The Scarlet Letter
By: Nathaniel Hawthorne Modernised and edited by Jim McGuiggan (2004)
By: Nathaniel Hawthorne Modernised and edited by Jim McGuiggan (2004)
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Being a “good ole boy” is good but it’s not good enough—not for a Christian.
Being a decent and upright person is good but it’s not good enough—not for a Christian.
The work of God goes on in the world in all the nations of the world and in all segments of all societies. He works in many ways generating and producing good deeds in people and he is ultimately responsible for anything that’s good in any of us [see Acts 17:25]. We have no reason to deny this nor should we want to!
But when he gathers to him the New Testament elect by the message of the gospel he is doing something else. When he does that he is calling into being “a people” to a peculiar place of service [as well as to salvation]. He is calling people into the new covenant and making them a part of the “body of Christ”—the Church. They are more than a religious movement, more than a “salvation group”, more than a community of decent people and “good ole boys”, more than a worshipping brother and sisterhood. The New Testament elect is an eternally purposed band of men and women who by God’s Spirit have been called into being and in whom Jesus by his Spirit dwells [Ephesians 1 & 2]. By this indwelling of Jesus’ Spirit they are the “body of Christ” and the extension of his incarnation and their business is to be the “body of Christ”.
Christians are to be “good ole boys” and upright people, for God knows the human family’s in dire need of people we can look at and admire for their honesty, helpfulness, openness, moral strength and dependability. But that’s not good enough! Christians are created to be witnesses of God’s eternal purpose toward the human family as it is revealed and embodied in Jesus Christ.
In every generation there are to be witnesses to God’s creative and redemptive work and Jesus walks the earth, embodied as a peculiar company of believers with a message called “the good news”; a message believed and sung and read and rehearsed in ordinances and liturgy and fleshed-out in patterns of thought and behaviour.
The NT elect holds the invincible Jesus before the entire world and before powers and authorities, visible and invisible, and by its very existence proclaims that Jesus is alive and well and is the coming Lord. It’s mission is to proclaim that a new creation, a new humanity, has already begun in the person of Jesus, in his personal experience, and that that new creation will fully become the personal experience of all who are embraced in his saving work in a coming day.
The mission and destiny of the NT elect is not to make everyone nicer or more upright—and that’s no bad thing; it’s to rehearse in the world and before the eyes and ears of the nations of the world God’s full intention to bring his creation purpose to a glorious, self-pleasing and people-blessing end [Colossians 1:16]. It is to make the truth known that the fulfilment of that purpose which will bless all the redeemed of the human family has already begun—it began when God revealed himself in the person and personal experience of Jesus Christ!
The business of the NT elect is not to offer possible “good news” but to bear witness to the truth of already existing good news. And among other things the good news is this: God has placed the dominion over the world in the hands of a new “Adam” [1 Corinthians 15:45,47], a new creation has begun and will be displayed publicly in full human experience when the Lord Jesus returns.
The NT elect isn’t comparing its level of moral attainment to the level of moral attainment in other people or movements [where that exists it’s the work of God]; it’s embodying, proclaiming and bearing witness to the holy, joy-bringing, world-healing and world-rescuing work made visible in Jesus Christ and in no other. The mission of the NT elect isn’t about them or any alleged moral supremacy—it’s about Him!
It’s about how He came to a world enslaved by alien powers, by a world-spirit that was and is too strong for it. It’s about how he declared war on all that enslaved his fellow-humans, his sin-sick, sin-loving and yet sin-hating fellows who loved their chains even while they wished they were free of them. In coming he came to do his Holy Father’s will; not to punish or destroy but to liberate—to set free [Luke 4:16-21; John 3:16-17! He came to make a new world [“Look, I’m making everything new”—Revelation 21:5]. He overcame the corrupted powers and the world is new [Colossians 2:15; Ephesians 1:19-23] and the Church bears witness to that—that’s their peculiar business and it’s theirs alone [Ephesians 3:10, 21]!
They don’t live their lives to “feather their own nests”. They don’t gather to express their moral superiority [they have none] nor is it just to be thankful for their salvation [they aren’t God’s “pets”]. They gather to gain strength, to learn better, to be inspired, rebuked, challenged and helped so that they can better bear witness to the faithfulness of God who in Jesus has revealed that he hasn’t jettisoned humanity and that our sinfulness has not made him renege on his commitment to bring us to glory in a life that is brimful of life.
That’s what their songs are about, that’s what their Bible Story is about, that’s what their prayers are about, that’s what their confession of sins is about, that’s what their hope is about, that’s what their good news is about. They think it’s good that they’re seen as “good ole boys” and “decent people” but in their more lucid moments, when they’re more in tune with their calling and their mission they know that’s not good enough.
