Lectionary Reflection — 15 July 2018
3 Bless the God and Father of our Lord Jesus the Christ! God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing that comes from heaven. 4 God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless in God’s presence before the creation of the world. 5 God destined us to be his adopted children through Jesus the Christ because of his love. This was according to God’s goodwill and plan 6 and to honor his glorious grace that was given to us freely through the Son whom he loves. 7 We’ve been ransomed through the Son’s blood, and we have forgiveness for our failures based on God’s overflowing grace, 8 which has been poured over us with wisdom and understanding. 9 God revealed this hidden design to us, which is according to his goodwill and the plan that he intended to accomplish through his Son. 10 This is what God planned for the climax of all times: to bring all things together in Christ, the things in heaven along with the things on earth. 11 We have also received an inheritance in Christ. We were destined by the plan of God, who accomplishes everything according to his design. 12 We’re called to be an honor to God’s glory because we were the first to hope in Christ. 13 You too heard the word of truth in Christ, which is the good news of your salvation. You were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit because you believed in Christ. 14 The Holy Spirit is the down payment on our inheritance, which is applied toward our redemption as God’s own people, resulting in the honor of God’s glory.
WWJD
Do you remember those bracelets from the 1990’s? What started as a grassroots movement by youth leader Janie Tinklenberg to help the young people in her youth group remember the phrase, “What Would Jesus Do?” soon became a worldwide phenomenon. The purpose of the WWJD movement was to remind people to “act in a manner that would demonstrate the love of Jesus through their actions.”
But it didn’t start with Janie. Long before her, Charles Spurgeon, the 19th century “Prince of Preachers,” used the phrase several times in his sermon, The Agreement of Salvation by Grace with Walking in Good Works (ca. 1891). It’s been said that Spurgeon got this phrase from Thomas à Kempis’ book, The Imitation of Christ (Latin, Imitatio Christi; ca. 1418-1427).3
Back when I was a Calvinist, the passage from our Lesson today was one of many used to “prove” the doctrine of “Unconditional Election.” As I’ve addressed this in another post I won’t press this point too much here. The doctrine of election simply means that God chooses (elects). But for some people election means God chooses whom will be loved and saved. For those people, God choosing someone is the whole point. God choosing someone is the “end” and not the means to the end.4 The natural consequences of God’s choice means God doesn’t love or save everyone. The rest of humanity will “remain” under God’s wrath (John 3.36), possibly even “hated” by God (Romans 9.13), and finally condemned to “eternal punishment” (Matthew 25.46).
I’d argue that this type of thinking is exactly what got biblical Israel into the mess she continually found herself in. “We’re the people of Yahweh,” they’d say, “and you lot are not! God loves us and doesn’t love you!” The same applies to many (if not all) people who believe in the doctrine of “Unconditional Election.” They see themselves as the ones whom God loves and has rescued (obviously) and everyone else are people “designed for destruction” (Romans 9.22) or at least they’re looked at with suspicion (“they” may not be chosen, after all). I realize this is an oversimplification but it does grasp the doctrine election, at least on a rudimentary level.
But this is misunderstanding of election — of God choosing people.
Now, certainly, the idea that God chooses people is found in the Bible (as our Lesson indicates) but the question that’s often never asked is — Why were these people chosen? Not in the sense of what attributes or characteristics did those people have that would cause God to choose them but for which task were they chosen?
That is to say, in every case, God chooses people for a task, a vocation. When God chose Sarah and Abraham, it was so that through them and their descendants God would rescue all creation — including people (Genesis 12.3). When Jesus chose the disciples — whether the 72 (Luke 10) or the 11 (Matthew 28.a6ff) — it was to spread the Good News that God’s Realm had come at last.
We see the same thing in our Lesson today, though, admittedly, it’s a wee bit hidden. Also — and this is why it’s extremely important to read the Bible apart from the Lectionary Lessons — we see it more clearly as Paul5 goes on in this letter.
Paul wrote that followers of Jesus were chosen by God to be “holy and blameless” “in Christ” (verse 4). Now this phrase — in Christ — is a favorite of Paul’s; he’s used it 7 times in our Lesson alone and 15 times throughout the entire letter.6 But what does it mean to be “in Christ”?
For starters, it doesn’t mean is to be “inside” Christ like clothes in a suitcase or tools in a toolbox. It’s much more organic than that. To give us some kind of context, let’s quickly turn to another letter of Paul’s.
I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that all our ancestors who left Egypt were under the cloud, and they all went through the sea. 2 They were all united with Moses by baptism in the cloud and in the sea. 3 All of them ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all of them drank the same spiritual drink. They drank from the spiritual rock that went with them, and that rock was Christ.
Here we see that to be baptized “in Moses” (or “into Moses”) means to be united with Moses; to be “followers of Moses”. Paul goes on to compare the people who followed Moses during the Exodus with the people who followed Jesus during the first century. So, to be “in Christ” means to be united with Christ like the Hebrews in the Exodus were united with Moses.
Another way to think about being “in Christ” is that it’s like how a branch is united to a tree or a limb is united to a body. In fact, that’s how Paul describes being united to Christ in other letters (see Romans 11.16-24 and 1 Corinthians 12.12ff).8
Indeed, just a little bit after our Lesson today, Paul wrote —
God put everything under Christ’s feet and made him head of everything in the church, 23 which is his body. His body, the church, is the fullness of Christ, who fills everything in every way.
So, simply put, to be a follower of Jesus means to be “in Christ,” to be united with him. People who follow The Way of Jesus somehow make up his mystical body, the Church. And, just like parts of a body reap the benefits of whole body, so people who make up Christ’s body reap the benefits of being “in Christ” (1 Corinthians 12.26).
Or, put another way, as the branches of a tree get the nutrients from other parts of the tree — the trunk and roots and leaves — people who are “in Christ” get everything that God has given Christ. We are “blessed … with every spiritual blessing that comes from heaven” because we’re “in Christ.” That is, God blessed Christ with “every spiritual blessing that comes from heaven” and since we’re “in Christ” those blessings flow to us, too (Romans 11.16-24).
So, if people who follow The Way of Jesus somehow make up his body on earth (however mystical that may be), what does that mean? What does that look like? To answer that, we must ask, “What did Jesus do when he walked the earth?” Or to ask it another way, “What would Jesus do?”
To answer that question, all one needs to do is turn to the Gospels. Currently, the Revised Common Lectionary is going through the Gospel of Mark. It’s a good one; it’s short and paced very quickly. One could probably read the entire thing in one sitting. Since the Church is called to act like Jesus, it would behoove us to find out how Jesus acted. Not only for our sakes, but for the sake of the world.
And that, dear reader, is the purpose of election. Paul points to this in our Lesson today. He wrote, “This is what God planned for the climax of all times: to bring all things together in Christ, the things in heaven along with the things on earth (verse 10). This echos what he wrote in another letter, “Through the Son, then, God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself. God made peace through his Son’s blood on the cross and so brought back to himself all things, both on earth and in heaven” (Colossians 1.20; GNT; cf. Ephesians 2.19).9
God’s choice, then, is not just so those chosen can be rescued while the rest of the world perishes. No. God chooses people for the sake of rescuing “all things, both on earth and in heaven.” In one sense, this has already been accomplished (notice the past tense verbs). But in another sense, it’s up to the people who are “in Christ,” those chosen by God in every age, to look at the world around them — into the faces of their family, friends, and neighbors, into the wounds of our earthly home — and ask themselves, “What would Jesus do?”
And then do it.
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In the Love of the Three in One,
Br. Jack+, LC
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1. Scripture quotations marked (CEB) are taken from The Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible.
2. This week we’re using The Common English Bible for our text. In my opinion, The Message just doesn’t grasp the impact of what Paul was saying in this letter. We’ll go back to The Message next week. Click here if you want to read our Lesson in The Message.
4. Some would argue here that being chosen isn’t the “end” but it guarantees the end, i.e., “saved” from God’s wrath, judgment, and condemnation to eternal conscious torment. Still others would say that the end isn’t even guaranteed because someone might not actually be chosen! I know.
5. Some people don’t think Paul wrote this letter because the writing style is different from the style of his other letters. I don’t think that’s quite right (and I’m far from alone on this). Paul wouldn’t be the first (or last) writer to change his style depending on his audience.
6. And when we add in “in the Lord” and “in him” we get over 160 times just in Paul’s letters!
7. Scripture quotations marked (GW) are taken from GOD’S WORD Translation. Copyright © 1995 by God's Word to the Nations. Used by permission of Baker Publishing Group.
8. And by “church” Paul doesn’t mean any particular stream, denomination, or sect — he means all people who’ve been baptised.
9. Scripture quotations marked (GNT) are from The Good News Translation (Today’s English Version, Second Edition). Copyright © 1992 by American Bible Society. All rights preserved.
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