Transcript
NEWBIGIN: I suggest that we might take as our starting point for our thinking on this question, "What is the Christian world mission?" with a statement of the greatest of missionaries about his own work, St. Paul to the Ephesians, chapter 3, verses 8 to 12: "To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to make all men
see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose which He has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confidence of access through our faith in Him."
There are three points which seem to me to stand out from that statement and which may serve as the key points for our study of the nature of mission. The first is that the mission has its origin in the age-long purpose of God the Creator of all things, a purpose accomplished and revealed in Jesus Christ. Second, that the mission has as its aim
to make all men -- and not only all men but the whole cosmos, even the heavenly powers -- know the fullness of the purpose of God. And thirdly, that the agency of the mission is the church. Of course, it is impossible to extract a complete New Testament theology out of one passage, but I believe you will agree with me that we will
not do violence to the general evidence of the New Testament as a whole if we take these three as the headings for our study. Firstly, God's revealing and saving action through Jesus Christ. Secondly, the world to which that saving revelation is directed. And thirdly, the church, which is the instrument, although we shall see
later more than the instrument but which is the instrument of that saving revelation. Then our subject is divided into these three parts. And we begin, and I fear that we shall take the whole of this lecture on the first, which is obviously the most vitally important: the revealing and saving action of God in Jesus Christ.
I want to say in the first place that it is of the greatest importance to emphasize the fact that the mission has its ground and origin in the self-revealing action of God. This must be emphasized because of the constant tendency to find other grounds for the prosecution of the Christian mission. The preaching of the gospel is not a response to man's
need or an answer to man's questioning. "The cross does not answer man's questions because they are the wrong questions," said the [Billingen?] conference. The cross asks God's question and demands man's answer. The beginning of the mission, in other words, is a new free, creative act of the living God, and that is its
sufficient ground. The missionary is simply the witness and herald of that act. We preach because Christ has saved us and sent us. And if we are asked why we preach, by what authority do we preach, in the last analysis we can only answer as the first apostles did in the name of Jesus. The authority for the Christian mission
derives solely from God the Creator and rests in its plenitude in Christ. When we read the gospel story, we see that this question of authority arose at the very outset. That is to say, in the ministry of our Lord Himself, the question of authority was repeatedly raised. The first comment that men made on His Words and works
was that they were with authority. He speaks with authority and not as the scribes. We know how the scribes taught. They taught from the authorities, which is a very different thing. They quoted the authorities. And when a man does that, he does not place you in the position of having to make an ultimate decision. In the last analysis, you can yourself go to the authorities and verify the quotations.
Jesus spoke with authority. "You have heard that it has been said by them of old, but I say unto you." His words could not be checked by any criterion outside of Himself. And they therefore placed those who heard them in the situation where they had to decide to accept Him or reject Him as an authority in Himself. Jesus,
in other words, cannot be accepted on any authority but His own. And He therefore places men in the situation where they are ultimately compelled to decide about Him. The fundamental ground upon which the whole Christian mission stands is that God has sent His Son and that His Son has sent us. "As the Father hath sent Me, so send I
you." And yet it would not be correct to leave the matter there without adding another clause. God has acted. Yes, and is acting. According to the Bible, the Christian mission is not simply the reporting of what God has done. It is itself, in a sense, the continuance of God's action. When our Lord said, "As the Father hath sent Me,
so send I you," He added in the same breath, "Receive the Holy Ghost." According to the teaching of the New Testament, it is the Holy Spirit Himself who is, in truth, the agent of mission. In the last analysis, it is the Holy Spirit who is the missionary according to the New Testament. Our part in the mission is strictly derivative and secondary.
When the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of me and you also, our witnesses. The whole of the book of the Acts might be regarded, as in one sense, a commentary on that promise. Thus, the Christian mission is rightly understood not merely as resting on an act of God in the past
but as being itself a continuing activity of God. An activity wherein we are taken up and given our place. We believe that it is that activity of God the Holy Spirit which is the true clue to, and center of, world history. At the time of the Billingen conference, when the effort was being made to formulate
explicitly a theology of mission, the view was strongly expressed from the side of the American theologians participating in the conference that the statement must be made in fully Trinitarian terms and that a merely Christological statement of the theology of mission would be inadequate. I confess that at the time of the conference, I did not see the importance of this, and I was inclined to be impatient of criticisms of
statements which were made solely in terms of God's saving act in Christ. But I have come to see the great importance of this concern for a Trinitarian statement of the theology of mission. It is essential that we do not isolate our thinking about the saving work of God in Christ, either from our doctrine of God the Father, the Creator of all things, or from our doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
It is essential, in other words, firstly, that we do not isolate what is called salvation history, Heilsgeshichte, from world history. That we do not forget that God's saving purpose is concerned with the entire range of human life and indeed with the whole cosmos. That, for instance, events in the world of politics and science and culture are its concern and
not merely events in the ecclesiastical sphere. That God has, as I tried to suggest at the end of the last lecture, the whole of human history in His hands. That He is propelling it towards the final issues of judgment and mercy and that indeed the very meaning of what we see going on in the world today is precisely to be discerned in those terms. It is essential secondly that the doctrine
of the Holy Spirit should have its proper integral place in our theology of mission. For, as we have just seen, in the New Testament it is the Holy Spirit Himself who is primarily and fundamentally the missionary. The report of the Billingen conference contains a sentence itself cast in Trinitarian form which may serve as a preliminary draft for the
formulation we are seeking. It reads as follows: "Out of the depths of His love for us, the Father has sent forth His own beloved Son to reconcile all things to Himself, that we and all men might, through the Spirit, be made one in Him with the Father in that perfect love which is the very nature of God." Taking that sentence
as a basis for further elaboration, I want to draw out its implications in five directions. And for the comfort of those who may be trying to follow what I am saying, I shall number them from A to E and not from one to five so as to distinguish them from the other enumerations. A: The statement rightly reminds us at the very beginning that the mission
is rooted in the love of God the Father, the Creator of all things. The authority on which it rests is nothing less than the authority of God the Creator and Sustainer of all that is. This statement is based, of course, upon the testimony of the Bible as a whole and especially upon the testimony of the words and actions of Jesus
read against their proper background in the New Testament scriptures. Understood as they must be against that background, the words and works of Jesus are either the words and works of a blasphemer and a deceiver, as the Jewish authorities affirmed, or they are the words and works of one who speaks and acts with the authority of God the Creator,
as Christian faith affirms. There is, in the end, no tenable intermediate position. And the faith which finds this authority in Jesus is not a mere unsupported leap beyond the evidence. It rests, in the last analysis, upon the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. He was designated Son of God with
power by the resurrection from the dead. That mighty event, occurring in the world of visible events and attested by a manifestly empty tomb, is, for eyes of faith, the assurance that the authority of Jesus is none other than the authority of the Creator God Himself. I know that that sentence raises
questions, which I will endeavor to deal with a little later. It is God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness." God the Creator Himself, who has manifested His glory in Jesus Christ. There is, in fact, the beginning of a new creation in Him. A new creation which is, at the same time, the restoration of the One Creation to its true
image. Thus, it belongs to the very nature of the gospel that it is for all men because it rests upon the self-revealing and saving activity of God who is the Creator of all men. Secondly, the statement speaks of the purpose of God's act as being to reconcile all things to Himself. The
presupposition of this purpose of total reconciliation is the fact of total rebellion. All men, without exception from the highest to the lowest, are involved together in a total rebellion against God, the Source of their own being. All men are in sin. This statement of universal sinfulness belongs, of course, to a different dimension from the ethical judgments that
we men pass one upon another. Judging this man to be mean, that man to be noble, this man pure and that man impure. It is always difficult for us to take seriously into our hearts this conception of a universal judgment of God upon the human race in which we are all equally involved.
Precisely because it is one of the results of man's sinfulness that he takes the judgment of his fellow men more seriously than he takes the judgment of God. I remember an occasion when we were engaged in preaching the gospel in the streets of an Indian city. The man who was on the box was engaged in informing his hearers that they were sinners. And a very well-dressed and well-educated Brahman gentleman
took serious exception to this statement and proceeded to express himself in such vigorous terms that it appeared likely that the meeting would break up in confusion. One of my colleagues took this gentleman aside in a friendly way, led him across the street, talked with him for five minutes and brought him back again, after which he remained like a lamb till the end of the meeting. I asked my friend, "What did you say to that gentleman which caused him to be so
quiet?" "Oh," he said, "I explained to him that when we Christians say that men are sinners, it's understood that all men are sinners and, therefore, there is no need to take offense." It is difficult for us to take seriously a predicament in which we are in such good company. We all have the good, democratic feeling that God must eventually yield to public opinion.
But on the other hand, in order to establish the doctrine of universal sinfulness, it is not necessary for us to undertake what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls "priestless nothing around in the sins of men in order to catch them out." What we have to say about the sin of the human race does not arise from our having been able to discover the guilty secrets of all men. It
arises from the open revelation of God on the cross, in the presence of which the whole human race, not the so-called sinners only but the highest representatives of morality and religion and statecraft, were found to be the enemies of the Holy God. It is the cross alone which brings the whole world under the judgment of God and thereby
under His mercy. It is in the light of the cross alone and not in the light of any ethical insight or achievement of our own that we know all men to be involved with ourselves in a common rebellion against God, the Source of their being. It is because our message is the cross that we can and must go to all men, not least to those whose
ethical and spiritual achievements dwarf our own, and there are many such among the adherents of the non-Christian religions. It means specifically that we must go even to the finest representatives of the great non-Christian faiths and preach the cross to them. By the death of Christ upon the cross, the decisive act of reconciliation between God and man has been accomplished.
That reconciliation has to be made known, made accessible, made effective for the whole human race because the whole human race is involved in the one rebellion against God. C: The statement says that the reconciliation has been accomplished by God's sending His beloved Son. The saving act is an actual
deed wrought out by one man, the Beloved, the Chosen, at a certain time and place in world history. The Beloved, the Chosen is Jesus, the Carpenter of Nazareth, crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem in the governorship of Pontius Pilate. The message of redemption concerns one special event in the whole of history or rather one series of
events. The Chosen One comes from the chosen people and brings their story to its crisis. One is related, therefore, to God's saving acts by being related to certain particular events, to a certain train of events, in the whole complex of human history. One is not related to it by any kind of direct
spiritual or intellectual experience, however that experience be formulated. One is related to it by being related to that particular strand of the whole of world history of which the central record is given in the Bible and the continuing development in the life of the Christian church. That statement must immediately be safeguarded against several possible misunderstandings. In
speaking of a particular strand of world history, we do not mean that this strand exists or can be understood in any kind of separation from, disjunction from, world history as a whole. It is part of world history, and its particular character is that it reveals the true meaning and direction of world history. The Bible is, so to say, open at both ends to the entire history of the world
and not only so, to the entire cosmos. The Bible does not make any sharp break, and this is surely important. Either at the beginning or at the end, between human history and cosmic history, if one may use the phrase. At the beginning, you have the creation of the whole cosmos and of all the tribes of men. The story narrows down until it reaches its crisis
in the story of the passion, death, and resurrection of one man, Jesus. It then immediately begins to broaden out again, to take in more and more of the tribes of men, proleptically present already on the day of Pentecost until at last it ends in a vision of the end of all things, not only the human race but the creation itself. The perspective of the Bible is the whole
of human and cosmic history. And moreover, as the narrower story proceeds, we are constantly reminded that this story is in no kind of isolation from the events of the world as a whole, that it is inextricably bound up with them, and that the same God who shapes the destinies of Israel also shapes those of the great empires of Assyria and Babylon, of Tyre and Egypt, and the
personal destinies of Pharaoh and Cyrus. Yet the clue to the whole is found in the story of the chosen people. And yet again this does not mean that world history exists for the sake of the chosen people. On the contrary, the chosen people is chosen only for the purpose of fulfilling the divine plan for world history. When the chosen people rejects that calling, it is itself rejected.
The mission of the church is the clue to world history, but the church does not exist in order to increase its own membership and strength. It exists in order to fulfill God's purpose for the world. This doctrine of God's election which has been, in so many times, offensive and unacceptable to men and which is, at the same time, so
inextricably bound up with the very center of the biblical message is to be understood, I am persuaded, through and through in missionary terms. Understood, that is to say, in terms of the fact that because God's purpose of salvation is a corporate and cosmic purpose involving in its very essence the knitting up of that which is now divided. Therefore, salvation comes to each of us. Not as it were through a
skylight open direct to heaven but through the doors that are opened up in the process of communication between man and man so that it is always from another that we receive the gospel. Always from another race that we receive into our nation the good news. And if it be objected that there is at least one flaw in that reasoning, namely, that apparently the people of Israel receive the
gospel, so to say, through the skylight and not through any other nation, then will you please look at the argument of Romans 9 to 11. And you will see that, according to St. Paul, in the end, even the Jews will only be saved through the Gentiles. The principle that it is through one to the other belongs to the very essence of God's saving method because God's saving purpose is corporate and cosmic
in its range. D: The statement we are considering goes on to say that as the fruit of the reconciling work of the Beloved Son, we are made one through the Spirit with the Father in that perfect love which is the very nature of God. The reconciling act of God in Jesus Christ, while in one sense it is a
completed and finished act, is in another sense only the beginning of a continuing activity of redemption. Beyond Calvary and the empty tomb lies Pentecost, the beginning of a new age in which the power of God is, in a totally new manner, set free to flow through the lives of men. Men who have
been in some sense or other, through the experience of the first apostles who have been brought by the crucified to the final issues of divine judgment and mercy, who have had in some sense or other the confession run from them, "I am crucified with Christ, yet I live, yet no longer I but Christ lives in me," are
men through whom the power of God flows in an altogether new manner. In the presence of the crucified, the last citadel of the ego has crumbled, and the flood tide of the divine mercy is free to flow in and to flow through and to flow out again. A new kind of goodness is born into the world which is,
in truth, the fruit of the presence of God the Holy Spirit Himself. It may be described in many ways, but in its essential nature it is simply the continued flowing out into the world of that divine love which matched its strength against the world's lovelessness in Jesus Christ in the whole of His life, His ministry, and supremely
in His cross. It is a kind of goodness which is not essentially calculated obedience to a law but the uncalculated outpouring of hearts filled to overflowing by the love and grace of God. The Christian mission is the continued flowing out into the world of that stream of divine charity which was opened on
Calvary. And yet again that statement has immediately to be subjected to heavy qualification. The church, even the New Testament church, is very far from being simply what I have just described. It is very far from being a body which simply carries the love of God into the world. It is also a body which,
in all sorts of ways, contradicts and obstructs the love of God, turning even the gifts of the Holy Spirit into the means of self-glorification as we see, for instance, in the Corinthian church. At no point, even at the very beginning, has it been possible so simply to identify the church with the body of Christ that the church could simply point to itself as the place of
redemption. The church has always to point beyond itself to Christ, always to say, "Don't look at us; look at Him." Always to be penitently aware that the very best of its good works will not mediate to men the ultimate mercy and judgment of God. The church has continually, therefore, to point away from its own good works and simply
tell the story of Jesus. The continued activity of God the Holy Spirit in the world through the church is thus expressed in a twofold way. In the release into the world through redeemed men and women of that active love of God which is given in Jesus Christ and an explicit testimony which, out of the midst of this loving activity,
directs men to its source in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We have here a problem of terminology which I think should detain us for a moment because terminology always affects thinking. It is, at the present time, common to use the word "evangelism" to describe the whole of the church's outreach towards the
world including the church's works of loving service as part of evangelism. Many of you may have seen the fine article by [Cannon Wordell?] in the current number of the Ecumenical Review in which he speaks of what he calls evangelism's threefold witness: kerygma, diakonia, koinonia. Preaching, service, fellowship
all subsumed under the head of evangelism. I think there are grounds for questioning this terminology both in the biblical usage and also in the practical consequences which it has for our thinking about these subjects. It seems to me that in the New Testament, the all-inclusive fact from which we must begin is the gift of the Holy Spirit whose presence is manifest,
is revealed, in manifold signs. Those signs include the preaching of the gospel, prophecy, healing, the gift of tongues, pastoral care, practical service of all kinds. The all-inclusive fact is that actual presence of the Holy Spirit. And the all-inclusive Word corresponding to that fact is, I think, the word "witness."
In the perspective of the Synoptic Gospels, all these things, the works of mercy and the preaching of the gospel, are signs that Jesus is He that cometh and that we do not need to look for another. In the perspective of the Acts and the Epistles, the existence of the new community of the Holy Spirit, the manifold gifts by which it is built up, and its preaching and service to the
outside world are all the fruits of the Spirit. Of these, evangelism is one. In one of his lists of the many gifts of the Spirit, Paul includes evangelists as one, evidently implying that all are not, in that sense, evangelists. That specific activity which involves preaching Christ by word of mouth, by telling men
the good news, it seems to be better to use the word evangelism in its strict sense to designate that. But the whole life and service, work and worship of the redeemed community is, when properly understood, witness. It is witness because it is the work of the Holy Spirit. He is Himself, as I have reminded you, the primary witness,
and we are witnesses as we are caught up into His living activity. There is also a practical importance in this point of terminology, a practical importance in recognizing that service and evangelism are correlate works of the Spirit. The fellowship,
the diakonia and preaching. The service of men and the explicit verbal direction of men's minds to Jesus Christ are side-by-side correlative works of the Spirit and marks of the Spirit-filled fellowship rather than the one being subordinate to the other. Evangelism is not the whole duty
of a Christian. Diakonia, service, is itself a proper fruit of the presence of the Spirit and does not need to be justified in relation to any evangelistic program. To put it bluntly, when a man is in need and you are in a position to meet his need, if you are a man in whom the Spirit of God dwells, you will go and meet that need, and there will be no more nonsense about it.
In this respect, the pagan is sometimes nearer to the truth than the Christian as our Lord reminds us in the parable of the good Samaritan. A leper comes to him and says, "Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean." He stretches out His hand and He says, "I will. Be thou made clean." That is not related to any evangelistic strategy. It is the love of God in action. It requires no further justification. "I am
among you as He that serveth." The presence of Christ will be known by the humble service that is rendered to those in need. Diakonia can stand on its own feet. But again, as evangelism is not the whole duty of a Christian, neither is service the whole duty of a Christian. Jesus could leave a multitude of sick folk because of an overriding
obligation to go to the next towns and preach the gospel there also. Service by itself in isolation will only mock men with false hopes. It will not bring them to the final judgment and mercy of the crucified. Service must be in the total context of that martyria, of that witness, which points men away from us to Christ.
"We preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord and ourselves as Your servants." There is the diakonia for Jesus' sake. In effect, as St. Paul is constantly reminding us, it is only the whole fellowship, the whole Spirit-filled fellowship, receiving the manifold and varied gifts of the One Spirit that can show forth the fullness of the wisdom of God.
Dr. Hoekendijk, in one of his very, very profound and stimulating articles about this matter, uses the word "constellation." He speaks of constellations of terms. And it seems to me that the proper constellation of primary terms is pneuma, koinonia, martyria. Spirit, fellowship, witness. That is the constellation of primary terms. And then, within that, there is a vast
subdivision of functions which includes evangelism, prophecy, teaching, tongues, healings, helps, governments, and all the multitudinous forms of service which may, from time to time, be the proper fruit of the presence of the Holy Spirit in this needy world. The church has constantly been bedeviled, and is still bedeviled, by the idea that a synthesis must be sought by which all these different elements will
find their proper balance in the life and witness of each individual. That is a totally false trail. It is only the whole fellowship by the harmonious cooperation of those who have received quite different gifts, only the whole fellowship that can show forth to the principalities and powers the manifold wisdom of God. We do not, I think, even yet take seriously enough
Paul's metaphor of the body. How rare it is to find Christians who are ready and able honestly to rejoice in the fact that many Christians are quite different from what they are, talk a quite different language, and have quite different gifts. How constantly we do precisely what St. Paul laughs at. "The nose says to the ear, 'Because you are not a nose, you are not of the body.'
The ear says to the eye, 'Because you are not an ear, you are not of the body.'" How constantly do we say, "Those people have a different way of doing things, a different atmosphere, a different ethos. They don't belong to us"? How hard it is for us to recognize and rejoice in gifts quite different from our own knowing that no one individual and no one verbal formulation can ever
show forth the manifold wisdom of God. Only the Spirit-filled fellowship can be the witness to that. The fifth of my five-fold divisions concerns the consummation to which the mission looks, but I think that our time is now up and that we shall take that as the beginning of tomorrow's lecture.