Written by Greg Friday, 02 November 2007 10:39

The really good news for humanity is that Jesus is now taking students in the master class of life.  The eternal life that begins with confidence in Jesus is a life in his present kingdom, now on earth available to all.  So the message of and about him is specifically a gospel for our life now, not just for dying.  It is about living now as his apprentice in kingdom living, not just as a consumer of his merits.  Our future, however far we look, is a natural extension of the faith by which we live now and the life in which we now participate.  Eternity is now in flight and we with it, like it or not (xvii).  

The emphasis on present kingdom and eternal life now (not eternal afterlife) is central, and so I read thinking about what Scripture says these are like and how they square with our experience and, perhaps most pointedly, our usual theological droning on about salvation as forgiveness of sin.

There are some other jewels along the way, aside form his main points, incidentally gifting the reader in the way that really good books do.  The first of these for me is a little introductory section on "the incredible power of mere ideas."  "The seeming triviality and irrelevance of the 'merely academic' is a major part of what misleads us about the power of mere ideas," he writes (6).  Ideas (and ideologues) rule the world, and theology (or the shallowness thereof, or the lack thereof) rules religion.  In other words, it matters what we think, and it matters that we often don't.  

In particular, it matters how we think about the gospel--the work and effect that God is producing through Jesus.  Willard is addressing the fact that popular gospels geared toward "preparing to die" are essentially irrelevant to the present.  "It is good to know that when I die all will be well, but is there any good news for life?"  In fact, that we even have to ask this question--and ask it of virtually the entirety of 21st century Christianity--is possibly the most powerful testimony to the power if ideas in the history of humanity: Plato's ideas.  The dualism that has come to stand at the heart of our perception of the gospel of God's kingdom is foreign to it.  It is foreign to the reality of human existence as God defines it.  

So God cannot help but be relevant to the present, as what he does for humanity is not relegated to some segment of existence called "spiritual" that has virtually no bearing on the physical "reality" we deal with day to day.  What he does for humanity is realized in the whole human, because there is nothing else.  The future is an extension of the the present rather than a different epoch in which God manages to prove effective in different terms.  Eternal life is now.  The resurrection is of a physical body.  The new heaven and new earth are just that.  God is setting the world to rights, not torching it in favor of a disembodied ever after.  

I think we finally have to say that Jesus' enduring relevance is based on his historically proven ability to speak to, to heal and empower the individual human condition.  He matters because of what he brought and what he still brings to ordinary human beings, living their ordinary lives and coping daily with their surroundings.  He promises wholeness for their lives.  In sharing our weakness he gives us strength and imparts through his companionship a life that has the quality of eternity (13, emphasis original).

He continues with an engaging discussion of the kingdom of God.  Naturally, we must come to terms also with the "not yet" of God's rule on earth (29), so the point is not to get ahead of ourselves but to emphasize the overlooked aspect of what the gospel is.  In the first part of the book he describes the imbalance in evangelical theology in terms of "gospels of sin management."  I encourage anyone to read his provocative discussion, particularly if you have trouble coming to terms with the fact that God is not preoccupied with so-called "works righteousness" as some have been.  In fact, he is (supposed to be) making us into actually righteous people, and any doctrine to the contrary is a denial of the gospel.  blog comments powered by Disqus

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