If Christianity is to impact society as it ought, individuals are going to have to believe the concepts of Christianity as revealed in the Christian Scriptures. Society is quick to detect and disregard hypocrisy. It is imperative for the Church to draw from the basics of Scripture to prepare the Christian to live out the life of Christ in the culture around them.
In delineating the rationale for the Christian life we should heed seriously the biblical dictum that being is prior to action. We must be in Christ before we can act in harmony with his will. This truth is underlined by Paul: “For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” (Col 1:9, 10 NKJV)
Jesus makes this same point when he contends that good fruit can only come from a good tree (Luke 6:43–45). Once we are converted into salt and light by God’s grace we must sprinkle our salt and let our light shine before others so that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven (Matt 5:14, 16).
As Christians we are enjoined to be rich in good works (1 Tim 6:17–19), but our motivation is not to make ourselves acceptable before God or to earn the favor of God. The Heidelberg Catechism rightly reminds us that our commitment to a life of service is to be based on gratitude for what God has already done for us in Jesus Christ (Bloesch 1991, 184).
From the very beginning, however, we must understand that ethics is a way of seeing God and ourselves in relation to him before it is a matter of behaving a certain way. Without vision of God as high, lifted up, and worthy of worship, there will be no permanent change of life. Surely that is why God produced such a dramatic scene on Mount Sinai. Worship is the foundation on which the ethical life of the people of God is built. Until we feel the “tremble” produced by a vision of God’s glory and might, making ethical choices is a burdensome duty. But when ethics are grounded in reverence, the pursuit of a holy lifestyle becomes the joyous enterprise of discipleship (Shelly 1984, 18 & 19).
Because there is one true people of God on earth, there remains a “theopolitical” structure and calling for the church. It is not the structure of the kingdoms of the world. To apply to the world the form of the church is a sacralizing process that is just as illegitimate as the secularizing process that would apply to the church the forms of the world. Yet the fact that the church does not possess a worldly political structure does not mean that it possesses no political structure whatever. The “politics” of the kingdom are the pattern, purpose, and dynamic by which God orders the life of the heavenly polis in this world. Only as it conforms to this heavenly pattern is the church a city set on a hill, given as salt to preserve the world from corruption and as light to point the way to salvation.
Christ builds his church on the confession of Peter; a confession of faith that is given by revelation of the Father. Since only the Son can reveal the Father and only the Father can reveal the Son (Matt. 11:27), human wisdom cannot bring in the kingdom. Long ago the Qumran covenanters recognized from the-Hebrew Scriptures that the community of God must be founded upon the truth, the revealed mysteries of God. But only in Jesus Christ is that foundation of truth laid (Clowney 1979, 301 – 302).
WORKS CITED
Bloesch, Donald G. “Law and Gospel in reformed perspective.” Grace Theological Journal 12 (Fall 1991): 179 – 188.
Clowney, Edmund P. “The politics of the kingdom.” Westminster Theological Journal 41 (Spring 1979): 291 – 310.
Shelley, Dr. Rubel. 1994. Written in stone: Ethics for the heart. West Monroe, LA: Howard Publishing Co.