A Response to Dr. Metzger’s Recent Blog Post
I’m in a cohort with Dr. Paul Louis Metzger and here is my recent response to one of his recent blog post: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/uncommongodcommongood/2014/01/how-seriously-do-we-take-jesus-words-on-the-need-for-christian-unity/
As I reflect on Dr. Metzger recent blog post, “How Seriously Do We Take Jesus’ Words on the Need for Christian Unity?” I am reminded that if biblical unity is to be achieved, it MUST be deeply framed in the cross. As Jesus faced his impending death, the one truth in Jesus’ final priestly prayer centers around a re-imagining, if you will, of Christ’s vision for unity that is two fold:
One, it’s deeply relational
and
Two, it’s tragically painful
The reason it is deeply relational is because of the Trinitarian language we read in the full arc of John 17. In Vv.21-23, the language “…that all of them be one…as you are in me and I am in you… they… be in us so that the world…believes…you have sent me,” demonstrates the relational nature of a triune God that calls us out of the shallow end of the pools of fellowship into the deeper waters. This is more than interacting with other networks, denominations or citywide church gatherings; this is spiritual intimacy of another order that is deeply hardwired into God’s DNA. It is how God interacts within Himself and He calls us into that union within Him and each other.
Second, this unity is tragically painful. Soon after Jesus’ prayer in John 17, He is nailed to a cross by dying the death of a common criminal. But what makes Jesus’ death unique is not necessarily the torture of His death, but rather, the unity and fellowship this triune God had shared within Himself for all of eternity. That and THAT alone is the painful tragedy of the cross—UNITY interrupted. I long for the church to take the mandate of unity serious, but that will only happen when we see it through the prism of the cross. Even as unity came with a cost and it will surely cost the church because it’s relationally risky to enter into that kind of oneness with others. Especially if the other is different then you ethnically, racially, economically or ecclesiastically.
Killing Them Softly, with Negrodamus 