If the church is to be the non-judgmental, unconditionally loving, corporate body of Christ it is called to be, how will people be motivated and empowered to increasingly grow out of their sin and become more Christ-like? How do we practically grow in Christ-likeness when we are welcoming all into the celebration of the cessation of the ban? It is absolutely true that God has called us to make disciples, not mere believers (Matt. 28:19). How can we as a church move in this direction if all are accepted just as they are? How do we balance a concern to love nonjudgmentally with a concern to become a holy people?
At the start it must be noted that the concern itself reveals how much trust we have in our power of judgment rather than the power of God and of his love flowing through us. We trust the accuracy of our judgment and trust the power of our disapproval to fix people. Somehow those sinners need to get the message. They need to become like us if they want to be part of us. The result is that in the name of obeying Scripture, we disobey Scripture. In the name of love we judge. In the name of serving others, we end up serving ourselves. In thinking that we can and should fix people, we are being hypocrites, for we ourselves need fixing.
The answer, I shall now argue, is that we are to grow in Christ-likeness not by social pressure but by the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, by the Word of God being preached and modeled by leaders, and by sharing life together with others in intimate relationships. The only way any of us grows in conformity with Jesus Christ is by being in Christ through faith and by having Christ in us through His Sprit.
The question is, Do we trust God? Do we trust God is working in the hearts of all people, leading them at their own pace in the same direction God is leading us? Do we trust that people receive the Holy Spirit when they believe (Eph. 1:13-14) whatever their appearance may be and whatever bondage they might continue to experience?
But doesn’t such an unconditionally loving approach to sinners make light of sin? We trivialize sin when we make it a matter of more or less. Sin is only taken seriously when we realize that, apart from Christ, we are all in the same septic tank of condemnation together.
We are to have faith that what God says about himself in Christ is true, what God says about us in Christ is true, and what God says about others is true. So whatever the appearance may be, we are to have faith that God is working in others to do what only God can do. James addresses this point when he commands us to be doers of the law and not judges of the law (James 4:11-12). The best thing we can do for others, therefore, is do the law and love them, not judge the law and judge them.
One of the primary ways the Holy Spirit grows us into conformity with Christ is through the reaching and preaching ministry of the church. The community of Christ is to be centered on the teaching and preaching of God’s Word as a means of being centered on Christ. A biblical community must have as unqualified a commitment to the Word of God as it does to loving all people without judgment and accepting all people without condition. There is nothing judgmental, unaccepting, or inappropriate about the Word of God being boldly taught or proclaimed within the Christian community, even to those who don’t yet believe. For in their willingness to hear the Word, people give the teacher or preacher permission to speak into their lives.
If a sermon or lesson is presented in love, it will be tailored as much as possible to the need of the particular congregation or class. If a person in the congregation or small group is not willing to hear what is being taught, he or she will simply shut it out and perhaps not return. So it was with Jesus’ ministry, and so it should be in ours (John 6:66-67).
Biblical teachers or preachers shouldn’t go out of their way to offend, of course, but neither should they go out of their way not to offend. But it does mean that when operating out of one’s call as a teacher or preacher, one need not and should not be overly concerned about offending people. They must simply present the Word of God faithfully and lovingly. Their lives need to be examples of what is explicitly taught and preached in the church. They need to be examples of what it looks like to do the will of God rather than to hear it or judge it (James 1:25, 4:11). They need to be free from the fallen addiction to hide and perform (Chapter 9).
We see, then, that the teaching and preaching ministry of the church, combined with the work of the Holy Spirit in people’s lives, keeps a community focused on its center and growing in Christ-likeness. As long as Jesus is leading the pack, it is no one’s concern to police those who follow.
The New Testament teaches that members of the body of Christ are to encourage one another (1 Thess. 4:18), confess sin to one another and pray for one another (James 5:16), speak the truth to one another (Eph. 4:15), care for one another (1 Peter 4:10), admonish one another (Gal. 6:1), and even confront one another. Indeed, we are to be willing to remove a member of our community for the fellowship if he or she obstinately persists in sin that destroys him or her and/or threatens the community (Matt. 18:15-18).
If the New Testament’s teaching on confession and accountability seem to us to stand in tension with its strong teaching against judgment, it is only because the New Testament presupposes an understanding of community that is largely absent in the modern church. Early Christians lived life in strongly bonded, intimate relationships with one another. The primary gatherings (ecclesia, “church”) in the early period were in people’s homes. Paul’s letters reveal that the church largely consisted of people who knew each other personally (e.g., Rom. 16:3-23, 1 Cor. 16:10-15, 2 Tim. 4:19-21). It wasn’t until the fourth century that special religious buildings were devoted to Christians gathering in large groups.
The New Testament’s teaching about our need to confess sin to one another and to hold each other accountable has to be understood against this background. Loving and helpful confession and accountability are founded on a Spirit-created trust that grows out of a life shared together. In intimate contexts, people are freed to be open about their struggles and to ask for help, for they fear no judgment.
Yet, as with a family that has to deal with a radically dysfunctional member, there were times in the early church, just as there are times in our own lives, when the group was led to intervene and put a stop to the actions of one of its members (1 Cor. 5:1-5). Out of love for the individual and for the integrity of the group, the community leveraged their relationship with the person in order to help the individual wake up to the destructive nature of his or her behavior. And even when removal from the fellowship occurred, its motive was not vengeance but love.
This form of love that is appropriate to intimate relationships cannot be practiced generally. Lifting the New Testament’s teaching on accountability out of its original context of intimate, small groups and generalizing it in a carte blanche way today is not only not helpful, it is positively harmful. We become a community of accusers rather than a community of outrageous lovers. Outside of small group settings, confronting people about issues in their lives is rude, to say the least, and thus is not loving (1 Cor. 13:4-5)
While intimate relationships among small clusters of Christians characterized in the early church, they are largely absent from the modern church. This is one of the greatest deficiencies of the modern church. Many Christians today live out their faith without any deep, meaningful relationships with other believers or seekers. There is no one they trust enough to naturally confess sin or ask to be held accountable.
There is no shortcut to the arduous commitment it takes to grow into an intimate community. Most of all, the people who form a community of outrageous love can only love like this if they are centered on Christ.
What keeps a community of outrageous love moving in the direction of Christ-likeness, despite its lack of clearly defined perimeters, is its strong center. A community of outrageous love is centered on its confidence that the Holy Spirit is at all times and in all people at work to change us into the likeness of Christ. It is centered on the strong commitment of its leaders to teach the Word of God by example. And it is woven together around this center by the intimate relationships its members have with other members in small-group fellowships.
What Most Surprised Me About Christians When I Became One | Rosaria Butterfield
Epilogue
If we are to be the people God has saved us and empowered us to be, people who live out their true identity in Christ rather than people who live out a religious version of stolen knowledge, we must first repent. Repentance (metanoia) is not primarily about feeling remorseful or even personally guilty over something. Feelings have little to do with it. It is about a decision to turn. Individually we are called to turn from our self-centered way of living, trying to acquire our own provision while we violate the divine prohibition to judge. And collectively, as the community of faith, we are called to turn from our religion.
There is no freedom like being free to love without judgment. It is what we were made for. If believers consistently discipline themselves to collapse all judgment and simply ascribe unsurpassable worth to every person they encounter, they learn in an experiential way what it is to “abide in Christ” and “walk in the Spirit.” It is the experience of God’s own abundant life. It is the experience of God’s love flowing to you and through you. It is knowing firsthand the truth that set one absolutely free (John 8:31-32). It is dancing with the triune God.
Our life is not found in correct doctrine or in our piety, as important as these are. To get life from these things is religion. Our life is rather found in Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ alone. When we repent of our religion and commit to seeing God, ourselves, and every person we encounter only as he or she is in Jesus Christ, and as we allow God’s Spirit to express this truth our outrageous sacrificial love, the world will come to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, as Jesus promised.
We must testify that it is only by the outrageous love and mercy of God that any of us have any hope. And that, in the end, is the only message we have ever had to offer anyone.
Boyd, Gregory A. Repenting of Religion – Turning from Judgment to the Love of God. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004.