We have seen that the life God created humans to enjoy is centered on a provision and a prohibition. At the center of the garden was: “The Tree of Life was in the midst of the garden, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” (Genesis 2:9b). But one of the trees was forbidden. God instructed them: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat….” (Genesis 2:16b-17a) Our lives are meant to be centered on the confidence that God will share his eternal life with us as well as on the reverent acknowledgement that we are not to seek that which God reserves for himself. We are to leave God the knowledge of good and evil. Instead of getting fullness of life from the love that God is, we attempt to get life from being wise, knowing good and evil. We live in judgment rather than love.
God is not first and foremost interested in acquiring a people who happen to believe all the right things and act in all the right ways. God’s first concern, and really his only concern, is to have a people who are united with him in love. Everything hangs on our understanding the difference between living out of love, which then produces good results, and living out of goodness as an ethical goal in and of itself.
Religious people choose religious idols and thus set up different set of criteria for what is good and evil. Religious people’s beliefs, rituals, and behavior are good, while those of other people, insofar as they are different from their own, are evil. However, the truest beliefs and the most righteous deeds are devoid of any value unless they arise out of a fullness of love (1 Cor. 13:1-3). On this issue we concede that if biblical truth is applied in unloving ways, it is simply religious noise and may actually be damaging.
This seems to be a classic case of religious community using its knowledge of good and evil in service to itself, parasitically feeding itself worth by extracting it from an arbitrarily selected group from which it separates itself. It’s a classic case of getting the life from judging others. Religious idolators need to believe that the sins they commit are not as bad as the ones they avoid. This contrast is a central aspect of the strategy for getting life that their religious idol demands. It defines the way they eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The self-serving strategy of discrimination between greater and lesser sins, and thus between those who are in and those who are out, is so ingrained in the idolatrous form of religious life that those who feed off it sincerely believe they are simply reflecting the mind of God in their distinctions. Looking good is the religious idolater’s way of life. (Luke 18:11-12)
By contrast, life in Christ is living out of a fullness of life and love you have for free, for in Christ we are filled with God’s own Spirit and are made a participant in God’s own triune fellowship. Life in Christ is a life that is free from condemnation from God and therefore free from any condemnation of ourselves or others. It is life that empowers us to do the right thing because it frees us to do the living thing, precisely because we are no longer trying to get life from doing the right thing. In Christ, we are freed from our religious pathology because we are filled with the love that is God himself.
The only way we can get life is by being united with God, as he always intended. A life-giving relationship with God can only be entered into when we stop trying to establish it on the basis of our knowledge of good and evil. The only way to get life is to have it freely infused into us by the Spirit of God. People’s actions do not spring from an abstract ethical system (Gal. 2:16), but when they have died to themselves as center and live in their identity in Christ (Gal. 2:20).
It is crucial to remember that the New Testament’s behavioral injunctions are predicated on the new life and identity believers have in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). When this point is forgotten, the New Testament’s behavioral injunctions are mistaken to be ethical mandates after which people are encouraged to strive. Paul was not giving us a list of do’s and don’ts in 1 Corinthians 13. He was rather describing what life in Christ, life in love, and/or life in the Spirit looks like. His purpose was not to get us to act different; his goal was to help us to be different. Paul was giving us a flag to help us notice when we are acting out of love. Paul’s behavioral injunctions are evidences that disciples are participating in the abundant life Jesus came to give.
The New Testament is not about ethical behavior; it’s about a radical new way of living. It is about life lived in surrendered union to God through faith in Jesus Christ. It demands a holiness of the heart that does not feed the fallen self by distancing itself from sinners but rather sacrifices itself to unite with sinners. This kind of holiness can never be achieved through behavior. It has to be received by grace.
In the proper context, of course, there is nothing wrong with concerns about right belief and proper behavior. But it is evidence of spiritual pathology when these concerns dominate our individual or collective lives and are not rather merely by-products of what ought to dominate our lives: the outrageous, freely given, unsurpassable love of God to us and through us. Only when we receive God’s love, given to us in Christ, as an unconditional, free gift can we ever love others in an unconditional and free manner.
Boyd, Gregory A. Repenting of Religion – Turning from Judgment to the Love of God. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004.