Evangelical, Sacramental, and Pentecostal

Why the Church Should Be All Three

Gordon T. Smith

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780830891627
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Systematic Theology & Ethics

Evangelical. Sacramental. Pentecostal. Christian communities tend to identify with one of these labels over the other two. Evangelical churches emphasize the importance of Scripture and preaching. Sacramental churches emphasize the importance of the eucharistic table. And pentecostal churches emphasize the immediate presence and power of the Holy Spirit. But must we choose between them? Could the church be all three? Drawing on his reading of the New Testament, the witness of Christian history, and years of experience in Christian ministry and leadership, Gordon T. Smith argues that the church not only can be all three, but in fact must be all three in order to truly be the church. As the church navigates the unique global challenges of pluralism, secularism, and fundamentalism, the need for an integrated vision of the community as evangelical, sacramental, and pentecostal becomes ever more pressing. If Jesus and the apostles saw no tension between these characteristics, why should we?

THE EXTRAORDINARY
INVITATION OF JOHN 15:4

JOHN 14–16 ARE TYPICALLY SPOKEN OF as the “upper room discourse,” and aptly so. At the conclusion of his earthly ministry, immediately prior to the cross, Jesus is in an intentional teaching mode with his disciples. Readers sometimes miss, though, that the teaching of Jesus in these chapters sets up what is to follow: Christ Jesus will be ascended; following the death and resurrection, Jesus will be returning to the Father; and the disciples need to be ready for this new reality.

The character and manner of their relationship with Christ will be altered. Big changes are coming. They will no longer see Jesus, hear him, or touch him. Well, they will hear and see and touch, but the terms of their relationship will change and change significantly.

The high point in these comments—everything prior to John 14 and 15 leads up to this declaration, and everything that follows, in the rest of John 15 and into John 16, fleshes it out further—is the extraordinary invitation of John 15:4, when Jesus says to his disciples with intimacy, power, and purpose: “Abide in me as I abide in you.”

This remarkably simple invitation captures the heart of the matter. It was to this end that Christ came as the incarnate one; it was to this end that Christ is moving to the cross. The intent is not merely that they would be saved from their sins. In one sense, of course, that was the agenda. But to what end? This salvation means that Jesus’ disciples would find in Christ their true home even as they learn to be the one in whom Christ dwells. And Christ dwells individually—personally, as the dynamic of their faith and experience—and collectively, for the church finds its true identity as the community that abides in Christ as Christ abides in the church.

Admittedly, it might be a challenge for many if not most of us to get our minds around this. What does it mean to abide in Christ as Christ abides in us? What does Jesus envision when he says this to his disciples?

Our answer comes by two things that Jesus offers the original disciples. The most obvious is that Jesus gives the disciples an image, a picture by which they and we can get a sense of what Jesus means. He speaks of the vine and the vine-grower and of being grafted into the vine. It is a compelling image that is familiar to most if not all readers of the New Testament. Jesus speaks of God the Father as the gardener in this extended metaphor. Jesus himself is the Vine. This is so very significant; the original disciples would have assumed Israel was the vine. Now Jesus declares to them that he is the vine. And that is a clear reminder to the contemporary Christian that in the end, the church, however vital to the purposes of God and essential to what it means to live in the vine, is not to be confused with the vine. Jesus is the vine. And then—the point of the metaphor—life is found and fruit is borne as the disciples are “grafted” into the vine, that is, into Christ Jesus himself.

We would ideally feel the full force of this: our lives are so interconnected with the life of Jesus that we cannot be explained; we do not live, except by dynamic and essential communion with Christ. We quite literally draw our life from him; we live not merely by virtue of what he has done for us in the past but further that now, by virtue of the cross, we are being drawn up into the life of Christ and the life we live we live “in Christ.”

And then, second, Jesus offers something that may be even more powerful and compelling, though less obvious perhaps on first read. We see that the vision of the Christian life to which we are called in this text is dynamically portrayed to us—subtly, but powerfully—through the lens of the life of the triune God. What Jesus does here is simply breathtaking. And it must not be missed, else we do not feel the force of what Jesus calls us to in John 15:4.

John 14 is, in the estimation of many, the great Trinitarian chapter of Holy Scripture. Jesus makes it as clear as possible that he and the Father are one yet distinct and that his life, as the Son of God, is intimately one with that of the Father—as Jesus abides in the love of the Father and does the will of the Father. Indeed, he even says something that clearly anticipates John 15:4, when he observes that “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” and then he speaks of “the Father who dwells in me” (Jn 14:10-11).

But then, just as the reader is beginning to make some sense of that, we have the stunning revelation that there are not two but three: Jesus will not leave his disciples orphaned, but promises instead to send the Holy Spirit, a theme that is then picked up again in John 16.

Furthermore, Jesus speaks to the unique fellowship, or communion, that exists within the Holy Trinity, a communion where to know the one is to the know the other two. What demarcates this extraordinary relationship, Father-Son-Spirit, is love. The whole description of the dynamic of the Trinity in John 14 ends with the words that Jesus has said and done all that he has so that the world would know that he, Jesus, loves the Father (Jn 14:31).

The ancient church had a particular word, perichōrēsis, to describe this union of love, this giving and receiving of the triune God. It is a word that is unique to the fellowship of the Trinity, and it has been sustained in our theological lexicon through the Eastern Orthodox tradition. It speaks of the wonder of the most beautiful thing of all, the glory and wonder of the triune God, Father-Son-Spirit, living in dynamic and life-giving community, sustained by the love they have for the other.

Then we come to John 15 and the call of John 15:4: “Abide in me as I abide in you.” And what captures our imagination is that Jesus portrays the dynamic of this call, its essential elements or features, through the same phrases that Jesus has just been using to describe his relationship with the Father within the Holy Trinity. As Jesus abides in the love of the Father, we are to abide in the love of Jesus. As Jesus lived by the word and will of the Father, so we are called to allow his word to abide in us and to live as those who do his will.

In other words, in some mysterious way, the phenomenal inter-communion of Father, Son, and Spirit sets the stage for the fellowship that we have with Christ. And our appreciation or understanding of the Trinity is the lens through which we are to consider our relationship with Christ. We enter into fellowship with Christ—abiding in him—and we are drawn into the life of the triune God, individually and corporately, as the church.

Both of these images call us to a realization that the Christian life is defined first and foremost by union with Christ.

Thus three things call for special emphasis. First, the animating dynamic of the Christian life is not a Christological principle or a doctrine about Christ, however important it is for us to have an understanding of Christ Jesus that is faithful to the Scriptures and to the Christian tradition. Rather, what defines us, animates us, not merely informs but transforms us, is Christ himself who in real time dwells in our midst and in our lives.

Second, it is therefore very important to stress that the heart and soul of the Christian existence is not ultimately about being Christlike, however much that might be a good thing. It is rather that we would be united with Christ. So much contemporary reflection on the Christian life speaks of discipleship as becoming more and more like Jesus. There are two potential problems with viewing this Christlikeness as the Christian ideal and the goal of the church. On the one hand, this is problematic because Christlikeness is derivative of something else, namely, union with Christ. And to pursue it on its own actually distracts us from the true goal of the Christian life.

And then also, when Christlikeness is the goal, we get caught up in debates about what Christlikeness looks like and so easily the church descends to a less than subtle form of legalism as we impose on the church a vision of what it means to be “like Christ.”

And then third, so much piety, especially in evangelical circles, presents what might be called a transactional understanding of Christian spirituality—that Christ has “transacted” something on our behalf. While Christ has definitely acted on our behalf, it was to an end; his actions, notably his death, were not an end in themselves. The purpose of the cross was not merely about a transaction, effected for us and for our salvation. The cross had a purpose, an intended outcome: namely, union with Christ.

So we have the call “abide in me as I abide in you” (Jn 15:4). We have the image of the vine and the powerful references to the intimacy and fellowship within the Trinity. But we still have the question. How is this even possible? Christ is the ascended Lord at the right hand of the Father. And we are invited—called—into this union with Christ, a union anticipated in the amazing encounter Jacob had with heaven—the ladder, between heaven and earth, between God and humanity, between Christ Jesus and ourselves.

How can heaven and earth be transcended? How can we, mere mortals, be in dynamic fellowship and union with Christ, Lord of heaven and earth, one with the Father and the Spirit?

In the history of the church there have been three defining and paradigmatic answers—three answers that have in their own right each had a profound influence on the church and what it means to be the church. Three answers: the evangelical, the sacramental, and the pentecostal. And for each, the case can be made from the Gospel of John that this is indeed the answer to the question of how we can speak of mutual abiding in Christ.

All three answers or responses presume the cross. They each assume the passion of Christ (Jn 19). Each only makes sense in light of the work of Christ as the crucified one. But then we are asking this: Given the cross, how is the grace—gained, one might say, on and in the cross—effected in our lives? How are the saving benefits of the cross made available to the church and to the world? How is this grace available and actually effected in the life of the individual Christian believer?

THE EVANGELICAL ANSWER

How can Christ abide in us even as we abide in him? How can we speak of this mutual co-habitation, so dynamic that it can be thought of as comparable in kind to the mutual love and fellowship that is found within the Trinity? The evangelical response is simple: Christ abides in us through the Word of God, most notably through the Scriptures read, studied, preached, and meditated upon. It is the Word that transcends heaven and earth; it is by the Word that we are drawn into fellowship with Christ and thus with the triune God.

Evangelical tradition sees John 15:4 through the following series of considerations. First, an evangelical would note that the call and invitation, “abide in me as I abide in you” is quickly followed, just a few verses later, with the words, “if . . . my words abide in you” (Jn 15:7), which seem to echo the language of mutual abiding.

For some, that settles it; the Word is the means by which the church abides in Christ. But the theme of the Word and words, the words of Jesus, run like a river through the whole of the Gospel of John. The Gospel opens with a magisterial declaration of the centrality, priority, and glory of the Word. The second person of the Trinity is the very Word of God, the one through whom all things were created, echoing the stunning language of Genesis 1: God spoke and all things came into being. So now in John 1, the Creative Word comes to us as the Redemptive Word.

Then also, this Word, the Logos of God who was with God and then who we read is very God of very God, comes to us as Jesus, a Rabbi and our teacher. Indeed, Jesus self-identifies in John 13:13 as Teacher and Lord. This is not unique to John’s Gospel, of course; all four Gospels reveal Jesus as a teacher. Jesus is one whose ministry is the ministry of the Word, stressing in Mark 1 that his vocation, his calling, is to teach.

What must be stressed, however, especially from a reading of the Gospel of John, is that the word spoken by Jesus is a redemptive word: it is nourishment for the soul; it is the very means by which the salvation of God, the grace of God, is known. The disciples of Jesus, he says, are those who “continue in my word” (Jn 8:31). They know the truth and the truth makes them free (Jn 8:32).

A disciple of Jesus is one who hears the teaching of Jesus, leans into and believes this teaching, and then obeys and lives the teaching. A disciple is drawn into the very life of Jesus by this intimate living of Jesus’ teaching. And this continues with the ascension; Jesus urges his apostles to continue his ministry with the call of John 21 to Peter in particular to “feed my sheep” (Jn 21:15-17). This is clearly in explicit continuity with Jesus, who in the prayer of John 17 speaks of those who will believe in him through the word of the apostles. It anticipates what is evident throughout the New Testament: the church is a teaching-learning community. This teaching is in continuity with the ministry of Jesus as a teacher and indeed the teaching ministry of the church is the ministry of taking the words of Jesus and making them present in preaching and teaching to the church of each generation. The church is fed—sustained—by the Word of God read, taught, preached, heard, and lived. All of this is the context and background for appreciating the words of John 15:7, “if . . . my words abide in you.”

Thus we come back to John 15:4, “abide in me as I abide in you.” How is this even possible? How can we envision this and then move into and live in this dynamic relationship of union with Christ, the ascended Lord? The evangelical answer is, through the Word. The Christian is one who feeds upon the Word, the Scriptures, and the church lives by the preaching of the Word. The faith of the church is sustained and strengthened by the Word.

THE SACRAMENTAL ANSWER

How do we abide in Christ as Christ abides in us? The sacramental response sees a different thread—well, not a thread but a river—that runs through the Gospel of John.

The sacramental Christian is equally taken with the grand opening of the Gospel of John: in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God (Jn 1:1). But from a sacramental perspective the great and climactic moment comes later in the first chapter of John with the stunning declaration of John 1:14 that speaks to the moment when everything changed radically, thoroughly, and permanently: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us . . .”

The entire course of human history was radically altered. When we ask how we can be in dynamic communion with the Lord of glory, abiding in Christ as Christ abides in us, the sacramental Christian sees a one-to-one link between John 1:14 and John 15:4. It is by and through and in the incarnation of the Word that heaven and earth are linked, dynamically and thoroughly; this i...