More Than Just Feelings

One of the objections I commonly encounter when talking about experiential Christianity is that it is “all about feelings.” People equate experienced interaction with God with feelings of joy and peace, inner promptings, words of knowledge etc. But this is a serious misunderstanding.

I mentioned in the last posting that experiential Christianity is really about “walking with God.” It differs from theoretical Christianity, or historical Christianity, which is essentially just a thing of the mind. Experiential Christianity is about living with God – interacting with him as we see the characters of the Bible doing so, especially the writers of the Psalms in the Old Testament. Their God was real, personally present, and able to be approached. They experienced God in their lives in response to their prayers. He was “a very present help” to them in their troubles (Ps. 46:1 A.V.).

That kind of spirituality can’t be dismissed as purely emotional or subjective. True, the emotions of people are deeply involved in their daily experiences of life with God. They cry to him in distresses that are real – situations that have rubbed their emotions raw – and their responses to God’s grace and mercy involve profound feelings of joy and gratitude. It would be totally wrong to suggest that living with God is “unemotional.” We were created emotional beings, and our emotions are perfected as we walk with Christ and become more like him.

But it is another thing altogether to suppose that our relationship with God is based on emotion – that is, upon feelings, promptings, and urges that we experience within ourselves. That’s dangerous territory – the realm of mysticism. True, there is a subjective element of the Spirit’s influence in our minds and hearts that registers in us as deeply felt awareness and impression, and we will explore this some other time. But that reality doesn’t mean that our lives are based on our feelings, or our inner impulses.

True experiential spirituality is based on what God reveals of himself in the Bible. It’s an intimate, interpersonal fellowship with him. We relate to him as he has made himself known and in the ways that he has made known. The fact that in the course of that we experience deep feelings (see Psalm 84 for example, and passages such as 1 Thessalonians 1:6 and Romans 14:17), doesn’t mean that experienced spirituality is in itself only a matter of feelings.

Experiential Spirituality

The kind of “living in Christ” patterned by Jesus in his relationship with his Father belongs to the experiential side of Christian spirituality. That is to say, it belongs to the practical, living-out-in-life side of our relationship with God.

Author and theologian J.I. Packer has commented that evangelicals today are “less sure-footed” in this dimension of Christian living than were their forebears. Evangelical Christians have focused on knowledge and doctrine and the Bible, resulting in a strong cognitive or intellectual dimension to their faith. For many, the Christian life is largely a matter of knowing the Bible and applying it to daily life.

That’s all very well and good. But one aspect of the “truth” that evangelicals warmly embrace is the fact that God is a personal being who desires our love, worship and fellowship. The goal of theology is really to know God in this kind of way. To put it another way, the ultimate aim of informed evangelicals is to “walk with God”. And that inevitably brings us into the realm of experiential Christianity – the experience of knowing God in the practicalities of everyday life.

One reason why many are hesitant in this area is the fact that experienced relationship with God brings us into the realm of interaction with him. We call upon God, and he hears us and draws near to us. He is a dynamic and living reality in daily life. That necessarily supposes that he will guide us and comfort us – and yes, even “speak to us.” And it is that in particular that makes many evangelical Christians wary. Such “experiences” of God at work in our lives appear to threaten the sufficiency of Scripture. As evangelicals we firmly believe that the written Scriptures are complete and totally sufficient for every aspect of life and godliness. That to our mind, rules out any possibility of more direct, personal communications between God and us on a daily basis.

I wholeheartedly concur that the Scriptures are complete and sufficient. But in what sense is that true? We confess that they are a complete record of all that God wants to tell us about himself and his redemptive work in Christ. They take us from the beginning of the works of God in creation to their consummation in the new heaven and earth. There is nothing more we need to know about what God has done, is doing, and will do in his redemptive work in Christ. And all we need to know to live in covenant with God as his redeemed people is made plain in the writings of the law, the prophets, the gospels and the epistles. In that sense the Scriptures are finished and totally sufficient. We need nothing else.

But if the Scriptures reveal anything, they reveal that the true and living God is personal and relates to those who are in covenant fellowship with him. The spirituality of the Bible is not an impersonal spirituality of living by doctrines and rules contained in a book. Abraham and David, John and Paul lived in intimate personal fellowship with God. God’s self-disclosure, be it through theophany, vision, dream, prophecy or through the incarnation of his Son, was always to the end that we might know him and respond to him. He has even come to live within us through the Spirit in this new covenant age. By means of his word, the Spirit draws us into and sustains us in living fellowship with the Father and his Son.

That necessarily means that true Christianity is ultimately experiential in character – it involves experienced relationship with God.

Living in Christ in Action

The past few days I've been caught up in effects of the violent storms that have been rocking the south-eastern part of Southland. Farmers in our district have been particularly hard hit with lamb and ewe losses - the lambs from exposure and the ewes from milk fever. Everyone has suffered major losses. 

Pastorally, its been like trying to deal with grief on a large scale. The farmers and their families have been grieving over what has been happening. It's not that they treat their animals as though they were human; they just care for them, and hate to see them suffering and dying.

Venturing out into that world of anguish has been a challenge. The last thing I've wanted to do is to intrude, or to offer trite-sounding (howbeit, biblical) comfort. Frankly its the kind of situation that an introvert like me shrinks from. Nevertheless, it is a moment of great need, and of great opportunity.

Faced with this, I have found myself clinging to Christ with every fibre in my being. How deeply I have depended on him for the right words in a telephone call, the right tone and attitude in a visit. Sure, I've been conscious of my need to act; but I've been even more aware that I need the life of Christ in me and working through me to be able to act in the right way. It's been a very practical test case for the reality and dynamics of living in Christ. And he has proved faithful.

One very specific way I've been conscious of the Lord at work in me relates to gifts of  scorched, chocolate coated almonds! As I prayed for farmers and prepared to visit them, the thought of taking a small gift has come to mind. Usually that's the sort of thing my wife would think of, not me. But, in Nola's absence (she is caring for her aging and ailing mother), the Spirit of the Lord within me has drawn my mind to this way of expressing love and care. At least, that's how I interpret the very distinct impressing of this idea upon my mind. Given that, it's not surprising that in almost every case people have said to me, "Wonderful - they are my favourites!"

That, to me anyway, is what living in Christ is about.

Nothing Apart From Him

The flip side of the Father living and working in Jesus was Jesus' total dependence upon his Father.

We see this in Jesus' response to the Jews after healing the invalid by the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-15). When charged with blaspheming because he called God his "own Father", Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can only do what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does... By myself I can do nothing..." (vv. 19, 30).

This is an emphatic and clear declaration. Jesus didn't go around simply relying on his Father to help him out as he implemented his own plans. No! He didn't do anything apart from his Father. His life was that of a faithful Son doing the things his Father was doing.

I often liken this to my own experience as a boy growing up on the farm. During school holidays my brothers and I invariably worked with our father. As we did so, we never entertained for a moment the thought of making our own plans as to what we would do: we either saw what our father was doing and joined him, or carried out his expressed wishes. There was no "going solo", doing what we thought best in the way that we thought best. As sons, we did what our father wanted in the way he wanted it done.

That seems to be what Jesus was saying. His life on earth was totally given up to doing his Father's will. And as he surrendered himself to that, the Father worked in and through him. In that way the kingdom or rule of God was actually present in Jesus. Through him, God was at work to bring about his rule in the earth.

Jesus here sets before us the pattern God intended for human existence. When God made us like himself, he meant that we should live our lives totally dependent upon him and dedicated to him. And as we lived in such a way, he would come and live in us and work through us. 

 

“The Father Living in Me”

Perhaps the clearest reference Jesus made to his life "in the Father" occurred in the Upper Room as he was preparing his disciples for his departure.

At that point his followers were still befuddled by his reference to leaving them, and asked him to show them the Father to whom he was going (John 14:8). In reply Jesus said that to have seen him was to have seen the Father (14:8). "Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?" he asked. "The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, who is living in me, who is doing his work."

What a striking statement. "It is the Father, who is living in me..." Jesus understood his Father not simply to be present with him, but living in him. That is to say, his Father was a dynamic, active personal presence within him – within his mind and heart and will. The Father was in him working, influencing, directing and empowering. And as a result, Jesus could say that the Father was actually "doing his work." Jesus, of course, was active. But it was nevertheless the Father living in him who was behind his actions. And the works he (Jesus) did, and the words he spoke, were not his own, but the Father's. That's why he could say that to have seen him was to have seen the Father. The Father was so much at work in Jesus that all he did was really a revelation of the Father working in him.

This is exactly what Paul meant when he wrote about Christ "living in him" (Galatians 2:20). And it is what the Westminster Confession refers to when it speaks of the Christians' good works in this way: "Their ability to do good works is not at all of themselves, but wholly from the Spirit of Christ. And that they may be enabled thereunto, beside the graces they have already received, there is required an actual influence of the same Holy Spirit, to work in them to will, and to do, of his good pleasure..." (WCF XVI:3)

The Christian life is an empowered life; a life that manifests the indwelling of God within us.

Never Alone

Following on from what I wrote last time, one little expression of Jesus in John's Gospel has come to mean much to me. It's the comment he made to his disciples in John 16:32 about never being alone.

Jesus was about to be betrayed and crucified. His followers had expressed new-found understanding of  his knowledge of all things and with that had come a deepened conviction that he had "come from God." What they said amounted to a fresh declaration of their loyalty to him.

Yet, knowing them as he did, Jesus replied, "You believe at last!... But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave me alone. Yet, I am not alone, for my Father is with me" (John 6:31-32).

"Not alone... for my Father is with me." What precious words these are. Not only was Jesus aware of the personal presence of his Father with him; he was always aware of it. The only time when that may not have been true was during those dark hours of his dereliction on the cross. His cry, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34) points to a time when the immediate sense of his Father's presence deserted him. Apart from that, however, he seems always to have known the real, intimate companionship of the Father.

Jesus had indicated that earlier in his ministry as well. Once, when condemning the Pharisees for judging by human standards, he declared, "I pass judgment on no one. But if I do judge, my decisions are right, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father who sent me" (John 8:16). Then later in the same chapter we read, "The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him" (8:29).

I find these words incredibly comforting. More than that, I find them inspiring. How wonderful to know that we can experience the same personal presence of Jesus with us as he knew with his Father. For surely, when he promised his disciples that he would be with them to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20) he was referring to precisely the same thing - his personal presence as a constant companion at hand to help in every circumstance of life, especially those relating to his ongoing mission in the world.

Like him we can say, "I am not alone." We need to train ourselves to remember that moment by moment.

A Relational Thing

The Jesus we meet in the Gospels, and particularly in the Gospel of John, is a real human person. He not only looks like a man but he thinks, feels and acts like a man. What's so unique about him is that he, as a person, is God. He is the eternal Son who has always existed with the Father, and who even as we see him among us, remains God.

Yet, as he lives among us, he does so also as a man. So it is when he speaks of knowing the Father is always with him (John 8:16, 29; 16:32) he is referring to the consciousness of his Father's personal presence, just as we are aware of the personal presence of a wife or friend in the same room. He is not speaking of his essential oneness of being with the Father, but of the Father's personal presence with him. It is a relational thing rather than a matter of being, substance or essence.

It's in that context that we are to understand what it meant for him to live "in" his Father and to have his Father living "in" him. Aware of his Father's presence, Jesus lived a life of constant reliance upon him. He looked to him in all things, literally living his life "in" him. And as he did so, the Father lived and worked in him, giving him words to say, wisdom to judge, power to act. His life was a constant demonstration of the presence of God living and working in another person.

The wonderful thing is that this can be true for us too in our relationship with Jesus. We live "in" him as we express constant reliance upon and confidence in him. And he lives in us as he manifests his presence through his indwelling Spirit, giving us his love, power, wisdom and grace as we need it and as we seek it.

Just Like Jesus

I’ve been helped in recent times in my appreciation of what it means to live “in Christ” by Jesus’ relationship with his Father. For many years I didn’t realize that he himself models what it means to live “in” another person, but my recent study of John’s Gospel has convinced me that his life with his Father was exactly that – a constant experience of living his life “in” another person.


Jesus spoke of his relationship with his Father in those terms on more than one occasion. Once when he was answering unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem he said to them that if they couldn’t believe what he was saying about himself and his relationship with the Father, then they ought to believe his works (his miracles). If they only comprehended what was really happening when he was performing these – the mighty works of healing the sick, casting our demons, stilling stormy lakes, raising the dead – they would realise that he wasn’t acting alone. Instead they would see that his Father - the God whom they acknowledged as their God - was always with him and working in him. You will know and understand, he says to them, "that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father” (John 10:38).

Speaking to his disciples just before he died he said something similar. They had reached the point of believing that he was the Son of God and that he had come from God. Yet they still longed to see and know the Father. “Lord, show us the Father,” his disciple Philip asked him, “and that will be enough for us” (John 14:8). Frustrated by their slowness to learn – to “connect the dots” in their thinking as it were – he said to them, “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father living in me, who is doing his work” (John 14:10).

Then in his great prayer to his Father before being arrested (the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus), Jesus asked that his followers all be kept one, “just as you are in me and I am in you” (John 17:21). He was obviously wanting them to be kept one in mind, heart, spirit and mission - people so closely connected with each other that they could be said to be "one." That's what his relationship with the Father was like; a bond so close that it could be described in terms of a mutual indwelling of two persons.

What makes all of this so relevant is that Jesus uses the same terminology exactly to describe the kind of relationship he would have with his disciples after his death and resurrection. As he comforts them on the eve of his betrayal and death, he promises that after he leaves them he will send another “Counsellor” (the Holy Spirit). In that connection he says “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you” (John 14:20). The very connection he has with the Father (and the Father has with him), would be replicated between himself and his followers. He would be "in" them, and they "in" him.

I find this fantastic, hardly believable. More than that, I find it the best place to start this exploration of what it means to "live in Christ." True, he was different to us in the sense of being himself the divine Son of his Father, sharing the essential nature of his Father. Yet, as we shall see next time, the "indwelling" of the Father that he has in mind here is not an indwelling of shared nature, but an indwelling of persons. That's what makes it a pattern for us.

THE BIG PICTURE

As tempting as it is to plunge immediately into discussing particular aspects of our life in Christ, it is probably wise to begin by getting a big picture of what such a life entails. If I’ve learned anything from my years of teaching it is the value of having an overview of a topic before getting immersed in its details. Disorientation and imbalance almost always arise if you don’t.

As I see it, living in Christ can’t be limited to one or two activities like praying, Bible reading and going to church. It’s a way of existing, a new kind of life. God made us capable of knowing him and with the intention that we should live our life in him in an interactive fellowship of love and personal responsibility. After our first parents rebelled our race lost that privilege and became separated from the life of God (Ephesians 4:18). The story of the Bible is the story of God restoring that fellowship with us in Christ. It’s not done directly with us as individuals but through a mediator, a go-between, the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5).

The eternal Son, the second Person of the Godhead, was chosen and appointed to that role in the counsels of the Trinity in eternity (1 Peter 1:20). In order to restore humankind to God it was ordained that he should take upon himself our nature (without surrendering his divinity), meet all the requirements of the law (which God required of us but no human was ever able to do), and then make legal satisfaction for our sin (through his death on the cross). Having done this, the incarnate Son returned to be with his Father where he now ever “lives unto God” (Romans 6:10).

But our restoration didn’t take place automatically the moment the Lord Jesus completed his work on earth. It happens only we are drawn to him through his Word and Spirit. Through humble reliance (faith), we are brought into a personal relationship with him that is unique. It is so close that it can only be depicted through images. It is likened to the union between a husband and a wife, between members and the head of a body, between branches and a vine, and between stones and a building (Ephesians 5:25-33; 1 Corinthians 12:12,13; John 15:1-7; 1 Peter 2:4,5). It is a relationship that is personal, intimate and permanent, and sealed by the gift of the Holy Spirit who comes to live within all who belong to Christ (Ephesians 1:13).

Such is the bond that is established between us and the Lord Jesus that, in a very real sense, we lose our independent identity. We are no longer our own but belong to him (1 Corinthians 6:19, 20; Titus 2:14). While our personality is not submerged in his, we nevertheless exist for him. That’s what the Apostle Paul meant when he wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

That’s what “living in Christ” is about. It’s a new kind of life with many dimensions to it. And it is that new life that we want to explore together in the days and weeks ahead.

Welcome to Living in Christ.

Recently while in Singapore speaking at a church camp I was encouraged to consider setting up a blog to share ideas on Christian spiritual life with a wider audience. This is the result.

For forty years I've had a passion to know and walk with Christ and to help others do so as well. After teaching at university for eight years (in the Department of Soil Science at Lincoln University, New Zealand) I served as a pastor first in Christchurch, New Zealand and then in Brisbane, Australia. In 1995 I became founding Principal of Grace Theological College, a non-denominational evangelical and Reformed theological college in Auckland, New Zealand. After thirteen happy and fruitful years there I was called back to pastoral ministry in Wyndham, a small rural town in the deep south of New Zealand. My wife Nola and our second son John and I moved here in May 2008 and are enjoying a wide and varied ministry among welcoming people.

A significant part of our life here consists in deepening our understanding of what it means to live in Christ moment by moment, day by day. Over recent years I have read, thought, talked and taught a great deal about this subject, and am continuing to explore what it means in practice - especially in the context of pastoral ministry. I by no means consider myself to have "arrived" in the sense of being a master of the Christian life - who can? But there are definitely things I have learned along the way, and continue to learn. It's these I want to share with others interested in knowing Christ and entering into a fuller experience of the new life he came to give.

Most of what I write in this blog will be the fruit of reading and reflection. Little will be original, just the essence of what I believe the Spirit of Christ has been and is teaching me day by day. I do hope it is helpful, and would welcome comments and responses from those it encourages.

Andrew Young