Holiness and Mission. Morna D. Hooker

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СКАЧАТЬ comes from Christ: ‘death is at work in us, but life in you’. But this is the pattern, not for apostles alone, but for all Christian disciples. Paul himself, he tells the Corinthians, has identified himself with Jew and Gentile, with those under the law and those outside the law, has become weak for the sake of the weak, has become all things in turn to all people, for the sake of the gospel.38 And they are to imitate him!

      It is clear, then, that the gospel is spread, not simply by word of mouth, but by actions. Writing to the Thessalonians, Paul reminds them how the message of the gospel had come to them, ‘not in word only, but also in power’ (1 Thessalonians 1.5), because they had seen what kind of people the apostles were – for their sake. It was the actions of the apostles, as much as their message, which had impressed the Thessalonians. And they, in turn, became imitators of Paul and of the Lord, and so became an example to others, with the result that the word of the Lord rang out throughout the whole region.

One of the best known of all New Testament stories is that of Paul’s conversion on the Damascus Road. In fact, ‘conversion’ may not be the best term for what happened, since it suggests that Paul was converted from one religion to another, whereas, of course, he continued to worship the same God – the God who, he now believed, had revealed himself in the death and resurrection of Christ.39 Luke gets so excited by the story that he tells it – at some considerable length – three times over,40 and in each version of the story he tells us that Paul was called to take the gospel to the Gentiles. Paul himself does not recount the story of the Damascus Road, but in one brief reference to what happened, he recalls the fact that the time came when, as he puts it:

      God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles.

      (Galatians 1.15–16)

      The story, which Luke tells at length, is here contracted to one sentence, and you will have noticed that Paul’s account concentrates on the purpose of his call – to preach to the Gentiles. But what exactly does he say? ‘God . . . was pleased to reveal his Son in me.’ Most translators understand Paul to be saying that God was pleased to reveal his Son to him, but I suspect that they do so because that is what they think Paul ought to have written. Is Paul not describing the revelation of Christ which was given to him on the Damascus Road? The problem is that the Greek preposition that Paul uses – the word en – normally means ‘in’. Was that perhaps what Paul meant? If not, why did he use en, rather than the normal Greek construction?

Let us suppose that what Paul intended to say was, indeed, that God was pleased to reveal his Son in him, in order that he might proclaim him among the Gentiles. If we are right in doing so, then Paul understood himself to have been commissioned, not simply to preach the gospel, but to live it. From that moment the Son of God had, as it were, taken over his life.41 Indeed, it would seem that Paul believed that it was necessary for him to live the gospel in order to preach it: God revealed his Son in him, in order that he might proclaim him. Christ was to be revealed in him – through his words and actions, his behaviour and his choice of missionary strategy. He can even speak of the fact that ‘the marks of Christ’ are ‘branded’ on his body (Galatians 6.17). No wonder, then, that he stresses again and again that what he has done is to try to live in conformity to the gospel.

Paul’s so-called ‘conversion’ was certainly a dramatic turning-point in his life. From now on he was convinced that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God, and that God had raised him from the dead. But his ‘conversion’ can be seen, I suggest, not as a move to a new religion, but rather as a change from one understanding of ‘holiness’ to another.42 As a Jew, Paul had been a Pharisee – a term which means ‘separated’. Pharisees took the call to be holy seriously, and for Paul, holiness had meant personal piety: living strictly according to the law, avoiding contamination, preserving a relationship with God. This was the ‘straight line’ model of holiness, linking the holy people with their holy God. But with his call to take the gospel to Gentiles, this understanding of holiness had been destroyed. ‘Be holy as I am holy’ now meant ‘be what I have revealed myself to be in the person of Jesus Christ, who loved you and gave himself up for you’. Now Paul realized that God’s holy people were called, not to keep God to themselves, but to take him out into the world, to offer the gospel to the nations, to share their knowledge of a loving and compassionate God. Paul’s understanding of holiness has become triangular. It means love of God and neighbour – and neighbours are not just his fellow Jews, but the Gentiles.

      From the history of both the nation, Israel, and the individual, Paul, we see that God’s call to belong to him involves the call to mission. This kind of God cannot be kept to ourselves. Mission is not an optional extra, but is part of a Christian’s DNA. Being holy means being like God – the God who, John tells us, loved the world to such an extent that he gave his only Son, so that none should perish (John 3.16). But this mission cannot be limited to the words of preachers or even to personal testimony. The call from God is to be holy – and for Christians, that means having the mind of Christ, and becoming like him. It means embodying the gospel, both as individuals and as a community. Mission is not a task to be assigned to a few chosen representatives, but a task for the whole Church, since the Church, as the body of Christ in the world, represents to the world what Christ is. What kind of image of Christ are we – as a community – offering to those among whom we live and work?

      Notes

      1. Preface to 1739 Hymns and Sacred Poems, in John Wesley, Works, Thomas Jackson (ed.), 1829–31, Vol. XIV, p. 321.

      2. Similarly Leviticus 19.2; 20.26; cf. Exodus 19.6; 22.31; Deuteronomy 7.6.

      3. See in particular IQS – The Community Rule.

      4. See Philippians 3.4–6.

      5. Genesis 12.3; 18.18.

      6. Isaiah 43.3, 14; 45.11; 47.4; 48.17; 49.7.

      7. Isaiah 2.2–4 = Micah 4.1–3; cf. Isaiah 55.5.

      8. Isaiah 55.5; 60.1–3.

      9. This is referred to in various Jewish writings, for example in Apoc. Moses (the Greek version of the Life of Adam and Eve) 20–1. By sinning, Adam lost his likeness to God. But in time the hope arose that one day this likeness would be restored, and men and women would once again reflect СКАЧАТЬ