Shaped By His Expectations
At this point we can make some general observations
regarding God’s authentic redemptive plan.
We should probably start by recognizing that it is first shaped by God’s
expectations, and after that, by the human need. However, the popular, modern tendency is to
view it first, and sometimes almost exclusively, through the filter of human
need. This tends to create a skewed
understanding of God’s plan.
So, man’s guiding question, when it
comes to understanding God’s redemptive work, should be, “What does God expect of me?”
not, “What do I need?” Truly, when all is said and done, the most
important need of the human creature is to measure up to the expectation of his
Creator.
It’s His Plan
Also, we should note that God's plan is God's plan.
He designed it. The
specifications and parameters are entirely His.
They are set in place by His sovereign grace and are not subject to
anyone’s approval or disapproval. And,
whether interpreted correctly or incorrectly, they remain the same. The simple role of humanity is just to
accurately discover and embrace His design for our renewal.
It is a Precise Plan
God’s plan for our
redemption is also very precise and specific.
It is by no means loosely organized or vaguely defined or casually
administered. It is a very carefully
crafted prescription, aimed at accomplishing very specific things, in a very
precise way. And, it is not, in the
slightest, altered or diversified by man’s varying interpretations or his
ignorance of the true plan.
The Plan Employs a Process
Also, God's redemptive plan should
be understood as a process rather than one event.
Today, it is common that the event
of conversion almost entirely defines the believer’s concept of
salvation. But, taken alone, this event
does not even come close to adequately defining the redemptive work of Christ.
The conversion event, that actual
moment in time when one consciously embraces the lordship of Christ, is but one
milestone event in a long redemptive journey.
The journey actually begins long before that place and continues far
past it. And, each of the various milestones
and phases which make up its course are every bit as indispensable as that conversion moment.
A Quick Overview of the Redemptive Process
A Binary Nature:
When we step back and take the long look at the
redemptive process, we can easily note the Binary Nature of the
process. In other words, it has two major
facets in its basic make up. The
Redemptive Process is composed of both a Reconciliation aspect and a Renewal
aspect. And, it brings both of these indispensable
benefits to the believer in very real terms.
And this dual nature of the redemptive process is both mirrored and confirmed by the duality of
the major events involved in the redemptive work of Christ: The Cross and The Resurrection. In the Cross of the Dying Christ, we find forgiveness and reconciliation to God. And, flowing out of the Resurrection and Living
Christ, we find the here-and-now means of the believer’s thorough renewal.
First Contact:
Now, let’s take a quick
overview of the essential events and phases which are linked together to become
God’s authentic redemptive process. Obviously,
in the details, we each have a very unique and very personalized encounter with
God. But, in this wondrous redemptive
experience there is also a very basic and common path which we all experience
and share alike.
For example, one can easily note
what might be called the “First Contact” in the redemptive
process. The Church often describes this
as a time of personal “Conviction.” It is that time when the Holy Spirit first begins
to intensely call to a person’s heart.
The conduit of this awareness may initially
be constructed around very finite issues:
perhaps financial, relational, or metaphysical struggles etc. But, regardless of the triggering issue, this is typically a time when the status quo of
our life is disturbed and seriously called into question.
Decision
Point:
Then, if all goes well, there eventually
comes what might be called a “Decision Point.” By this point in the redemptive process, the
Holy Spirit has typically enabled us to see beyond those beginning trigger issues which first got our
attention. Thus, at this juncture, we have
realized that those issues actually have larger, underlying spiritual
implications. And, as a result of that
realization, at some point we are confronted with the need to make a decision.
It is a decision between two basic life
approaches. There is the Faith
Choice. This is the choice to fully
embrace the lordship of the Living Christ, His values, His truth, and His daily directions
for our life.
And, there is the alternative
choice. This is the choice to continue
our Self-determined
approach to life. This is the choice
to continue to trust our own value system and set our own life course.
The
Faith Coin:
Regarding the Faith Choice, if we parse it carefully, we can notice that this
choice is really a two sided coin, so
to speak. On the one side is the
decision to humbly embrace the lordship of Christ. This decision is what the Church typically refers
to as one’s “Conversion” to Christ.
And, simultaneously, on the other side of the “faith coin,” is the complementing
decision to entirely abandon our previous, self-determined
approach to life. This side of the faith
coin is what the church calls “Repentance.”
So, on the one hand we are turning to
a Christ directed life. While at the same time, on the other hand, we
are turning from the previous, self-directed
approach to life. Nevertheless, both of
these decisions are just two aspects of that same Faith Choice which brings to us divine Forgiveness.
And so, at this Decision Point in the redemptive process, we make our choice, either
for or against personally embracing the lordship of Christ. And, assuming we choose to embrace Christ,
this milestone decision marks the beginning of our Faith-based Relationship with God through Christ. But, what it does not do is mark the
conclusion of the redemptive process.
Rather, this Faith Choice sets
the stage for a whole new phase of the redemptive process: The Renewal Phase.
The
Humbling Period:
In a normal, healthy conversion to
Christ, there is typically a celebration
time as the believer revels in the “lightness” of her forgiveness and her
resulting friendship with God. And, that
is certainly as it should be.
But eventually, the Holy Spirit
begins to lead the believer to begin confronting the full depth of her own
brokenness and spiritual need. This is necessary in order to remove the
residual and much more deeply ingrained sense of self-sufficiency which still exists, even after conversion, in the
believer’s subconscious person. So,
this humbling period is a time when the
Holy Spirit starts to truly empty the believer of her latent, self-directed
inclinations.
And certainly, this emptying process, for a time, becomes,
in effect, a kind of personal wilderness experience such
as those so often noted in scripture in the lives of God’s people. In fact, Moses, in his writings in the Old
Testament, described the Jewish Exodus Journey through the wilderness in just
such terms of humiliation. And that journey was very much a prophetical
foreshadowing of this New Testament Humbling
Period.
Moses described the Jewish wilderness
experience this way. He wrote in the
book of Deuteronomy, chapter 8, in the Old Testament part of the Bible, “And you shall remember that the Lord your
God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and
test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His
commandments or not.
“So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you
with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make
you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word
that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.”
And so it is with God’s New Testament child in
Christ. She too, is prepared and
confirmed by this challenging period of personal
humbling. But, this preparation is
indispensable to the wondrous redemptive event which comes next.
The
Target Event:
And, what comes next for the
believer is what can very appropriately be called the “The Target Event” of
Christian Redemption and the crowning
distinction of these New Testament times.
It is this event in the redemptive process at which all previous redemptive
steps are aimed and around which all following are oriented. This Target Event is the believer’s very literal and very personal merger
with the Living Christ.
This is that mystical integration of the believer with Christ which the Church
calls the Spiritual Baptism. It is at this point in the redemptive process
that the divine vitality of the Living Christ is actually integrated with the human
nature of the believer. And this life-changing
connection becomes the believer’s energizing means to experience a whole new
and very elevated life plane in the here-and-now.
True
Newness:
Then,
enabled by the positive impact of this milestone event, the believer begins to
experience what can only be described as “A Christ Empowered Renewal.” And now, living daily in this symbiotic
relationship with the Living Christ, the believer is freshly enabled by
the resources which Christ brings. And,
through this Christ-enablement the believer is, indeed, over time, entirely
renewed in his heart, and flowing out of that, in his behavior and life circumstance.
The
Basis For Relationship:
And, this thorough heart renewal of
the believer then becomes the basis for a durable, lively, and very fulfilling
daily friendship with God in all the Persons of the Trinity. And, it is this Christ-empowered renewal and the
resultant deepening of the divine friendship which entirely occupies the remainder
of this Renewal Phase of the
redemptive process for the rest of the believer’s natural life.
It’s All Essential
So, hopefully it becomes obvious at this point how each of these important
milestones and phases in God's redemptive plan builds on the previous one to ultimately
bring a true and thorough newness to the believer in the here-and-now. And hopefully, it is equally obvious that Christian
Redemption is a truly Transformative Process – and not merely
one isolated moment or event.
The Process Requires Completion
And, it follows that, if redemption is a process, then
the process
requires completion to be successful. The
true redemptive reality is that, should a believer chooses to stop moving
forward in this thoroughly renewing process, he has, in effect, once again assumed
control of his own life course, becoming once again self-determined and no longer God-directed. And, to do this, to balk at any point in the
redemptive process is to reject the Lordship of Christ, to fail our own Christ-enabled
potential in the here-and-now, and to doom our self to a miserable eternity.
All of these ideas will be explained
in much more detail later, but for now, the encouragement of the writer of
Hebrews may suffice when he says in chapter 3 of that New Testament book, “Beware brethren, lest there be in any of
you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the Living God; but exhort one
another daily, while it is called 'Today, lest any of you be hardened through
the deceitfulness of sin. For we have
become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast
to the end...”
The Father’s
Anticipation:
Consider,
for a moment, God’s anticipation of the transformation of His children through
Christ. He knows, that those who come to
Christ from the darkness of self-determination have stepped into the new
morning of a lifelong day of discovery - a day packed with all the promise that
His boundless grace can devise. And, His
excitement, entirely revolves around the reality that His children will,
indeed, be obtaining the hidden treasures of this lifetime adventure.
Imagine what a joy it is for
God to experience with His child the beautiful release which occurs in that
first moment of forgiveness. How
gratified He must be to see the nobility of His child as she endures the
humbling process on her journey from spiritual childhood to spiritual
maturity. How pleased He must be to see
His child growing up in Christ to grasp the lessons of divine truth.
This is God’s process of heart-binding
– ours to His and His to ours. The
Greeks described it as “ginosco - the deep and intimate knowing of another.” This is the authentic redemptive process enabling
our true elevation and renewal which, in turn, results in the restoration of our
easy, and intimate, and durable daily friendship with our Creator.
This is not the stuff of a
momentary encounter. It is not the
stuff of a marginalized and distant God.
This is the stuff which ultimately brings us back to a Christ-brokered heart-oneness
with God enjoyed in an everyday friendship.
