considers weak and a gospel it counts as foolishness, Christ is conquering the nations. “And as [Jesus] came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down’” (Mark 13:1–2). Then Jesus began to teach about a long period of history in which the headline news will be wars, violence, natural disasters, and persecution. Not until the gospel is preached to the whole world will Christ return, for only then will he have his entire kingdom with him as he comes on the clouds as the Son of Man (Matt. 24:30–31). All the nations, before or after Israel, will be reduced to rubble. All will be shaken and only Christ’s kingdom will be left standing (Heb. 12:26–29).
Through the preaching of the word, administration of the sacraments, and care and fellowship of the saints—hardly attention-grabbing marketing devices—this kingdom advances. Don’t take an off-ramp to the Mall of Morality
Not until the gospel is preached to the whole world will Christ return, for only then will he have his entire kingdom with him as he comes on the clouds as the Son of Man.
or Vanity Fair. Rather, “let us consider how to stir one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Heb. 10:24–25). Let’s face it: church can be pretty boring. I can be pretty boring, and if you really think about it, so can you. None of this is surprising. The routine of it all can make us forget that corporate worship is a solemn assembly of God’s embassy where he distributes gifts from the riches of his estate, to which we are coheirs with Christ. Your brothers and sisters are the princes and princesses of the everlasting empire. Think for a moment about the images Jesus gives for his kingdom in the parables. In contrast with the temple’s “wonderful stones” that so captivated Jesus’ disciples, he compares his kingdom to a little light set on a stand. It’s like a tiny seed, he says, whose branches grow to cover the whole earth. The kingdom is like a banquet. Yet everyone on the first invitation list RSVPs with “I have to wash my hair that day.” Even today, it’s not an event for which many of the world’s elites—including religious leaders—mark their calendars. So the royal servant goes into the alleys to draw in the drunks and prostitutes by the free promise of a place at the king’s table.
Who would have thought that the temple of Christ’s body, with you and me as living stones, would replace and surpass Herod’s glorious edifice? Yet through the external (preaching and sacrament) God gives the internal. The inward and outward manifestations of Christ’s reign are not severed but intertwined. The Holy Spirit takes what is Christ’s in glory and gives foretastes of it to us now in our otherwise arduous pilgrimage.
The two ages, however, are not airtight compartments. We cannot neglect pneumatology (the doctrine of the Holy Spirit). In his Upper Room Discourse (John 14–16), Jesus explains that he will depart bodily but won’t leave his followers as orphans. On the contrary, what we need now is Christ reigning in our flesh for us at the Father’s right hand and the Holy Spirit opening our hearts to embrace the gospel. As Calvin observed, if we are not united to Christ here and now, then all he accomplished objectively is in vain (Inst. 3.1.1). Christ accomplished redemption, and now the Spirit applies it.
The Spirit brings the realities of the age to come into this present age just as the dove brought a leafy twig to Noah as evidence of life. The writer to the Hebrews speaks of the church as the sphere in which the Holy Spirit relays these gifts to the world here and now. Here people are “enlightened” (baptized), “have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come.” Wherever the gospel is preached and the sacraments are administered, a garden blooms in the desert, like “land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated” (Heb. 6:4–5).
In the context of pagans blaming Christians for the sack of Rome, Augustine’s City of God remains a vital companion for us today. Christ’s kingdom progresses even as the politics, economics, and social engineering policies of worldly salvation crumble. Plus, the visible church itself is a mess, with sheep outside and
wolves within. Not only is it a mixed body of elect and non-elect, but the elect aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Yet each local church remains an embassy of grace, receiving forgiveness from God, and sending out ambassadors of reconciliation to others.
If we don’t expect outward power and glory for ourselves or the church, then we certainly shouldn’t be surprised when the world seems to be getting worse rather than better. Jesus is no more of a historical optimist than Paul. On the Mount of Olives (Mark 13; Matt. 24), Jesus taught that the headlines will grow progressively nasty, even while the gospel succeeds in its mission to the world. Jesus’ entire sermon on that occasion focuses on the advance of the gospel. He says nothing about Christianity fostering great civilizations or nations. The world grows worse, yet the gospel still manages to reach the ends of the earth. “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as the testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (v. 14).
When exactly will the end come to this present evil age? Will it be when we can compare the newspaper to Bible verses? When the common market nations are established? Maybe the United Nations with some political leader as the antichrist? No, the end will come when the gospel is preached to all nations. Jesus will then have the kingdom given to him by the Father with the elect from every tribe, and they will reign forever (Rev. 5:9).
In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says he has come to “restore all things” (Matt. 17:11). With the definite article, the word he uses becomes a distinct event: tê palingenesia (Matt. 17:11), like the Fourth of July. In fact, “ the new birthday” would be a fair translation.3 “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel’” (Matt. 19:28). 4 Peter proclaimed that “heaven must receive [Jesus] until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago” (Acts 3:21). Thus the restoration is seen as an event that will occur when Jesus returns. It will be all encompassing, “far as the curse is found.”
Creation’s new birthday will indeed be universal. The Creator is the Redeemer. He who “so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son” will never turn his back on it. Yet it begins now through the regeneration of individual human hearts. What would the Holy City be like if its citizens were still rebels? What would peace with God obtain unless the ungodly had been justified and raised to newness of life? Even sanctification is incomplete until Christ returns, so inward renewal in this age could never suffice for a perfect society. The resurrection of Jesus sets in motion “the new birthday.”
Jesus taught that the headlines will grow progressively nasty, even while the gospel succeeds in its mission to the world. . . . The world grows worse, yet the gospel still manages to reach the ends of the earth.
The church’s “troubled course began not merely in the time of the bodily presence of Christ and the time of his apostles; it started with Abel himself, the first righteous man slain by an ungodly brother; and the pilgrimage goes on from that time right up to the end of history, with the persecutions of the world on one side, and on the other the consolations of God.”
Augustine, The City of God
I am dying and so are you, but we’re being inwardly renewed. The church is outwardly weak and foolish, but inwardly powerful and glorious. Inner and outward correspond not to Plato’s eternal soul and the “mortal coil” to be sloughed off at death, but to the body and the visible world under the reign of sin and death versus both under the reign of righteousness and life.
The “not yet” doesn’t become the “already” all at once. Christ is the beginning —the firstfruits—of the resurrection from the dead, but this renovation of all united to him begins with inward and, finally, outward regeneration. Right now, our physical bodies are dying—they must die in order for death to come to an end (1 Cor. 15:36)—while people around the world are being inwardly raised to new life and growing healthier in Christ. Jesus’ return will be “the time for restoring all things” in their entirety. The regeneration begun in human hearts will then spread to the rivers and oceans, mountains and plains, cities and RV sites; the kingdoms of this world will then become the kingdom of Christ.
Until then, we can’t expect the gospel to transform the world into Christ’s kingdom or the church into a perfect society or ourselves into glorified saints. But we can be patient with one another and with God’s promise as we travel the miles of unexciting terrain, knowing that along this very highway he spreads a table in the wilderness. Let’s not get discouraged or distracted. The rays of the age to come penetrate this evil age every time a sinner is regenerated, every time an anxious believer feels Christ’s hand in preaching, in the Supper, or in the hands of fellow sinners who share this journey to the City of God.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. . . . For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Rom. 8:18, 22–25)
Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido.
1. See D. S. Russell, The Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic, 200 BC–AD 100 (London: SCM, 1964), esp. 269; cf. C. Rowlands, The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), esp. 355.
2. Jesus appeals to the distinction in the Gospels (Matt. 12:32; 13:49; 19:28; 24:3; Mark 4:19; 8:38; 10:30; Luke 18:30; 20:35),
and it’s frequently found in the Pauline Epistles (1 Cor. 2:6; 10:11; Eph. 1:21; Gal. 1:4; 1 Tim. 6:19) as well as Hebrews 6:5.
3. A few chapters earlier, Matthew refers to Herod’s birthday with a closely related Greek word, genesiois (Matt. 14:6).
4. Strangely, the ESV renders palingenesia “new world.” I’ve used the NIV translation here.
Exploring perspectives from the present
Dr. Phillip Cary is professor of philosophy and chair of his department at Eastern University in Pennsylvania. He’s the author of Good News for Anxious Christians (Brazos, 2022) and The Nicene Creed (Lexham, 2023). This interview has been edited for length and flow. Listen to an extended version online at modernreformation.org/already.
Phil, this issue of Modern Reformation is about the amazing aspects of salvation we already enjoy in Christ. Why do we need to talk about this topic? And why is it hard for us to grasp?
We need the “already” because the gospel tells us the story of what God has accomplished in Christ in the shedding of his blood and the resurrection of Christ from the dead. These things have already happened. They shape our identity. They are what we believe if we are Christians. But the present is a present in which Christ is hidden from us. Where is Christ right now? Well, he’s not in the tomb—but he’s not on earth, either. He’s hidden at the right hand of God the Father Almighty—somehow with his body—as a living human being. (Here’s something stunning about the “already”: there’s a human being sitting on the throne of God!) Yet that means our own lives are hidden from us, as Colossians 3 says. We are hidden from ourselves. Our very identity is something we believe in rather than see.
You mentioned Colossians 3:3, “You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” What about Paul’s reasoning here is so radically different from the way we tend to go about our lives?
Colossians 3 is lovely—and astonishing! According to Paul, we’ve already died. He says in the previous chapter that we’ve already been buried with Christ in baptism and raised with him (2:10–12). That’s already happened. We’ve put on Christ and put off the old self (3:9–10)—those Greek verbs are all in the present perfect tense, which means they tell us about actions that are already completed. But now we have to adjust to what is already completed, which we only have real knowledge of through faith in the word of God rather than by sight. Our everyday experiences and perceptions aren’t going to show us that Christ is at God’s right hand. They’re not going to enable us to “seek the things that are above” (v. 1). For that, we have to believe the truth given to us by the testimony of the apostles and
the prophets. But if we are rooted and grounded in that truth, then we already possess real life in Christ.
I appreciate how you make the point in Good News for Anxious Christians that our sanctification is largely invisible to us; it’s a matter of hope. And in some ways, it gets less and less visible the more we mature, even though we see its truth in Jesus by faith. Can you talk a little more about that dynamic in the Christian life?
Here we are talking about the “already,” and now you’ve introduced the notion of hope, which of course necessarily has a dimension of what is “not yet.” At the same time, what we hope for has indeed in some ways already happened. We hope to be revealed as those who presently live in Christ, and that’s why we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” In Colossians 3, heaven is “above”; it’s the hiddenness where we set our minds because that’s the place from which God’s purposes for us are revealed.
The Christian focus on heaven is all derived from Christ sitting at the right hand of God. That’s where the Lamb is on the throne in Revelation (5:6). That’s where Christ brings his blood to make atonement in the heavenly sanctuary, according to Hebrews (9:12). That’s where the Son of Man comes before the Ancient of Days in Daniel (7:13). So, all this biblical thought about heaven is a thought about where Christ is. Everything awaits the revelation from heaven of what is already true in heaven, so that it will become fully true on earth. We keep praying for it: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done”—thy mercy and justice be done—“on earth as it is in heaven.” It’s already there, and we’re waiting for the kingdom of heaven to take hold of this wretched and troubled earth so that the present evil age will give way to the age to come.
Modern Reformation’s tagline is “thinking theologically.” As I listen to you, I’m listening to someone who is thinking theologically about reality, as if God’s word determines what’s true. Nowadays we tend to think very differently, as if what’s true depends on whether I personally believe it and what matters is what I personally feel is relevant.
Yeah, that’s a disaster. If you think that, then you’ve defeated yourself from the very beginning. Our faith has to be based on something that’s true, whether or not we believe it. The relevance of the truth is something different; it’s more like listening to music. Instead of recognizing that the music is beautiful, you wonder how you can make this relevant, how you can apply this music to your life. This means you’re not listening—at least if it’s good music! It’s likewise with the gospel.
Because it’s hard for us to believe in Christ. The gospel is a story, right? In stories, things become clear over time. The way things were at the beginning isn’t the way they will be at the end—and in the middle, things can be pretty awful.
Right in the middle, you can have Good Friday. For all of us at various times in our life, it’s hard to put our trust in where this story is going. But on Sunday when you look back on Friday, Friday looks different, doesn’t it? What had looked like defeat becomes glory. I think that’s the fundamental answer to our problems about suffering and evil and our struggles with doubt and waywardness. When Christ comes in glory, and we’re revealed with him, the whole story of our own lives will look different. It’s Friday. But Sunday’s coming.
The more we mature, the more we see our mixed motives and our fickle hearts. But it’s simultaneously true that we see the genuine fruits of the Spirit’s work in one another.
Yes, I think that’s the place to look. We can see the Holy Spirit at work in other people better than we can see him in ourselves. To return to Colossians 3 once more, “You have put on the new self” is actually plural (v. 10): “Y’all have put it on.” So, we’re more apt to see this new self in others than in ourselves.
One of the most important things for husbands and wives to say to each other isn’t just “I love you” but “You love me.” I went through a serious time of crisis recently, and one of the things that I was able to rely on is my wife’s love for me. She cares for me and my troubles. In fact, it’s part of my job as a Christian to bear witness to the fact that she loves me; God has wielded her as this instrument of comfort and joy for me. Seeing and acknowledging how other Christians are doing the work of God in bearing witness and putting on Christ for us is one of the most important things we can do for one another in the church. We must practice the art of Christian admiration.
I’ve read how you emphasize the Christian virtue of constancy and how it’s often lost nowadays in our desire for ever greater experiences. Can you relate constancy to the “already” and the “not yet”?
Transformation, in contrast to constancy, is a big buzzword. Now, there is a transformation that happens over the long haul in our lives; but if you’re seeking transformation all the time, then what you’re doing is always looking for the next new thing. Whereas what we find in Christ is what we already have: life hidden in him. So, a large part of our Christian task is to live out in constancy the gift that’s already been given to us in Christ. It’s like a marriage. There is growth in a good marriage; but there is, most fundamentally, constancy, faithfulness. I want to be married to the same ole lady I married thirty years ago. We’ve developed some, of course, but we’re still the same people in the same marriage. Likewise, I have the same ole Christ. He hasn’t changed. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever. And it is my hope and firm intention to be wedded to the same ole Christ when I get to the end of my life. That’s where the growth comes from. The tree stays planted in the same place. You don’t uproot it and move it all over the place. We experience radical changes in our Christian life now and then, but it’s not all about change. It’s about being in some way the same new creation you were when you died and were raised with Christ in baptism.
Seeing and acknowledging how other Christians are doing the work of God in bearing witness and putting on Christ for us is one of the most important things we can do for one another in the church.
Though we prefer Him in a sky Of Technicolor blue with clouds All cottony, all downy soft, With angels hovering nearby, His praises raising ever loud In harmonies that soar aloft, We never yet must quite forget That it was in the desert bleak Where first our souls with awe He filled. In desert dryness deep we met, Within its silence heard Him speak, And there we meet and hear Him still.
Thinking theologically about all things
AS WE LOOK AROUND AT THE GENERAL TROUBLES OF THE WORLD and at the specific trials we face in our own contexts—ravaging wars, ethnic strife, poverty, pandemic, and persecution—we may wonder if God really is reigning over his world. Such doubt may not lead us to openly deny God’s purposes or providence, but it can lead us to another, much subtler distortion of the truth: that God’s reign is a purely future hope—something we eagerly await, but whose reality is quite absent from our present experience. How, then, do we trust the reality of God’s rule when there seems to be so much evidence to the contrary? This question is significant not merely for theology (where having the right answers certainly helps), but also for aligning our attitude and posture toward our Lord in the midst of the crises we face.
By including the petition “Thy kingdom come” in the model prayer he taught his disciples, Jesus refused to allow us the option to believe that his kingdom is something we inherit only after death, far away from earth rather than something we should anticipate here and now. His rule and authority first come to earth, of course, with his own coming. And wherever his will is done, there is God’s kingdom. Jesus’ intention is not to suggest that, irrespective of whether his disciples prayed or not, the kingdom would come; rather, his call to pray for the promise of its coming makes us an integral part of its coming, so that we will desire and even “hasten” its full arrival (2 Pet. 3:12).
From the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus sought to turn his disciples’ attention away from the temple as the sole location where we could meet God and receive favors, healing, and forgiveness, and to turn us to himself as the living presence of God to whom his people should flock. The overturning of the tables in the temple premises as he entered Jerusalem; the prediction about the destruction of the temple, no stone left on top of another; the prediction about his own resurrection—all testify powerfully to this shift from finding God’s presence with his people in the temple to finding it in the person of Jesus.
Our neatly compartmentalized separation between church and state should not obscure the political and social import of this shift of the kingdom’s location from the temple to Jesus. The temple was not merely the religious arena; rather, it was the religious fulcrum upon which Israel’s social, political, and economic policies also turned. The shift from the temple to Jesus meant that all the spheres
of life overseen by the God of Israel—and are any left out?—would now come under the oversight of the Lord Jesus. The new creation begins in the kingdom of God here and now where Christ proclaims, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:19). The authority of Christ extends not merely over our souls but over everything there is.
The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. (Ps. 24:1)
The earthly ministry of Jesus involved teaching, preaching, healing the sick, and delivering those from the clutches of evil spirits—a ministry Luke succinctly described as “he went about doing good” (Acts 10:38). Each aspect of Jesus’ ministry is part of the establishment of his kingdom. In the history of the South Asian church, the Ecumenical party, under the influence of the Social Gospel, has tended to reduce the kingdom of God to good works and Christian engagement for the purposes of human flourishing. 1 Despite their conspicuous omission of key facets of individual conversion and transformation in Christ’s kingdom, the Social Gospel movement rightly affirms that God’s good world demands our involvement and care.
The Evangelical party, on the other hand, has tended to focus its attention on the atoning death of Christ to save human souls to prepare us for a new world—a heavenly world that sometimes has been misunderstood as unconnected to and unconcerned with this earthly realm. This fixation on the otherworldly resulted in Christians fleeing important spheres of human engagement such as politics (giving up the space where social policies are framed), higher education (giving up the space to influence the mind of the culture and its future), and entertainment and media (giving up the space to influence public opinion).
For those of us who wish to affirm a more integrated vision of Christ’s kingdom rule, we may rightly ask the question, “How then does Christ reign here and now?” In this essay, I want to encourage you to embrace anew the present reality of Christ’s kingdom and his reign by reflecting on his supremacy, especially within three concentric spheres: the life of the individual, of the church, and of the world. ***
Christ reasoned with the Pharisees that the coin that bore the embossed image of Caesar belonged to Caesar; therefore, whatever belonged to Caesar should be devoted to Caesar, and whatever belonged to God, devoted to God (Matt. 22:15–22). Whose image is embossed on every individual human being? If we bear God’s image, then we certainly belong to God. The highest devotion is to give one’s heart to one’s king. As the saying goes, “The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart.” Our highest purpose, the Westminster Shorter Catechism
Christ reasoned with the Pharisees that the coin that bore the embossed image of Caesar belonged to Caesar. . . . Whose image is embossed on every individual human being? If we bear God’s image, then we certainly belong to God.
says, is to glorify God through hearts and lives devoted to him. The finished work of Christ inaugurates the redemption of the hearts of individual men and women, illustrating the perfect form of allegiance deserved by the perfect king.
The moment of faith in Christ may be understood as the inauguration of Christ’s rule in our hearts or the coming of God’s kingdom into our lives. “In the incarnation,” Mark C. Taylor remarks, “the Eternal becomes temporal but remains eternal; in the moment of faith, the sinner realizes the possibility of eternal blessedness (immortality), but remains temporal.” 2 The moment of faith may therefore be seen as the subjective revelation of our king, which is the counterpart of the moment of incarnation—the objective, historical revelation of our king. If the moment of incarnation inaugurates the entrance of the ruler of the kingdom of God on earth, then the moment of faith establishes the rule of that king in our lives. The New Testament reclaims for God the authority and lordship often vested in human demigods—emperors and kings—by proclaiming Christ as the only Lord and Savior.
We who believe still await what we will be (1 John 3:2). Even our identity within the kingdom as “new creation,” accomplished by Christ’s completed redemptive work, is predicated on human incapacity to earn our salvation. The Spirit’s sanctifying presence in us, likewise, is predicated on human incapacity to live according to the kingdom’s values. Yet Christ’s finished work and the Spirit’s coming at Pentecost establish the reality of our new life. The heart of stone has been changed into a heart of flesh, and the coming of the Holy Spirit is the seal of the kingdom of God that we already possess. “In him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:13–14).3
Therefore, the posture that Christians must assume in the world, even while facing persecution, is not to lie low and somehow stay out of trouble. This is not the posture of a heart devoted to the supreme king. Instead, Peter urges, “Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts reverence Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence” (1 Pet. 3:15). Therefore, the human heart that reverences Christ’s reign and anticipates its full glory may pray with Tennyson, “Our wills are ours, to make them thine!” ***
The church reflects the present reality of Christ’s supremacy by ordering the gathered lives of the saints by a new set of values and principles, a kingdom calculus. The kingdom that Christ inaugurates on earth is what N. T. Wright calls a “cruciform theocracy.” The human tendency to use even the cross as though it were a sword has often plagued Christians. God’s means of saving the world, however, is quite antithetical to the world’s means of bringing about change. The
cross, in this sense, demonstrates how the kingship of Christ works: it shows that the king reigns in the hearts and through the lives of those he saves into loving fellowship with himself and one another.
Redemption through his sacrificial death on the cross is thus a central paradigm for Christ’s rule. How unlike the calculus of the world, where “the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their superiors exercise authority over them” (Matt. 20:25)! The mother of the sons of Zebedee requested key positions for them in King Jesus’ cabinet, generating a fair amount of jealousy among the other disciples. He warned them that the world’s thinking had crept into their own:
“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 your slave; even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matt. 20: 24–28)
If Jesus had overthrown the Roman Empire and reestablished a Jewish kingdom as his fellow Jews had anticipated, he would have been better appreciated. However, Jesus’ upside-down kingdom overturns people’s expectations, turning the heart into his battleground more so than the geopolitical stage. Each of his soldiers is required to put their sword back into its sheath (John 18:11), turn the other cheek (Matt. 5:39), love their enemies, and pray for those who persecute them (Matt. 5:44).
In Ephesians 3, Paul argues that even though this new order was kept a mystery until Christ’s coming, the Old Testament prophets understood that salvation through the covenant God established with Israel was foreordained to include the Gentiles also. Previously, those who did not belong to Israel had to come to Jerusalem to meet God, and the Gentiles had to follow the law of Moses. But now they had together become partakers of the promise in Christ (3:6). God’s kingdom is where his word and Spirit are at work bringing his saving reign, and this is not limited to Israel but now extended to all nations of the world and the whole of creation.
The church, therefore, is the sphere in which the kingdom of God is publicly established and the supremacy of Christ is openly evident. The church is where believers gather together in Jesus’ name in fellowship founded by the Holy Spirit, breaking down all divisions that keep human beings apart—whether the caste system in India or other human walls of separation. Our redeemed unity in Christ displays “the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:9–10).
This way of being in the world marks Christians out from the world as kingdom people. Yet this impetus toward being marked out cannot confine the church’s work within our own walls but ought to intentionally include work in the world. The world, however, may be the sphere where the present reality of Christ’s supremacy as king is most difficult for us to recognize.
If Jesus had overthrown the Roman Empire and reestablished a Jewish kingdom as his fellow Jews had anticipated, he would have been better appreciated. However, Jesus’ upside-down kingdom overturns people’s expectations, turning the heart into his battleground more so than the geopolitical stage.
If left unchallenged, . . . this secularist disenchanting of the world entails an expulsion of the Spirit, turning Christians into practical deists who subscribe to a belief system that retains nothing of its robust communion with God or its robust witness to the supremacy of our Lord.
In The City of God, Augustine influentially argued that the world is a mix of both the temporal city (or kingdom) of man and the eternal city (or kingdom) of God. Luther built on this idea of two kingdoms, each with distinct and visible principles of law and grace: “God has therefore ordained two regiment(s): the spiritual which by the Holy Spirit produces Christians and pious folk under Christ, and the secular which restrains un-Christian and evil folk, so that they are obliged to keep outward peace, albeit by no merit of their own.” 4
Although our focus is not Augustine or Luther, their distinction between two cities or kingdoms provides a framework for us to understand the warring forces at play in the “already” of the present age. We should not mistake it, however, for the modern, secular separation of church and state many of us take for granted. Often the manner in which we treat this separation—as a removal of the church’s presence or influence from the public sphere—is the exact opposite of what Jesus intended when he responded to the Pharisees’ trick question about paying taxes to Caesar.
The modern world’s attempt to expel the transcendental and the supernatural (what Charles Taylor calls disenchantment) reminds me of the cynical Lord Farquaad banishing all fairy-tale creatures from his kingdom of Duloc in the 2001 animated movie Shrek . He was not successful for long. The Western Enlightenment project presents its own secular version of the Christian story of growth and progress, into which the claims of Christ’s ever-expanding rule does not comfortably fit. The whole notion of secularization has been proven false; in fact, it depends on Christianity even while it attempts to undermine it.5 If left unchallenged, however, this secularist disenchanting of the world entails an expulsion of the Spirit, turning Christians into practical deists who subscribe to a belief system that retains nothing of its robust communion with God or its robust witness to the supremacy of our Lord.
Christians who are called to live as faithful citizens of the kingdom of God are not to leave our identity at the door when we enter “secular” spaces. Instead, Christians are called to re-enchant the world because the Holy Spirit, whom the world cannot see, is “in us and with us” (John 14:17). A deistic notion of Christianity, which merely acknowledges God as a metaphysical reality rather than embrace the full import of the meaning of “Immanuel, God with us,” is antithetical to a theology shaped by the present realities of the incarnation and Pentecost. “The wind blows where it wishes. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). Whether in ways obvious or hidden, the Spirit-empowered church bringing good news of the reigning king remains the most powerful instrument in the hands of God for the transformation of the world.
The idea of the kingdom of God on earth is not unique to Christianity. In fact, several other religious and cultural traditions conceive of a perfect world somehow intertwined into their theological thinking. As a theologian on the Indian subcontinent, I immediately think of the popular Hindu legend of Ram-Rajya (“the kingdom of Rama”), which is infused with utopian visions of life under the reign of the god Rama, one of the avatars of Vishnu. His kingdom is imagined as “ideal in all respects, where all living beings have been endowed with auspicious qualities; where people would be completely satisfied and full of bliss; where there would be no trace of greed and lust in anyone; where no one would have to bear any kind of suffering of this material world.” 6
Does this sound familiar? Yet there is something crucial missing: Rama’s utopia always existed in some unspecified past. The search for Rama’s kingdom is one that looks back to what things might have been because it does not possess a future hope for what will be. It is no wonder that religious and cultural nostalgia is the prominent disposition in the Hindu social psyche rather than hope for a real future grounded in reliable promises. Apart from the promise of the new Jerusalem, we are left with only the longing for Eden.
The stark difference between Ram-Rajya and the kingdom of God is not that Hindus have no imagination of, or longing for, an ideal world where God rules with fairness and justice and evil is banished. The difference is that, unlike Ram-Rajya, the coming of Christ’s kingdom is one that is already established in Christ’s finished work of atonement and the outpouring of his Spirit. This kingdom alters our present lived reality and also points to a future fulfillment. This infuses Christians with a hope that transforms our outlook on the world and motivates our “faithful presence” in the world.7
According to Karl Löwith, in the absence of special revelation, the early Greeks derived their conception of time from observable repetitive phenomena “like the eternal recurrence of sunrise and sunset, of summer and winter, of generation and corruption.” 8 This is very much like the polytheistic Hindu conception and very much unlike the Judeo-Christian, in which history is moving toward a specific eschatological telos (an end and a goal). It therefore reflects what he calls “the formal structure of the meaning of history.” Löwith’s point is not that the Greeks failed to attach any significant meaning to historical events, but that “they were not meaningful in the sense of being directed toward an ultimate end in a transcendent purpose that comprehends the whole course of events”—especially the events of salvation.9 Christ reigns supreme over all things in part because he alone is able to give them ultimate meaning:
It is in the present reality of the supremacy of Christ— his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and rule—that Christian hope becomes more than wishful thinking.
For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Col. 1:16–17)
It is in the present reality of the supremacy of Christ—his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and rule—that Christian hope becomes more than wishful thinking. It is a hope where the future is visible in the present, even though only in part. Our Lord promised at his ascension that he will return to seal his authority and reign on earth as king when he, along with his forces, battles the evil kingdoms of the world at the end of the age. While we still await that great battle, let us not lose sight of the reality that his authority is already established, especially as we look around at the problems we face in this world. There are multiple stories in the history of war about how news of the enemy’s defeat or surrender in major arenas of the conflict inspired soldiers to persevere in their own smaller battles on the periphery. Even though in certain regions of Christ’s kingdom, various battles may seem like a lost cause, we possess essential intel: The war is already won. We need this good news to encourage us to remain on the battlefield, even if it means losing our lives for the king who gave his life for ours.
Aruthuckal Varughese John (PhD) is the dean of students and head of the Department of Theology and History at the South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies (SAIACS) in Bangalore, India. He has been a frequent contributor to and participant in Sola Media’s Theo Global initiatives since 2015.
1. Walter Rauschenbusch was one of the pioneers in the Social Gospel movement.
2. Mark C. Taylor, Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymous Authorship: A Study of Time and the Self (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 10.
3. See my essay “Third Article Theology and Apologetics,” Holy Spirit and Christian Mission in a Pluralistic Context, ed. Roji T. George (Bangalore: SAIACS Press, 2017), 202–22. See also my article “Holy Spirit, Sanctification, and South Asia,” Modern Reformation (September/October 2021): 10–17.
4. Martin Luther’s Works, Weimarer Ausgabe, ed. Ulrich Köpf, Helmar Junghans, and Karl Stackmann (Berlin: SpringerVerlag, 2001), 11.251, 15–18.
5. See Peter L. Berger, “Secularization Falsified,” First Things (February 2008). For a more detailed account of the secular
as the prodigal child of Christianity, see my chapter “Tailoring Indian Secularity,” in Christian Inquiry on Polity, ed. Jeremiah A. V. Doumai (Chennai: IVP India, 2017), 39–70.
6. See “Sri Rama-Rajyam (Kingship of Sri Rama),” https:// lordrama.co.in/rama-rajya.html.
7. James Davison Hunter advocates “faithful presence” as a noncoercive form of Christian influence in the world. See To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
8. Karl Löwith, Meaning in History: The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1946), 4.
9. Löwith, Meaning in History, 6.
As wise servants invest their time and gold, So good things come to those who work and pray; Faithfulness is the fruit that yields tenfold, The buried seed will bud and bloom one day. Each one of us performs a different role, Some men will plant or water, others tend; Each body part together makes a whole, And God shall give the increase in the end. So work hard, plod the plow, finish the race, Your toils, sweat, and tears are not in vain; The Spirit of God will give you the grace To rise each morn and do your best again. And after all our labors in the sun, We’ll rest and hear our Master say, “Well done.”
EAUTY CAN BE CONSOLING , disturbing, sacred, profane; it can be exhilarating, appealing, inspiring, chilling. It can affect us in an unlimited variety of ways. Yet it is never viewed with indifference: beauty demands to be noticed; it speaks to us directly like the voice of an intimate friend. If there are people who are indifferent to beauty, then it is surely because they do not perceive it.1
This observation from British philosopher Roger Scruton points to the undeniable yet elusive nature of beauty. Whenever we try to pin down exactly the objective criteria for what is beautiful, we struggle. The perennial question is, “What is beauty?” or “What makes something truly beautiful?” The difficulty in answering leads many to repeat the old trope, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Yet, have you ever thought about how this notion effectively relegates beauty to subjective experience? A purely subjective view of beauty is just as problematic and dangerous as a purely subjective view of truth and goodness. For Christians, furthermore, beauty is often suspect because of its potential to deceive us or seduce us to sin. Indeed, Christians know that evil can produce counterfeit beauty: “Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14).
In this essay, I want to explore how beauty, while mysterious, is not ultimately subjective or evil. Rather, created beauty is objective and good because uncreated beauty is one of the communicable perfections of God’s essential character. This means that true beauty is as essential to the “already” sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in God’s redeemed children as it is to our experience—here and now, at the visceral level—of tasting and seeing the goodness of the Lord (Ps. 34:8). ***
Along with all the other “omni” perfections of God (omnipresent, omnipotent, etc.), we must affirm that God is also “omni-beautiful”: that is, God is all beautiful. The objective reality of beauty comes from its correspondence to God, and it is solely this correspondence that grounds a realist view of beauty. Realism is a classical philosophical account of reality affirming that the universe and all it comprises exists independently of how and whether we perceive, experience, or think about it. A longstanding commitment to the objectivity of beauty comes out of this classical tradition. Here’s the classicist definition I used in my book, The Beauty of the Lord:
Beauty is an intrinsic quality of things which, when perceived, pleases the mind by displaying a certain kind of fittingness. That is to say, beauty is discerned via
We’re struck by beauty in the act of perceiving it; we more consciously recognize something as beautiful after the fact; we cannot say beforehand what must strike us as beautiful.
objective properties such as proportion, unity, variety, symmetry, harmony, intricacy, delicacy, simplicity, or suggestiveness.2
These objective properties have been associated with beauty since ancient times, but this list is obviously not exhaustive. Here’s the mysterious thing about creaturely beauty: objective aesthetic criteria can only be discerned and then described in an a posteriori way, never in an a priori way. In other words, we’re struck by beauty in the act of perceiving it; we more consciously recognize something as beautiful after the fact; we cannot say beforehand what must strike us as beautiful. The beauty of something, after all, is wondrously greater than the sum of its parts. So while we may describe a feature of the natural world or something someone personally created or performed as beautiful, our unbidden affective response of delight evoked in the act of perceiving it defies deducibility. Etienne Gilson says it well: “The pleasure experienced in knowing the beautiful does not constitute beauty itself, but it betrays its presence.” 3
When we’re considering objective criteria for beauty, it is important to recognize that beauty can have both a narrow sense and a broad sense. Many things evoke our deepest feelings of awe, wonder, longing, gratitude, and reverence. This is beauty in the narrow sense. We’ve all had the experience of watching a stunning sunset or pausing to take in a marvelous mountaintop view. Seeing a murmuration of starlings or a peacock fanning his feathers—or any other experience that instantly captivates our attention and leaves us emotionally moved—evokes some pleasure and wonder in us as we encounter them. Of course, we can be just as captivated and moved by things that people do or perform: a virtuoso musical performance or a masterpiece of visual art or dance performance; perhaps a magnificent work of architecture. Any work created or performed by human beings that captivates our attention and leaves us emotionally moved with delight is also an encounter with beauty in the narrow sense. Indeed, the spectrum of beauty we see in other people, both their outer and inner beauty, is the beauty we’re usually surrounded by most.
Beauty taken in a broad sense, however, is a subtler form and in certain cases, even imperceptible. The propriety of something or the overall sense of order or harmony in a given context are examples of beauty in a less conspicuous but no less real sense. At the most macro level, for instance, the order of the universe that God maintains according to natural laws is simply one aspect of what King David celebrates in Psalm 19:
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. . . .
In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. (vv. 1, 4–5)
Scientists talk about orbital planetary motion and how the observable universe is something like ninety-two billion light years across, all of which is impossible for us to really grasp. At the other end of the size spectrum—the cellular and even the atomic and subatomic levels—there exists a micro-universe of dynamically operating order, balance, symmetry, proportion, and unity whose reality we accept even though we can’t directly perceive it. Who can deny the amazing intricacy, resiliency, and delicate balance maintained through biological cycles of predation and symbiotic dependencies of plants and animals within their terrestrial and aquatic ecological complexes? Even particular acts or actions done by individuals or groups may strike us as beautiful because of how wonderfully befitting we perceive them to be: an expertly performed feat of athleticism, a mundane yet expertly executed household task, a well-choreographed medical team, a wonderfully suitable answer, a delicate touch conveying much-needed comfort or understanding, the interpersonal harmony uniting the lives of diverse people, the city planning optimizing the metropolitan life bristling in all directions, and so on. Aesthetic qualities in such things are often perceived in an indirect way, which I refer to as beautiful in a broad sense.
I use the term “fittingness” as an overarching description expressing the full range of beauty’s objective characteristics, whether in the narrow or broad sense: the more fitting a person or thing or action, the more beautiful. All these characterizations of beauty, narrow and broad, also point us to the necessary subjective perception of it: the effect of delight experienced in recognizing something— consciously or unconsciously—as beautiful, as fitting. The subjective is necessary but not ultimate; it depends on the objective. Saint Augustine remarked on this interplay: “If I were to ask first whether things are beautiful because they give pleasure, or give pleasure because they are beautiful, I have no doubt that I will be given the answer that they give pleasure because they are beautiful.” 4 Thus beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder, though it is not reduced to our experience; it does not merely mean beautiful to me. ***
The beauty of something is directly proportional to its fittingness. We learn this from the character and action of God himself. We know God as he has revealed himself in his works of revelation and redemption. The divine works of creation, redemption, and consummation entail a consistent, suitable, and worthy expression or outworking of God’s wisdom and glory, displaying in time the eternal beauty of the immanent Trinity. Recognizing this fittingness of the revealing and redeeming activities of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is basic to celebrating the beauty of the Trinity. Nicholas Healy captures this idea in regard to the actions of God as follows:
The more fitting a person or thing or action, the more beautiful.
The theologian should attempt to explain why these means to salvation are the best by displaying the appropriateness of God’s actions as they are described in Scripture. The argument for fittingness is therefore something like an aesthetic argument because it searches for structure and proportion. The French Dominican, Gilbert Narcisse, gives this definition: “Theological fittingness displays the significance of the chosen means among alternative possibilities, and the reasons according to which God, in his wisdom, has effectively realized and revealed, gratuitously and through his love, the mystery of the salvation and glorification of humanity.” 5
Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas offer a similar theological rationale for the question of whether the Father or the Holy Spirit could have assumed the role of incarnate redeemer instead of the Son. I won’t rehearse the entirety of their arguments here, but the gist is that it is most fitting for the Son to become the incarnate redeemer rather than the Father or the Holy Spirit. This fittingness is based neither on our assumptions about what is appropriate for God nor on any anthropomorphic projection of our image upon God, but on the order of personal relations within the unity of the Godhead. The divine persons’ outward activities reflect with perfect harmony the inner paternity of the Father (since all things are from him), the filiation of the Son (all things are through him), and the spiration of the Holy Spirit (all things are in him). And this perfect fittingness, remember, is at one and the same time perfect beauty.6
This objective beauty of the Trinity as expressed in the divine works of creation, redemption, and consummation is an inherent quality of God’s glory. God’s glory is the fullness of his perfections, the expression and manifestation of which is the reality of all that God is. We find in Scripture that the word glory frequently serves as a proxy for specific divine attributes: goodness in its aspects of mercy and grace (Exod. 33:18–19; Eph. 1:6, 12, 14), truthfulness (1 Sam. 15:29), holiness (Isa. 6:3), majesty (Isa. 35:2), righteousness (Rom. 3:23), and power (John 11:40; Rom. 6:4; 2 Thess. 1:8–9). “Such biblical data suggests that God’s intrinsic glory is broader than a single attribute,” writes Christopher Morgan. “It corresponds with his very being and sometimes functions as a sort of summation of his attributes.” 7
The relation between white light and the color spectrum serves as a good illustration of the relation between God’s glory and his perfections. Isaac Newton demonstrated in the late seventeenth century that an optical prism can be used to separate white light into its constituent spectral colors. A second prism can then be used to recompose the spectrum back into white light. The prism does not create colors but simply reveals that all the colors already exist in the light.
As a quality in the light of God’s intrinsic glory, beauty is always an aspect of its multicolored external display. God’s works are altogether fitting and should always evoke our subjective recognition of his beauty in and through them.8
The beauty of a person depends not only on that person’s outward form but on the inner content of their character. True beauty, in other words, means that form and content inextricably cohere in perfect unity. God’s creational intention for human beings is that ultimately the beauty of our outer self (our body) coheres in perfect unity with the beauty of our inner self (our soul), for God intended our bodies to be, as John Barclay puts it, “the necessary expressive medium of the Christ-sourced life.” 9 In this present age, beauty in the outward sense is compromised and fading. Although the image of those redeemed in Christ includes the resurrection and glorification of their physical body (Phil. 3:21), for now we experience its wearing away (2 Cor. 4:16). On the “already” side of our eschatological glory, then, what counts as the true beauty of a person is a character reflective of the character of Christ. True beauty of character in that sense—our beauty in and through Christ—entails what Kevin Vanhoozer describes as “right thinking, desiring, and doing alike, involving all the disciple’s faculties: cognitive, affective, and dispositional.” 10 Sometimes we fail to recognize a person’s beauty, whether inner or outer. Our subjective failure to recognize beauty, however, does not negate its objective reality, since God is ultimately who determines what is beautiful. There is no better example of this than the unlikely loveliness of the incarnate Son.
In Isaiah’s Servant Song, the prophet describes Christ as having “no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him” (Isa. 53:2). This is certainly how he seemed during his humiliation “in the form of a slave” for our sakes (Phil. 2:6–8). Nonetheless, that form of a slave was most fitting for God the Son for his role as the Messiah. In and through the form of a slave, the incarnate Son magnifies the beauty of the glory of God’s self-giving love and at the same time begins to glorify—to beautify—us who not just apparently but really lacked that beauty. As New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham says, the character of God “is revealed as much in self-abasement and service as it is in exaltation and rule. The God who is high can also be low, because God is God not in seeking his own advantage but in self-giving.” 11
Especially in his humiliating death on the cross, Christ reveals in the most climactic way how God’s judicial wrath that must condemn the sinner unites in perfect expression with the mercy that would pardon. George Hunsinger wonderfully encapsulates this mystery:
The wrath of God is removed (propitiation) when the sin that provokes it is abolished (expiation). Moreover, the love of God that takes the form of wrath when
Sometimes we fail to recognize a person’s beauty, whether inner or outer. . . . There is no better example of this than the unlikely loveliness of the incarnate Son.
There is an unbreakable biblical connection between the beauty of the Lord and his manifest glory, especially his majesty, kingship, and splendor.
provoked by sin is the very same love that provides the efficacious means of expiation (vicarious sacrifice) and therefore of propitiation.12
Behold the perfect equipoise of God’s beauty: his righteous, holy love manifest in the execution of his wrath poured out on the Beloved on behalf of the unlovely! The event of the cross reveals the divine love that expresses itself in unreserved self-giving for the sake of others. Yet this surprising beauty displayed in Christ’s humiliation must hold together with that displayed in his exaltation. There is an unbreakable biblical connection between the beauty of the Lord and his manifest glory, especially his majesty, kingship, and splendor. In other words, not only are terms in Scripture expressive of “beauty” used in a parallel with “glory” (e.g., Exod. 28:2), but God’s objective beauty is also strongly correlated with his kingship. This is a common refrain in the Psalms:
For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary” (Ps. 96:5–6)
On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate. (Ps. 145:5)
God similarly describes himself to Job:
“Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?
“Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor.” (Job 40:9–10)
Of particular note for the beauty of the incarnate Son, Isaiah 33:17—“Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty”—is widely interpreted as a vision of the Messiah referring to a future time when God’s people would see the anointed king in all his royal splendor (cf. Isa. 33:22; Ps. 45). Bernard Ramm aptly summarizes the Bible’s royal motif, a precursor in the Old Testament to the majestic messianic character of Christ’s glory:
If there is a bridge which connects the visible glory of the Lord with his essential being, it is that of the kingship. . . . The royal kingship becomes one of the richest sources of analogies in the OT for the doctrine of God. The kābôd of the earthly king becomes the analogue for the kābôd of the Lord (cf. Pss. 22:28; 24:7–10).13
The display of the incarnate Son’s divine beauty is revealed perfectly in his messianic fulfillment as the greater Davidic Seed—the King of kings and Lord of lords! Jesus, and Jesus alone, is that ladder bridging heaven and earth (cf. John
1:51), personally embodying both the inner glory of God and its outward display in self-giving love and kingly rule. ***
If we want to be deeply encouraged in our identity in Christ and personal spiritual formation, we must discern the beauty inherent in the plan of God as well as the beauty of God’s work in and through us. The common idea that “as we think, we do” leads us to assume that real change needs to take place first in our thinking, which will then move us to act in accordance with what we think is true. Theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, however, has argued that perceiving the beautiful is the real starting point of change in our actions and even in conceptualizing truth accurately. I don’t believe we need to make definitive pronouncements about the exact chain of causation between our thinking, perceiving, experiencing, and doing; the mind in its connection with the bodily senses is as deeply mysterious as it is wondrously complex. Yet there is a thoroughly biblical logic in Balthasar’s reasoning: “The more obediently [the Christian] thinks, the more accurately he will see.”14 This reminds me of Jesus’ claim, “If anyone wants to do God’s will, he will know about my teaching, whether it is from God or whether I speak from my own authority” (John 7:17; cf. 1 John 4:11–12). The more we come to be affected by the beauty of the Lord, the more we will be delighted to follow him. It’s interesting that when Jesus refers to himself as the “good shepherd” (John 10:14–16), the Greek word here translated “good” often refers to the aesthetically beautiful, the excellent, noble, desirable, and praiseworthy. Beholding Jesus as not only morally upright but also wholly beautiful draws us both to know him better (“my own know me”) and to obey him more faithfully (“they will listen to my voice”).
I mentioned earlier in relation to the character of Jesus that personal beauty depends not only (or even primarily) on one’s outward form but on the inner content of one’s character, and especially the fit between the two. This is also true of the character of Jesus’ disciples. Our spiritual formation as believers—our conformity to the image of Christ—may be described as the practice of Christian fittingness. Christian fittingness means God’s people living in conformity to their identity in Christ and growing in Christlike character. The apostle Paul expresses his deeply felt burden that Christ be fully “formed” in us (Gal. 4:19) in accordance with the design of the divine plan (Rom. 8:29–30). Christ’s beauty—the fittingness of his person and work—is always the standard and pattern for our formation in beauty.15 In the account of the woman who anointed Jesus’ head with an alabaster flask of expensive perfume (Mark 14:3–9), some of those present were harshly critical of Jesus, seeing this woman’s act as an utter waste of money and a squandered opportunity to help the poor. But Jesus responded by saying, “She has done a beautiful thing to me.” Again, the Greek word translated “beautiful” here is the same as in John’s reference to Jesus as the “good” shepherd. Jesus knew
Christian fittingness means God’s people living in conformity to their identity in Christ and growing in Christlike character.
he’d soon be taken away and killed; the self-surrendering act of this woman is a beautiful thing because of how perfectly fitting—how supremely good—were her actions in displaying his beauty through anointing his body before his death and burial for our sake.
Contrast this beautiful obedience with Christ’s denunciation of the ugliness of the scribes and the Pharisees:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” (Matt. 23:27–28)
We can understand the nature of such ugliness not as the absence of beauty but a defilement, distortion, or perversion of it. The hypocrisy displayed by the scribes and Pharisees is the ugliness of self-righteousness masquerading as true love for God and true righteousness in front of others for their applause and esteem (cf. Mark 7:1–23; Luke 11:37–41). To be conformed to the image of Christ must include becoming truly beautiful like him in the inner self, a beauty expressed through our bodily actions and experienced in the increasing delight we take in the Lord (Ps. 37:3–4). All this beautifying work occurs by the Holy Spirit, who graciously and powerfully motivates the heartfelt pursuit of true godliness. Those who belong to a beautiful Savior long to live lives befitting their identity in Christ as God’s beloved children (Eph. 4:1, 32; 5:1–2).16
To be sure, because God calls his children to embrace by faith our identity as a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17), he empowers us by his Spirit to pursue a life of true discipleship. The person re-created in Christ has been brought out of a
1. Roger Scruton, Beauty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), xi.
2. Jonathan King, The Beauty of the Lord: Theology as Aesthetics (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018). The full discussion that follows draws from this work. On the particular point made here, see my discussion in the introduction under the subsection “Theologies of Aesthetics,” 2–7.
3. Etienne Gilson, Elements of Christian Philosophy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1960), 162.
4. Augustine, De Vera Religione, cited in Umberto Eco, The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, trans. Hugh Bredin (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 49.
5. Nicholas M. Healy, Thomas Aquinas: Theologian of the Christian Life (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003), 38.
6. See King, The Beauty of the Lord, 70–73.
7. Christopher W. Morgan, “Toward a Theology of the Glory of God,” in The Glory of God, ed. Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 165.
8. See King, The Beauty of the Lord, 44–49.
9. John M. G. Barclay, “Under Grace: The Christ-Gift and the Construction of a Christian Habitus,” in Apocalyptic Paul: Cosmos and Anthropos in Romans 5–8, ed. Beverly Roberts
condition of spiritual malformity into an already-but-not-yet perfected conformity to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29–30). Even in this present age, God has begun that re-creational work of forming each person in Christ in spiritual beauty by making us more and more like him.
The dynamic of growing more beautiful in Christlike character is thus an active participation. “Call it eschatological participation,” writes Vanhoozer, “a this-age taking part in the reality of the age to come.” 17 Paul, quoting Isaiah 64:4, directs our hearts and minds to the limitlessness of God’s beautifying work of redemption: “Things that no eye has seen, or ear heard, or mind imagined, are the things God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor. 2:9). The eversurpassing, ever-surprising nature of God in his works is most fully revealed in the radiance of our image-bearing beauty, as his beauty is reflected in us, from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18).
As we await this beautiful future, let us not only seek to grow in the truth of God’s revealed plan, but let us also increasingly delight in God for who he is and for making us partakers of his eternal Triune life through the person and work of Christ. This is what it means to behold the beauty of the Lord through eyes of faith (Ps. 27:4). And this is what will motivate and encourage us as we grow in the goodness of God by pursuing a faithful fittingness between our lives and his beautiful character.
Jonathan King (PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is executive director of Family Discipleship Ministries (FDM) and FDM Institute. Previously, he was lecturer in theology at the Faculty of Liberal Arts at the Universitas Pelita Harapan in Indonesia.
The person re-created in Christ has been brought out of a condition of spiritual malformity into an already-but-not-yet perfected conformity to the image of Christ.
Gaventa (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2013), 69.
10. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Faith Speaking Understanding: Performing the Drama of Doctrine (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014), 147.
11. Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 45.
12. George Hunsinger, The Eucharist and Ecumenism: Let Us Keep the Feast (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 173–74.
13. Bernard Ramm, Them He Glorified: A Systematic Study of the
Doctrine of Glorification (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963), 19.
14. Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, vol. 1., Seeing the Form, ed. Joseph Fessio, S.J., and John Riches, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1982), 165.
15. See King, The Beauty of the Lord, 260–65.
16. See King, The Beauty of the Lord, 284–86.
17. Vanhoozer, Faith Speaking Understanding, 126.
I RECENTLY SPOKE WITH A YOUNGER FRIEND who is battling cancer, which has included a great deal of pain. We had not spoken for a while, and I was struck by the change in his voice when he answered the phone. I understood why when I learned that acute pain prevented him from sleeping more than a few hours each night. It also hurt me—though it didn’t surprise me—to hear that walking with him through this season was taking an emotional toll on his tenderhearted wife. Despite this trial, my friend exuded joy in the Lord and confidence in his goodness. He shared that the Lord was wonderfully ministering to them both as they spent a great deal of time in the book of Job. Our conversation, though brief, had a powerful effect on me. While my friend’s trial grieves me deeply, his faith, joy, peace, and gratitude also challenged and encouraged me. Here was a brother in Christ suffering greatly and yet, by the grace of God, suffering well. In times of suffering, this is what I want for myself as well as for you: that, by the grace of God, we can suffer well.
At some time or another, pain and suffering are part of every life, including every Christian life. But for us it is profoundly meaningful because our gracious God calls us to steward our suffering toward three great ends: to promote his glory and pleasure in us, to help us grow spiritually, and to enable us to bless our neighbors. Sadly, this biblical perspective has been increasingly lost in our day. Contemporary Christians are often surprised, disoriented, discouraged, and defeated by it.1 But it doesn’t need to be this way—and given the rich resources we have in Christ, it shouldn’t be. ***
First Peter 5:10 describes our Lord as the “God of all grace,” whose common grace makes his sun to shine and his rain to fall on sinners and saints alike, giving even his hardened enemies many of the good things of this life (Matt. 5:45). Concerning the redeemed, Scripture is lavish in revealing divine favor toward us from all
I know no sweeter way to heaven, than through free grace and hard trials together, and none of these [can] well want another. —Samuel Rutherford
three persons of the Godhead. By means of election, the Father is the fountainhead of grace to his covenant people, purposing to save his chosen ones, even at the cost of his beloved Son’s suffering, and giving them as a love-gift to his Son (Eph. 1:3–11; John 17:2, 6, 9, 24; Heb. 2:13). The Son, in his grace, agreed to do and to endure everything necessary for the salvation of the elect, and he has. Our justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification are all the fruits of his gracious work in living, dying, rising, interceding, and reigning for us. And the “Spirit of grace” (Heb. 10:29) not only applies these blessings to us through our effectual calling, but he seals our union with Christ, indwells and consecrates our bodies as his temple, and by means of Christ’s resurrection life, transforms us from within into his lovely image. The Father’s grace has predestined us to everlasting life with him in glory, the Son’s grace has purchased that inheritance and is preparing it for us, and the Spirit’s grace is preparing us for that glory and sustaining us until we possess it.
The apostle John said, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19); and as we contemplate such lavish love and grace, we are provided with a powerful motive to please and glorify God in all that we do, including our suffering. We please and delight the Lord when we trust and submit to him, and we glorify him as we display or affirm his attributes before others, especially in our suffering. It is easy to trust his wisdom, goodness, power, and faithfulness when our prayers are being answered, our needs met, and our hopes fulfilled. But what about the times we are in physical or emotional pain, when our prayers remain unanswered, our needs go unmet, and our hopes appear to be dashed? It’s during those times especially that our faith, our thanks, our praise, our obedience, and our service glorify him more fully and please him more powerfully, and the knowledge of his grace to us is a wonderful incentive and encouragement for us to persevere. Surely, One who has shown such love and care in saving us will never truly abandon us. And even if it sometimes appears and feels that he has, he will ultimately prove himself faithful (Heb. 13:5; Rom. 8:38–39 ).
This brings us to a second reason for suffering well: spiritual growth. If we define spiritual growth as knowing God better and becoming more like him, then suffering provides a special opportunity and grace a wonderful motivation for both. When in pain, we have a special reason to draw near to him, to seek him with an urgency that we lack when life is comfortable. We pray with a new frequency and fervor, and we read and meditate on Scripture with an eagerness born of desperate need. We seek his strength and comfort in new ways, and when he gives, we rejoice and appreciate his faithfulness all the more. In these and other ways, our suffering provides opportunities to seek our Lord with greater urgency, his gracious character encourages us to do so, and his gracious responses deepen our knowledge of and love for him. He is, after all, the God who is near to and delights to heal the brokenhearted (Pss. 34:18; 147:3; Isa. 61:1).
Finally, experiencing God’s grace motivates (and enables) us to minister to others. Paul said that our experience of God’s comfort equips us to comfort others (2 Cor. 1:3–5), and surely the same is true of our experience of his grace.
The Father’s grace has predestined us to everlasting life with him in glory, the Son’s grace has purchased that inheritance and is preparing it for us, and the Spirit’s grace is preparing us for that glory and sustaining us until we possess it.
Indeed, his comfort is simply an aspect of his grace, specifically as it relates to sufferers and their needs, and our own experience of comforting and enabling grace moves us to share it with fellow-sufferers, pointing them to the “God of all grace,” who is also the “Father of mercies and God of all comfort,” confident that they, like we, will receive from him the grace and comfort they need.
So, God’s grace to us in Christ should be a wonderful motivation, not just to seek from him relief from our pain but also to please and glorify him in it, to grow in our knowledge of and likeness to him, and to minister his grace to other sufferers as they have need and we opportunity.
***
God’s grace is not merely our motive for suffering well; it is also the means by which we do so. Scripture is clear that the end of suffering awaits the “not yet” of Christ’s return to make all things new (Rom. 8:20–1; 2 Pet. 3:10–13; Rev. 21–22). But it is equally clear that in this present age when suffering remains a painful and inescapable reality, we are “already” blessed with “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). That glorious fact has profound and wonderful implications for us here and now, not least of which is the all-sufficient “grace, in which we stand” (2 Cor. 12:9–10; Rom. 5:2). Pain can alienate us from God rather than draw us closer. Instead of making us more like him, it can have the opposite effect. It can harden rather than soften us toward others. Yet his grace can transform our trials as well as us.
Thayer’s Greek Lexicon includes two main New Testament meanings for the word grace (charis): it describes both the free favor that God shows in Christ toward the “ill-deserving” and “the merciful kindness by which God, exerting his holy influence,” works in us all manner of gifts and Christian virtues by his Spirit. These two senses are intimately related, and the second always flows out of the first. God is gracious toward us in suffering, and he works graciously in us through suffering. This twofold grace is epitomized by Christ, who “though he was rich, yet for [our] sake . . . became poor, so that [we] by his poverty might become rich.” (2 Cor. 8:9). That grace becomes ours through our union with him (Eph. 1:3, etc.), who calls us to “share in his sufferings” (Rom. 8:17; Phil. 3:10). And that grace enables us to suffer well, as Paul testifies in 2 Corinthians 12:9: “He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” ***
This is so important for us to understand as sufferers. Suffering doesn’t help us on its own. By itself, it can leave us hardened, bitter, and despairing. Suffering isn’t a means of grace. Suffering changes us because it drives us to God’s grace, and only grace can change us. Christ promises to comfort and strengthen his
God’s grace is not merely our motive for suffering well; it is also the means by which we do so.
suffering people by his Spirit through powerful, effective means of grace. First and foremost, we must acknowledge “the Spirit of grace” himself (Heb. 10:29), the divine Comforter and Helper whom Jesus sent to be the seal and guarantee of our sonship and union with him (2 Cor. 1:22), to live in us and join us to our Lord and one another (John 14–16). He is the Spirit of adoption and of life (Rom. 8:2, 15; 2 Cor. 3:6), who imparts Christ’s resurrection life to us and sustains it in us (2 Cor. 4:7–11). He “strengthens our weakness,” helps us to pray, and intercedes for us (Rom. 8:26–27). He reveals Christ to us and conforms us to his image (2 Cor. 3:18). The supernatural love, joy, and peace that sufferers demonstrate by God’s power are part of the fruit the Spirit produces in the lives of God’s people (Gal. 5:22–23).
Among the Spirit’s other ministries to sufferers is the illumination of Scripture—the “word of his grace” (Acts 20:32)—to sustain our faith and give us comfort, hope, wisdom, and guidance. The Spirit does this by using Scripture to remind us of our heavenly Father’s gracious character and disposition toward us, and of our privileges and security as his children in Christ. By means of Scripture’s commands and examples, the Spirit counsels us concerning the duties we must perform and the dangers we must avoid in our suffering. God’s “precious and magnificent promises” fuel our faith and enable us to persevere when our strength and courage begin to flag. Supremely, the Spirit points us to Christ, in whom “all the promises of God are yea and . . . amen” (2 Cor. 1:20). As we understand more clearly and grasp more fully all that we are and have in God, our faith and other graces grow, thus enabling us to steward well the pain he entrusts to us.
Of the many promises and privileges that are ours through Christ, our sympathetic High Priest, among the most precious is prayer: ready access to the very throne of heaven, now for us a “throne of grace,” where through him we may confidently draw near to our “Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6) and expect to “receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:15–16). If we faithfully claim and act upon it through prayer, that privilege alone is priceless in pleasant circumstances, but it is especially precious and helpful when gripped by pain.
Besides the word and prayer, Christ’s Spirit uses the ministry of the sacraments to bring gospel truths home to our hearts with fresh power and assurance as we worship and fellowship in his church. This suggests that another means of grace for sufferers is the communion of the saints. “But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not only by his coming but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more” (2 Cor. 7:6–7). Not only was Titus’s personal presence and fellowship an immediate source of comfort to Paul, but the Corinthians comforted him indirectly as he heard Titus’s encouraging report about them. Paul also speaks of the power of our words to “give grace to those who hear” them and of our duty to use them in that way (Eph. 4:29). As we do so, we become yet another means of blessing to our hurting brothers and sisters and, of course, there may also be concrete, practical needs to which we can minister, as the Macedonians did so generously
Suffering doesn’t help us on its own. By itself, it can leave us hardened, bitter, and despairing. . . . Suffering changes us because it drives us to God’s grace, and only grace can change us.
and joyously despite their own “extreme poverty” (2 Cor. 8:1–3). Thus the church can be a vital asset to suffering believers as it provides the combined ministries of word and sacrament, and the communion of the saints.
***
In his loving wisdom, God ordains our suffering as an occasion to bring his grace to bear in the lives of his believing children—not that he delights in our pain, but that he permits and allows it as part of his purposes for our ultimate flourishing. As we “grow in grace” and are increasingly “full of grace” and “strong in grace” (2 Pet. 3:18; Acts 6:8; 2 Tim. 2:1), we please and glorify him, knowing him better, and becoming more like our Savior while ministering to those around us even in our weakness. This reality of suffering as an occasion for God’s grace might help us to appreciate the Puritan practice of referring to the church in this present age as the “Kingdom of grace,” whose subjects often suffer, in connection to the coming “Kingdom of glory,” from which pain will be banished forever. Hear Thomas Watson on that theme:
The Kingdom of grace is nothing . . . but the beginning of the Kingdom of glory; the Kingdom of grace is glory in the seed, and the Kingdom of glory is grace in the flower; the Kingdom of grace is glory in the daybreak, and the Kingdom of glory is grace in the full meridian; the Kingdom of grace is glory militant, and the Kingdom of glory is grace triumphant.2
In that new world, everyone and everything will reflect the beauty of our Creator and Redeemer; and his grace to us in our suffering will be among those things he used to beautify and fit his children for glory. Suffering belongs to the “already,” but so does grace—and that means glory is sure to come.
This load of guilt that weighs upon my mind and chills the natural movements of the heart, these cares that burn, and memories that bind, that grip my soul and make me stand apart: let them be occasions of God’s grace, and by their ministrations let me see my inmost nature and its hidden face, the common lot of all mortality. My mind is dark, my self is full of sin, and wrath is all my foolishness deserves. I see the evil hidden deep within, behind my thoughts, where no one else observes— and yet the blood of Christ is cleansing me, in preparation for eternity.
By Alan Noble
INTERVARSITY PRESS | 2023 | 120 PAGES (HARDCOVER) | $20.00
In the 2012 film The Perks of Being a Wallflower , based on a novel by Stephen Chbosky, a high school first-year student named Charlie grapples with the suffering of those around him. As someone with undisclosed trauma from childhood, Charlie is especially observant of and empathetic toward the suffering he witnesses. After his friends graduate and leave for college, he is institutionalized for attempting to commit suicide. He talks with his doctor for the first time in a dimly lit hospital room:
“Just tell me how to stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Seeing it. All their lives. All the time. How do you stop seeing it?”
“Seeing what, Charlie?”
“There is so much pain. And I don’t know how to not notice it.”
“What’s hurting you?”
“No, not me. It’s them. It’s everyone. It never stops. Do you understand?” 1
Charlie deeply desires to no longer see the suffering in those close to him, but what happens when we confront the fact that we can’t stop
noticing this pain? Or what happens when we acknowledge we shouldn’t stop seeing the agony in the world, that it’s good to acknowledge it? How do we faithfully live as caring witnesses to mental suffering? These are the concerns of On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living , written by Alan Noble, an associate professor of literature at Oklahoma Baptist University and editor-in-chief of Christ and Pop Culture .
Whether it’s the suffering we’re experiencing or a loved one is enduring, we need to know how to bear the burden of living and see this same life as a gift. Our lives, even with suffering, are gifts from the God who graciously created us. Noble’s short book explores answers to the question “Why live?” when all of life’s evidence says, “Life isn’t worth living.”
Throughout what’s really a long essay, Noble spends ample time discussing the “evidence” of suffering in life, the uncountable instances of people “carrying around something unspeakably painful” (9). While Noble has his own personal suffering that he could use as anecdotal material, he has stated in interviews that he didn’t want this book to be a memoir, but rather a theological reflection born from firsthand experience. Much of what he discusses includes clinical diagnoses of anxiety, depression, and other conditions. Yet, he makes sure not to limit “mental affliction” to the realm of clinical psychiatry. Both those with a clinical diagnosis and those who can still attest to real suffering without a diagnosis can benefit from considering these realities of life: that life is both a burden and a blessing.
It’s all too easy to admit the fact that this life is a burden. Clear and honest about the reality of pain in this world, Noble admits this reality in two main ways. First, he testifies that we “all suffer silent crises,” carrying these “burdens that are incommunicable to those closest to us and occasionally even opaque to ourselves” (100; my italics). No matter the severity of our afflictions, this type of suffering is common to us all.
The second way can be found in his treatments of clinical mental illness. As someone diagnosed with specific phobia anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, I appreciated his caution and care in dealing with the existence of mental illness, making sure to root the topic in Scripture without dismissing the need for medical treatment of these illnesses. He even deliberately confesses that he’s no expert in clinical psychiatry and that his words should be balanced with this fact. I appreciate all of this as a sign of honesty and humility on his part that leads to thoughtful reflection on suffering.
Noble’s central idea in this book concerns the sure goodness of existence. If we’re asking the question “Why live?” then his answer is “because our existence is good.” In the words of novelist Marilynne Robinson, we live because existence “seems to [us] now the most remarkable thing that could ever be imagined.”2 This existence is good because God has created us and called this creation good. As a result, even when it doesn’t feel like this is true, the goodness of our lives calls us to “do the next thing [as] an act of worship” (45).
While all this is correct, I’m concerned about a few implications of what the book doesn’t say. Is getting up and doing the next thing enough ? Are we worshiping God if we merely get up and do the tasks before us? Noble instructs the reader: “Choose to do the next thing before and unto God, take a step toward the block. That is all you must ever do and all you can do. It is your spiritual act of worship” (45; my italics). To be fair, some faithful Christians are experiencing severe enough clinical mental or physical illnesses that getting out of bed is all they can do at the moment in the effort of worshiping God. However, Noble’s book is admittedly addressed to a much broader audience. So, this passage contains some problematic implications.
First, getting out of bed and doing the next thing, while part of worshiping God, is likely not all Paul had in mind when he instructed the Christians in Rome to “present [their] bodies
as living sacrifices” (Rom. 12:1). What Paul had in mind when he suggested this was to offer all of ourselves to God, and he wouldn’t seem to be content with these simple tasks of daily living as constituting our whole worship. We can worship God in these tasks, but it’s mistaken to have them constitute that worship on their own. I imagine Noble regards getting out of bed and living one more day is a sacrifice because our bodies are presented for service in fulfillment of our vocations: a parent gets out of bed for the sake of a child; an employee for the sake of coworkers; a disciple for the sake of church community. Sacrificial service deserves praise for its obedience to the second greatest commandment—love your neighbor, even when you are falling apart—but there’s more to “true and proper worship” than executing our appointed work.
Second, if doing these simple acts of living, on their own, constitute our worship, then this means that non-Christians who get up and go about their work are also worshiping God in the same way. And so, the life of a Christian and a non-Christian are equal in their worship of God, equally pleasing to him. Biblically, however, we can’t say that the same act performed from a heart of faith and from a heart lacking faith are equally pleasing to the Lord.
In addition to these concerns, the person of Christ plays a peripheral role to the main points of the book. Noble proclaims the goodness of God’s creation as an impetus to live lives in the midst of mental affliction. But is this enough? Will looking at the goodness of our existence, at ourselves, really provide a balm to our anguish? Or do we need to look beyond ourselves to find our answer in Christ? It seems Noble believes that a robust affirmation of the goodness of creation will lead us toward the goodness of our Creator, but his book would benefit from drawing the ladder of ascent more explicitly. For example, how does cooking a meal, grading papers, folding clothes, or calling a long-distance friend move us closer toward Christ? Solidarity with the Suffering Servant
equips sufferers to experience their suffering, against all odds, as “light momentary affliction” that prepare them for “an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17).
The answer to the question “Why live?” cannot be separated from the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. To give Noble some credit in this, he does say later in the book, “The very same God who created you in an act of grace and who preserves you in an act of grace suffered so that you can be redeemed by an act of grace” (82). It’s clear that Noble’s book is not without Christ. Yet, I suggest that the person of Christ should be more central to his solution to the “life problem.”
At the end of The Perks of Being a Wallflower when Charlie is released from the hospital, he says, “My doctor said we can’t choose where we come from, but we can choose where we go from there. I know it’s not all the answers, but it was enough to start putting these pieces together.”
The question then becomes: What gives us the ability to move on, to start putting the pieces together? While I’m somewhat dissatisfied by Noble’s solution, I believe he’s provided a helpful beginning to the answer. He’s provided those struggling with any number of internal agonies a first step in worshiping the Triune God:
Your existence is a testament, a living argument, an affirmation of creation itself. When you rise each day, that act is a faint but real echo of God’s “It is good.” By living this life, you participate in God’s act of creation, asserting with your very existence that it is a good creation. (36)
This answer is incomplete because it doesn’t account for the centrality of Christ, especially in creation. Scripture tells us that Jesus Christ is “the firstborn of all creation,” and that “by him all things were created . . . and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:15–17). When we assert the goodness of creation, we must assert the goodness
of Jesus Christ himself. For the creation and sustaining of all things is done only through Christ.
So, when all is said and done, why should we live? Because our life is a gift and it is good, even very good (Gen. 1:31). Even when we feel that it’s not a gift, it is . When we don’t feel that life is good, maybe the act of living, choosing to do the next thing as an act of worship can work in us the gratitude we currently lack.
Even though we may not have all the answers we want, knowing the goodness of God and his creation and salvation in Christ can be our starting place for an answer. If the promises of Scripture hold true, then there’s not only evidence of suffering in this life but evidence of God’s goodness: “Beauty and love and joy are normal, too” (27). And there’s no greater evidence of this goodness than the work of our Savior that equips us to wake up each morning with thankfulness. Let’s pay attention to all the evidence. Let’s notice the evidence of the cross and resurrection. Let’s get out of bed as Paul encourages us to do:
“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” (Eph. 5:14)
Joey Jekel is a philosophy and literature teacher at Founders Classical Academy of Frisco, Texas.
LEXHAM | 2022 | 288 PAGES (HARDCOVER) | $29.99
Be sure to listen to MR editor-in-chief Michael Horton’s interview with Richard Lints about the themes in
Uncommon Unity on the White Horse Inn episode released August 30, 2023, at whitehorseinn.org/lints.
A FEW YEARS AGO , during a particularly contentious presidential election cycle, my father shared an article with me from a publication to which he subscribed and asked me to offer him my thoughts on the topic covered. While the topic of the article dove into things with which I felt ill-equipped to engage, I did give a word of caution regarding the style of argumentation. Like many contemporary outlets today, the approach argued for the seemingly sole purpose of eliciting fear. The publication pitted us against them and attempted to make the reader scared of too many of them in places of prominence and power. In a publication that, on the surface, seemed committed to American ideals like e pluribus unum —out of the many, one—further reading demonstrated a desire not for unity in diversity but uniformity instead of diversity.
But what does it mean to be unified amid evident diversity? How have we gotten to where we are? What does Scripture say about how the church should engage with this subject? Addressing this topic in public often feels like pressing two magnets together with like poles—the more you attempt to connect them, the more they’re forced apart. In Uncommon Unity, Richard Lints, senior consulting theologian with Redeemer City to City in New York City, posits answers to these questions and more as he sets out to turn the traditional argument for unity upside down. Rather than focusing on “the doctrinal and structural ties binding the church together,” Lints writes, “we must first reflect on the nature of difference as it stands in relation to the theological constructs of unity” (xviii).
American philosopher and educational reformer John Dewey is rumored to have said, “A problem well defined is a problem half solved.” In Uncommon Unity, Richard Lints defines the problem of our contemporary diversity and disunity well.
The book is broken into three parts. In part 1 (chs. 1–4), Lints addresses the cultural and contextual differences for understanding and dealing with difference (xix). Here, he describes the inclusion and exclusion narratives of the United States and how these narratives have helped create the deep polarization we see in the church and culture today. While democracy can muzzle the ability of the powerful to rule and suppress the weak, Darwinian law can still flourish because the muzzle is fastened loosely. Our current democracy has historically included more voices than any previous government through the multitude of those able to participate in governing decisions (31). It has also, however, by nature of that inclusion, excluded many voices (37). By popular vote, the majority can exclude the minority through the very mechanism of inclusion. But in a drastic turn of events in American history, the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s showed that power in America could be found in exclusion. And now, “nearly anyone could be an outsider by defining themselves over against whoever they believed had discriminated against them” (63).
Understanding these narratives is pivotal for anyone attempting to understand and engage with our social imaginary —how we understand the world to work. Lints describes our social imaginary as “late secular modernity.” It’s late in that many social changes have been under way for a long time leading to our present age (57). It’s secular in that it’s primarily carried out without an abiding sense of a transcendent reality invading ordinary events (63). And it’s modern because what we believe about the world is largely a product of technologically induced ways of thinking (58). With this definition in hand, Lints continues to develop a description of our fracturing inside and outside the church while hinting that Christians are particularly well equipped to address these issues (79).
Outside the church, he uses the example of justice and morality generally, showing that both
require morally responsible people and a moral framework upon which there is agreement (77). However, without an agreed-upon ultimate authority, the narratives of inclusion and exclusion allow for things that ought to be absolute (like justice and morality) to be interpreted differently, depending on whoever has the power at the time. In our social imaginary, we’ve removed the Almighty but kept some of his precepts.
Inside the church, however, Lints shows that these same narratives are at play in what he calls the “pluralist impulse,” which is our instinctual desire to choose for ourselves (83). Rather than being firmly rooted in a history handed down through established religious traditions, the evangelical desire to be “relevant” presents Christianity to the world like a buffet presents dinner: the options are endless, and the meal depends entirely on your preferences.
At a point in the book where it may seem that Lints will argue for uniformity instead of diversity, part 2 (chs. 5–8) challenges us to see the beauty of beautiful differences. Here, Lints fully develops the metaphor of marriage, his dominant metaphor throughout the book. To do this, he contrasts our social imaginary against a theological imaginary encountered in Scripture (111). The Creator-creature distinction is fundamental to how we view creature-creature relationships. Only once we acknowledge that meaning, purpose, and truth are given to us and not created by us can we flourish amid diversity because we’re ready to admit our limitations as creatures. “God has created us as social creatures who bear individual responsibility for our actions, as well as being ‘incomplete’ outside a social network of relationships” (135). Eve was a helper made fit for Adam, which assumes that Adam had lack (Gen. 2:18). He needed something diverse and complementary to his deficiencies to be whole.
What was true of Adam and Eve is also true of the church. We need one another. Christian unity is of the utmost importance because Christ
bled and died to accomplish it. We exist in the already/not yet, where “the church’s unity has already been accomplished in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, yet is still waiting to be fully accomplished” (174). And it’s because of this that Christians should never be dissuaded from the work of unity (173).
While disunity isn’t new (12–14), the distinct ways in which disunity manifests in a particular culture and against the backdrop of particular historical and individual circumstances are always unique, so any attempt to address disunity must come from an approach willing to bend in certain areas while not being broken in others. Lints helpfully points this out early, stating that it’s inappropriate to draw a straight line from our shared social context to individualized iterations of experience in that context (56).
Enter part 3 of Uncommon Unity. In the book’s final section (chs. 9–10), Lints describes some points of application without prescribing how they ought to be applied. And his reason for this is wisdom . Lints writes that wisdom acknowledges that God has made the world with certain patterns, and our flourishing or demise rests on embracing or resisting those patterns. He goes on to say that, at a fundamental level, “wisdom acquiesces to the fact that we humans are not God” (236).
While this section of the book may be particularly infuriating to a reader looking for pragmatic actions to implement, especially on the heels of such a vivid and encompassing description of the problem, this final section is absolutely right. We’ve all tried on the shirt or hat that claims to be one-size-fits-all only to find out that’s not true. One cookie-cutter solution can’t account for the multiple ways diversity and potential disunity will be manifested in any given context. Lints knows that to blanket the end of the book with tasks and directives would be like a doctor prescribing jogging to a person with paraplegia and heart problems. Sure, jogging may be good for cardiovascular health, but
what good does that do for someone unable to implement it?
Instead, Lints offers solutions by describing the reality and importance of wisdom. He articulates five facts of wisdom that all seem to connect to the foundational truth that humans are not God (236–42). He shows that the way the church navigates the challenges of diversity will be wise insofar as it’s firmly rooted in the logic of the gospel (247) and that the heart of the gospel is not an overcoming of diversity but instead has reconciliation as its impulse (248).
These final chapters neatly articulate a goal running straight through Uncommon Unity . Lints desires the church to understand and use gospel logic to create deep “unity-in-difference” (7). Gospel logic is “straightforward,” Lints writes. “The greater the collaboration, the greater the opportunity for conflict unless there is a constraint on the self-interest of individuals in the community” (25). A community committed to living cruciform lives together is the wisdom required for all attempting to navigate the conflict that’s certain to come when diverse people are joined together.
While the contents of this book are valuable for all Christians, its academic writing style probably won’t be easily accessible for the average churchgoer. I therefore stress the importance of ministers and ministry leaders who read this book to disseminate its contents with wisdom and care to their congregants.
Matt Boga is the associate pastor at Reality Church of Stockton, California.
by Christopher Watkin
ZONDERVAN ACADEMIC | 2022 | 672 PAGES (HARDCOVER) | $39.99
OVER THE PAST FEW MONTHS , I have recommended Biblical Critical Theory to more than a few fellow believers. Almost every time, I was met with a dubious look. The phrase “critical theory” carries negative connotations for many Christians. More than once, a diatribe began against critical race theory before I could explain that this book is something very different.
As Tim Keller notes in the foreword, “The term critical theory has an older and more basic meaning” than those we often hear in contemporary debates: “It means to not just accept what a culture says about itself but also to see what is really going on beneath the surface” (xv). This gets to the matter of “worldview” or how we see and interpret the world around us. As Christians, our worldview is fundamentally shaped by Scripture, though we don’t often consider how exactly the Bible can and should affect our view of reality.
In Biblical Critical Theory, Christopher Watkin helps us further adjust our worldview in the light of Scripture. Watkin does this in unique fashion by walking us through the storyline of Scripture, unpacking the implications for our thinking along the way. Good luck trying to shelve this book in a library! It doesn’t fit with systematic theology, biblical hermeneutics, or Christian living. It encompasses all three.
In addition to the creative organization of this book, the sheer enormity of its scope is impressive. This shouldn’t be surprising. We’re talking about how the Bible shapes our view of the world. What could possibly lie outside such a scope? As a result, Watkin engages many of the hardest philosophical dilemmas and
dichotomies—like unity and diversity, rationalism and irrationalism—in the light of Scripture. Yet, he constantly vacates the ivory tower to address ground-level issues.
While Watkin’s writing gets a bit heady at times, he adds just enough quotes, pop culture references, and elegant turns of phrase to keep the reader’s attention. I’m not sure I’ve ever read another book that quotes both G. K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy and Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” Watkin’s impressive oeuvre of literary sources and knowledge of contemporary culture keeps the tone conversational.
One of the most important concepts Watkin introduces is that of “diagonalization.” He shows how the Bible eschews false dichotomies and partial truths and transcends them. For example, various worldviews favor God’s transcendence at the expense of immanence or vice-versa. The Bible shows us that God is both—not in some 50/50 balance, but in a way that allows these truths to hang together in a manner that only God can do.
Already, the Christian blogosphere has lit up with critiques of this concept, calling it—among other things—“third wayism.” In other words, Watkin is being accused of theological compromise. This accusation totally misses the mark. This concept of diagonalization is unique in that it refuses to compromise with oversimplifications of reality. The Bible is neither the handbook of the rationalist nor the irrationalist, for example, but the God-breathed word that can be reduced to either school of thought. (Unfortunately, quality theological work generally does not thrive in the humming hive of online Christian punditry.)
If the book has one partial weakness, it’s this: Due to the sheer scope of the book, a good many important discussions and ideas are abbreviated and underdeveloped. Occasionally, Watkin whets my appetite and then leaves me unsatiated. I’m not sure whether he really had a choice—the book is nearly seven hundred pages as it is. In spreading the feast of thinking biblically for all of life, perhaps Watkin could offer only limited portions lest the reader overindulge.
Yet, this arguably unavoidable weakness creates another subtle strength to this work: It introduces several academic roads less traveled. Embedded within nearly every perfunctory point is the question, “Couldn’t this idea be further developed?” If Helen of Troy had the “face that launched a thousand ships,” then Biblical Critical Theory will be the book that launched a thousand dissertations.
This may very well be my favorite book of the year. In how it will both start and shift conversations within the church, it should be equal in influence to Carl Trueman’s Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. Although this isn’t fodder for Sunday school, it will likely produce a secondary wave of writing that will be immensely important for Christians in the pew. It belongs in every church office and every seminarian’s already over-weighted bookcase. In an age of reactionary heat, we should be thankful to the Lord for books like this that enable a new generation of scholars to view the world with biblical critical lenses— and thus with greater light.
THE FOCUS OF THIS ISSUE OF MR is eschatology, living in what the Bible calls “these last days” between the already and the not yet. When it comes to our own lives or the global challenges the church faces, it’s easy to slide too far toward either pole. At one end is an exaggerated sense of the “already,” which leads to utopian dreams. This error leads to an overzealous activism, to be sure, but ultimately to either self-righteousness or despair. At the other end is a one-sided emphasis on the “not yet” that excuses passivity. It’s clear from the New Testament that we are in a cosmic spiritual battle (Eph. 6:10–17). Its victory has been secured, and we are enjoying even now the spoils of Jesus’ conquest—yet we await Christ’s bodily return to raise our bodies and cleanse his creation of everything that defiles.
A passage that helps us to integrate the two poles of the already and not yet is 1 John 2:7–14, where the apostle gives us a command that, paradoxically, is both “old” and “new” (vv. 7–8). The command itself—to love God and neighbor—is as ancient as creation. Yet under the dominion of sin and corruption, the command itself has no power to make us love. The history not only of the nations but also of Israel attests to the failure of humanity to live in harmony.
But then something completely new enters the world: God the Son incarnate, the faithful Son in whom the great commandment is fulfilled. It is “true in him”—and, John adds, also “in you, because the darkness is passing away and
the true light is already shining.” In the dark, we fumble around, knocking things over, focusing on our own survival. But the light has already come into the world. Although the darkness has not yet been completely extinguished, the light even now fills every nook and cranny with warmth and color.
This commandment to love is fulfilled in Christ and in us because we are “in him.” The light is chasing away the darkness. Therefore, “Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling” (vv. 9–10). We deceive ourselves if we imagine that we’re in the light while deliberately choosing to continue lurking in the dark. That belongs to the old age of sin and death. A new age has dawned with Christ’s resurrection and the sending of his Spirit.
This doesn’t mean, however, that we should slide too far toward the other pole. Perfectionist and utopian schemes forget the “not yet.” John upbraids those who say they don’t still sin (1 John 1:8). That’s why we continually confess our sins, knowing that through Christ’s mediation, God forgives us (v. 9). Yet the light of the new creation is dawning with Christ as its sun. Love is a new commandment, not in its content but in its context. The new creation is so new that the command to love is, in a sense, heard for the first time as we recognize not only the face of our Lord but the faces of our brothers and sisters in him. In the light, we see them and they see us.
Michael Horton is editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation.
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