We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

God’s Goal for the World

15/365 - Hold My Heart

 Helga Weber via Compfight

In a world that is all about doom and gloom…

In a time when we never seem to have enough…

In the midst of messages that tell us that we don’t measure up…

In an age when we are more interested in whether or not we can own automatic weapons than we are in how we can serve the poor…

And even in a church that finds itself embattled, argumentative, and wounded by “friendly fire”…

In the midst of all this, God is moving. There is an underground stream of hope drawing all of creation toward redemption. In the midst of the sensationalist barbs, attacks, reports of war, a most life-filled truth flows in history, one that we must not ignore or our souls will suffer. Here is a brief excerpt from Greg’s Repenting of Religion which calls the church into this truth.

The goal of creation is succinctly summed up in a profound prayer Jesus said just prior to his crucifixion:

For [the disciples’] sake I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth. I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. —John 17:19-21, emphasis added.

Let’s examine this carefully. Jesus prayed that his disciples would be one just as he and the Father are one. The loving oneness of the church is to reflect the loving oneness of the Trinity. Indeed, the loving oneness of the church is to participate in the loving oneness of the Trinity: “As you … are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.” As we participate in God’s loving oneness, we replicate this loving oneness among ourselves. And as we replicate this loving oneness, the world sees and believes that Jesus Christ is sent from the Father. The world knows the reality of the triune God because they encounter the love of the triune God in us.

This prayer expressed not only God’s goal for the church but the goal of all creation. Indeed, Jesus prayed that his church would be “sanctified in the truth” (John 17:19)—the truth that they are called to be one in the Father and Son—so that the world would believe in him and thus become part of the church. The church is to be set apart (sanctified) not by possessing a special religious piety but by participating in and manifesting the perfect eternal love of God. As Bonhoeffer said, “Jesus calls men, not to a new religion, but to life.” This participation in God’s life distinguishes disciples from others only so disciples can invite all others to share in it. …

God’s goal is that humans, when filled with God’s unsurpassable love and eternal life, would replicate God on an individual level and overflow with love back to God, to themselves, and to their neighbors. As God gives his life to us, we manifest the fullness of his life in ascribing infinite worth to God as our source (worship); we affirm the infinite worth we ourselves have because of what God has done for us in Christ (self-love); and we affirm the infinite worth others have because of what Christ as done for them (neighbor-love).  (Repenting of Religion, 28,30)

Related Reading

Lighten Up: Head and Heart

The Kind of Sin Jesus Publicly Exposes

Image by danny.hammontree via Flickr Religious sin is the only sin Jesus publicly confronted. The religious variety of the forbidden fruit is the most addictive and deceptive variety. Instead of acknowledging that judging others is prohibited, religious idolatry embraces the knowledge of good and evil as divinely sanctioned and mandated. It gives the illusion of being on…

Trapped in a Constantinian Paradigm

A Response to James Smith’s Review of The Myth of a Christian Nation In my book The Myth of a Christian Nation I repeatedly call on Christians to engage in social activism. Followers of Jesus are called to be revolutionaries, I argue, meaning that we are to revolt against the status quo insofar as the…

Podcast: How Do We Balance Both Seeking Unity While Also Confronting Error?

Greg looks at the call to unity and considers things that do not help achieve it.   http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0421.mp3

Smack Talk on the Idolatry of the Family

Ben Ponder doesn’t pull any punches in his article Idolatry of the Family. He argues that, contrary to some evangelical claims, “Jesus didn’t die on a God-forsaken cross to preserve your horn-rimmed vision of 1950s Americana.” Can a marriage or a family become an idol? Ben thinks so. What do you think? From the article:…

Following Jesus Doesn’t Work

I met a middle aged woman one day who told me she had given up on Christianity. “It just didn’t work for me,” she said. My response was: “What on earth made you think Jesus was supposed to work for you? The truth is that you were supposed to work for him.” The sentiment is…