1.
The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation
Jesus
Christ is not only our reconciliation with God but also its revelation. Our
reconciliation with him is not only real but true. So Jesus Christ is not only
our justification and sanctification but our vocation as well. In contrast, our
sin is not only our pride and sloth but our falsehood as well. But in spite of
ourselves as sinners, Jesus Christ gathers and edifies us as his community to
send us out as his witnesses. And so as Christians our faith and love include
our hope.
2.
The Light of Life
Justification
and sanctification are two aspects of reconciliation. Revelation is its third.
The revelation of our reconciliation with God takes place through Jesus Christ,
first, because he lives. This is what the Bible attests. We repeat this
biblical attestation on the same basis that the biblical witnesses made it: by
the power of the Holy Spirit. Second, the revelation of our reconciliation
takes place because our living Lord Jesus Christ speaks of himself and in doing
so enables us to know him as well. Finally, Jesus Christ as Son of God and Son
of Man is our reconciliation with God. As the Word made flesh, he is also the
revelation of this reconciliation with God. As the Word made flesh, he is also
the revelation of this reconciliation to us and all human beings. His life is
our reconciliation and its revelation to us. As such he is light and the
light of all life. God’s glory is God’s radiant self-revelation to us in Jesus
Christ.
3.
Jesus is Victor
The
history of Jesus Christ includes not only his acts as high priest and king but
also his acts as prophet overcoming our falsehood. His relationship with the Kingdom
of Darkness is not dualistic because the power of darkness must give way to him
as the light. But it is not monistic either because, even as the light of life,
Jesus Christ is opposed by the power of darkness. Instead, the activity of
Jesus Christ is clearly superior to that of darkness even though he must combat
it before inevitably and absolutely defeating it. This war from beginning to
end may therefore be summarized by the confession that “Jesus is Victor.”
The
Historicity of Christ’s Prophetic Work
The
prophets of the Old Testament proclaimed God’s will to the people of Israel so
that they could participate in it. In his own life Jesus Christ accomplished
God’s will to reconcile all man with himself. We know this, first, because
Jesus Christ in his prophetic work reveals himself and therefore this history
to us specifically. He himself personally confronts us and in so doing
overcomes the distance we would like to keep between his history and our own.
But
while God has already decided graciously to justify and sanctify us, Jesus
Christ in his prophetic work meets with resistance. When Jesus Christ as the
light of life shines into the darkness, that darkness—the power of
nothingness—resists it. The world rejects its total transformation and we
ourselves insist on keeping our distance from him. But when Jesus Christ
confronts us, he integrates our history into his own by challenging this
resistance of the devil, the world, and the flesh with his ultimately superior
answer.
Whether
we realize it or not, and whether we want to or not, we are involved in this
war between light and darkness and fight on one side or the other. Christians
gathered and strengthened in community are those for whom the knowledge of
reconciliation in Christ is primary and ignorance of this gives ground. For
non-Christians this ignorance is predominant and keeps knowledge limited. Both
knowledge and ignorance, promise and threat, are present among both groups. It
is a matter of emphasis. And the frontier between the two constantly changes.
Finally,
in the history of the prophetic work of Jesus Christ in which we participate,
we do not find a static balance between light and darkness. We find a
transitional history of triumphant battle which can only end in the consummation
of Christ’s victory for all. To fight for the light is to enter the good fight
and to do so with the unshakeable promise of victory.
The
History of Christian Knowledge Established by Christ’s Prophetic Work
Jesus
Christ’s prophetic work has established the history of Christian knowledge
which follows it. We must start by affirming that the history of salvation
which took place once and for all in Jesus Christ is distinct from the history
of Christian knowledge established by it and participating in it. So we
properly distinguish between the reality of reconciliation and our knowledge of
it, between Jesus Christ and ourselves as Christians. But we must affirm,
secondly, that the two histories exist always in a unity. Jesus Christ is
always the primary acting subject and Christians, while also acting subjects,
are so secondarily. Salvation history, then, is the differentiated unity of
Jesus Christ the Head together with his body the Church in victory.
Third,
when Jesus Christ reveals himself to us here and now, he graciously enables us
to participate in the reconciliation accomplished by him for us there and then.
Conversely, Christian knowledge is not primarily a matter of our own
understanding which as such stands in more or less desperate need of visible
verification. Instead our knowledge as Christians occurs when Jesus Christ
confronts us as our living Lord and we consequently recognize him as such. For
this reason, Christian knowledge stands in no need of artistic, ritualistic, or
experiential verification.
The
History of Christ’s Prophetic Work
There
is a history, then, in which the light does shine in the darkness, in which our
reconciliation with God in Christ does shine and we do affirm it. This history
begins, first, with the existence of Jesus Christ himself who as the one
eternal light shines brightly and in so doing speaks eloquently of God’s grace.
This
history of Jesus Christ’s prophetic work is all light and peace but it does
shine in the darkness of discord and in conflict with it. However, we must
first affirm that this history of conflict begins with Jesus Christ lifting the
sword (cf. Hebrews 4:12) and with sin, death, and the devil being put
immediately on the doomed defensive. Jesus Christ opens the attack and immediately
decides the outcome by announcing that he is the gracious Lord of the world and
that the world lives under his lordship. In doing so he attests the truth which
no lies can change or limit.
Negatively,
this attack means that a whole way of being human is set aside as past and
without future. God’s Word of grace tells us we need not bother justifying
ourselves because we are already justified in Christ. It tells us we need not
be anxious or careless because we are already sanctified in Christ. Positively,
the history of the prophetic work of Jesus Christ means our advent as new
creatures. The new age dawns, and our definitive future is already present,
with the reconciliation of the world in Christ. Set right with God, others, and
ourselves, we are free to be humble not proud, joyful not anxious, and
companionable not reserved.
In
the history of his prophetic work, Jesus Christ attacks the darkness which
surrounds us, hides inside us, and resists his light. He attacks it to save us
from it even though we first love it more than his light (John 3:19) and
champion its cause instead of Christ’s. But this darkness is nothingness,
chaos, the power of death. It hates God’s grace and our gratitude. It wants
only an unloving God and an unloved and unloving world.
The
light of grace attacks the darkness, wounding its pride, by challenging its
control over a person. Its first method of resistance to the Word is to act as
if God had not spoken. It denies accomplished reconciliation with calculated
indifference. It wears away the new and challenging Word by continuing to do
things the way they’ve always been done.
To
defend itself more actively, it establishes a worldview through which we may
safely filter the Word. The Word is an urgent command; worldviews are global
images best seen from a distant perspective. The Word confronts one with God
and neighbor; worldviews place both in a broader and more benign panorama. The
Word speaks of a unique event in relation to which all else must be understood;
worldviews understand all particulars in terms of general principles. The Word
is a summons; worldviews are doctrines. The Word offends us because it forces
us to understand ourselves as it understands us; worldviews are inoffensive
because they reflect our own self-understanding.
Even
worse, this darkness in us may become religious—even in a Christian sense. When
this happens, we are not confronted by anything conspicuously evil or false. It
is just that an increasingly tedious mediocrity gathers unnoticed over all our
doings as Church and Christians. The Word of God seems present, but it is so
only in a thoroughly domesticated form.
In
this history of his prophetic work, and against even these wiles of the power
of darkness, Jesus Christ is Victor now even though his victory is not yet
definitive. We will not know with certainty of this victory if we look at even
the greatest material or spiritual achievements of ourselves, the Church, or
humanity. But we may know this victory with certainty by looking to Jesus
Christ as he speaks to us and is knowable by us as our living Lord. Jesus
Christ is unconditionally superior to all forms of the resisting element in
man. We may know this beyond all doubt. To begin with, he is the sovereign Word
of God. Second, Jesus Christ is the revelation of God’s act of reconciliation.
Furthermore, Jesus Christ is the act and revelation of our justification and
sanctification in which we are objectively liberated from the alien lordship of
the darkness within and around us. Finally, we may know beyond doubt the
unconditional superiority of our living Lord Jesus Christ because his Word
speaks directly to us as creatures created through it and for it in complete
disregard of the resisting element in us.
4.
The Promise of the Spirit
Jesus
Christ not only is the light of life, and not only shines as that light, but he
also shines victoriously in and through us. He does this because he freely
willed to love all people. He freely sought our justification through his
humiliation as the Son of God, our sanctification through his exaltation as the
Son of Man, and our participation in both through his glory as the Mediator
between God and man. And the most basic form of his glory, of his radiant
self-revelation, of his prophetic work, is the event of his resurrection.
We
learn that Jesus Christ truly is with us and for us by the power of his
resurrection. For him to be personally in our midst as our living Lord is an
utterly gracious and miraculous act. And as he is personally amidst us in all
his sovereignty we may be utterly sure that his light does shine victoriously
even for us!
But
knowing that the light shines victoriously through us because Jesus Christ
himself speaks immediately to us has consequences. First it means that the
Jesus Christ who is risen is the same Jesus Christ born in Bethlehem and
crucified outside of Jerusalem. It also means the second coming of Jesus is one
event with three forms: first his resurrection appearances among his disciples;
second, the impartation of the Holy Spirit to us; then finally his coming to
judge the living and the dead. Jesus Christ is equally present in each of these
three forms. And his second coming is eschatological in all three forms because
the last days began with his crucifixion and will end only with his coming as
judge.
In
publicly proclaiming the reconciliation of the world in the resurrection of
Jesus Christ, God publicly imparted that reconciliation to the world and in
doing so gave it a totally new and positive determination. In the Easter appearances
of Jesus Christ, the disciples saw the full meaning of his life and death both
as this will be known by all on the last day and as this positively determines
the whole world even now. Man already is totally justified and sanctified in
Christ and summoned by Christ.
This
positive determination of the world in the resurrection is also universal in
scope. First Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. Then the tears of his
disciples were wiped away as they were confronted by the victory of his life over
death. The Easter revelation of the world’s salvation in Christ transformed
them and in so doing propelled them into the world to tell all people that all
may also open their eyes to the light of life already bathing them.
The
positive determination of the world in the resurrection is not only total and
universal but definitive. Easter revealed our accomplished reconciliation with
God and therefore disclosed to us the joy and peace of eternal life. That is
the utterly gracious determination given to us on Easter, continuing now, and
enduring without change or limitation until Christ returns.
The
problem for us is that this total, universal, and definitive determination of
the world, this declaration and impartation of its reconciliation with God in the
resurrection of Christ, seems almost completely hidden. Jesus Christ is risen.
With this event the future salvation of the world did become a present reality
within the world. But if the light of the covenant fulfilled did dawn on Easter
morning, why did it not shine brightly everywhere immediately?
First,
with the resurrection of Jesus Christ, all things were made new. God can see
this but we cannot. Or we can see the actual transformation of the world and
ourselves only by looking at Jesus Christ but not by looking at the world or
ourselves. We walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).
Second,
we must add that with the resurrection we have the return of Jesus Christ in
one form but not in its final form. In him our salvation is wholly present but
in ourselves and our world it is still future. Yet we may rejoice that we have
the freedom by God’s grace to move from the commencement of the revelation of
salvation in Christ’s resurrection to its completion in Christ’s definitive
return.
Finally,
our impatience with the tension between the salvation already accomplished but
not yet visible must not blind us to the visible impact the revelation of our
reconciliation has had through the gathering, upbuilding, and sending of the
Christian community these last 2,000 years. Even so this impact, though
visible, has never been without its ambiguities.
In
these last days, in this time between the accomplishment of our salvation and
its definitive revelation, Jesus Christ expresses his whole being and action by
engaging in triumphant combat with darkness and by involving us in it. From all
eternity Jesus Christ is God’s elect in whom we too with all creation are
elect. Freely choosing to be with us and for us, Jesus Christ reconciled us
with God so that we too could be free for God. The days remaining between his
commenced and completed presence, between the resurrection and the judgment,
are our golden opportunities to serve our truly gracious Lord as his grateful
disciples. So the prophetic work of Jesus Christ moves from its beginning to
its end and in so doing creates time and space needed for world history to
continue.
It
is in this present he creates that Jesus Christ shines as the light of life.
And he does this through the lives of Christians. We must qualify this
statement. To begin with, as Christians we co-exist with non-Christians and
stand in solidarity with them as those for whom Christ is our only hope and one
future. Second, our knowledge of both Jesus Christ and of ourselves as children
of God is ambiguous and therefore to some degree non-Christian. Third, being a
Christian means enduring the tension between the already and the not yet of
salvation as well as the inwardly and outwardly difficult task of publicly
witnessing to that salvation in Jesus Christ.
How
does Jesus Christ come to our rescue by shining not only on us but in us? He
does so through his Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the middle form in which Jesus
Christ comes again. The Spirit therefore is the presence and action of Jesus
Christ among us and in us between his first and final coming. Jesus Christ as
the Risen One promises us the consummation of our salvation with his final
coming, and in so doing he promises to be with us and for us even now as we
move toward it. His coming now in the Holy Spirit is as genuine as was his first
coming to his disciples on Easter and as will be his final coming as Judge.
Also, Jesus Christ is active as powerfully in this second form as he was in his
first and will be finally. Consequently, no matter how horrible the suffering
of our day becomes, the decisive thing is that it is a day in which Jesus
Christ is present and actively involving us in his prophetic work for God’s
glory and the salvation of the world. And it is for the sake of non-Christians
that Jesus Christ continues his prophetic work and their conversion is its
temporal goal.
Copyright © 2019
by Steven Farsaci.
All rights
reserved. Fair use encouraged.