Seeking the Manifest Presence of God

A while back I wrote a blog dealing the the question: Does God "show up," or is He omnipresent. That blog entry dealt with some of what is meant by that phrase "God showing up." Is that just bad theology, or something we should pay attention to. In that blog I made the distinction between God's "general presence" and His "manifest presence." (The manifest presence means that God makes His presence known to us experientially.)

Today I'm going to be writing about what seeking the manifest presence of God is about, and the importance of seeking His presence as a core value.

Is the Manifest Presence of God Real?

The first question to ask about this notion of having a direct experience of God's presence is this question: is that a real experience or merely a psychological "wish projection." Some would suggest that having a direct experience of God is not possible for the ordinary believer today. Of course atheists would assert this, but some who call themselves Christians would too. Any claim of an experience of God is dismissed as merely self-deception; a reinterpretation of feelings of peace, calm, or whatever as actually just assigning the name of God to one's own inner emotional life.

How do you argue against that? What proof could anyone give to someone else, that a direct experience of God is not actually an experience of one's own inner sense of peace, or wonder? How could I convince you that it's not just some sort of self-hypnosis, or worse: the result of psychological manipulation by clever spiritual leaders?

I can't think of a way to prove, beyond any doubt, to a skeptic that an experience of God might be real, let alone that I had one. But then, I can't prove that I wasn't created 3 seconds ago with a 57 year long memory.

So let's ask a different question:

Is the Manifest Presence of God Taught in the Bible?

First, do we find evidence in the Bible when God's manifest presence was experienced by Biblical characters? The answer to that question is obviously "Yes!" From Adam and Eve hearing God walking in the Garden in the cool of the day (Gen. 3:8), to Moses and the burning bush (Ex. 3:4-6), and in the tent of meeting (Ex. 33:7-11), to the priests not being able to enter the temple because of the glory of God (2Chron. 7:2-3), to Isaiah's vision of God that overwhelmed him (Isa.6:5), and more.

Second, do we find anywhere in the Bible where we are encouraged to seek God's manifest presence? Related to this is another question: Is the manifest presence something exceptional, for exceptional people in exceptional circumstances (as in the examples above), or something for ordinary people in everyday circumstances? To answer these questions we'll take a look at a few different passages.

In Psalm 105:4 we read this: "Look to the Lord and his strength; seek His face always." To seek God's face, means to seek the presence of God. God's "face" is often used in the Old Testament as a metaphor for God's presence. This makes sense, doesn't it. I can see your face, when you are present. I might be able to see a picture of your face, or a video, or even a streaming video of your face. But seeing your face--seeing you face-to-face--is seeing you directly. Besides, God didn't allow images of Himself to be made; He wants us to seek Him, not a representation (a re-presentation) of Him.

In this Psalm, it's not the spiritual or political elite that are being called to seek God's face (presence). Everyone is called to do so! The same is true in Psalm 24:6, and Psalm 119:58, and assuming David is giving voice to the cry of every heart, also Psalm 27:8. And this is to say nothing of the myriad of passages that urge us to seek the Lord, especially this verse: But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deut. 4:29), echoed in slightly different form here: Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. (Isa. 55:6), and stated as a promise here: You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. (Jer. 29:13).

"Holy" Distractions in Seeking the Manifest Presence

I don't know about you, but I find myself spending more time and energy seeking information about God than in seeking Him directly. I suppose it's a product of growing up in a spiritual tradition that treasures the Bible so much. Even the study above, demonstrates how steeped in the Bible I was growing up, and continue to be today. I don't think that's bad--not at all!

At some point, the students of maps should get out of the library and see the places the maps describe. As a matter of fact, a person can only fully understand the maps, if that person has some experience of the places on them, or at the very least similar places.

The Bible teaches a lot about God, but it also teaches us to seek Him, and promises that if we seek Him we will find Him. This is not only true in the Old Testament (from where my examples above come from), but also in the New Testament. Paul prays for the Ephesians, who were already believers, and in the only epistle he wrote that didn't directly address specific problems in the church, that they would have the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that [they] may know Him better (Eph.1:17). (By the way, that word for "know" here is a word that means to know personally, by experience, not just to know about, or know theoretically.)

If the Bible is like a map for our spiritual lives, then among other things, it tells us that God's manifest presence is a place we can go, and a place we should go. The Bible is more like a manual for spiritual life, than an encyclopedia of spiritual knowledge. It points beyond itself to something more--someone more: God Himself.

Another objection is found in this strange statement: "you're not seeking God, but just an experience of God" (as if that somehow disqualifies the quest as improper). But think about that statement for a minute. How could one find God, without having an experience of Him? What if I said, "you're not wanting a nice juicy steak, you're just wanting the experience of a nice juicy steak." Does that distinction even make sense? Of course not! In the same way we can't taste a steak and fail to experience the steak, we can't taste and see that the Lord is good (Ps. 34:8), unless we have an experience of God. Or to be more direct, it is impossible to find something we can't experience (how then would we know if we found it or not?!).

Is it proper to seek an experience of God? Absolutely! The only ones who aren't seeking such an experience, are the ones who are satisfied to live as spiritual orphans. The Bible holds out more for us than a life of spiritual abandonment! God is not an absent Father!

Seeking the Manifest Presence of God

How do we do this? How do we seek God's presence? How do we 'look' for it--for Him?

The most obvious answer, of course, is that we seek and find God's presence in prayer. Not in the prayers of petition, obviously, but in waiting, or listening prayer. The concept of waiting on the Lord in prayer has been lost by many Christians. They don't know how to do it, or why one would want to. Maybe we don't wait, because we don't expect Him to come. I'm not going to wait for a bus in front of my house, since there's no bus route here. Nor would I wait for God, if I believed He's not coming my way.

Another way we seek and find God's presence is in worship. Worship is a kind of prayer, of course, but it's a specialized sort of prayer. It's the kind of prayer that lingers in the adoration and praise part of praying. As we acclaim God's goodness, love, power, majesty, glory, etc., He responds and often meets us in those moments, sharing with us from Who He is. We worship in words, in song, through many of the Psalms, in artistic expression or in silent awe. In whatever way we worship, we find that He comes to meet us in our worship of Him. Isn't that amazing?!

Just as important is that we seek Him in the context of the believing community. It is often in the context of corporate worship, or corporate prayer that I have felt the manifest presence of God most strongly. There's something about God's people gathered together to focus on Him that so often changes the atmosphere for everyone in the room. I think maybe God just likes it when His kids all get together.

By experience I know that usually when I miss the manifest presence of God, it's because I wasn't looking for it. We don't usually find what we're not looking for. This is not to say that every time we seek His presence we find it as soon as we begin. That's not true either. God likes to be sought, and He draws the best out of us when our seeking requires our whole heart (not just a bit of time and attention).

Worship leaders need to find ways to become aware of God's manifest presence among His people. Worship leaders are often caught up in the logistics of the meeting (what is supposed to be happening now, or next?), and can miss the evidence of the purpose of all their planning: God's presence among His people. That's not the time to change the subject or go on with the meeting! That's the time to linger, to notice out loud so others can tune in as well, and ask for an increase! I'll freely admit that this is something I need to grow in, but it is something am growing in.

When we seek Him, we will find Him. He is within reach, not far from any one of us (Acts 17:24).

The Distinguishing Marks of the Religious Affections of Jonathan Edwards

(The title derives from two of the most important works of Jonathan Edwards: The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God and A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections.)

Jonathan Edwards: the Man

It is difficult to overestimate the importance and impact of Jonathan Edwards on American Christianity. Even if you have never heard of this man before, if you are an American Christian you are very probably an heir of a spiritual heritage first articulated by this man.

Jonathan Edwards was born in 1703, the 5th of 11 children and the only son. His father and later his father in law were both clergymen, and heirs of the Puritan movement that settled in New England. Edwards had a profound experience of the love of God.

Edwards now saw that the universe was essentially personal, an emanation of the love and beauty of God, so that everything, even inanimate matter, was a personal communication from God.1

In Edwards own words:

After this my sense of divine things gradually increased, and became more and more lively, and had more of that inward sweetness. The appearance of every thing was altered; there seemed to be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine glory, in almost every thing.2

This sense of God’s beauty in all things, and the true Christian life as delight in the beauty, wonder and love of God would shape the rest of his ministry.

One more quote that gives insight into Edward's spiritual life before I go on to talk about why he is still so important today, and how both the Reformed and the Pentecostal/Charismatic movements can learn so much from him:

Once, as I rode out into the woods for my health, in 1737, having alighted from my horse in a retired place, as my manner commonly has been, to walk for divine contemplation and prayer, I had a view, that for me was extraordinary, of the glory of the Son of God, as Mediator between God and man, and his wonderful, great, full, pure and sweet grace and love, and meek and gentle condescension. This grace that appeared so calm and sweet, appeared also great above the heavens. The person of Christ appeared ineffably excellent, with an excellency great enough to swallow up all thought and conception—which continued, as near as I can judge, about an hour; which kept me the greater part of the time in a flood of tears, and weeping aloud. I felt an ardency of soul to be, what I know not otherwise how to express, emptied and annihilated; to lie in the dust, and to be full of Christ alone; to love him with a holy and pure love; to trust in him; to live upon him; to serve and follow him; and to be perfectly sanctified and made pure, with a divine and heavenly purity. I have several other times had views very much of the same nature, and which have had the same effects.3

Far from the stodgy, angry man who tried to scare people into heaven by preaching "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (a sermon with much more grace than the title might suggest, and yet still atypical of Edwards in it's severity), Edwards was a man driven by the goodness of God more than anything else in both his life and his ministry.

Edwards and The Great Awakening

Though there were many revivals in the churches of New England before and during the lifetime of Jonathan Edwards, in 1734, following the sudden death of a young man, there came a raised interest in eternal matters among the youth of Northampton, Massachusetts. Edwards seized the moment and preached a poignant message that challenged the townsfolk to consider the impact of their own lives on their eternal state. By the fall of 1734, the youth of the town began to meet in homes for times of singing, Bible study and prayer. They were soon joined by the adults.

What followed from this beginning would be called The Great Awakening, which swept through all of New England and most of the rest of the colonies. There was never anything like it in the Americas, nor possibly anywhere else before, and, some would argue, since. There were thousands of salvations, and amazing, unheard of outward expressions. Entire towns became so caught up in the wave of spiritual awakening that work was left undone, businesses poorly run or left unattended altogether, and nearly everyone was talking about spiritual matters, singing songs, studying their Bibles, praying together publicly and privately, and listening to sermons and other teachings on spiritual matters.

During the Great Awakening, there were many excesses. There were many different kinds of what we might now call manifestations, which were largely unknown by many during Edwards’ day. These included loud weeping, shouting, and fainting. (There were other, bizarre manifestations as well which troubled Edwards and his opponents, but I'll not mention them here.) At one point Edwards’ wife was so overcome by the power of God, after reading some of the poetry of Isaac Watts (the great hymn writer, and contemporary of Edwards), that she had to be carried to bed. Edwards referred to this phenomenon as "losing of strength;" it's known in our day as "being slain in the Spirit" or "going down under the power." 

Many of Edwards’ contemporaries dismissed these outward expressions (i.e., manifestations) as mere emotionalism brought on by a kind of mass hysteria. Others saw them as sure evidence of the power of the Holy Spirit at work in people. Edwards took a wise, moderating position and understood that one cannot conclude by the nature of the experience itself anything about whether it was from God, the devil or something else. To know that it was from God, one had to observe the life of the individual following the experience. He wrote his ideas on this and on the entire movement we call the Great Awakening in a wonderful work called Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God.

Just as important, and for many even more important, is his Treatise on the Religious Affections. By "affections" Edwards refers the believer's heart. Edwards was convinced, in contrast to his "old light" opponents that "true religion" as he called it ("authentic faith" is how we might express the same idea) is found in a heart-felt experience of God's love, goodness, power, majesty, sovereignty, etc., that sets one's life on a course of true godliness and piety, including evidence of all of the fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5:22-23. 

In these two works Edwards gives the church two marvelous gifts. First, in Distinguishing Marks, he gives the church the tools it needs to discern whether or not, and to what degree, a move might be a move of God. So much of the criticism of the established church, of the Pentecostal movement, of Charismatic meetings, let alone of such phenomena as the Toronto Outpouring, would be itself both corrected and directed by this work. Edwards suggests that manifestations (as we would call them in our day), whether present or absent, say nothing positive nor negative about a movement. What counts is that belief in the person and work of the Jesus of the Bible increases, that the interests of satan's kingdom (especially in the area of sin and ungodliness) are undermined, that people's interest in and esteem for the Scriptures increases, that people become more interested in the truth, and that love to God and others increases (all of these are based on 1John 4:1-8). He would also argue that the lack of these in some individuals should not be allowed to tarnish the entirety of the movement.

Second, and just as important, in Religious Affections, Edwards clearly states that authentic Christianity ("true religion"), is primarily a matter of the heart. During Edwards' day, this was a matter of debate. Particularly in reaction to excesses in the Great Awakening. The "old lights" as they were called, argued that "true religion" was primarily a matter of intellectual enlightenment, and that any emotionalism was actually harmful to the pursuit of sound and true doctrine. Edwards and the "new lights" argued the opposite. While not at all opposed to intellectual enlightenment, Edwards makes the case in Religious Affections, that God is after our hearts, not only our minds. In fact he argues that mere intellectual enlightenment is insufficient and no evidence of conversion. He then lays out a scheme by which one can know whether what is going on in our hearts is of God. This work laid the foundation for American Evangelicalism (which would benefit greatly from a careful reading of this book!).

In both works, he echoes what Jesus said of discerning a true prophet from a false one: "By their fruit you will recognize them." (Matthew 7:15). In other words, it isn't the kind of manifestation or affection that is significant, it's the fruit in the life that follows that's the key to understanding what is from God and what isn't.

Conclusions:

As I hang out in two camps that are often a bit (sometimes quite a bit!) suspicious of each other (Reformed and Pentecostal/Charismatic), I find the insight in Edwards to be more helpful than any other in navigating the strengths and pitfalls in both camps. I also find (over and over again) that Edwards' insights keep on being rediscovered, as if for the first time, by people in both camps. 

If I may, I'd like to suggest that my companions in the Reformed camp read Distinguishing Marks--especially those with a theological openness to all the spiritual gifts, but still find themselves to be cessationist in practice. This work is a great help in navigating the pitfalls and fears (founded and unfounded) we find in the exercise of spiritual gifts.

I would also like to suggest to my companions in the Pentecostal/Charismatic camp, to read Religious Affections. This work is a tremendous help in navigating the distinctions between true from counterfeit religious experiences. I know this is an issue that many, especially leaders struggle with. You'll find Edwards to be very helpful here (IMHO, of course).

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1 George M. Marsden, A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards, ed. Mark A. Noll, Nathan O. Hatch, and Allen C. Guelzo, Library of Religious Biography (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008), p.21.

2 Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2008), p. xi.

3 Works p. lxxxix

Going Through the Motions

I'm not sure how many people I'm going to make uncomfortable with this blog, if any. And my thoughts here aren't entirely clear either, so if I meander a bit, bear with me.

Not a Religion but a Relationship

The new phrase all the cool Christians are saying is "Christianity isn't a religion but a relationship." I get that--at least I get the point of that. It's not very accurate,* but I get it.

I understand the impulse to be "religious," meaning someone who goes through the motions, does "churchy" things, uses certain words in certain ways, and does certain actions that are intended to move the spiritual world in some way. As a protestant and child of the reformation, I quickly think of Roman Catholics crossing themselves, lighting candles, saying the rosary and the like.  It's the thing that other people do, some self-imposed, or man-made religious looking/feeling action. (Apologies to my Catholic friends for caricaturing what they're doing.)

A couple of years ago I attended a large, seeker-oriented church where this phrase was spoken. The service began on time, there was a band that played a few songs (that a few in the audience sang along with), followed by a man coming out, shirt untucked from his jeans (like all the really cool pastors), and talked about a multi-step project this church had adopted to deepen their discipleship. There may have been an offering next (maybe earlier) and then we left. If we were supposed to not be doing religion, but having a relationship, I wondered with whom we were supposed to have a relationship that morning, as not a single prayer was said--isn't communication sort of necessary for relationship?

Let's move our focus now to a Pentecostal worship setting. One would hear this phrase (not religion but relationship) here too. If you attended the kind of Pentecostal churches I did, you'd find a welcome, about 30 minutes of worship, led by a (usually) skilled band, there might be people flagging, dancing, some might shout, there could be someone laying flat on the ground (on their back or face down). There would certainly be people raising their hands. There could be speaking or singing in tongues. It all seems to flow pretty freely, but if you went back the next week you'd probably see almost exactly the same thing, just the songs would change (maybe). It might even be that same person laying on the floor in the same spot. In other words, there is a set pattern of behavior here too; a particular set of practices.

Now let's go to a more 'traditional' service--a tradition that goes back at least into the 1950's, whether Evangelical, main-line or Reformed. You'd also find a fixed order of service, with probably more elements (Call to worship, opening hymn of praise, greeting from God, mutual greeting, etc.). If you heard the phrase "it's not a religion, it's a relationship" it would probably be a part of the sermon.

What's my point? If religion is a set of beliefs and practices, then we're all doing religion! Further, I think we're supposed to! (Don't worry, I'll qualify this statement later!) Any relationship that doesn't include some sort of outward behavior isn't really a relationship!

I have a relationship with my wife. That means we do certain things together, some of those things are quite predictable. There are some fixed sets of behaviors that we just do. We eat at certain times, we give each other a "good night" and "good morning" kiss, etc. Now it's possible to just go through the motions of these behaviors (and maybe sometimes we do), but the pattern of behaviors is the framework within which the relationship happens.

As human beings we need a behavioral framework within which a relationship can flourish. In all of the examples above (including the Catholic ones), the particular beliefs and patterns of behavior (religion) provide the occasion for something more to happen. Sure religion says "Do" and Christianity says "Done," but beyond the cleverness of that phrase, there's no such thing as a relationship where you're not doing something together!

Seeing Our Own Blind Spots

Somewhere between the flesh and the devil, there emerges a tendency to 'just' do the stuff. That is, our focus had never been on the One we are supposed to be worshiping, or over time our focus changes from God to what we are doing as we worship. So instead of praying, we just say prayers; instead of worshiping we just sing songs. We sometimes don't even know when we shifted our focus.

We find ourselves drifting to worshipiness (apologies to Steven Colbert). For some this worshipiness is found in the artistry of a well-crafted liturgy, connected to an ancient spiritual heritage, full of rich symbology and mystery. For others, this worshipiness looks like deeply stirred emotions (but still just "soulish"), that seem to reach down to the depths of our souls, and call forth expressions that we find hard to put into words. For still others, worshipiness looks like truths that move the mind to think higher thoughts, and give us deeper understanding of the great doctrines of the faith, the recapitulation of the highest theological attainments of our tradition. For yet others, worshipiness looks like the stirring of the call to justice and compassion for the poor and oppressed, an impartation of courage and conviction to take action on behalf of those unable to act.

The problem with worshipiness: God can be a million miles away and the 'worshipiness' can still happen. We can feel like we worshiped, we can think we worshiped, but if we worshiped it wasn't God we were worshiping.

There is no difference between a priest raising the chalice in a "high church" setting, or a prophet blowing the shofar in a Pentecostal revival conference, or a preacher cleverly explaining the difference between the words "inerrant" and "infallible," or an activist washing the feet of a poor person, if all that's going on is somebody raising a cup, making noise, defining terms, or illustrating a point. Anyone can do any of those things in such a way that they'll have as much spiritual impact as spending the day bowling and drinking beer.

It's so much easier to look at the blind spots in the practices of others, than it is to see them in ourselves. If you noticed that as you were reading this blog, good for you!

It's Just Magic

There's a really bizzarre thing that happens in all of these streams: it happens when we begin to believe that certain actions themselves have spiritual powers.

A few years ago people who wanted to sell their property would bury a statue of Joseph (husband of Mary, father of Jesus), upside down in their backyard. Amazingly people reported that their property sold much more quickly than they expected. Then the prayer of Jabez thing started happening. In both cases, people were doing things or saying words in a way that suggested they had magical powers. Huh?

I've seen this same bizzarreness show up in the colors some use to decorate places where spiritual events happen, the types of scented oils they use for anointing, the type of bread used for communion, the blowing of the shofar, the waving of flags, the repetition of words or phrases to drive away demons, the imaginary taking up of the 'sword of the Spirit' by saying the words and pretending to take up an imaginary sword, the insistence on the use of certain, Latinized theological terms, the use of "Thee" and "Thou" and other "King James English" when addressing God, or the insistence on saying "Yeshua" instead of "Jesus," and on and on.

On the flip side is the fear or disdain induced when a certain version of the Bible is suggested, in how certain objects in popular culture are "actually" shown to be objects of the occult, where candles in certain settings are rejected on the grounds that they are "Catholic," or the use of English in the mass is rejected because it's too "modern," where concepts like meditation, trances, visions are all rejected because they sound to much like "new age," or the rejection of idea that the creation account in Genesis 1-2 teaches us primarily something other than how creation happened on the grounds that it sounds like compromise with the secular world, and if you don't end your prayer by saying "in Jesus' name, amen," it doesn't even count (in spite of the fact that no prayer in the Bible ends that way!).

There are certain terms, certain practices, certain concepts that have risen above their place of actual importance and have taken on seemingly magical powers. They move heaven, or move hell, or both, just by doing certain things or saying certain words in certain ways. It doesn't even matter if you understand what you're doing, or believe what your saying, or are aware of the presence of God (or any other spiritual reality). Just by saying or doing things, something happens in the spiritual realm -- or so we imagine. I suspect that often the only thing that happens is in our imagination.

If Jesus had only healed one blind man, how many would be studying the types of dirt used to make mud, and what a typical Jewish diet might by that would produce just the right kind of saliva? I'm quite certain that someone, somewhere would be selling the formula and demonstrating positive results!

Somehow we've mistaken technique for the way of truth.

In Spirit and In Truth

Jesus primary teaching on worship in John 4, emphasizes that what the Father is seeking are those who worship "in Spirit and in truth" (John 4:23-24) Without going into a long discussion of what that means, I'll just summarize: God wants us to worship with our spirits, with the help of the Spirit and worship Him authentically based on the Who He really is (there's deliberate ambiguity in the terms "spirit" and "truth"). Jesus says that the rituals of worship in the temple are finished, their time is over (John 4:21). God never really did care about the blood of bulls and goats (e.g., Psalm 51:16; Isaiah 1:11). He was always after people's hearts (e.g., Deut. 6:5; 10:12), not rote obedience.

When we just 'go through the motions,' we are missing the mark. When we ascribe magical powers to certain actions, words or concepts, whether positively or negatively, we miss the mark. When our hearts are more in tune with what we are doing, what we are saying, what we are thinking than on God Himself, we miss the mark.

Actually what God really wants from us is a relationship, not just certain forms of busyness! He doesn't want mere religiosity,* no matter the shape (even the shape of so-called "free worship"). What He wants is our hearts turned toward Him completely, from the core of who we are. This will take the form of actions, even certain actions like prayer, singing, reading or listening to Scripture, etc., and those actions (in whole or in part) are absolutely necessary! But the activity isn't what's important; what's important is the inclination of our hearts.

What or Whom do we have in focus? With all due deference to the bard, that is the question.

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*I prefer the term 'religiosity' over 'religion,' since it conveys more clearly where the problem lies.

What Does it Mean to Be Saved?

I started writing this blog this morning by beginning to sum up the various theories of the atonement* and show how they all contribute something to our understanding of our salvation. It quickly became obvious to me that to try to do that, would require something book length, rather than blog length. So, I decided to lower my aim a bit, and just talk about the outcome of my current perspective on what Jesus has won for us in our atonement, without comparing or contrasting with the major views.

More than Zero

To listen to some presentations of the Gospel, and some explanations of how our salvation works, one can quickly get the idea that in paying the penalty for our sin, an amount we could never pay, Jesus got our bank account with God back to zero. Not that it's said quite that way, but the effect is the same. Jesus paid our penalty and some day we get to go to heaven instead of hell. In this presentation we sometimes hear that we go before the Judge (God), Satan, the prosecuting attorney comes with a list of charges, our Advocate (Jesus) holds out the piece of paper that says "Paid in Full" and the Judge says "Case Dismissed." We then walk out of the courtroom through door "A" into heaven, rather than door "B" into hell. And that's the end of it.

Now, I'm all in favor of getting out of hell! Come on! Eternal punishment, flames of fire, it's a horrible place, as the Bible describes it. I'm thankful to Jesus for getting me out of there! But is that it? Is that all there is to our salvation: that we don't have to be punished for eternity, but instead, some day, we get to enjoy the eternal bliss of playing harps while floating on clouds or something?

If all we have is that our insurmountable debt is paid, that's good, I suppose. But all that gets us is a zero balance. It's really easy to get in debt again, if all you have is zero. Maybe that's why we keep up the cycle of sin/repent: we have no way of getting our head above water -- so to speak.

But getting to zero does not at all sound like what the Bible tells us about what it means to be saved, does it?

Life to the Full

Jesus said that his purpose was to do far more than get us back to zero. He came that [we] may have life, and have it to the full (John 10:10). Some translations have "abundantly" here. The point is that Jesus' understanding of what He was doing was that we would have a life abounding in goodness, not merely a life without the threat of punishment.

The idea that this abundant life was exclusively something that we would experience in the afterlife seems to be completely absent from the context. There is no danger of a thief coming to steal and kill and destroy in heaven! The situation is now--this life. Now is when Jesus is offering us life to the full or life abundantly.

What Jesus has won for us on the cross is much more than our "Get out of Hell free" card. He offers us much more than a zero balance on our account with God. He offers us abundance. He offers us the Kingdom, in fact He gives us the keys to it!

Life in the Kingdom is more than hope about the life to come. Since we live in the Kingdom of God now, we can expect the benefits of the Kingdom of God now. It's true that the Kingdom is still breaking in, and hasn't yet taken over the planet, but it is, in fact, breaking in.

The greatest gift in the Kingdom, apart from the gift of salvation that gets us into the Kingdom, is the gift of the Holy Spirit! He comes to live within us. He takes up permanent residence and is at work in us helping us in our battle with sin and the flesh (Romans 8:13-14), he leads us and produces the fruit of the character of Christ in us (Galatians 5:22-23).

Since the Spirit is within us and upon us, here are some of the things we can also expect to find in the Kingdom (at least from time to time): healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, raising the dead, casting out demons (Matthew 10:8) hearing God's voice (John 10:4), messages of wisdom & knowledge, miracles, prophecy, discernment of spirits, speaking in tongues & interpretation (1Cor.12:8-10). Those aren't for some "spiritual elite," they're for everyone in the Kingdom; they belong to those who belong to Christ.

Our salvation wins for us all of the above, and more! Of course our future will be even more glorious--more glorious than we are capable of imagining. But the Gospel is not just in the future tense. It's present tense because it's present now.

There's much more that I could say, and maybe I will in a future blog.

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*This site summarizes several theories of the atonement (the doctrine of salvation), though it is quite biased toward one of them.