The Third Degree

Did you read about the incredible events surrounding a ‘follow up’ talk to a mission in which the speaker gathered those who had believed and accused them of being both illegitimate and children of the Devil? In response, this group of men turned violent and tried to kill him.

The speaker was, of course, Jesus and the ‘believers’ were religious Jews. To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’ (John 8.31-32).

We are not what we think we are

According to Christ, the measure of authentic faith and discipleship is not merely a profession of belief in Jesus, but rather ‘holding to his teaching’ as the basis of our identity and day-to-day lives. The religious ‘believers’ in John 8 were happy to believe in Jesus until his teaching both revealed and challenged where they located their identity and security. For them, the thought of being ‘made free’ by holding to Jesus’s teaching was offensive: ‘We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone’, they claimed (v.33).

True theology (truth about God as revealed in the gospel of Christ) reveals who we are and who we are not. To put it cryptically, ‘We are not what we think we are, but what we think, we are’. The religious Jews thought they were authentic disciples of Jesus — but they were not — for they refused to think about themselves or Jesus properly. What we think (about God) we are!

But what we think, we are

This is why UCCF is so committed to a doctrinal basis. Without such a base-line we will easily shift from those truths that are offensive to 21st-century Western culture. It is so tempting to substitute therapeutic categories about Jesus’s death (for example) for those forensic ones about the atonement. Or to soften the exclusive claims of Christ and focus instead on the inclusive nature of the gospel message.

If I think theologically (biblically) about this, I will realise that the gospel can only be universally inclusive in its reach and appeal because of its exclusive focus on Jesus. For it is in no one else but Jesus that God came in human form and it is in no one else but Jesus that God atoned for the sins of the world.

The real challenge to UCCF (students, staff and supporters) is to remain theologically true to the gospel — to think, live and speak properly about God — and yet be able to connect with an increasingly post-Christian culture that is offended by exclusive truth claims. Conservative evangelicals do sometimes give the impression that to ‘find the inner Luther’ we have to stop or wind back the cultural clock. We Anglican evangelicals have inherited a prayer book from the 17th century and hymns from the 19th century and can feel that our identity is being challenged by radical cultural changes to public worship and evangelism.

C.H. Spurgeon greatly admired Luther and we (probably) greatly admire Spurgeon. But what does it mean to follow such examples? Surely it means we keep on reforming what we think, live and do in the light of Scripture. Both Luther and Spurgeon were iconoclasts and radicals and their respective congregations were rarely comfortable. Spurgeon was exasperated by the fact that the Metropolitan Tabernacle windows were jammed shut, resulting in thin air and a sleepy congregation. No money had been allocated to replace these windows so (it is alleged) — under cover of darkness — Spurgeon removed these windows with the end of his walking cane.

To be like him is not to copy his way of preaching or running church — but to ‘smash the windows’ of inherited culture and programmes and so keep our audience engaged by an unchanging gospel.

Let’s be what we are

This is the great challenge before UCCF in 2009; we need to be radical, creative and engaging in reaching students with the gospel. But in reaching postmoderns we must never preach a postmodern gospel. For a gospel that does not draw lines nor make absolute truth claims is no gospel at all.

The shocking incident in John 8 suggests that true faith is when we remain willing to hold to Jesus’s teaching at that very point at which it offends our sensibilities and sense of security. Then we will know the truth and the truth will set us free to live and speak for Christ in a way that is acceptable and pleasing to him. May God keep UCCF true to Jesus and unconcerned about our inherited culture. Then we will be holding to his teaching and will truly be his disciples.

Richard Cunningham,
Director, UCCF: The Christian Unions

© Evangelicals Now - February 2009
Please consider supporting this ministry by subscribing.