Growing Older and Growing Younger
Introduction
I came to Christ 50 years ago during a globalised youth movement which became known as the Jesus Movement. This was a genuine Spirit-led revival. Meeting Donna the following year (1973), it isn’t surprising we went to see the “Jesus Revolution” movie. (super)Naturally, we prayed before going with the expectation the Lord would speak to us, which he unfailingly did (Hos 10:12)! At a certain point the Spirit of Jesus drew out of me, in the midst near uncontainable weeping, and a “Do it again Lord!” plea, a call for the rest of our lives. The substance of this teaching is an outworking of what God has been saying since that experience. The 70’s were personally times of near indescribable emotional unrest, permeated by the emergence of a “generation gap” the ongoing turmoil of the Vietnam War, and a deep longing to find loving acceptance. The turbulence of my affectivity has subsided, but the edge of my emotional intensity has been submitted to the Spirit of the Lord. Whereas so many of my peers from those days have been domesticated (“squared”) by the institutions of Church and culture, with all their concerns for financial security and the like, the Lord assured me that through his divine sovereignty over the many crises of my ministry he has never allowed ne to “lose my edge”. So, what is coming next?
Ever Younger
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” (Eph 5:25-27). The ongoing maturing of the Church in the likeness of Christ means that she is always growing younger on the inside (Susan Hammer). This sounds strangely remarkable, but it is a divine promise, “Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint….I make all things new” (Isa 40:30-31; Rev 21:5). A concrete biblical analogy is found in Sarah, who when 65-75 years old was sexually desired to pagan rulers as a “very beautiful” woman (Gen 12:11, 14; 17:17; 20:1-18). This can only be explained as miraculous. Very recently I have been reminded of a pastor I heard preach in the 1970’s, though outwardly aged (Milton Greenslade b. 1914) he manifested an extraordinary energy I could never understand, but now I do. The secret of his vitality was the indwelling life of Christ. After listing his grievous trials, Paul explains, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self his being renewed day by day.” (2 Cor 4:16). He elaborates on his capacity for ministry by testifying, “Him (Jesus) we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29. For this I toil and struggle with all the energy that he powerfully inspires within me.” (Col 1:28-29). Though at the height of his apostolic influence, in his mid-50‘s, Paul calls himself, “an old man” (Philemon 9), this is merely an authentic comment about his body battered again and again in the cause of Christ (Gal 6:17; 2 Cor 11:23-27). The key to this mystery was that the more he suffered outwardly the more glory to received inwardly from “how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Col 1:27). This is the substance of the good news/gospel of Christ and eternal life.
Resurrection Reversal [a hypothesis]
The raw biblical language of “heart”, “intestines”, etc. used to describe the dynamic psychological functioning of our “inner person” (Prov 4:23; Lam 2:11; Hos 11:8; Matt 9:36; 14:14; Heb 4:12-13) is not a Hebraic eccentricity but inspired by the Spirit of God. This suggests to me that if we were able to do a scan of Jesus’ vital organs at the moment prior to his expiration we would find them enormously aged for a man of 33. This was a consequence of Christ taking into himself the existential consequences of the sin of the world (2 Cor 5:21; 1 Pet 2:24). A similar scan of the Lord’s organs at the point of resurrection would find his anatomy like that of a newborn child (1 Pet 2:2). This is the power of the Spirit renewing all things beginning with the Son of God (Acts 3:19-21; Rom 1:4). This is the same Spirit who is given to us (Rom 8:11).
Growing in God
Salvation can be most fully understood as a series of mutual indwelling’s, the Son in the Father and vice-versa, and us, the Church, in them (John 17:10-25). This means the true home/location of our redeemed lives is the heavenly places where Jesus took us in him when he ascended “into God” (Eph 2:4-6; Phil 3:20-21; Col 3:1-3). Speaking personally, the glory which Jesus shares with the Father includes all his triumphs over my sin over the last 50 years, plus all his accumulated victories in those with whom I have shared Jesus in the last half century. It was something of this vast triumph which “fell upon” me in the gracious energy of the Spirit in the picture theatre a week ago (Acts 10:44; 11:15; 2:4). This was God’s perfect timing as, Donna and I in faithful covenant partnership, look to the final phase of our lives and ministry. Paise God that such visitations of Spirit power can come on Christ’s people any time (1 Thess 1:5). Let me be more definite about what I believe “the Spirit is saying to the churches” (Rev 2:7 etc.).
Pioneering Community
A brilliant counsellor, sent from the Lord to help me, once spoke out an intuitive truth, “what is broken in family/community can only be healed in family/community.” Despite many appearances otherwise, the community in which brokenness is healed is the new covenant people of God. “The Church” as a new society in whom “There is neither Jew nor Greek..slave nor free…male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:28). I see a generation of young people, 30+, a sort of “bridge generation” (S. Scrimgeour), relating to oldies, like me and Donna, and youth, primed to be discipled-in-community. Such a community movement will be pioneered by mature transparent brothers and sisters who have stood the test of time, including through singleness and/or marriage, who will fulfil the call, “I will send Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a curse.”” (Mal 4:5-6). Given that in “the spirit of Elijah” was in John the Baptist (Matt 11:14; 17:11-12) who testified unflinchingly to Jesus (Matt 3:11-12; John 1:29), I anticipate a new and much fuller, “Jesus Revolution”, giving all the glory, as Christ did, to God the Father in the Spirit’s power (Luke 23:46; Phil 2:11).
Conclusion
How will all this happen? There are no plausible explanations for the acts of the kingdom of God in Christ (http://cross-connect.net.au/simple-only-god/ ). Given the final reality of “the secret of the kingdom” (Mark 4:11; 26-29), I am quietly confident that these things are just “going to happen”. If the Lord overwhelmed me through a little film, imagine the universal commotion at the unveiling of the totality of the victory of Christ across the ages (Heb 1:2; Rev 20:11).