May 01, 1986 by Ralph D. Winter

A Theology of Redemption, Part IV

In the three previous issues, 1) we tried to see the overall drama of history which displays the Goal of the Secret Mission; 2) we zeroed in on the nature of the long mysterious Covenant which has become a Secret Mission; 3) then, last time, we surveyed an eight fold breakdown of the Goals of this Mission four Upward and four Outward.

Chapter Four The Concept of Means: Can We Really Help?

The eight Goals of the "Secret" Mission are awesome and compelling. But can we reach them? Goals need Means. We are bumping into what has been related to vaguely as the "Means of Grace" But in light of the Secret Mission, the Means are as startlingly new as the Goals we saw last time.

To enter into a love relationship with God and with His Creation is the goal. Buthowdowedothat? How do we go about stoking God in a loving relationship? Is it all God's initiative? Is there anything we can strive to be or to do? We aspire to the goals of grace. How can we attain them? They are preeminently inward realities, not outward rites. They cannot properly be faked  But can they be attained through rituals which, if mixed with faith, that is, if flowing from "the obedience of faith," will become "means of grace"?

Blessings, The Blessing, and the Blessor

It is very unlikely that any one of the goals of grace any one of the types of love for God or for His creation can be cultivated by itself, much less for itself. The specific "blessings" inherent in these graces cannot be sought apart from the "blessing," (the relationship) nor can the blessing be sought instead of "The Blessor." It was Simon the Sorceror (Acts 8:19) who wanted nothing of the Blessor, nor the blessed relationship, only the blessing. Even the Jews (and now American evangelicals) generally sought merely the blessing and not the Blessor.

1. Means: Yours, Mine, or Ours?

Our individualistic American bent. combined with or, perhaps, derived from the crucial deficiency of the pronouns in the English language, encourages us to overlook the fact that almost every passage in the Bible that speaks about the blessings of God is stated in terms of God's blessing (empowering, guiding, filling, supporting, using) a group, not an individual. That is, the word you is almost always plural not singular.Looking more closely, we see very few blessings in the Bible promised to individuals, except as members of a group. We are a blessed people and we seek to be a blessing to other peoples. Human beings cannot be very greatly blessed by themselves. Psychologists are playing along with contemporary American misunderstandings of the nature of the human being when they attempt to adjust individuals apart from the groups to which they belong or need to belong.

Paradoxically, we feel as if we can sin by ourselves, but not to be blessed by ourselves. Yet even in this matter of sin, the solidarity of the community is such that individuals do not often go wrong without a corresponding laxity in the community. If they do not have a community to which they sense they belong, then they may go wrong precisely because they are not borne along by such a support vehicle.

We must not press this too far, but due to the extreme individualism of our American culture, it surely is necessary to balance out the other side. From an African leader I recently heard the statement, "Americans bring up their children to be independent and loyal to themselves; Africans bring up their children to be dependent and loyal to the group."

2. American Culture and the Bible ... Again

We have been talking about the relatively greater importance of corporate vs individual approaches to the means of grace (e.g. corporate prayer vs individual player; corporate worship vs individual worship, etc.). Let us pause for just one mom illustration of the way we tend to distort our interpretation of the Bible along individualistic lines as the result of looking at it through the colored glasses of American culture, In Phil. 2:12 and 13, Paul says. "So then, my beloved (plural), just as you (p1) have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence (still in jail) work out your own (p1) salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God (not I oming out of jail) who is at work in you (j,I). both to will and to work for His good pleasure."

Were it not for the American glasses worn by the translators the key phrase toward the end, "at work in you" would more correctly be translated "at work among you" or "in your midst, in my place? In the Greek, the word "in" automatically shifts to 'among" when the pronoun is plural.

As Americans, though, we are always on the lookout for verses that speak of God's work in us as individuals, and so our translators translate the Greek "among you" as "in you" and we interpret the "in you" as referring to us as individuals rather than together as a pluralistic body.

3. The Obedience of Faith vs External Compliance

On the one hand, the Bible on almost every page tells us that God looks upon the heart The pure heart, the heart that is fully the Lord's is the most important goal of grace. On the other hand, when it comes to the matter of the means of grace, the Bible is equally consistent in its emphasis upon the centrality of the "obedience of faith" At first glance that may seem to be merely an external thing, but it is, really, a heart response; it is walking in the faith we already have as a gift of God and receiving more faith as a result.

Consider the curious statement "To him who has shall more be given, but from him who has not, even that which he has shall be taken" (Mt. 13:12). Jesus would seem to be saying that God always expects us to act on the light he has already given us as a condition for giving us more light, more faith, As Dawson Trotrnan of the Navigators used to my, "If you can't see very far ahead,' go ahead as far as you can see?

Looking at things this way, we preserve the initiative of God, for He is the one who has given us the bit of faith inwhich wecanact We also preserve the concept of human responsibility because "the bail is in our court" if we have not gone ahead as far as God has already shown us. Furthermore, we understand faith in this perspective as akin to light on our path. God gives different light/faith to different people. We look at others' faith and to us it seems darkness, To them it is "evidence of things not teen" by us. Faith is a certainty for the one to whom it has been given.

Not all certainty (as a psychological mood) is faith, but all faith is a certainty, even if as is common in 0's walk with our Lord it is only a bit of light beyond where we are.

Faith, then, is not something we conjure up nor work up. nor is it mere courage; it is the gilt of God, something lowly God's initiative. Those to whom faith has been given are often, in a human sense, almost "victims" of that faith. They do not ask for it any more than Abraham asked for his summons from Ut of the Chaldees.

Believing, on the other hand, e.g. belief (vs faith), is a verb, not a noun. Belief refers to what we do, not to what God gives. Faith is what God gives. Faith is what we believe IN Belief is our response to faith; it is walking in the heaven given light of faith: walking in faith.

Believing, then, is not merely an intellectual but also a volitional response to faith. It is obedience: true heart obedience, it is the "obedience of faith," which is more than compliance, yet which is, often, "compliance in faith." This means that even though we do not know exactly where compliance will lead, we are wffling, in faith, to comply with that is, act out what we understand to be His will.

The English language is a problem again here. It disguises the fact that Greek uses the same root word for both faith and belief. Fistis and pisleuo, respectively, display the close association of faith and belief. The one isanow, theother averb. In many missionary translations "to believe' is translated "to obey," simply because heart obedience is the same as believing. 11 that does not sound right, look at what we do in English. Note that 'to believe" is not altogether a good translation in English because when someone says he "believes" something, he usually means "1 am not sure"; "I believe so; I just can't be sure?

So, Then: What To Do?

At this point, our unfolding account of the SECRET MISSION must (next issue) emerge from mere talk and theory and burst into the practical, how to do it sphere.

Next chapter, then, we will begin talking about METHODS, concrete methods. We have gone (mm GOALS to MEANS. We must new approach the specific METHODS we can pursue to safeguard the most spectacular, inspirational, dazzling, power'love and faith flooded lives we can live. This is because nothing of any consequence whatsover in all the sordid story of human history is unrelated to the allencompassing beauty and wonder of God and His SECRET MISSION.