Called to Be Saints E-Book

Gordon T. Smith

• Herausgeber: IVP Academic
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 469

Beschreibung

Christianity Today Award of Merit Best Book of Spirituality—Academic, from Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds Bookstore Evangelicals are known for their emphasis on conversion. But what about life after conversion and beyond justification? Desperately needed is a comprehensive theology of the Christian life from beginning to end, along with the means of formation and transformation. In Called to Be Saints, Gordon Smith draws on a distinguished lifetime of reflecting on these themes to offer us a theologically rich account of our participation in the life of Christ. Both profound and practical, this book is a trinitarian theology of holiness that encompasses both justification and sanctification, both union with Christ and communion with God. Smith unfolds how and why Christians are called to become wise people, do good work, love others and enjoy rightly ordered affections. If holiness is the ongoing journey of becoming mature in Christ, then there is no better guide than Smith. Christians in every walk of life will find this a rich resource for learning what it means to "grow up in every way . . . into Christ" (Ephesians 4:15).

Leseprobe

Called to Be Saints

An Invitation to Christian Maturity

Gordon T. Smith

www.IVPress.com/academic

InterVarsity Press P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426 World Wide Web:www.ivpress.comEmail:[email protected]

©2014 by Gordon T. Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.

InterVarsity Press®is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, write Public Relations Dept., InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, 6400 Schroeder Rd., P.O. Box 7895, Madison, WI 53707-7895, or visit the IVCF website atwww.intervarsity.org.

Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

While all stories in this book are true, some names and identifying information in this book have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

Cover design: David Fassett 

Images: church tiles: © Cole Vineyard/iStockphoto

ISBN 978-0-8308-6489-8 (digital) ISBN 978-0-8308-4030-4 (print)

for joella

Contents

Introduction

1 Called to Be Saints

The Need for a Compelling Theology of Holiness

2 Union with Christ

The Essence of the Christian Life

3 Holy People Are Wise People

An Invitation to Sapiential Holiness

4 Called to Do Good Work

An Invitation to Vocational Holiness

5 Learning to Love

An Invitation to Social Holiness

6 Joy and the Ordering of the Affections

An Invitation to Emotional Holiness

Appendix A: Congregations and Transformation

The Church and the Call to Spiritual Maturity

Appendix B: Christian Higher Education

A Passion for Wisdom and Spiritual Transformation

Notes

Name Index

Subject Index

Scripture Index

About the Author

More Titles from InterVarsity Press

Introduction

This is an invitation to think theologically about the Christian life and to ask, what does it mean to be a Christian? More specifically, what does it mean to be a mature Christian? In order for us to have a complete theology of the Christian life—to address matters of the Christian life and Christian spirituality effectively—we need to find substantive answers to three questions.

First, what is the beginning of the Christian life? What do we mean by conversion and initiation into Christian faith? What does it look like and feel like to come to faith in Christ? Second, what is the character of Christian maturity? If conversion is a beginning, comparable to infancy, what does it look like to be mature, to grow up in one’s faith? Here one would consider the goal or objective—the telos of the journey in Christ. And third, what is the approach and means of formation so that we grow up in our salvation? How does a person newborn in Christ grow and mature in faith? A comprehensive theology of the Christian life—of religious experience from a biblical perspective—would address all three questions: the beginning, the end or goal, and the means by which one moves toward maturity.

There is a growing number of publications on conversion and initiation into Christian faith. Indeed, I have contributed a few publications myself to this question.1 And the third question on spiritual formation and practice has also received a great deal of attention. But it seems to me there is still a gap when it comes to the second question: What does it mean to be mature in our faith? And so this book focuses specifically on that question, contributing to the discussion of the goal or vision of the Christian life.

A focus on this question has implications for our understanding of conversion and our approach to evangelism. If conversion is a good beginning to the Christian life, that naturally raises a question—what, then, is the Christian life? The second question also has implications for spiritual discipline and practice. Indeed, we should only speak about practice in light of the grace for which we hope.

So, then, the following chapters focus on what it means to be mature as a Christian. If the Christian life is a journey, a pilgrimage, what is the goal or objective toward which we walk? To what end are we converted? And to what end are our spiritual practices and disciplines?

The opening chapter makes a case for why such a theology of the Christian life is needed. Chapter 2 is the defining chapter of the book, with an insistence that the Christian vision for maturity is maturity “in Christ.” Chapters 3 through 6 in turn identify four distinctive features of a mature Christian. Each of these chapters in its distinct way is about the good life, the human vocation—what it means to fulfill the purpose or identity for which we were created. This life is a gift that is offered to us in Christ. But it is also a calling, and this book is a guide to living a life worthy of the calling we have received (Eph 4:1).

This book is offered to the entire Christian community—young, middle-aged and seniors. It seeks to challenge young people to establish early on the kind of life they will live: What goals are worth pursuing and what achievements are worth their due diligence? What patterns of life, work, relationship and worship will foster the life they want to have? This book also offers to guide those in midlife as they make midcourse adjustments to their priorities and thus to their lives, with close attention to what matters most. And finally, it proposes to encourage those moving into their senior years about the choices they make at this crucial juncture. For many people these years are the most rewarding and significant, the time when they ask themselves what kind of legacy they want to leave. For each group it is about stewardship: What does it mean to be a good steward of our early years, our mid-adult years and our senior years?

This book is also offered to church congregations that are eager to take seriously the call to foster maturity and bring about spiritual transformation in disciples of Jesus. What does this look like? What is the character of this maturity? And how is it expressed in congregational priorities and commitments?

Specifically, this book is both a call and invitation to live life “in Christ”—more precisely, to live a life that is the fruit of dynamic participation in the life of Christ. This life will have at least four distinctive marks or features. Each of these is offered as an invitation:

To be a wise person and to pursue wisdom with passion and persistence.

To do good work in response to the call of Christ—vocational holiness.

To love others as one learns to live in love.

To know the joy of God—the joy that is the deep wellspring of the blessed life.

Each of these—wisdom, good work, love and joy—is offered to us in Christ. And so we can speak of them only as gifts we know in light of what it means to live in union with Christ, to participate in his life. Thus I reference chapter 2 as the central and defining chapter.

Finally, the book includes two appendices. The first is an invitation to pastors to consider what all of this means for the character of congregational life. What would it look like, in other words, if we approached congregational life with a vision of maturity in Christ? And second, I have included an invitation to the leadership and faculty of institutions of higher education—notably Christian universities and seminaries—with this question in mind: Can the university and the theological seminary design its life and curriculum around a vision of transformation in Christ?

1

Called to Be Saints

The Need for a Compelling Theology of Holiness

Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.

PSALM 1:1-3

Jesus assures his followers that in him they will find life abundant, surely echoing this wonderful line from Psalm 1 that they will be like trees planted by streams of water. What are the contours and what is the character of this abundant life? What is the good life for which we were created and to which we are called? What are the indicators of a life well lived? To what end were we created? And thus, to what end have we been saved?

The whole of the New Testament assumes that a Christian is someone who grows toward spiritual maturity. But what precisely does it look and feel like to be mature in Christ? The confluence of various developments reminds us that more attention needs to be given to this question.

The Sanctification Gap

First, I think back to the remarkable insight in Richard Lovelace’s book Dynamics of Spiritual Life, in which he observed in the late 1970s that evangelical theology and spirituality were marked by a “sanctification gap.”1 He insisted that this was not due to lack of belief in the importance of holiness or spiritual maturity. Rather he demonstrated that evangelicalism’s revivalistic heritage had unwittingly undercut this dynamic church doctrine. In the intervening years, good and helpful contributions have been made to this theme, but in many respects evangelical theology and congregational practice are still marked by the same gap. The theology of sanctification or holiness is typically a second-order theme, with little sense that it may well be the goal of theology and the church.

Textbooks in systematic theology that are used in evangelical seminaries give this topic only cursory attention. An example on my bookshelves highlights this. It is a standard textbook in many evangelical semi­naries—a massive 1,200-page systematic theology—but it allocates barely ten pages to the question of the character and contours of the Christian life. Admittedly, those within the Wesleyan and Methodist traditions tend to devote more time and space to sanctification. But is this only a Wesleyan concern? Those who are heirs to John Calvin surely appreciate that the nature of the Christian life is a major theme of Calvin’s Institutes. Could it be that we have neglected this theme even if the fathers of our theological and spiritual traditions recognized its centrality?

Even when sanctification or holiness is addressed in current studies, the focus is typically on the means—the how sanctification happens—rather than on what it looks like when it happens. A book published a few years ago on “five views of sanctification” hardly discusses sanctification itself but instead focuses on the process of sanctification, with diverse views presented on the Spirit’s work in bringing it about. But the book leaves unanswered a key question: To what end is the Spirit’s work?

An even more profound problem is that most evangelical Christians have an understanding of conversion that presumes they are “good to go.” They have prayed a prayer that “assures” them of a future life, and in the meantime they hear preaching on Sunday that, quite simply, does not either call for or rely on a theology of spiritual maturity. The dominant motif is that salvation can be experienced by believing certain things to be true, praying a simple prayer and then carrying on as best one can till Jesus “returns.”

This has left the church vulnerable to what has aptly been called “therapeutic deism,” and one wonders if this is indeed the religion of the land rather than trinitarian Christian faith.2 The goal of the church is to get people “saved” so they can be happy and live productive and civil lives, all with the assurance that in the next life they will be in “heaven.” Most words spoken in Sunday preaching in evangelical churches do not assume that spiritual maturity is integral to the gospel.

The Barna Group came to a remarkable conclusion based on research conducted in 2009:

Our studies this year among pastors showed that almost nine out of ten senior pastors of Protestant churches asserted that spiritual immaturity is one of the most serious problems facing the Church. Yet relatively few of those pastors believe that such immaturity is reflected in their church. Few pastors have gone so far as to give their congregants a specific, written statement of how they define spiritual maturity, how it might be measured, the strategy for facilitating such maturity, or what scriptural passages are most helpful in describing and fostering maturity. Those pastors who made any attempt to measure maturity were more likely to gauge depth on the basis of participation in programs than to evaluate people’s spiritual understanding or any type of transformational fruit in their lives.

Not surprisingly, our research found that a majority of churchgoing adults are uncertain as to what their church would define as a “healthy, spiritually mature follower of Christ” and they were no more likely to have personally developed a clear notion of such a life.3

This research suggests there is a place, indeed an urgent need, for something that would help pastors and congregations define spiritual maturity more clearly.

But if we respond to this gap, it is imperative that our response be theological. And for evangelical Christians this is a challenge. Are we prepared to think critically about the Christian life, to ask what it would look like to have a congregation defined by such a vision? Evangelical Christians seem particularly vulnerable to perspectives that do not call for critical theological reflection. Mark Noll speaks of this proclivity when he writes, “To put it most simply, the evangelical ethos is activistic, populist, pragmatic, and utilitarian . . . dominated by the urgencies of the moment.”4 And yet what is needed is a theological vision of the human vocation—something with nuance and substance, an articulation of the Christian life that is congruent with the New Testament call to faith in Christ.

I fully acknowledge that there has been an explosion of interest in spiritual formation and spiritual practice or discipline. Evangelical publishers are putting out several books a year on the importance of spiritual discipline and practice, all of which can be linked in some way to the seminal book by Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline.5 And yet a common observation could be made about these publications: What is the meaning and goal of the Christian life? What is the theological vision that guides us as we engage these practices?

Spiritual disciplines or practices have meaning only as a means to an end. And they have little meaning if we lack clarity about the end. For every spiritual practice we engage in, we should be able to speak of the “grace” we seek through this discipline. And if we speak of a specific grace, we need to be clear what it is we hope—speaking theologically—for God to do in us. Spiritual discipline makes sense only if we have a clear and substantive doctrine of sanctification—if we are clear on the goal, or telos, of the Christian life.

Finally, in consideration of this sanctification gap, there are two extensive discussions currently taking place within the evangelical church. First, there are those who speak of the need for character development and moral formation. And from what seems to be a very different group, there is focused conversation on the life of prayer and contemplation. Some speak of being transformed into the image of Christ and that character development is about being like Christ (Christ as model of the Christian life). Others focus on the interior life of prayer and meditation. Both speak of maturity in the disciple’s life, but each approaches that maturity from a different perspective. Perhaps with a clear definition of what it means to be a mature Christian, we can effectively bring these two streams together.

The Call for Transformation

Before we get any further, we likely need to make a basic case that God’s people are called to spiritual maturity in Christ—that there is, indeed, a goal or vision of the Christian life wherein the church and individual Christians are called to sainthood.

While every theological tradition affirms the need for maturity in Christ, or sanctification, we still need to make the case biblically and theologically that it is integral to the gospel and the call of Christ. Indeed, an articulation of the call to spiritual maturity can and ideally should be inherent in each dimension of the church’s life and ministry—all preaching, for example, should include an implicit if not explicit call to the fulfillment of the human vocation. Each time the Scriptures are opened, read and preached, some vision of what it means to be human should be expressed.

The Old Testament is essentially the account of a God who forms for himself a people who are specifically called to be holy. When God brings the people of Israel out of Egypt, they are the people of God; that is their identity. This identity as the people of God is the basis on which they are called to reflect—in their life, work and relationships—the holy character of God. And the journey is not merely a geographic journey to the promised land but a journey of a maturing faith in God. God seeks not merely their release from Egypt but to make them into a people who can reflect the purposes of God. God is out to make for himself a people who reflect his holiness, who are marked by righteousness, and who live in justice and the shalom of God.

When we come to the New Testament, we see again and again the expectation that in and through the work of Christ, the church will be a holy community, transformed by Christ through the power of Word and Spirit. When Jesus announces the in-breaking of the kingdom of God, he declares that a new order of life is being launched through his life and work. This new and transformed mode of life will affect every dimension of existence. Jesus does not merely preach a gospel of personal salvation for those who hope for an afterlife in “heaven.” Rather, he teaches his disciples to pray, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” He urges them to seek the kingdom and righteousness, which is modeled by the radical actions of the disciples who left everything to follow him. His offer to them was a transformed life—an “abundant life” (Jn 10:10).

Jesus uses language that makes some readers uncomfortable; he speaks of perfection. In the Sermon on the Mount he urges his disciples to “be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). And in response to the rich young ruler, he is explicit: “If you wish to be perfect,” he says—clearly in response to the desire and intent of this young man—then one must leave all and follow Jesus (Mt 19:21).

Often this has been read as advocating a kind of flawless morality, and those who recognize the depth and power of sin in the human race are not inclined to accept that such perfection is possible. Some within the Wesleyan tradition have been inclined to stress that this is a perfection of love, a perfection of intent rather than flawless behavior.

But there is another way to think about perfection—notably, from the perspective of creation, an approach that may be closer to the intent of the New Testament. When we view the human vocation and sanctification from the vantage point of creation, we see the human vocation as fulfillment of creation. To be complete in Christ, to be “perfect,” is quite simply to be what one has been created to be. To say “simply,” though, is to miss the force and beauty of perfection. When an engine runs exquisitely, when a pen writes effortlessly, when a bridge spans a river with a flawless combination of beauty and structural integrity, or when a coat fits us comfortably in a style and color that suit us and is just right for the day’s weather, we rightly use the word perfect. Something works; something fits; something is true to its intent.

We can apply the same concept to the human person. When we meet a saint, we encounter beauty, integrity and congruence. The call to perfection is the invitation to be that for which we were created.

This is also the message of the apostle Paul. His benediction to the Thessalonian believers is straightforward and comprehensive: May God sanctify you entirely, he writes (1 Thess 5:23). In Romans 12:1 he urges his readers to be transformed by the renewing of their minds. And the letter to the Colossians from beginning to end is a call to spiritual maturity in Christ, captured eloquently in the affirmation that they have come to faith in Christ—they have received Christ as Lord (Col 2:6), but now that they have come to faith, he urges them to grow up in their faith, rooted and anchored in Christ. Indeed, in the preceding verses Paul describes his own ministry as preaching, struggling and suffering to this end: that they would be complete, perfect and mature in Christ (Col 1:28).

The language of perfection as it is used here is not elitist; rather, it speaks of something we all long for and something we are all called to. The New Testament uses two compelling images or metaphors to profile this call to transformation: sickness-healing and infancy-maturity.

The image of sickness and health—transformation as healing—arises from the profound ways in which Jesus is a healer. Ultimately he is not merely the healer of physical ailments but the healer of our souls, indeed of our whole beings. The promise of healing is anticipated with the coming of the Messiah (Is 58:8); Jesus is then revealed in the Gospels as the divine healer. And the book of Revelation celebrates the one who brings healing to the nations (Rev 22:2).

The second image—infancy-maturity—also emerges as a regular motif, especially in the New Testament Epistles. In 1 Peter, for example, the writer speaks to the readers of their new faith, stressing that their new birth is the fruit of the Word that has been preached to them. He goes on to urge them as babes in Christ to crave the pure spiritual milk by which they will grow up in their salvation (see 1 Peter 1:22–2:2). Ephesians 4 speaks of a fully functioning congregation of believers where each one contributes to the equipping of God’s people, so that Christians are not tossed about like a boat at sea by every wind of teaching but rather grow up into Christ as the congregation is built up in the faith. Similarly the book of Hebrews encourages readers to move beyond elementary teachings toward maturity (Heb 6:1).

This image of spiritual growth toward maturity suggests the idea of progress in the faith; spiritual maturity does not come quickly but occurs over time as a person responds to the means of grace and thus “grows.” Surely this is precisely what the author of 2 Peter wants his readers to understand. He speaks of faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control and more, concluding with love, and he speaks of possessing these qualities in increasing measure (2 Pet 1:8).

In 2 Peter we are also reminded that new birth is not an end but a beginning; our election or calling in Christ and to Christ is for a particular purpose—maturity in Christ. To put it more bluntly, our conversion has meaning only if it leads to the goal of conversion: namely, this very spiritual maturity (2 Pet 1:10-11).

There are other metaphors in the New Testament. For example, Paul uses the idea of changing clothes when he speaks of putting off the old self—as one might a suit of clothing—and putting on the new self (Eph 4:22-24). In Christ one has a new identity, a new way of being, a radical reorientation. Still, the dominant images used in reference to spiritual maturity are those of sickness-health and infancy-maturity. I will draw on these images often in the chapters that follow.

But before we go further, we need to speak about heresy.

Speaking About Heresy

All theological reflection requires that one think about heresy, asking where there is a teaching or theology that is a partial truth and thus not the whole truth. A partial or half-truth is actually false—and in many ways more dangerous that something that is blatantly false.

There are two heresies connected with a theology of sanctification or spiritual maturity that need to be identified early on. First, we need to consider the dangers of perfectionism. The animating and empowering call to transformation in Christ is a call to mature in faith, hope and love—to be “perfect” in Christ. And yet many recoil from such talk largely because they have seen the downside of perfectionism. The fear of perfectionism has even led some New Testament translators to avoid the use of the word perfect to translate telos (see, for example, the New International Version and New Revised Standard Version translations of Colossians 1:28).

This avoidance is perhaps an overreaction, but we still need to be clear about what we mean and do not mean by use of the word perfect. Perfectionism is deadly, whereas the call to full maturity in Christ is animating (that is, it enlivens us). The difference is a matter of location and association.

Perfectionism treats the law of God, and thus the very holiness of God, as a standard in its own right. Perfectionism calls Christians to live according to this law. But though the law is a guide to character and virtue, its effects are deadly when it is disconnected from its source. The Scriptures and the sixteenth-century Reformers speak of how legalism is a curse and a weight rather than a freedom in Christ. The law is good, and Paul clearly expects that it will be fulfilled in the covenant people of God (Rom 13:8-10). But when not linked intimately with faith in Christ, the law is an impossible weight, a crushing burden, an impossible taskmaster.

A sister heresy to perfectionism is moralism. Much Sunday preaching is really little more than urging people to get their lives in order: good advice on how to be a good, morally upright person—whether it is a sermon on how to be a good father (on Father’s Day, of course) or whether it is a call to get one’s finances in order. Either way it is just good advice—and for many a crushing burden. It is the weight of the law without the gospel. People hear the call and the ideal as nothing but a reminder of their failure.

Thus one of the abiding themes of this book is an insistence that we cannot equate moral formation with spiritual formation. I will explain more what I mean by this statement in the chapters that follow. But for now, I must at least plant the seed and note that spiritual formation is not synonymous with virtue or character development. While it includes these, they are not the heart of the matter. If moral development is not derivative of our union with Christ, it is an impossible burden.

Second, we must speak of pelagianism, an ancient heresy that Augustine combated in late fourth and early fifth century. The basic argument is simple: that the human person has an inherent capacity to become mature or holy through consistent practice, diligent effort and strength of will. The label pelagian is sometimes used to describe all spiritualities that emphasize the responsibility and capacity of the human person to grow toward spiritual maturity. But that would be a misnomer and false characterization. The problem is more subtle. The Scriptures clearly speak of personal responsibility and effort—witness Paul’s affirmation of his struggle for the believers in Colossae (Col 1:29) and for his own soul (Phil 3:12-14).

The biblical vision of holiness is one in which spiritual maturity is the fruit ultimately not of human effort toward an objective standard (a holy law, perhaps), but rather human response to the call and enabling of God. Our theology of the Christian life must, of course, include a reflection on agency—on the significance of both divine and human actions. Often the casual line offered is that we must do our part while God does God’s part. But this is not in the end a helpful way to frame this matter, because quite simply it confuses the issue and the very different ways in which we act and God acts. The difference, while subtle, is radical.

When it comes to the life we have in God, God is the actor. It is all of God. It is all gift. But this does not mean the human person is passive or a nonactor. We can and should take human agency seriously. However, the genius of human action is that it is an act of response to and participation in the actions of God.

The images of sickness-healing and infancy-growth are helpful here. A doctor knows that she is not a healer; she is merely participating in and fostering the healing process that is part of the work of God in creation. Doctors don’t heal, but they are active participants in the healing process.

Similarly, farmers know that they do not grow anything. They don’t grow corn or vegetables or wheat. Rather, they plant, they water, they weed and they prune their fruit trees. Though their effort and participation is important, the fruit at the end of the apple tree is hardly their “work.” Despite all their effort, this fruit—or, for the doctor, this healing—is sheer gift.

Perfectionism, pelagianism, moralism, legalism and all the other “isms” that might undercut true Christian spirituality are indeed a threat, but they cannot keep us from this call to maturity in Christ. John Calvin offers a helpful perspective here. He insists that we not speak of our calling to perfection in any way that fails to acknowledge that we are all sinners, sinners on the road to mature faith in Christ. Though none have become perfect, the standard and the call remain; they are that for which we long and that which we seek. Calvin insists that the dangers of perfectionism do not mean we do not speak of our objective. Rather, he suggests that we speak of it as precisely that—the goal toward which we run.6 He echoes the language of Paul in Philippians: “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:14). Though the objective is not reached, it is nevertheless pursued.

From this vantage point, we can speak of our goal not as something oppressive but rather as that which motivates and inspires us. We may never be in perfect health, but that does not mean we tolerate sickness. A doctor likely knows that his patient will never be “perfectly” healthy, but it would a travesty to then tolerate and accept disease. We may never be as wise, mature and holy as we would like to be. But that does not mean we despair and forsake our calling to Christian maturity.

We can use the language of perfection and completeness and see it as a call to excellence. Having identified the scourge of perfectionism that has often plagued this discussion, we must not let a fear of perfectionism keep from us from articulating a vibrant and compelling vision for Christian holiness.

A vital dimension of a church’s teaching and preaching is the regular reminder that spiritual maturity is indeed our calling: it is our destiny, our human vocation in Christ. Pastoral ministry must constantly make the case for why spiritual growth is essential, possible and accessible; it is a vital dimension of congregational life.

Congregations that do not pursue with passion and vigor a dynamic maturity in Christ are surely as fraudulent as a hospital that is not passionate and vigorous in its pursuit of healing and wholeness. What follows is an attempt to provide such a vision that I trust is an accessible, compelling and worthy goal for the Christian believer.

Some Defining Criteria

How then do we embrace the call to spiritual maturity, indeed to perfection, but avoid these deadly heresies? How can we speak of the call to maturity in Christ in a way that fosters a pastoral vision for God’s people—one comparable to the vision a doctor has for his patient’s healing or a farmer has for the fruit of the orchard? At the very least we need to approach our theological vision from five distinctive perspectives. These are the criteria by which we will define our theology of spiritual maturity:

Trinitarian and christocentric

Salvation as the fulfillment of God’s creation

The interplay of sin and faith

Individual and communal holiness

The ordinary and the mundane—particularly the reality of suffering.

Trinitarian and christocentric. First, it is essential that we anchor our vision for the human vocation in the triune character of God—Father, Son and Spirit.

With reference to the Father, it is appropriate to use the language of election and speak of the one who made us and thus longs for us to come into the very identity for which we were created. When we speak of human destiny or purpose, we are referring to the goal to which we are called by our Father in heaven.

Second, a trinitarian vision for Christian maturity or holiness will consistently speak of that maturity as participation in the life and work of Christ Jesus. I will belabor this point: Christian spirituality is demarcated by being “in Christ.” In fact, we can speak of holiness only from the perspective of Christ’s divine initiative revealed in the mercy of the cross. Everything is formed in us on the basis of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is this gospel that compels and transforms us, but more, it is through the gospel that we are drawn into the very life of Christ.

And third, this trinitarian vision profiles the fundamental gospel truth that spiritual maturity is effected in our lives through the gracious ministry of the Holy Spirit. I am reminded of a line from Richard Lovelace: “True spirituality is not a superhuman religiosity; it is simply true humanity released from bondage to sin and renewed by the Holy Spirit.”7

Christian spirituality is a life of radical dependence on the Spirit. We do not live self-created or self-constructed lives, but rather lives of active response to the grace of God. Many books on the Christian life seem like nothing more than a christianized version of Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, a classic of American civil religion with its implicit and explicit assumption that if we are successful it is because we have managed to get our lives together. If not, it is because we are lazy or lack resolve. The biblical vision is a life lived in radical dependence on God and in deep mutual interdependence with others; for Covey, the individual controls his or her destiny by commitment to certain habits.

Much preaching on Sunday is about getting these habits right: You too can be a good father, husband, employee—whatever—if you just get the practices right and keep them up. But the answer to the fatalistic quietism of nominal Christianity is not a religious self-help program.

Rather, we must be thoroughly trinitarian and speak of the gift of holiness that comes through the grace of the Spirit. The call to holiness comes from the Father as an invitation to participate in the life of Christ Jesus and to do so in radical dependence on the grace of the Spirit. All three dimensions of this trinitarian vision speak to the fact that our holiness is a miracle of divine initiative—an initiative in grace and mercy. Thus our holiness brings glory to God. And our theology of spiritual maturity will then ask, what does true humanity look like when released from the oppressive power of sin and infused with the life of the Holy Spirit who, in the language of the Nicene Creed, is “the Lord and giver of life”?

Baptism, then, is a rite of initiation into a life that is demarcated by the triune God. The Lord’s Supper is the rite of the faith community where we respond to the Creator who in Christ has loved us and given his very God-self for us and who invites us in the Spirit to live the life to which we are called. Both baptism and the Lord’s Supper are rites of gracious empowerment, equipping and feeding us to live in response to God’s call.

As already indicated, this emphasis on the work of the Spirit does not diminish or discount the significance of human agency; it is merely that our actions come in response to the Spirit’s work and are sustained through the grace given by the Spirit.

Salvation as the fulfillment of God’s creation. A second crucial criterion is the affirmation that our salvation is the fulfillment of the purposes of God in creation. We can ask the holiness question only if we also attend to an intimately related question: To what end were we created? If we affirm with the creed that “I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth,” what does this mean for our under­­standing of God’s redemptive purposes? It means that we speak of maturity, or perfection, as the fulfillment of creation.

In technical language, it means we see a profound continuity between the order of creation and the order of redemption. It means we speak of “perfection” as nothing other that the end for which we were made or designed, for, as Thomas Aquinas noted, “A thing is said to be perfect in so far as it attains its proper end, which is the final perfection of the thing.”8 It is to the glory of God that we be fully and completely who we were created to be.

We can rightly ask, then, what it means to be created in the image of God and what it looks like for this image to be renewed, restored and brought to full completion or maturity. What I hope to demonstrate is that a saint is one who lives to the glory and praise of the Father and Creator. Thus there is a profound beauty to holiness—not merely the holiness of God, but the holiness, indeed the glory, of the human person who is the image, icon or reflection of God. This means that for each dimension of holiness we must consider the interplay between creation and redemption. We must consider how the grace of God infuses the whole of creation: healing, restoring and transforming all that God has made.9

It is important that we keep the two distinct—the order of creation and the order of redemption. They are not identical; this is so because of the presence and power of sin. We only experience a created order that is wracked with the power of evil. But the continuity between creation and redemption means that we can never speak of God’s salvation except in the light of the wonder and beauty of the creation. And one notable implication is that we do not think in terms of two distinct zones to our lives—a secular and a sacred zone. Rather the grace of God infuses all that we are and all that we are called to be.

One implication is that holiness is not equated with religious activities or church participation. The Christian life and church life are not identical. Yes, we are called to be full participants in the life of the church. But we do not reduce Christian living to church activities and involvements. There is much more to our lives than that which is prescribed or contained within it.

Most of all, it means that we long and hope for the renewal of God’s creation. The whole creation, we read in Romans 8, groans in anticipation of the revelation of the children of God (Rom 8:18-20). Our hope, our longing, is not for an otherworldly existence. We affirm life in the created order; we affirm and delight in life as God created it to be. Thus when we speak of the reign of Christ—of the in-breaking of the kingdom of God—by praying, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we are praying for and participating in the renewal of all things under the benevolent authority of Christ.

The interplay of sin and faith. We cannot speak of transformation and Christian maturity unless we have a clear understanding of the biblical doctrine of sin. It is the necessary point of reference in any discussion of what it means to be a saint. And it is not sufficient to speak of sin as deliberate transgression—bad people doing bad things. Rather, we need to speak of sin as a sickness that has infected the whole of God’s creation; we need to speak of it as an incipient, oppressive power, an addictive and deadly force.

An awareness of sin’s power reminds us of our need for both compassion and patience as we attend to and respond to the grace of God in our lives. Yes, we must speak of Christ’s victory over sin, and yes we must speak of the possibilities of grace in our lives. And yet our vision of what it means to be mature or complete in Christ must without apology take full account of the insidious power of sin in our lives, in our communities, in the church and in the world.

When we are naive to the power of sin or speak as though it no longer has real control in our lives, we unwittingly become more susceptible to its devastating hold. In the timing and purposes of God, sin is not yet eliminated from the equation; we still live with its effects even though we are confident of its ultimate defeat. And so our discussion of what it means to be mature in Christ must recognize that we will live out our entire lives struggling with sin’s debilitating effects: the wrongs of others, the strains on mental health, the flaws great and small that afflict us all.

This does not mean we tolerate sin—any more than a doctor tolerates sickness. It merely means we acknowledge the power of sin and recognize that God’s transforming work can seem slow and incremental. It also means we must respond to ourselves and to others with compassion, generosity and patience, learning to bear with one another in love (Col 3:13).

Quite apart from the power of sin in our lives, we must speak of the priority of faith. Our calling is one of radical dependence on God as creatures who grow into maturity and learn to trust in him. And the sin factor in our lives and in our world is what more than anything else calls us back to a deep recognition of our need for Christ, of what it means to live under the mercy and in radical dependence on his grace.

In faith we can sing, “Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me.” This is our disposition of heart and mind each day, each hour; we always fall short of the glory to which we are called and thus always turn again to Christ in dependence on God’s gracious work in him. There is nothing quite like our sin, failure and weakness to force us, indeed compel us, to turn from the foolishness of our self-­constructed lives to live instead in faith and quiet, childlike trust. Thus we speak of this life in Christ as a gift—a gift that is received with humility.

Individual and communal holiness. Our vision of Christian maturity must include a doctrine of holiness that accounts for the interplay between the individual person, called to maturity in Christ, and the church, which is also called to grow up in Christ. Both the individual and the communal (or ecclesial) body need to be understood in light of the other. Personal maturity in Christ will always be found in dynamic communion with the faith community. And it is not merely a matter of being in community; it must be the church with whom we are in community (thus our definition of the church matters). Our understanding and experience of the faith is anchored in a rich theological and spiritual tradition; we are part of a faith community that has an apostolic foundation.

To be complete in Christ is to know the holiness of God who calls us into fellowship with himself as a triune being. Indeed, the holiness of God cannot be construed apart from the love and fellowship found within his triunity. In similar fashion, the holiness of the Christian can find expression only within the love and fellowship of the church. Our individual sanctification is part of God’s overall plan for the church. So in the end we cannot speak of the call to holiness apart from the calling of God’s people to be, together, the one holy catholic and apostolic church.

And so in the discussion that follows we will address the formative power of liturgy and worship. We will speak of the central practices of the faith community and affirm how we grow in grace together as God’s people. We will speak of worship, the proclamation of the Scriptures, the practice of the Lord’s Supper and the common work of witnessing in word and deed to the reign of Christ. The church is not merely an instrument of the kingdom; it is also an embodiment and foretaste of the kingdom. And so the church is the fruit of the in-breaking of the kingdom in the world.

Yet the individual does have a personal identity, and we speak of corporate holiness without denying the significance and power of the individual. The individual is not lost within the corporate identity of the church but rather flourishes in this community as one who gives and receives the love of God. Still, what must be stressed is that individual spiritual maturity cannot be contemplated apart from the shared practices of the faith community. Furthermore, it is important to affirm that we are on this journey together not merely as companions on the road but as mutually dependent sisters and brothers growing up into Christ as each one contributes (Eph 4:13-16).

All of this means, at the very least, two things. First, the call of the church to be the holy people of God must form the backdrop for any discussion of the human vocation. And second, our vision of spiritual maturity in Christ needs to be one that can be translated into practice within congregations. This way congregations can clearly see how they are on this journey together, and individuals can see and feel this very dynamic of interdependence on one another even as all are dependent on Christ.

The ordinary and the mundane—particularly the reality of suffering. When we speak of the holiness to which we are called, the grace of spiritual maturity in Christ, we must speak of it as that which is fulfilled in the ordinary, routine and mundane rhythms of daily life. We can certainly affirm the extraordinary, and we will. But the point here is to say that formation of the human soul occurs not so much in the unusual but in the daily life of the Christian believer.

Then—and perhaps this is most crucial—we need to speak of difficulty: failure, disappointment and pain. A key thread that must run through any discussion of maturity in Christ is the formative power of suffering. In our lives and in our work we suffer with Christ as his joint heirs in suffering (Rom 8:17). And suffering will inevitably demarcate our relationships and our work. It is the context in which we live out our lives.

Glenn Tinder makes the observation that most cultures have a deep aversion to suffering.10 No one in any culture wants to suffer, but what is unique in our time and context is our failure to see suffering as part of the human predicament due to our moral and physical imperfections. It is part of the finitude of life. It is a false hope to want to live in comfortable suburbia away from the painful reality of human existence with the assumption that technology will eventually ease all our pain.

Our theology of the Christian life must take account of how suffering, while an aberration in God’s creation and not integral to what God has made, is for now—before Christ is revealed and all is well—a means by which God forms us and purifies us. Suffering will pass. But in the meantime it is inescapable, and so we must speak of pain, suffering and difficulty with reference to each dimension of Christian holiness. And we will do so, of course, the only way that can be done—with a hope that is possible only because of the cross of Christ.

These are the five perspectives that will undergird this study: trinitarian and christocentric, salvation within the order of creation, sin and the life of faith, the individual in community and, finally, the significance of the ordinary—specifically, the place of suffering in our lives.

The Approach

Before we launch deeper into this project, here are several points about the approach we will be taking as we explore Christian maturity and holiness.

Biblical and theological. The vision that will be outlined in the pages that follow will be intentionally and explicitly “biblical.” The consideration of union with Christ, for example, will include a focused examination of John 15. The call to wisdom will contrast and compare Proverbs 1 and Colossians 1. The call to love will in many respects be an extended reflection on Romans 12:9–15:7. Indeed, it should be evident throughout that each dimension of spiritual maturity is a reflection of the human vocation that is witnessed to in the Scriptures.

If our approach is biblical, it should be evident that the vision of righteousness found in the Old Testament will be foundational. We need to demonstrate how this vision is fulfilled, not abrogated, in Christ. Consider, for example, the character of Christian worship. The shape of worship under the old covenant, including the sacrificial system, is not discarded with the coming of Christ but fulfilled in him. The difference between “discarded” and “fulfilled” is no small matter. And just as the shape of worship is sustained, so the shape of righteousness, holiness and justice is fulfilled in Christ. The Old Testament vision is fulfilled, not discarded.

While biblical, this vision will also be theological. Some will perhaps protest that if it is biblical it is necessarily theological and the only theology we want is that which is biblical. And yet the distinction I make between biblical and theological is important for two reasons. First, our approach will be theological in that we will seek a synthesis of the biblical texts and perspectives. We will ask, for example, what is the meaning of work? The answer will be more all-inclusive than a mere considering of individual biblical passages.

Second, “theological” also speaks to the heritage of the church—the witness of the Spirit through the journey of faith over the years, the experience and ongoing theological reflection that is central to the church’s identity and work. We will learn from those who have gone before us.

Evangelical and ecumenical. Also, it will be clear that as the author of this work I am attempting to be explicitly evangelical and ecumenical. Being evangelical is not really an option for me. We all think and write from within some theological framework, and my own is undoubtedly the evangelical heritage that is heir to the great awakenings of the late eighteenth century and the formative voices of John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards and others.

A nonevangelical Christian reader has likely picked this up already; it will be evident in how questions are framed, what problems are addressed and how issues are illustrated. Most of all, it will be clear in how dimensions of the Christian life are nuanced and affirmed.

I do write with a particular concern for the way in which my own theological tradition thinks about and seeks the holiness of God. And I hope what follows will be compelling to evangelicals across the spectrum of this tradition—Reformed, Anabaptist, Wesleyan, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Holiness and more. An early version of some of these chapters was presented in a cosponsored lecture series in Baptist and Pentecostal theological seminaries in Romania. The lectures were well received and I was reminded that while there are significant theological differences, we can find substantive common ground even between Baptist and Pentecostal believers!

Yet I am hoping that what follows is also ecumenical—clearly written from within the evangelical tradition but drawing freely on contributions of other theological and spiritual traditions. While my primary audience is likely evangelical Christians, I hope that the discussion is also accessible to Roman Catholic, Orthodox and other Christians, and even those who are exploring the character of Christian faith, still not as yet having made a commitment to Christian identity.

So I write as an evangelical and will address the theme of maturity in Christ through this prism. But I will seek to do this in intentional conversation with other theological traditions.

Theological and practical. In this exploration of spiritual maturity and completeness in Christ, we need to ask what it means to be a Christian. Now, although it is easy to place a religious veneer on what is essentially a secular understanding of the human vocation, presenting spiritual maturity as a kind of psychological equanimity or balance, it is nonetheless valid to draw on the insights from other disciplines of study, including the thoughtful reflections on the nature of good work being conducted by those in the fields of business and contemporary psychology.

But what must ultimately define our vision of the Christian life is a thoroughly creedal and biblical theology. We need to foster a view of what it means to be a Christian that reflects the full purposes of God for the individual and for the community of faith. Thinking theologically gives meaning, substance and purpose to our lives. And because our lives are lived in the midst of complexity and challenge, with both blessing and suffering, we need a vision of the Christian life that can embrace the full scope of this complexity.

A theological vision will foster discernment: our capacity to read our culture and embrace the best it has to offer while also challenging those propensities that are not compatible with biblical faith. And fundamentally, it will mean a vision that is congruent with the pain and suffering that inevitably mark this life while also demarcated by a deep hopefulness.

It is often said that if we are being theological about something, we are not likely being practical. To the contrary: theology is very practical. Good theology fosters wisdom and thus the capacity to live well. We need a theological vision that can be translated into practice, that makes sense in the warp and woof of daily life. We need a theological vision that we can convert into approaches to spiritual formation. But the sequence matters. Our practice must be theologically informed.

Universal and particular. Then, finally, our approach will seek to be both universal and particular. Stephen Neill in his classic little study Christian Holiness makes an interesting observation: “Sinners are tediously alike. . . . Saints manifest a glorious variety. . . . No general terms cover them all.”11 We are always called to holiness in our own time and generation, and culture is certainly a factor in our understanding and practice of spiritual maturity. And yet as Neill himself points out, we can speak of “certain qualities” that are consistently found in all who seek maturity in Christ Jesus—from Norway to Thailand, saints in Christ will have some common qualities, indicators of living in the holiness of God.

Karl Barth, through his brilliant insights into the character of conversion and sanctification, makes a compelling case that while no two Christians are alike, there are certain boundaries and contours that make a Christian a Christian. We are called to one Lord; we are transformed—or, his word, “awakened”—by one Spirit.12 We live in response to and are infused by the same Word. So we can speak of universals not to deny the particularities of our lives, but as a means to profile the common motifs, vision and hope we share on this road.