Introduction

This is the concluding article in a series on righteousness which seeks to answer the question, “Why can’t people in Western countries “see God”?” The essential reply in my first paper was that we are lacking a revelation of righteousness. Whilst my previous message critiqued Western spirituality as “therapeutic and introspective”, the impression might remain that the revelation of righteousness is an individual matter. This teaching points in a very different direction, expounding revelation as self-communication rather than self-understanding.

In the initial article I made the claim, “The solution to our current spiritual malaise is for the church to recover the good news as the revelation of God’s righteousness. Such a recovery has always precipitated tremendous moves of repentance, prayer, mass turning to God and waves of missional activity”. The connection between revealed righteousness and missional activity is the focus of this paper. Whereas the previous message encouraged us to seek an intensive revelation, this one concerns the correlation between God’s extensive will and the revelation of righteousness. The need for insight into this connection between an internal witness of the Spirit and an external witness to others is desperately needed for two main reasons.

Firstly, because the discipline of God is heavy upon us because of our failure to obey Christ’s command to “go”. The mantle of depression lies not only over many individual believers, but over the vast majority of our churches. The “hype” of much contemporary Christianity is but a cloak to cover an epidemic of destructive introversion and the unpleasantness of divine chastisement. Unless, we “see” God’s righteousness and obey the imperative to “go-and-tell” the gospel this situation is irremediable.

Secondly, and far more significantly, “how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?” (Rom 9:14). There remain billions of people who have never heard the gospel. God’s grief over this terrible state of affairs is immeasurable and must move us to action. An essential dimension of the revelation of the righteousness of God to humanity is the revelation that it is offered to all people without exception. The content of this paper is designed to mobilise us for mission, and our mediation must begin with the nature of God himself.

Perfectly Enlightened

In speaking of his relationship with the Father, Jesus prayed, “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one” (John 17:22-23). The perfect oneness of the Father and the Son is their glory. Everything is shared within the trinity so that communication within the inner life of God is both absolutely intensive (all penetrating) and extensive (all encompassing)[1]. This means that the Persons of the trinity are perfectly enlightened about each other. God’s purpose for creation is an expression of his inner life.

In the presence of the Spirit (Gen 1:1-2a), God (the Father) made the world by his Word (Gen 1:3; John 1:3), which is his Son (Heb 1:3). The mutual blessedness of the unified creative work of the Father, Son and Spirit overflows into creation as illuminating light (Gen 1:3-5)[2]. Prophetically, the presence of uncreated light at the inception of creation signifies that the cosmos exists as a place in which God might be seen. Humanity was pivotal to this divine purpose.

Moving Out of the Light

As the image and glory of God (Gen 1:26; 1 Cor 11:7) Adam and Eve possessed the potential to manifest the presence of God in all things. The first command, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion…”” (Gen 1:28), had this as its goal. Eden was a launching pad for greater things. If the first couple had obeyed the prohibition concerning the tree of knowledge (Gen 2:17), their eyes would have been enlightened[3] to the breadth of the divine purpose. Willingly they would have obeyed the original commission to go out of Eden and would spread the divine glory in all created spheres. The attack of the serpent moves them in a directly opposite direction.

Satan’s words, ““You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”” (Gen 3:4-5), turned Eve’s “insight” fatally inwards. “the woman saw that the tree was good for (her) food, and that it was a delight to her eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make her wise, she took of its fruit…” (Gen 3:6). Adam and Eve sought to become glorious in and for themselves and in so doing lost contact with the glory of God as a reality that is essentially to be shared.

Sin means “to turn in on oneself”[4] and it always leads to spiritual darkness. The heart “darkened by sin” (Rom 1:21) cannot bear the sight of itself, so “lighting its own fires” (Isa 50:11) fills the world with false images of God that suppress the revelation of the righteousness of God (Rom 1:18). The true God however always shines a light in the midst of the darkness.

Israel and the Light

The history of Israel is God’s response to humanity’s turning away from the light, and at its centre is covenant. The LORD’s word to Abraham promises universal blessing, “I will bless those who bless you…and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” ” (Gen 12:3). How this communication to the nations will occur is not immediately clear, and fundamentally different views of mission operate throughout the Old Testament.

The first is called “centripetal” or inward directed witness, and understands the nations flowing to Zion to “come-and-see” God’s light through Israel. Explicit expectations of such an ingathering are numerous[5]. When this attractional model of mission excluded going forth with God’s word it proved disastrous in the history of Israel. Paul confronts the mindset of the synagogue of his day, “is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also?” (Rom 3:29). Sadly, this has self-centred ethos has become dominant in the Western church.

The second mission emphasis is called “centrifugal” or outward directed witnessing. In this case Israel is to have an outward-moving mission of “go-and-tell” witnessing. This aspect of enlightening the world is relatively rare in the Old Testament[6]. “Centrifugal” witness is concentrated in the expectation of a coming deliverer, the Servant of the LORD. “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations…. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law. “I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, 7 to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” (Isa 42:1, 4, 6 – 7)

The light that the nations need is a revelation of the divine righteousness that the Servant of the LORD brings. Israel as a people never adopted this servant vocation of “going” to the Gentiles, but Jesus did.

The Servant of Light

The uncreated light that was eternally with God and illuminated creation from the beginning entered our world in the humanity of Jesus. “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” (John 1:9). The Incarnation means the availability of illumination to all nations (John 8:12; 9:5).

It is Jesus baptism however that crystallises the connection between God’s old covenant plan and outreach to the nations. “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”” (Luke 3:21-22).

The paternal exclamation, “You are my beloved Son” is drawn from Psalm 2. This psalm climaxes in the promise to Messiah, “The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. 8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.” As Jesus prayed at his baptism he was asking the Father for the nations. This is confirmed by the rest of the divine utterance, “with you I am well pleased”, which is drawn our key prophetic passage, Isaiah 42. Jesus is the Servant chosen and delightful to God, because he is answering the call to be a “light to the nations” through the revelation of the righteousness of God.

As Jesus’ vision is directed to becoming the light-bearer to the nations the eternal creative glory of the trinity comes upon him. The perfect unity of the Word and Spirit of the Father accompanies Jesus’ life as he steps forward onto the plane of history to reveal God’s righteousness to the world. In this way, the spiritual intensity of the power of the presence of the kingdom of God follows a commitment to extensity, bringing this presence to all nations[7]. All of this however seems contradicted by the cross, but to think this way is merely a product of our Western introverted mindset.

Christ’s terrible cry, ““My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:34)[8] is not primarily an expression of the desolate state of Jesus’ individual soul. In taking upon himself the sin of the world (John 1:29), Jesus enters into the God-forsakenness of all peoples[9] where there is no awareness of God as the Father of mankind[10]. Despite appearances, at this point of Christ’s suffering the intensity of God’s presence and his will to save the world remain perfectly correlated, at absolute zero. The crisis in Jesus’ consciousness is not simply that he no longer senses the Father is there for him, it is as though he has come as the Saviour of a world for which God is unconcerned. Such is the cost of bearing our sin.

The resurrection is the sovereign reversal of all this. It means Jesus’ return to the glory he had with the Father “before the world existed” (John 17:5). It means the re-entering of the Son, as a human being, into the perfect intensiveness and extensiveness of the Trinitarian life. The implications of this are universal, and can best be illustrated by the life of Paul.

Paul: Light to the Nations

The radical transformation of an ethnocentric rabbi (Phil 3:4-6) into someone who is the primary model for global mission requires entry into the deep inner structure of scripture. The revelation of the righteousness of God in Jesus to Saul on the road to Damascus was discussed in my first paper, but here we must examine the connection between the intensity of this illumination and the breadth of the apostolic call.

The first thing that Jesus spoke to Ananias concerning Paul’s commission was, “he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles” (Acts 9:14). Likewise, Paul reports Christ’s personal word of command, “‘Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’”” (Acts 22:21) and, “I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, 17 delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you” (26:16-17). The connection between Jesus as the Servant of the LORD and that of Paul as Christ’s servant to the gentiles is unmistakeable, but a deeper level of integration appears.

In speaking of his conversion Paul says, “But when he who had set me apart from my mother’s womb, and who called me by his grace, 16 was pleased to reveal his Son in me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles” (Gal 1:15-16)[11]. The intensiveness of Paul’s conversion experience and the extensiveness of his call are connected through the gift of sonship. The pleasure that Paul encountered in God’s self revelation of “Christ in him”, is a share in the Father’s pleasure that immersed Jesus as the obedient Son at baptism, transfiguration and resurrection. The apostle shares directly in the sonship of Christ as a servant of the nations. As such he lives in the power of the Holy Spirit with signs and wonders fulfilling the ministry of Christ (Rom 15:18-19)[12].

Paul’s story is paradigmatic for the life of the church. The intensity of the revelation of the resurrected Jesus as the fullness of divine righteousness (Acts 17:31; Rom 1:4; 1 Tim 3:16) can only ever occur in the context of mission to the nations. The church can never grow in the power of the gospel until it embraces its call to proclaim Christ to all creatures (Col 1:23), this is an essential part of its identity.

The Church: Light or Darkness?

The proverb, “The church exists by mission as fire exists by burning” (Brunner) is true at multiple levels. Whatever burns gives light, so wherever the church lives-in-mission[13] a society will be encountered by the illuminating presence of God. This is manifestly NOT the case in our Western nations where things are getting progressively darker. Several deceptions are blocking the manifestation of the light of the indwelling Christ[14].

The first lie has to do with our ability. Of all peoples throughout all history, Westerners are the most self-impressed. Our technological advances thrill the world (think iPad), our medical advances are repeatedly called “miracles” (think IVF) and our major language (think English) has gone global. A Christian worker speaks honestly, “Sometimes in this work, we can be dazzled by our own brilliance….hearing ourselves give a good or clever account of “the problem” and it’s “solution”[15].

The second deception is even more pertinent. A brother shared of the Lord’s call to leave his work and enter “full time ministry”. He long agonised over this missionary call before he ultimately surrendered, for his work was his idol. This man is transparent, how many of us have never heard the personal call of Christ to bring his revelatory light to neighbours near and far because our idols suffocate our sensitivity to the Spirit. Our spiritual impotence witnesses against us, for the “power of the Holy Spirit” is promised to all who go to their “Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”” (Acts 1:8).

If the Spirit of the glorified Lord is not flowing out of our hearts (John 7:37-39) it is because we have divorced the inner from the outer movement of God. As egocentric “spiritual consumers” we have abandoned extensity for the sake of intensity, and the Lord’s manifest glorious presence and power has left us our lands. What have we done!

Conclusion

The way back to the light that once filled our nations is simple, and it is summed up in the story of an African pastor preaching in a European church. His chosen text was the Great Commission, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: ²⁰ Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” (Matt 28:18-20 KJV) As he proclaimed the message every now and then he would utter, “nogolo”, and the hearers assumed it must be some term dear to him drawn from his native African tongue. Finally, some folks realised what the Lord was saying to his church, ““No Go No Lo. If you do not “Go and teach all nations” my promise “Lo I am with you always” cannot be experienced”.

This is the reality of the vast number of our churches, and until we repent from our inwardness and turn outwards with Christ to bring his hope to the nations, there can be no revelation of his righteousness in our midst. God grant each of us to share in his passionate and powerful eternal mission heart for the least, the last and the lost.

A Brief Prophetic Postscript

Talking with the brother who struggled to leave behind the idol of work and follow the Lord as a missionary, I sensed a clear witness of the Spirit. The day is coming soon when Christians, particularly the young, will no longer fear that God might call them to some far away difficult land but will thrill at the prospect. There is coming forth from God an awareness that to hear the command, “Go and make disciples…”, is not a matter of obedience to some external dictate, but it is to sense in the power of the Spirit the overwhelming pleasure of the Righteous Father to send witnesses into the world to manifest the saving love of his Son. This will fulfil the prophetic missionary psalm, “Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power” (Ps 110:3).