Through a Glass Darkly

In my Reading the New Testament Missionally class at Biblical Seminary, our final project was to write a paper on this topic:  “Explain the mission of God in the Bible as you understand it on the basis of the New Testament. Who or what is sent by whom, as a result of what causes, and to achieve what ends? What are the main implications of this divine missional story for your life and for the life of the Christian church in the early 21st century?”

Here is Part I of my effort.

My statement of mission is this: The mission of God is to be God for the world God created. God is “God for the world God created” by the desire of the Father, the sending and suffering of the Son, and the ministry of the Spirit. The mission of the Church is to incarnate God’s life in the world in anticipation of the age to come, when God will be all in all.

I. God, Creation, and “Mission”

When we speak of God having a “mission,” our capacity for analogical speech stretches to the breaking point.[1] “Mission” is a term with military connotations, which implies a discrete task assigned by a superior authority (a “principal”) to be carried out by an agent on the principal’s behalf. The agent typically is trained and equipped by the principal for the particular mission assigned. The principal typically is itself subject to some higher authority, which sets the parameters for the sort of mission the principal may assign to the agent.

A U.S. Marine, for example, might be assigned a mission to provide covering fire for members of his squad. The Marine squad together might be engaged in a mission to locate and destroy a hideout used by terrorist insurgents in Afganistan. The squad’s mission, ideally, will be tied to the overall U.S. mission in Afganistan, which in turn, ideally, will be situated within the national mission to secure the citizenry against terrorism and to spread democracy abroad. The “mission” of the U.S. as a nation derives from the contingent historical circumstances that led to the founding and development of the nation and the creation of its Constitution and other legal and cultural norms.

We cannot ultimately speak the same way about God because there are no contingent circumstances that led to God’s being. God simply is (and, in theological terms, is simply).[2] God’s “mission,” then, must in some sense equate with God’s a priori “being.” Thus, the first part of my statement of the mission Dei is the verb “to be.” God’s “mission” flows from His being. In Trinitarian terms, the immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity.[3]

This aspect of the mission of God is expressed beautifully in the first chapter of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.”[4] What is this “beginning?” It is not the “beginning” of the life of God. The Word “was” in the beginning the preexistent agent of creation. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”[5]

God’s creative activity, then, did involve agency. The Logos was “with” God and all things were made “through” the Logos. The Logos, therefore, acted on God’s behalf, as God’s agent. Thus, my statement of the mission Dei refers to the “world God created.” God’s “mission” involves creation.

Yet there was no imperative for the Divine Logos to create. No lack or crisis prompted God to call the universe into being, and no part of the universe came into being except by the action of the Logos. And in contrast to our usual use of the term “mission,” the “mission” of creation given to the Son by the Father is not greater than the agent. A soldier might be required to sacrifice himself to advance his mission, because the mission is greater than any individual soldier. Christ, in contrast, “is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”[6] The universe is contingent on God’s creative and sustaining action exercised by the Son, but God is not contingent on the universe.[7] There is reciprocity between God and the agency of the Logos in the dynamic of creation: all things were created not only “by [the Logos]” but also “for him.”[8]

God’s “mission” of creation, then, is not something delegated from one ontologically independent entity to another. The relationship of the Father and the Son is one of mutuality and coinherence.[9] The analogy of “mission” with respect to creation and God’s Triune life ultimately breaks over the fact of coinherence. In this sense, creation is not God’s “mission.” Creation is the extension of the Divine life through the agency of the Logos (“in him was life“) into that which is other than God.[10] As David Bently Hart puts it, “God’s gracious action in creation belongs from the first to that delight, pleasure and regard that the Trinity enjoys from eternity, as an outward and unnecessary expression of that love; and thus creation must be received before all else as gift and as beauty.”[11]

This theme is developed by Jurgen Moltmann in his creative and challenging book God in Creation. Moltmann draws from Luther’s theology of the cross, which for Moltmann “expresses the conviction that the creation and sustaining of the world are not simply works of the almighty God, but that in them God gives himself and communicates himself, and is thus himself present in his works.”[12] God’s act of creation is also a kenotic act of self-limitation, because “out of his infinite possibilities [for creation] God realizes this particular one, and renounces all others.”[13] Moreover, because creation flows from God’s perichoretic life, creation “proceeds from God’s love, and this love respects the own, personal existence of all things, and the freedom of the human beings who have been created.”[14]

Creation, then, was never a static, Platonic abstraction of “perfection.” Creation was from the beginning an “open system” with potentiality for development towards an eschatological future.[15] Eschatology is understood from the perspective of the original creation and what has gone wrong, but at the same time creation must be understood from the perspective of the eschatological future and ongoing participation of creation in the life of God.[16]

IV. The Mission of Paul: The Ingrafting of the Gentiles and the Time Between the Times

Many scholars have discussed the apparent tensions between Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God and Paul’s relative lack of attention to that theme. As noted in our lectures, however, Paul’s letters can hardly be understood as a “later” institutional accretion over Jesus’ simpler message of the Kingdom, since the Jesus traditions collected in the synoptic Gospels likely were not written in their canonical form until after Paul’s letters were composed and circulated.[1] Moreover, Paul’s letters themselves sometimes refer to proto-creedal affirmations that relate to the Jesus traditions.[2] It is better to understand the Pauline corpus as an extension of Jesus’ teaching about the “Kingdom of God” as well as the start of a wisdom tradition about how to live in the “time between the times” when the Kingdom is inaugurated but not yet consummated.

Paul’s theology extends Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God to the Gentiles. As noted in Section III.A. of this paper, Jesus himself prefigured the notion that the hope of “restoration” would extend beyond the nation of Israel. Paul makes this theme explicit and explores the theological and praxiological implications of this move in detail.

This is perhaps most majestically expressed in Romans 1-11, particularly in the (in my view) widely misunderstood chapters 9-11. High scholastic Calvinism, and the degenerative forms of neo-Calvinism often represented in populist Evangelicalism, tend to view Romans 9-11 primarily as statements of exclusion. In this view, these chapters are about the particularity of election and double predestination.

But the direction of Paul’s argument in Romans 9-11 is in fact about inclusion. Paul is offering here a defense of his teaching that the blessings of the Kingdom are available to the Gentiles in Christ. Romans 9-11 could be viewed as a theological exposition of Jesus’ parables and teaching in Matthew 21-24, particularly the parables of the laborers in the vineyard and the wedding feast. That God has surprisingly extended the Kingdom to the Gentiles should provoke no complaint from Israel, for God is free to show mercy and compassion to whomever God chooses.[3]

Although Paul does not often use the term “Kingdom of God,” his narrative of an alternative “empire” under Christ echoes Jewish critiques of Babylon and Rome.[4] Rather than the Hebraic concept of “Kingdom,” Paul prefers the Greco-Roman notion of “Lordship.” This may reflect Paul’s missional posture as the “Apostle to the Gentiles.” A pressing concern for Paul’s Gentile readers would have been the notion that Jesus, not Caesar, is kyrios, and that God’s Kingdom is not the Roman Empire. Indeed, this notion is the crux of Paul’s argument in Romans 10: faith in the resurrection and Lordship of Christ, rather than cultural identity, are the hallmarks of inclusion in the Kingdom.[5]

Paul’s praxiology also is central to his mission. One of Paul’s central pastoral concerns was to manage tensions between Jewish and Gentile Christians, particularly regarding adherence to Torah. This is reflected in Paul’s participation in the Jerusalem Council, narrated in Acts 15, in the Pastoral instructions in Paul’s letters (for example, Romans 14-15), and in the detailed discussion of law and grace in Galatians.

Finally, Paul offered practical instructions for Christian living prior to the consummation of the Kingdom at Christ’s return. Although Paul, along with other first-century Christians, probably believed that Christ would return during his own generation, he laid the ethical foundations for wise living in the time between times — which as we know has now extended over two millennia. This can be seen, for example, in Paul’s teaching about sexual immorality, lawsuits, marriage, the sacrament of the Eucharist, and spiritual gifts.[6]

V. The Mission of the Early Church: Faithful Expectancy

From Luke-Acts, we see the mission of the early Church as a missionary endeavor. The Church is established and sent into the world to proclaim the Gospel, accompanied by the signs and wonders of the Spirit that indicate the Kingdom of God is breaking into the present age.[7]

From the Pauline corpus, we see the mission of the early Church as an exercise of patient fellowship. The “body of Christ” (1. Cor. 12) is to incarnate Christ in the local culture, anticipating the immanent resurrection, at which time those in Christ will become like him, all enemies of God’s shalom, including the enemy of “death,” will be vanquished, and “God [will] be all in all.” (1 Cor. 15). Paul’s vision for the community of the Church is that it would embody God’s Kingdom on earth:

So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful.[8]

In the Church, then, God’s purposes for the creation are being realized, even as the creation itself “waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God” and “groans and suffers the pains of childbirth,” and even as we continue to “groan within ourselves” as we wait for the completion of God’s redemption at the resurrection.[9]

The New Testament’s apocalyptic literature takes on similar themes, but from a somewhat different angle. In the Petrine (or pseudo-Petrine)[10] epistles and particularly in Revelation, the mission of Jesus is pictured from the perspective of consummation. Here the Lamb of God is also the Rider on the White Horse, the cosmic Christ who rides out “conquering and to conquer.”[11]

This literature is saturated in the imagery of Second Temple apocalyptic, but the vision of the “age to come” is more holistic. There is no “temple” because God Himself is present in the heavenly city, all of the “kings of the earth . . . bring their glory” through the city gates, and the “tree of life,” not seen since Genesis 3, now offers its leaves “for the healing of the nations.”[12]

The primary mission of the Church from this vantage point is to bear witness and to persevere, despite opposition and persecution. John offers this beatitude at the close of his apocalyptic vision: “[b]lessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city.”[13] We are reminded that the Church’s incarnational mission does not encompass winning the final victory through the exercise of temporal power. Instead, the Church patiently lives out its calling as it eagerly awaits the one who is “coming quickly,” the “Lord Jesus.”[14]

III. The Mission of Jesus: Restoration and Prolepsis

A. Jesus in Narratival Perspective

If the story of creation from the Divine perspective is one of Trinitarian love, the story of creation from the human perspective is one of rebellion and death. Some narratival approaches to the Bible suggest that the diversity of the scriptural canon frames an overarching, unifying narrative of creation, fall, complication, cross, and consummation.[1] This is a helpful approach, which enables us to understand that Jesus’ mission during his first advent represented a sort of climax in the drama of redemption.

This narratival structure views the drama of redemption from the human perspective: how do we find ourselves in the current broken mess of the world, and how can this mess be fixed? Jesus is the answer to these questions, which burn through the pages of the Hebrew Bible. After humanity’s fall into sin, God takes the initiative to “clothe” the man and the woman.[2] He continues to pursue and preserve humanity in the covenant with Noah, and He calls a particular people to experience and spread His righteous fellowship in the covenants with Abraham and David.

By the close of the Hebrew Bible, however, God’s chosen people, His putative agents of redemption, have rebelled against God and have suffered the judgment of defeat and exile at the hands of Assyria and Babylon. The holy city of Jerusalem and its Temple, the place of God’s presence, have been destroyed. When the exiles are permitted to return to Jerusalem, the hope of Israel’s prophets turns towards a deliverer, a Messiah, who will restore the nation and the Temple.

During the “intertestamental” period, the hope of restoration becomes ever more pregnant as the remnant of Israel experiences Greek and Roman rule. The Roman puppet ruler Herod rebuilds a magnificent Temple in Jerusalem, but for many zealous Jews, this represents an abominable counterfeit of God’s holy purposes. Some of these Jews, including the Maccabees, attempt military rebellion, only to be crushed by Rome. Others, particularly the Pharisees, attempt to practice holiness within the daily context of Roman oppression, while yet others, such as the Essenes, withdraw into chiliastic communes; and still others, particularly the Sadducees, attempt to reach some accommodation to Hellenistic culture. Jesus steps into this milieu of “restoration eschatology” and both fulfills and upsets this hope. In this sense, we can say that the mission of Jesus is to inaugurate the Kingdom of God by restoring God’s reign over humanity through a people called to be God’s own holy people. N.T. Wright and others have helpfully situated Jesus’ frequent teaching about the “Kingdom of God” within this framework of the Second Temple Jewish hope of restoration.[3] Jesus, however, reframes Second Temple restoration eschatology by suggesting that the hope of redemption will extend beyond the Jewish people and that the power of redemption lies in his own person rather than in a revitalized Temple.

These themes are particularly poignant in the events and teachings of Matthew 20-24. In the parables of the laborers in the vineyard and the marriage feast, Jesus suggests that the Kingdom of God relates to a person’s disposition towards God and results from God’s broad and generous grace, rather than deriving primarily from a national identity. In Matthew 21, Jesus is hailed as a Messiah, consistent with restorationist expectations, but his action of “cleansing” the Temple is an unexpected symbol of the Kingdom’s extension to the “outer courts” of the Gentiles. In Matthew 24, Jesus somewhat obliquely predicts the destruction of Jerusalem, which eventually occurred in A.D. 70 under the Roman Emperor Titus.

The synoptic Gospels each in their own way conclude with the theme that will be picked up in Paul’s epistles: not the restoration of the Temple, but the death and resurrection of Jesus, represent the inauguration of the hoped-for “age to come.”

B. An Excursus on Proleptic Eschatology and the Drama of Scripture

In my view, the five or six-act narratival structure of the Bible, with the death and resurrection of Jesus as a climactic point in the story, is helpful, but ultimately insufficient. From the divine perspective, the story of redemption proceeds proleptically. For God, the story in a sense starts at the end and is told backwards. The “sixth” act of the drama, that of consummation, was God’s purpose from “before the foundation of the world.”[4] The “new heavens and new earth” and “new Jerusalem” of Revelation 21 are not things God improvised in order to fix a mistake. The heavenly city is rather the telos of which Eden, the Tabernacle, the Temple, and the Church are beginnings.[5] If we fail to emphasize the “divine,” proleptic side of the Biblical narrative, I fear that we lose something important about the Trinitarian shape of the missio Dei.