Ch.11: “Walk”: Membership in God’s Subversive Counter-Revolutionary People (3):4:17-24

Foundations of Membership

          After his Membership Manifesto (4:1-6) and treatment of unity in diversity leading to maturity (4:7-16), Paul offers a brief look back at the Foundation of Membership.  In language and conceptuality reminiscent of ch.2 (as well as Rom.1), Paul seeks to remind his largely Gentile churches (see “you” in v.17) of the “distance” between their former lives and their present lives as disciples of Jesus.  It is baptism that marks their change of life so Paul uses baptismal language to drive home his exhortation.

          He begins with “therefore” not “now” as the NRSV has it.  “Therefore” connects this back with the beginning of the “Walk” section in v.1 which itself connects back to the extensive rehearsal of God’s gracious plan for his creation and what he has done for us.  In short, the “therefore” means this response Paul calls for is a response to God’s grace, as indeed is the whole of Christian living.

          Congruence between profession and practice, word and deed, is a necessity for Paul.  Thus, he “insists” on it.  This is the hard edge, or demand of grace.  Or, to put it in other language, we’ve joined a new family; now it’s time to demonstrate that by reflecting the family characteristics.

          Two equal and opposite errors have plagued the church from the beginning in understanding and living grace.  The first was to reverse the flow of grace and demand.  Instead of receiving and doing (as a grace-enabled response to what we have received), the demand was put first and the reception of grace made consequent on performance of the demand.  This is legalism.  Legalism destroys grace.  Priority is given to human action over divine action.  And that is always bad news for us.  Paul is the great theologian of grace in the New Testament and he is always careful to keep the flow moving from God’s action on our behalf enabling our action in response.

          The other error is to dismiss demand altogether.  Some versions of the “Let God and Let Go” theology veers in this direction.  When we make God the sole actor in the relationship – “God does everything, I don’t have to do anything” – and ourselves only the passive recipients of his work for us, we have turned grace into sentimentality – “Aw, God loves us whatever we do; he’ll always forgive us” – and left ourselves in control of our lives to do as we will and please.

          Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously called this latter error “cheap grace” as opposed to the “costly grace” of the gospel.  Cheap grace is characteristic of an accommodated church, one whose character is shaped more by cultural values and visions than by the gospel.  Cheap grace generates a complacent and compromised faith that is powerless to do anything for God.  This cheap grace Bonhoeffer saw running rampant in the church in Germany in his time.  One does not have to look far or hard to notice decisive similarities here with the Church in America in our own time.  

Here’s Bonhoeffer’s classic statement on “cheap grace”:

“Cheap grace means grace as bargain-basement goods, cut-rate forgiveness, cut-rate comfort, cut-rate sacrament; grace as the church’s inexhaustible pantry, from which it is doled out by careless hands without hesitation or limit. It is grace without a price, without costs. It is said that the essence of grace is that the bill for it is paid in advance for all time. Everything can be had for free, courtesy of that paid bill. The price paid is infinitely great and, therefore, the possibilities of taking advantage of and wasting grace are also infinitely great. What would grace be, if it were not cheap grace? Cheap grace means grace as doctrine, as principle, as system. It means forgiveness of sins as a general truth; it means God’s love as merely a Christian idea of God. Those who affirm it have already had their sins forgiven. The church that teaches this doctrine of grace thereby confers such grace upon itself. The world finds in this church a cheap cover-up for its sins, for which it shows no remorse and from which it has even less desire to be set Cheap grace is, thus, denial of God’s living word, denial of the incarnation [2] of the word of God. Cheap grace means justification of sin but not of the sinner. Because grace alone does everything, everything can stay in its old ways. “Our action is in vain.” The world remains world and we remain sinners “even in the best of lives.” [3] Thus, the Christian should live the same way the world does. In all things the Christian should go along with the world and not venture (like sixteenth-century enthusiasts) to live a different life under grace from that under sin! The Christian better not rage against grace or defile that glorious cheap grace by proclaiming anew a servitude to the letter of the Bible in an attempt to live an obedient life under the commandments of Jesus Christ! The world is justified by grace, therefore—because this grace is so serious! because this irreplaceable grace should not be opposed—the Christian should live just like the rest of the world!”

He sums it with this:

“Cheap grace is preaching forgiveness without repentance; it is baptism without the discipline of community; it is the Lord’s Supper without confession of sin; it is absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without the living, incarnate Jesus Christ.”[1]

          

 Paul would doubtless second Bonhoeffer’s vigorous critique of “cheap grace” as well as affirm what he called the biblical vision of “costly grace”:

“Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which has to be asked for, the door at which one has to knock.[9] It is costly, because it calls to discipleship; it is grace, because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly, because it costs people their lives; it is grace, because it thereby makes them live. It is costly, because it condemns sin; it is grace, because it justifies the sinner. Above all, grace is costly, because it was costly to God, because it costs God the life of God’s Son-“you were bought with a price”[10]-and because nothing can be cheap to us which is costly to God. Above all, it is grace because the life of God’s Son was not too costly for God to give in order to make us live. God did, indeed, give him up for us. Costly grace is the incarnation of God.”[2]

          

 For Paul neither legalism nor cheap grace will do – both are anathema to him!  Only the gospel of the incarnation of God’s love in human flesh in Jesus, and through him in our flesh, counts for anything.  They must resolutely and absolutely keep themselves clear of their old way of life.  That way of life proceeds from a devastated and devastating corruption of a person’s priorities (“darkened in their understanding,” v.18), passions (“lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves, v.19”), and practices (“to licentiousness greedy to practice every kind of impurity,” v.19). 

          This is humanity in Adam, lost and “alienated from the life of God” (v.18).  But, Paul counters, “That is not the way you learned Christ” (v.20)!  This phrase, “learned Christ,” is peculiar and should not be smoothed out in translation to something like “learned about Christ.”  Rather, we need to wrestle with Paul actually says here.  The verb “learned” is the root from which “disciple” comes.  And that’s our clue, I think.  We might translate it as “that is not how you discipled or apprenticed yourself to Christ”.  The learning Paul is after is life transformation – body and spirit, 24/7, 365 days a year – not merely mental augmentation of information about Christ.  One cannot apprentice oneself to Christ and yet still lives in the priorities, passions, and practices of the old way of life, of life in Adam!

          This way of understanding “learned Christ” is confirmed when Paul next writes “For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus.  Not only is the truth in Jesus, but he himself is the Truth (John 14:6).  To “learn” the truth, then, means a living and growing relationship with this One who is the Truth.  It’s that profoundly intimate knowledge that grows when lives are shared.  We have seen how often Paul draws on this notion of our being “in Christ” and even once of him “dwelling” in our hearts (3:17).

          In this context, we can easily see how preposterous is the idea that one could “learn Christ” while still living out of the corrupted priorities, passions, and practices of the old life in Adam!

          Then Paul turns to baptism to seal the deal!  The image of the church as God’s subversive counter-revolutionary people is helpful here.  Earlier I likened baptism to the induction ceremony and training new recruits into the military receive.  Language of “putting off” (better than the NRSV’s “putting away”) and “clothing” ourselves is baptismal language.  Remember that baptism in the early church involved a stripping off of the clothing reflecting one’s old life and receiving a new white robe on coming up out of the baptismal font.  That’s what Paul has in mind here.

          Think now of what happens to new recruits in the military.  Among other things, they “put off” their civilian clothes and “clothe” themselves with military garb that reflects their new identity and vocation.  Called to serve as God’s subversive force, we too “put off” our life that we formerly lived, that life in Adam and “clothe” ourselves in the new life in the community of God’s people. 

          Again, Paul mentions the new “humanity” (anthropos) here, not the “new self” as the NRSV takes it.  Paul is speaking of a regime change not an individual experience of something called “salvation”.  The old regime of life in Adam is “corrupt and deluded by its lusts” (v.22) according to Paul.  The new regime, this new humanity we join in Christ, is “created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (v.24).  We are reclaimed and restored to the divine image-bearers we were in creation (“according to the likeness of God”) and restored to our primal vocation of reflecting the righteousness (the passion to set things right) and holiness (a way of living dedicated to God).  This is what’s at stake here. 

          That’s why Paul rehearses what I’m calling the Foundations of membership here.  He wants us to be perfectly clear that we live and grow only as we function (4:16) as those who live in this new regime, this new humanity, this new body of Christ of which God has made us members through baptism in Christ.  This sets the stage now for the rest of the letter in which Paul will give concrete direction for us on living in this new humanity.

We Practice “Walking” as God’s Subversive Counter-Revolutionary People (9)

1.    The renewing of the spirit of the mind.

Paul elsewhere speaks of the renewal of the mind in connection with the “living sacrifice” of our bodies and transformation through such renewal in Rom.12.  Such renewal begins at the beginning with how we view God.  A. W. Tozer is right when he claims,

"…Our idea of God [should] correspond as nearly as possible to the true being of God...A right conception of God is to practical Christian living, what the foundation is to the temple; where it is inadequate or out of plumb the whole structure must sooner or later collapse. I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignorant thoughts about God."[3]

Here are some questions to help you evaluate whether your view of God is on the right track.

-Do you pray?

That is, do you believe you in a living growing relationship to God in which there is give and take and your input matters to God and to how God acts in the world?

-Do you think that God is in control of things in such a manner (however you want to describe it) that everything is decided and human freedom is in some measure abridged?

That is, does your response to God matter to how things move toward their God-appointed end?

-Does God act differently than Jesus?

That is, do you develop your view of God in terms of Jesus as he is portrayed in the gospels of the New Testament or in terms of something else?

2.    A great primer on baptism is the “Prayer of Thanksgiving over the Water” in the liturgy for baptism in the Book of Common Worship. Use it to remind yourself that, by whom, and for what you have been claimed in baptism.

We thank you, Almighty God, for the gift of water.
Over it the Holy Spirit moved in the beginning of creation.
Through it you led the children of Israel out of their bondage
in Egypt into the land of promise. In it your Son Jesus
received the baptism of John and was anointed by the Holy
Spirit as the Messiah, the Christ, to lead us, through his death
and resurrection, from the bondage of sin into everlasting life.

We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are
buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his
resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.
Therefore in joyful obedience to your Son, we bring into his               fellowship those who come to him in faith, baptizing them in
the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Now sanctify this water, we pray you, by the power of your
Holy Spirit, that those who here are cleansed from sin and
born again may continue forever in the risen life of Jesus
Christ our Savior.

To him, to you, and to the Holy Spirit, be all honor and
glory, now and forever. Amen.[4]

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[1] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich; Kelly, Geffrey B.; Godsey, John D. (2010-03-11). Discipleship (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 4) (p. 43-44). Augsburg Fortress Publishers. Kindle Edition.

[2] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich; Kelly, Geffrey B.; Godsey, John D. (2010-03-11). Discipleship (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 4) (p. 45). Augsburg Fortress Publishers. Kindle Edition.

[3] Cited in Dallas Willard, “Transformation of the Mind,” Spring Arbor University JOURNAL, Summer 2003 at http://www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=120.

[4] http://www.bcponline.org/306.