Come and Go Sunday School Lesson with Dr. Frank Carver & Dr. Herb Prince at First Church of the Nazarene in San diego, California, United States

Come and Go Sunday School Lesson with Dr. Frank Carver & Dr. Herb Prince at First Church of the Nazarene in San diego, California, United States

“The Spirit of Grace”[Hebrews 10:29.]

Hebrews 13:9:      “It is well for the heart to be strengthened by grace.”

Acts 4:33:            “With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the

resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.”

Grace walks simply. . . . This grace is a light from heaven, and a spiritual gift of God (Thomas à Kempis). [Thomas à Kempis, the Imitation of Christ (Garden City, New York: Image Books, (1955), 186, 189, Book III, 54.]

Not one of us has been left alone by God (John Baillie).[John Baillie, Our Knowledge of God (New York:  Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1939). 3]

I wonder what more you have been thinking about “unconscious Christianity.”? That is so very important  (Dietrich Bonhoeffer). [Letter 194 to Eberhard Bethge dated August 24, 1944, in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 8, ed. John W. de Gruchy, trans, Isabel Best, Lisa Dahill, Reinhard Kraus, and Nancy Luiens (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010), 522, referenced as DBWE.]

Introduction

Easter was only a month ago in the Christian calendar. On that Sunday we celebrated the Resurrection of Jesus from death. Next Sunday is Pentecost when we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit. As we prepare for Pentecost, we reflect a moment on the Resurrection.

For the first disciples, “the Gospel without the Resurrection was not merely a Gospel without its final chapter: it was not a Gospel at all.” That is, although Jesus had taught and done great things during his lifetime there is not “yet a Gospel that stands upon its own feet and may be understood and appreciated before we pass on to the Resurrection. The life and death of Jesus needs the light of the Resurrection to illumine the paradoxes in the ministry of Jesus and to disclose the unity of his words and deeds. It was not only the Lord who was raised from the dead in the Resurrection, “his life on earth rose with Him; it was lifted up into its real light.” [A. M. Ramsey, The Resurrection of Christ: A Study of the Event and its Meaning for the Christian Faith (Glasgow: William Collins Sons & Co, Ltd, 1945), 9. Ramsey lifted the last quotation from Scott Holland, On Behalf of Belief, 12. Ramsey states in the first paragraph of The Resurrection of Christ that “the Resurrection is a true starting-place for the study and making and the meaning of the New Testament.” Arthur Michael Ramsey (1904-1988) was the Archbishop of Canterbury 1961-1974.  Acts 2:4, 32-33.]

The Resurrection of Jesus takes up into itself not only his past, it likewise transforms our future. The apostle Peter, on that Pentecost day when “all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit,” stood up and declared to all present that

this Jesus, God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear.[14:3]

The Resurrection of Jesus turns loose the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, “the Spirit of grace, ” now defined anew through the lens of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus, into the life of the Church for all time—and into the world of God’s creation.

Thus “grace” with a capital “G” is a premiere characteristic of the life of the first church as reported in Acts. An early description was that “great grace was upon them all.” We read further in Acts of “the grace of God,”[11:23; 13:43; 14:26; 20:24).] of “the word of his grace,”[] of “the grace of the Lord Jesus,”[15:11.] and of “those who through grace had become believers.”[18:27]

Today, in anticipation of Pentecost, we reflect a bit on “the Spirit of grace” as given to the Church and to the world. We begin with a look at

I.

Grace According to John Wesley[Much that follows under this heading was a part of a presentation entitled “The essence of Wesleyanism” shared with the class on May 14, 2006. ]

With John Wesley (1703-1791) we look into our own spiritual heritage as holiness folk with our roots in the ministries of the Wesley brothers. John Wesley’s key concept was simply and profoundly, FREE GRACE! Wesley understood this grace of God in key ways. First, like the Protestant Reformers, he understood grace as the “undeserved favor” of God, enabling our acceptance with him. This, Wesley continues to write is

favour altogether undeserved, man having no claim to the least of his mercies. It was free grace that “formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into him a living soul,” and stamped on that soul the image of God, and “put all things under his feet.”  The same free grace continues to us, at this day, life and breath, and all things. For there is nothing we are, or have, or do, which can deserve the least thing at God’s hand. . . . whatever righteousness may be found in man, this also is the gift of God. [Albert C. Outler, The Works of John Wesley, Volume 1  Sermons 1-33 (Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 1984), 117-118. The quotation is from Sermon 1, “Salvation by Faith,’ preached at St. Mary’s, Oxford, June 11, 1738.  The text was Ephesians 2:8, “By grace are ye saved through faith” (KJV), a favorite from which he spoke numerous times.]

Second, out of John Wesley’s immersion in the Greek Christian heritage, Wesley understood grace as the “power of the Holy Ghost”[Outler, Works, I, 260, from Sermon 9, “The Spirit of Bondage and of Adoption.”] enabling us to walk in the ways of God. His first understanding of grace above speaks of how we are related to God, and this second understanding tells how we are renewed in that relation. For truly Wesleyan theology, grace issues first in faith, then in holiness! In sum, Wesley understood the Holy Spirit as “the mediator of all graces—sufficient grace in all, irresistible grace in none.”[Outler, Works, I, 98.]

Foundational for a Wesleyan view of grace is the theological concept of “prevenient grace,” in John Wesley’s words, “preventing grace.” For Wesley, prevenient grace sets every person free to respond to the call of God. In Sermon 85, “Working Out Our Own Salvation,” he writes:

For allowing that all the souls of men are dead in sin by nature, this excuses none, seeing there is no man that is in a state of mere nature; there is no man, unless he has quenched the Spirit, that is wholly void of the grace of God. No man living is entirely destitute of what is vulgarly called “natural conscience.” But this is not natural; it is more properly termed “preventing grace.”  Every man has a greater or less measure of this, which waiteth not for the call of man.  Everyone has sooner or later good desires, although the generality of men stifle them before they can strike deep root or produce any considerable fruit. Everyone has some measure of that light, some faint glimmering ray, which sooner or later, more or less, enlightens every man that cometh into the world. And every one, unless he be of the small number whose conscience is seared as with a hot iron, feels more or less uneasy when he acts contrary to the light of his own conscience. So that no man sins because he has not grace, but because he does not use the grace which he hath.[ Albert C. Outler, The Works of John Wesley, Volume III:  Sermons 71-114 (Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 1986), 207.]

Wesleyan theology affirms that when we sin, Christian and non-Christian alike, we sin, not because we do not have grace, but because we do not rely on the grace we already have. In Sermon 110 on “Free Grace” from 1739, Wesley defined prevenient grace simply as “The grace or love of God, whence cometh our salvation, is FREE IN ALL, and FREE FOR ALL.”[Outler, Works, 3:544.]

Wesleyans are of course not alone in this understanding of grace. Twentieth century Reform theologian John Baillie contended “that the only humanity known to us is a humanity which has already, in some degree at least, been confronted with the reality of God and disturbed by the challenge of His holy presence.”[Baillie, Our Knowledge of God, 17.]

The above section introduces the following thoughts from the Gospel of John. Their written form has lain fallow for a few years awaiting this day. These reflective thoughts have to do with

II.

The Hidden Christ

We start with the recognition that “the Spirit of grace” is essentially identical to “the Spirit of Christ.”[Romans 8:9; 1 Peter 1:11. In Acts 16:7 Luke speaks of “the Spirit of Jesus,” and in Phil. 1:19 Paul writes of “the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.”] Jesus’ final words to his disciples before his death in the Gospel of John about the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, included a theological statement above all others:

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own. . . . He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.[John 16:13-15. ]

Foundational to our reflections on the Gospel of John is our unhesitating affirmation of Jesus’ statement that “I am the way, the truth and the life” when Thomas asked him, “How can we know the way?” [John 14:5-6.]

Peter’s use of the designation “the Spirit of Christ” points the way to where we are heading:

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours made careful search and inquiry, inquiring about the person or time that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated when it testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ and the subsequent glory.[1 Peter 1:10-11.]

Peter’s use of “the Spirit of Christ” corresponds to the Wesleyan understanding of prevenient or “preventing grace,” that is, “the grace that goes before.” In the light of what we have affirmed about the identity of “the Spirit of Christ” with the “Spirit of grace,” I would like to reflect here on “the hidden Christ.”

Paradoxically, there is no Gospel more open about who Jesus is as “the Messiah [the Christ], the Son of God,”[John 20:31.] and yet, as I read the Fourth Gospel, an understanding of the “hidden Christ” appears to permeate its text. Two passages in particular display this (5:39-40, 44-47; 8:39-44, 46-47). Both appear in contexts in which Jesus is dialoging with those who oppose or “disbelieve” in him. In the first passage, Jesus confronts his opponents with God’s revelation through Moses, the great law-giver for the Jewish faith of Jesus’ day:

You search the scripture because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf.  Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. . . .  But I know that you do not have the love of God in you.  I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me. . . .  Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope.  If you believe Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me (v. 46).[The bold print is mine here and in the following quotation.] But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?[5:39-40, 44-47.]

In the second passage, the opponents of Jesus appeal to Abraham as their father in the faith:

They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing what Abraham did, but now you are trying to kill me, a man that has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did.  You are indeed doing what your father does.” They said to him, “We are not illegitimate children; we have one Father, God himself.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now I am here.  I did not come on my own, but he sent me.  Why do you not understand what I say?  It is because you cannot accept my word (v. 43). You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. . . . Which of you convicts me of sin?  If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?  Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God” (v. 47).[8:39-44, 46-47.]

It is significant that “words” in “the words of God” just above is rēmmata meaning utterance, that is, a revelatory word. We could add to these two texts a third saying that proclaims the same truth. In John 18:37, Jesus concludes his dialogue with Pilate with the declaration that “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

We note first the Greek terms Jesus uses in the second passage quoted above (8:43), “Why do you not understand what I say (lalian)?  It is because you cannot accept my word (logos)” (8: 43). The Greek lalia means simply human “speech.” The Greek logos is the term used for “Word” throughout John 1:1-18. In the Gospel of John, logos belongs to the language of divine revelation and thus philosophically to the realm of ultimate reality. If we understand Jesus’ use of these terms in this text within the context of the theology of John’s Gospel, Jesus is saying,

Why do you not understand the witness of my human words, my lalian, spoken to you as an in-the-flesh historical person in your midst? The reason is that you have already rejected the inner revelation of God in your hearts, that is, my hidden presence, my logos.

What Jesus says in verse 8:43 is reinforced in verse 8:47: “Whoever is from God hears the words (ta rēmmata) of God.” Rēmmata, remember, means utterance, that is, a word of revelation.

When we place this understanding with the first text, “If you believe Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me” (5:46), this truth of the age-long revelation of God in the grace of his Son is clearly illustrated.  In this text Jesus is saying,

If you listen to (opened your moral conscience to) what God was really saying and doing through the Mosaic revelation, your heart and mind will be prepared to receive what the Father is saying and doing through me, for the revelation is one and the same.

This, I believe, is consistent with John Wesley’s understanding of prevenient grace. He writes as we have seen that “no man living is entirely destitute of what is vulgarly called “natural conscience.”  But this is not natural; it is more properly termed “preventing grace.” . . . Everyone has some measure of that light, some faint glimmering ray, which sooner or later, more or less, enlightens every man that cometh into the world.[Outler, Works, III, 207.]

The conclusion from these Johannine texts vibrates with a Wesleyan understanding of the grace of God by his Spirit “at work in the hearts of every person everywhere all the time.” What we do with the voice of the “hidden Christ” who has been knocking on our heart’s door all along with the true meaning of the life of Jesus-–bottom line calling us to an “other-centered” life rather than a “self-centered” life--determines whether or not we accept or reject the witness of the “historical Christ” as it encounters us from his people (the Church) and the Scriptures.  

The issue is primarily moral and spiritual, rather than intellectual. As the late great Johannine New Testament scholar Father Raymond Brown commented on John 5:41-47, “The failure to accept Jesus is really the preference of self.”[Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John (i-xii), The Anchor Bible, Volume 29 (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc, 1966), 228. ] If disbelief “were an intellectual problem, it could be met by explanation; but it is really a problem of the moral orientation of life and of the love of God.”[Brown, The Gospel According to John (i-xii), 228.] A contemporary devotional writer expresses the same understanding of grace another way:

God sends us message after message, in his word and through his Holy Spirit. None of us are left out as far as the message is concerned. Even those who have never heard of Christ or the One God Yahweh get messengers, get the word that only love matters.  And when time after time we reject the message and the messengers and choose death, he respects our choice and provides the appropriate consequence. Because God will not be mocked forever, his kingdom will produce fruit.[The reading for Thursday, December 1, 2005, in the Episcopal daily devotional readings, Forward Day by Day (Cincinnati:  Forward Movement, 2005), 32.]

The parable of Jesus as the Good Shepherd in John 10:1-18 about the sheep who “hear his voice” belongs here as well. The parable is best understood in the above manner rather than in terms of any rigid reform predestinarianism as many take verses 25-30 to mean:

Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

Conclusion

I believe that there are some who respond to the Spirit of Christ in the inner and outer quality of their lives all the while unable for various reasons to affirm intellectually the orthodox historic Christ and to identify with the Church. And then there are others who aggressively affirm with mind and mouth the historical Christ but who are nonetheless rejecting the hidden Christ by in the inner and outer quality of their lives.

These latter folk are “Christian” in their heads and atheist in their hearts. Then there are those who are “atheist” in their heads, but due to their response to the” hidden Christ” are Christian in their hearts. Not only can we affirm that “God is love,”[1 John 4:8, 16.] but there is a sense in which it is also true that “love is God”! “My sheep hear my voice,” said Jesus, “I know them and they follow me.”[John 10:27,]

Is there such a thing with Bonhoeffer, as “unconscious Christianity”? as he wrote to his closest friend, Eberhard Bethge on July 17, 1944,

Your formulation of our theological theme is very clear and simple. The question how there can be a “natural” piety is as the same time the question about “unconscious Christianity” that preoccupies me more and more.[Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 8, 489, in letter 180. See DBWE 6:170, ed. note 111; DBWE 7:106, 225, ed. note 134. Rade: “Unconscious Christianity is a Christianity one does not know one has.”]

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