David Lipscomb (1912)–More Gems

April 9, 2009

The octogenarian David Lipscomb, knowing his last years were upon him, intentionally broached subjects and pressed points that he hoped would shape the future of the church. Here are few examples.

Debates Need to End. Lipscomb thought that debates between “Baptists and disciples” needed to change or cease. They needed to stress the commonalities more than the differences. He believed much more united them than divided them.

It has been a growing thought in my mind for some years that the end or purpose of debates among professing Christians should be changed. Now they debate to see how much and how far they differ. Each tries to make the faith of the other look as bad as possible. That is not a kind and fraternal way of treating each other. Doctor Loftin and Brother [F. W.] Smith have been discussing the differences between the disciples and the Baptists. In doing this they were compelled to observe the points of agreement. Without the knowledge of either of them, I propose that they discuss and show the points of agreement between them. They both believe in the Bible as the word of God; in God, the Father; in Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the world; in the Hooly Spirit, who came to the world to guide men in the paths of salvation. They both believe in faith, repentance and baptism into Christ….The controversy is as to the point at which, in his mind, God forgives the sins of one coming to him. Does man’s knowledge of the point at which God forgives sin hinder or help God in forgiving when the sinner comes to the place in the path of obedience? [1]

General Booth and the Salvation Army. Lipscomb’s preference for the poor is on full display as he comments on the death of William Booth (1829-1912), the founder of the Salvation Army.

But he was not a man to be laughed out of his work. His work was a much-needed, but neglected, work. It was a God-approved work. God has instructed his children to preach to the poor. They were not, are not, doing it. When the world saw Booth, a man of faith and energy and life, engage in the work, they responded promptly to his call and helped forward his work. He has moved the whole religious world on this point of preaching to the poor. That was a needed work. It is a work, an effort in a direction to which all should respond. All should magnify the work of preaching to the poor and helping the needy by all speaking well of, and encouraging in a right way, the work ordained by God. The work of helping and preaching to the poor should be exalted and magnified by the children of God leading in and exalting that work, by Christians doing it in God’s appointed ways and through the provisions he has made. [2]

Humble Obedience. In his continuing war against rebaptism, Lipscomb constantly stressed the nature of true obedience. It was not a matter of perfect or precise understanding but about trust (faith). This piece goes to the heart of his argument against rebaptism. Saving obedience is not about precision, perfection or even fully accurate understanding. It is about the mercy of God.

The letters to the churches show much weakness and many mistakes and wrongs among Christians in the early ages of the church; but not once do we find a person rejected or required to do his work over again for weakness of faith or misunderstanding requirements. To do this is something new under the sun, and is of man, not of God. I had rather go before God realizing my weakness and liability to sin, trusting him for mercy and pardon, than to go relying upon my good understanding and obedience to the perfect will of God. I hope and trust to be saved, not by the fullness and correctness of my understanding of God’s will, but by his love and mercy to all who want to serve him. [3]

“Poor in Spirit” the Key to Unity. This comment is from 1911 but it dovetails with the previous point. Again in conversation with Rebaptists, he stressed that their sectarianism is destroying not only the unity of God’s people but undermining the priority of faith.

The first prerequisite for entrance into the kingdom of God is, one should feel ‘poor in spirit.’ He must feel his own lack of spiritual power or resources before he can come to God in an acceptable spirit, in a spirit that God will accept. The spirit that feels its poverty, its helplessnesses, its need of guidance and strength, is the one that God looks on with pity and compassion and is willing to lift up and guide.”

We have pleaded for the union of Christians. Our work has been felt. Are we fit to still lead on in this work? While emphasizing truths connected with this union, have not we become sectarian ourselves? Many have espoused a common sectarianism with the churches around us [the Disciples of Christ, JMH]. Are not many others moving into a sectarianism in opposition to others [the Rebaptists, JMH]? Let us be humble and faithful, looking to God for help and guidance, and not be self-sufficient.

‘For remission,’ or ‘into the remission of sins,’ occupying its God-given place among other blessings leading to obedience, is a wholesome doctrine, full of comfort and blessing; but, taking out of it place and exalted above other blessings and favors promised by God, it becomes a party ensign and hinders rather than helps forward the union of God’s people and the salvation of the world. God makes all of his truths helpful in leading men forward in the work of salvation, yet he demands that his requirements should all be treated alike, each occupying the place assigned it by God himself. To exalt one promise or one duty above another is to mutilate and subvert the plan of salvation and hinder rather than help to save man. Faith in Jesus Christ as the great, leading, far-reaching principle that molds the life and leads to and helps every act of service, God has placed before and above all other services of man. The acts of obedience that grow out of faith, as fruits of faith, come in to complete and finish the character and life of the believer, and to fit it for a home with God. [4]

Overemphasis on Baptism? What does it mean to preach the Word? Lipscomb saw among his contemporaries some dangerous tendencies and he called them back to the fundamentals of Christianity—the Sermon on the Mount. Once again, for Lipscomb, the gospel is not simply the death and resurrection of Jesus, it is the good news of the kingdom breaking into the world to transform lives as into the image of Christ.

Every spiritual system as a standard of excellence to which it proposes to bring man….The Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5, 6, 7) gives the theory and rules of life to attain that standard. The principles laid down in the Sremon on the Mount, lived up to as Jesus did, would produce the life he lived….That Sermon is the perfection and consummation of the gospel of God to the world. To teach and preach these truths and principles to man is to bring the gospel in its fullness to man

There is no virtue in believing, repenting, and being baptized unto the remission of sins, and then doing nothing to left up and help men as Jesus labored to help them. Nothing short of the full life of Christ as an example and help to man is the gospel. How few of us realize this truth! When we preach faith, repentance, and baptism, we satisfy ourselves and teach others that we have preached the gospel, and those who act on these teaching think that they have obeyed the gospel. Hence the immense number who come into the church and imagine their salvation is secure and do nothing more. Young men often come to the Bible School and want to get up sermons that will enable them to debate with the sects. To qualify a young man to debate with the sects is nine times out of ten to make him a sectarian. Having truth does not hinder sectarianism. A man may hold the truth, not in the love of it; he may hold it to build up his party, not to honor God and save sinners. Sectarianism is sinful whether it is based on the truth or not. Training young preachers to debate is not to educate them in the needed Bible teaching. Often it is hurtful to a young man’s usefulness and his after life to make a debater of him. The debating spirit is often not the Christian spirit. The spirit that suffers and stands steadfast unto the end is the one that God [5]

The more I read Lipscomb the more I appreciate his heart for the poor, the humility of his spirit, his earnest desire to obey God in every thing, and his hatred of sectarianism. 

Footnotes

[1] David Lipscomb, “A New Discussion Proposed,” Gospel Advocate 54 (19 Dec 1912) 1377.

[2] David Lipscomb, “General Booth,” Gospel Advocate 54 (19 Sept 1912) 1049

[3] David Lipscomb, “God is Best Pleased with the Humblest and Most Obedient Trust in Him,” Gospel Advocate 54 (30 May 1912) 671.

[4] David Lipscomb, “Religious People Hard to Move,” Gospel Advocate 53 (2 March 1911) 268-69.

[5] David Lipscomb, “’Preach the Word,’ Gospel Advocate 53 (25 May 1911) 587, 590.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Lipscomb on Rebaptism: A Succinct Statement

March 3, 2009

David Lipscomb, Queries and Answers, ed. by J. W. Shepherd (Cincinnati: Rowe  Publishers, 1918), p. 53.  lipscomb20david

Question: “May a person who believes his sins forgiven submit to a scriptural baptism while thus believing?”

Answer:  “There is something unscriptural in the case as presented; but what is it? Is it the baptism, or is it the understanding of when a person is pardoned? If the latter, does that invalidate the former? This is the point of issue in this question, and it is continually ignored.  “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” (Mark 16:16.) The thing to be believed is that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. A person that believes this, and, on this faith, is baptized, is scripturally baptized; but if he believe he has been forgiven before he is baptized his faith is unscriptural–that is, he mistakes the point in the path of obedience at which pardon is promised and can be claimed. Does a mistake as to the point at which God bestows the blessing cause God to withhold the blessing form one who, through faith, does what God tells him? If so, where is the precept or example that shows it? If it is so, it must be because God requires a person to understand at what point in the path of obedience a blessing is promised before he can receive it.  Does any one believe this? I have never found one that would affirm it. I have asked for a single precept or example in the New Testament or the Old Testament that would prove it. I have never seen one produced that was claimed to teach it. I can produce scores of examples and precepts from the Old Testament and the New Testament showing that a misunderstanding on the part of man as to when, in the path of obedience, a blessing was promised, or even of what the blessing was, did not prevent God bestowing the blessingwhen the point was reached. To deny the blessing would be given in this instance because the person mistook the point at which the blessing was bestowed is to set at defiance the teachings of God through the Old Testament and the New Testament, which were written for our example and admonition. God is pleased with the faith that does what he tells to be done without waiting to know when and how God will bless.”

Another Statement (pp. 52-53):  “Christ was baptized ‘to fulfill all righteousness,’ or to obey all the commands of God to make men righteous. (Matt. 3:15.) It is difficult to improve on the examples of Christ. All blessings and all the promises of God connected with the service of God ought to be proclaimed to encourage men to trust in and obey God. But when man does so trust God as to do what he commands, God accepts that service from the humblest of mortals, and man should throw no stumbling-blocks in the way of these little ones of God. There is no greater hindrance to the cause of God at this day than magnifying things not taught by God into questions that create strife among the people of God and divert their minds from the great work of saving men and women from death.”

My Comment:  Lipcomb consistently stresses (1) the example of Jesus and (2) the faith that saves.  If Jesus was baptized to obey God, then following that example is sufficient, and the faith that is required for baptism is a faith in Jesus and not a faith in the promise or blessing of baptism.  Anyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ and obeys God in baptism through that faith receives the blessings God promised in connection with baptism whether they know it or not (not only the remission of sins, but the gift of the Holy Spirit as well) and even if they had a mistaken notion of what God had promised.  God’s promises do not depend upon a perfectionistic understanding of what God has promised but rather are received through faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  God gives his grace (blessings) through faith and not through perfectionistic understanding.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Comment on Rebaptism Articles

February 18, 2009

In my previous post, I repoduced two responses to a question asked by J. Wesley Smith of Lynchburg, TN, in 1905.  He asked:  “Is it right to make a knowledge of baptism for remission of sins a test of fellowship?”

David Lipscomb, editor of the Gospel Advocate, answered in the negative and George W. Savage, editor of the Firm Foundation, answered affirmatively. Those polar opposite responses represented the real danger of a significant division among Churches of Christ in the late 19th and early 20th centuries on that precise question.

But my interest is not so much in the potential division or the explicit answers to the question. Rather, I am interested in the theological method each used to answer the question.

On the one hand, David Lipscomb started with a theocentric principle that Jesus fulfilled. The “desire to obey God is the highest” motive as this “leads to an humble and trusting walk with God” and “to the enjoyment of all the blessings God has in store for those that love” him.

This motive was enacted by Jesus and he thus modeled it for all his disciples. Jesus was baptized to obey God, to “fulfill all righteoueness.” The baptism of Jesus testifies to the authentic and central nature of this motive. Jesus was not baptized for the remission of sins, but to obey God. Jesus loved the Father by obeying him.

Further, when people are motivated by love (the core value in obeying God) rather than by fear (to escape hell through the remission of sins), they imitate Jesus and exhibit the “higher motive.” When one’s baptism is rejected because it was motivated by the “higher” motive rather than the “lower” one, it undercuts the baptism of Jesus himself since this “is the motive that moved Jesus to be baptized.” At the same time, if one is baptized simply for the remission of sins without a sense that this obedience to God–as if one is baptized simply to escape hell or simply to have their sins remitted–this is an improper approach to baptism. It turns baptism into an expiatory rite.

Lipscomb’s argument is rooted in God, Christ and the central value of loving God. It is, essentially, a theological argument.

On the other hand, George Savage is concerned primarily with a single text: Acts 2:38. His argument is radically textual and rooted in understanding “for the remission of sins” as part of the command to be baptized. For Savage the command is not “be baptized,” but “be baptized for the remission of sins.” Obedience, then, entails an understanding that this obedient act involved a movement from lost to saved, from sinner to saint, from guilty to forgiven. If believers do not understand that baptism involves that transistion, then their baptism is invalid because they were not taught correctly.

Construing “for the remission of sins” as part of the command itself, he atomizes this text so that it stands in isolation from the theology of baptism. In essence, by lifting a singular phrase from the text and giving it an absolute meaning indepedent of the context and biblical theology as whole, his argument is a proof-text. His construal of the text, then, becomes a measuring rod for everything else one might possibly say about baptism. Whatever else may be true about baptism, it is fundamentally true for Savage that only those who are “baptized for the remission of sins” are truly baptized.

He does not grasp Lipscomb’s theological argument about love and fear in terms of the motive of obedience. Savage simply flattens everything into obedience and says that the motive must be more than obedience. Thus, he makes room for the atomized text, Acts 2:38, to judge every baptismal response to God. Obedience is a given, but the specific design is something that is equally necessary to true obedience. Obedience is insufficient per se–it must be obedience for the specific design God intended in that ordinance. It must be obedience with understanding–a very specific understanding that Acts 2:38 dictates.

Difference. Part of the faith of baptism for Savage, then, is a faith in the design of baptism, that is, believing what baptism effects. For Lipscomb it is simply trusting in God’s saving work through Christ as we act in obedience. For Savage faith is partly an intellectual affirmation of the true understanding of baptism’s specific design. For Lipscomb faith is personal trust in God as one acts in obedience to the command of God to be baptized.

The nature of baptismal faith has a different meaning for Lipscomb and Savage. Lipscomb’s sense of faith is oriented toward God as trust and follows Jesus’ own baptism; “it is the baptism of Christ.” Jesus’ own baptism is Lipscomb’s model for effectual baptism. Savage’s sense of faith is oriented toward a particular intellectual understanding of baptism; “faith in the design” is “necessary to the validity of the act.” That faith is not a personal trust, but an intellectual assent to a specific teaching about baptism. Lipscomb begins with Jesus whereas Savage ends with a specific intellectual understanding (it is “faith in the design”!).

This exchange illustrates, to some degree, how soteriology (and a theology of grace) differ between the Tennessee Tradition (Lipscomb) and the Texas Tradition (Savage). Lipscomb’s soteriology is grounded in a personal trust in God’s work exhibited through loving obedience while Savage’s soteriology involves a creedal affirmation of a specific design for baptism rather than simple trust in Jesus. Lipscomb follows Jesus but Savage authors a creed to be signed by a baptismal candidate.

Lipscomb is true to the heritage of Alexander Campbell’s restoration agenda on this point. For Campbell the only required faith for baptism was the credo:  “I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.”  Savage continues McGary’s hijacking of the Restoration Movement to serve a sectarian end so that the credo for baptismal faith is no longer centered on Jesus but on what one believes about the design of baptism.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Texas and Tenneseee Respond to a Baptism Question

February 17, 2009

A classic example of the divide between the Texas Tradition and the Tennessee Tradition is the “rebaptism” issue.  I reproduce a particular “for instance” here without comment. In my next post, I will offer a few observations.  Of course, this is but one example of many exchanges which actually began in the 1883 Gospel Advocate when McGary began to push his rather novel understanding and then started the Firm Foundation in 1884 to promote them. So, this is some twenty-two years down the road and the difference was still a wide one.

“The Purpose of Baptism,” Firm Foundation 20.10 (7 May 1905) 4.

Question from J. Wesley Smith of Lynchburg, Tennessee: Bro. Lipscomb: Would I do wrong to be baptized again, since I have been baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, by a Methodist. I did not know at the time that baptism was for the remission of sins, but I did it to obey God. Is it right to make a knowledge of baptism for remission of sins a test of fellowship.

David Lipscomb, editor of the Gospel Advocate: The leading design and purpose of God in dealing with man is to bring man and the world over which man rules into subjection to, and harmony with God. The highest and leading purpose and end of man should correspond to that of God in dealing with man, and be to submit to God as the Ruler of the universe. Only in this way can he secure permanent good to himself and the world. The purpose and desire to obey god is the highest and best pleasing to God of all the motives that lead his subjects to obey His laws. This purpose embraces and overshadows all other motives and ends and leads to an humble and trusting walk with God in all His ways, and to the enjoyment of all the blessings God has in store for those that love and serve Him. This desire to do the whole will of God, and so “fulfill all righteousness,” was the motive that led Jesus, the Christ, not only to be baptized, but this caused Him to leave heaven, come to earth and do and suffer all the will of God God to honor God and bless man.

The nearer we come to be moved by this motive that led Jesus in His word and mission, the better we please God in our service. There are different motives placed before man to lead him to serve God. The lowest is fear; the highest is love. “There is no fear in love; perfect love casteth out fear; because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not perfect in love.” 1 John 4:18. Fear, dread of torment, is a legitimate motive, but it is of the lowest order. It appeals to man in his fleshly state, before the spiritual man is cultivated and developed. But fear must lead to and be swallowed up in love. John warned the Jews to ‘flee the wrath to come.’ This was fear that ‘hathtorment’ dread of punishment. Jesus said: “If a man love Me, he will keep My words, and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode withhim.” John 14:23. When they abide with a man, he has no torment; love has cast out dread and torment.

Under Judaism they were slaves, moved by fear; under Christ we are children, to be moved by love. “The heir (or son), as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all, but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the Father” (Gal. 4:1, 2), which means, under Christ, fear is a needed motive while we are children, but it must grow into love. One moved by the desire to do the will of God is moved by love. One led to be baptized because he desires to do the will of God is moved by love, the higher motive. That is the motive that moved Jesus to be baptized. It is the motive that best pleases God. For a man to ignore and reject a baptism because he was led to it by love for God and a desire to obey Him and displace it by a lower or less motive, begins in the spirit and ends in the flesh. He repudiates the higher service for that less pleasing to God.

This man says when he was baptized he did not understand baptism was for the remission of sins, but he did understand it was a command of God, and he wished to obey Him. I presume, too, he understood that obedience to God was necessary to salvation. If he understood this, he understood about as much of the matter as he understands now. If he understands baptism is for remission of sins in any other sense than that it is a condition–to prove man’s faith and willingness to obey God, he understands it incorrectly. It is a step that brings him into that condition in which God pardons sin and accepts him who believes as a child of God. I doubt if many who insist the understanding it is for remission of sins is essential to its validity understand it right. True it is that God never prescribed such belief as a condition of pardon.

Any baptism to please man displeases God. A baptism or any service to please any church or any persons displeases God. A sectarian baptism is sinful. But a baptism to obey God is not sectarian baptism; it is the baptism of Christ.

Many of the rebaptisms are performed to please those who demand it as a condition of fellowship. In Texas a few months since I learned of a woman who had been baptized and desired fellowship with the disciples. Some objected to here because she had not been baptized among the disciples. She had been baptized to obey God. What kind of baptism would it be? I fear many of them are to satisfy those who demand it. A person ought to have a clear conscience that in all the service he renders he does it from faith in God and to do His will. When he does what God commands from this motive, he may rest secure in the mercy of God.

George W. Savage, editor of the Firm Foundation: The above is given in full from the Advocate, for the Firm Foundation has no inclination to misrepresent old Bro. Lipscomb, for whom Chrisians have the highest regard as a teacher of God’s holy word. But just how a teacher in Israel can so far misrepresent the teachings and commandments of God is a question not well understood. Bro. Lipscomb and Bro. Harding continually call attention to the fact that men should be baptized “to obey God”–just as though God had made this a specific design of baptism. Where in all the realm of David Lipscomb’s reading did he read that baptism is “to obey God?” Why does he reject the expressed scriptural design and call it a fleshly act and substitute in its place a phrase as a design that God nowhere mentions in connection with baptism? Why dodge the issue with the general term “to obey God?” When these breethren say men are to be baptized “to obey God,” they admit that faith in the design, some design, is necessary to the validity of the act. And if faithin the design is necessary, why not place the design there revealed in the Bible and settle the question at once? Men do everything to obey God. We meet on the first day of the week to break bread. In this act we obey God. We do it to obey Him; yet there is a another design coupled directly with, and equally as spiritual as the general term, and that is “to show His deahtill He comes again.” To fulfill this design, Christians work and strive because God has placed it as a design for the act. Does Bro. Lipscomb contend that Christians can acceptably partake of these emblems in the absence of this design? Does it mean simply to take bread and drink wine before the world in an empty form without every effort to keep before them the central truth of the gospel? We are commanded to “take heed unto ourselves and unto the doctrine; continue in them. For in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee.” This is to obey God, too, but God couples with it two specific designs. One is “to save thyself;” the other is to save those who hear us. In doing this to obey God, we do it to save ourselves and them that hear us, for this is what we must do to obey God. In baptism men act “to obey God;” but in acting “to obey God,” they are baptized “for the remission of sins,” for this is obedience to God. The man who is not baptized for the remission of sins does not obey God, for God has told him to “be baptized for the remission of sins.” Acts 2:38. How could he be baptzied “to obey God” and at the same time refuse to do what God says? If you say it is because he is not taught, then it follows that he is not a proper subject for baptism, for Jesus said: “They shall all be taught of God.” John 6:44, 45. “Every one that hath heard and learned of the Father cometh unto Me.” It will not do to rest the excuse on the question of ignorance, and if the candidate is taught of God, not man, he understands the command to “be baptized for the remission of sins.” If he understands it and does not do it, he is not baptized “to obey God.” If he does not understand it and is baptized for some other purpose, he is not taught of God, and the theory of baptizing a man on the manufactured saying of “obeying God” falls by its own weight. Besides, there is not a sectarian baptism in Christendom but what says, it is “to obey God.”

Answering the question, “Is it right to make a knowledge of baptism for the remission of sins a test of fellowship,” Bro. Lipscomb said: “True it is that  God never prescribed such a belief as a condition of pardon.” I now propose to put the two statements side by side and allow the man of faith to decide. The Holy Spirit says: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Acts 2:38. Bro. Lipscomb says: “True it is that God never prescribed such belief as a condition of pardon.” These two statements are far apart and can not both be right. One is from the God who created me; the other is from Bro. Lipscomb, who is a good but uninspired man. Which is right? I ask you, which is right? If Bro. Lipscomb is right, then men need not be baptized for the remission of sins to be saved. If the Bible language is right, man must be baptized for the remission of sins to be saved, and Bro. Lipscomb, however great he may be, is wrong.

Bro. Lipscomb in the above makes baptism for the remission of sins a fleshly act, because it is not prompted by love to God, and baptism to obey God a spiritual act because it is prompted by love to God. How did Bro. Lipscomb learn that the man who is baptized for the remission of sins, just as God tells him to do, does not love God, and the man who is baptized to obey God because his sins are pardoned does love God. This first does what God says, and the second does what He does not say. Which is the test of love and loyalty to God? Certainly the one that loves God and does what He tells him to do. Jesus said: “He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me.” Again: “If a man love Me, he will deep My words.” And again: “He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My sayings.” John 14. From this we decide that the man who has the commands and keepeth them is the man that loves Jesus. And the man who does not keep them does not love Him. The test of loyalty and love to God is keeping His commandments. This is what Bro. Lipscomb calls the lowest motive and a dealing in the flesh. Jesus says this man is the man that loves him. Which is right? They can not both be right, for they differ. The man that has the command to be baptized for the remission of sins and does it is the man that loves Jesus. The man that has the same command and does not do it, but does something else “to obey God,” is the man that does not love Jesus, taking Jesus for just what He says. Friends, how can Bro. Lipscomb be right in this? What difference can exist between being baptized to obey God and being baptized to do what He says (for the remisson of sins)? How is it that baptism for the remission of sins because the man does it to keep God’s commands is of the lower order, while baptism because of the remission of sins, rejecting the direct command of God, is of the higher order of faith? The trouble with the man who asked this question is that he was not taught of God. He says so himself. He says he did not know that baptism is for the remission of sins. Not knowing this, he was not taught of God, and had the wrong faith, if he had any. Jesus said: “They shall all be taught of God.” He says he was not taught of God, and therefore, could not in this untaught state come to Christ. His faith was wrong; his baptism was no better than his faith. How could his obedience be right and his faithwrong? It may be true that many are baptized to please the preacher, but this does not answer the question. The question is, must God’s word be ignored, and must all our preaching stand for naught because some people who have been baptized because their sins are forgiven, or for no design at all, are satisfied with their baptism? Let God be true, though every man a liar, and if the truth makes us liars and reads us out of fellowship withGod, we ought not to blame the truth, but turn from our hardened teaching and bow in implicit obedience to Almighty God.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Meeting God at the Shack III: The Triune Shine

October 1, 2008

[My book on the Shack is now available on Kindle.]

“Triune Shine”….what is that?  Ok, I admit it is my own invention.  But hear me out, ok?

Many who have attended a 12-Step group for any length of time have heard about the “shine.”  It might be an “AA shine,” or an SA, NA, OA, WA, etc.  The “shine” is the glow of recovery, and it stands in stark contrast with the first time that someone attended a meeting. In their first meeting, addicts enter despondent, shamed, and hopeless. They attend a meeting as a last gasp of sanity.  Through recovery–working the steps which includes confession and spiritual transformation–they begin to “shine” with hope, joy and contentment.

I have turned the phrase on its head.  When I say “triune shine,” I do not mean that the Trinity has gone through recovery.  I hope that is obvious.  :-)  I mean the opposite.  An encounter with the Triune God leaves a shine on our faces. It is the afterglow of meeting God at our shacks.

Shine, of course, is what shacks need. Our shacks are broken, empty, dark, and hidden. They need healing, filling, light and openness. When our true selves–our shacks–encounter the healing life and light of God in authentic relationship, we are transformed into the beautiful images of God–beautiful homes. Shacks become mansions when we meet God in the circle of love. Our shacks get a triune shine and become mansions.

This is Mack’s vision of God, of course.  Mack, contemplating suicide, cries himself to sleep on the floor of the shack filled with anger, grief, and pain. This darkness was Mack’s closest friend (much like Psalm 88:18); the Great Sadness was all too familiar to him (p. 79).

Upon waking, Mack left the shack only to turn around to see it transformed into a beautiful log cabin with a garden and manicured lake. Hearing laughter from the cabin, Mack cautiously approached its front door (p. 81).

This is a critical moment in the book; and it is a critical moment in our lives.  Can we really believe that our shacks can become mansions?  Can we really believe that our pain, hurt, and shame can be transformed into joy, beauty, and honor?  I think it is almost impossible to believe that; it certainly seems impossible.

My own experience tells me it is well nigh impossible to believe that in the midst of the pain itself. The pain is a fog that blinds us. As Papa says to Mack, “When all you can see is your pain, perhaps then you lose sight of me” (p. 96). Shame accuses us, and we feel the guilt and burden of our sin and addictions. I understand how impossible it is to believe; I’ve been there.  The shack is hopeless; the fog is real; the soul is broken.

Addicts–and all who know themselves as sinners, and sin is itself an addiction–feel they deserve the shack. It is where they belong. They are unworthy of God’s love; they are a pile of “s**t.” As Mack thought to himself, while “God might really love” Nan, that is understandable because “she wasn’t a screw-up like him” (p. 66). Addicts, shamed by their compulsions and powerless before them, do not believe they are “good” people. Surely, they think, God could not love people like them.

So, Mack, standing on the front porch of the log cabin, is ready to knock on the door.  He is angry (“energized by his ire”), but he also feels like a screw-up. He does not know what to expect.  What will he find behind the door? He knows God invited him to the shack, but now the shack looks like a summer house, there is laughter inside, and he wonders how there can be laughter in a world where Missy is absent.

I think the story, at this point, invites us to contemplate our own vision and understanding of God.  When we knock on the door, who is this God that opens it?  When God opens the door to a shamed, guilt-ridden, hopeless but complusively driven addict, how does he greet him? Will God berate us for our addiction? Will he continue the shame by shaking his finger at him and rebuking him?  Will God’s face confirm our belief that God is disappointed with us?  Will God show his disgust?

This is why I think this is a critical point in the parable.  It says something about us and about whom we believe God to be.  Will we knock? Will we seek his face?  And what will God do? How will he receive us?

Before Mack can even knock, God–in the theopany of a gregarious African American woman–engulfs him in his/her love with a bear hug that lifts him off the ground and spins him “around like a little child.” God greets Mack as ”a long-lost and deeply-loved relative” (p. 82).

No disappointment. No shaming.  No hesitation.  No rebuffing. No reminders of the past.  No anger.  Instead…an exhilarting, loving, enthusiastic “my, my, my how do I love you!” (p. 83).

When we encounter God, how will he receive us?  Will he check his list of rights and wrongs? Will he evaluate us on a point system of some kind? Will he look over our record and shake his head with frustration and disappointment? I think not. Young’s parable has it right.

Intellectually and theologically I get it. I really do think God’s reception of Mack in the story is the way it is. But, along with Mack, it is emotionally difficult to receive it and believe it.

I grew up with an angry God for the most part, at least I heard it that way.  He was the God of the Old Testament who zapped Uzzah for touching the ark, killed Nadab and Abihu over something as small as where they got the fire for the altar, and threw his original creation out of the garden over a piece of fruit.  My simplistic hearing of those stories fired my fear of a God who was always looking for my mistakes and ready to give me what I deserve. He was, in my young imagination, Zeus ready to fling thunderbolts at those who displeased him.

I also grew up with a God whose approval I sought, at least I heard it that way. The little boy in me saw God as one to please in order to gain his approval. I performed to please this God; I sought his applause and his delight. If I could do enough, then he would be pleased with me.  If I did it right, he would delight in me.  It was a kind of religious perfectionism. Add that with workaholism, and you have one tired dude running all over the world looking for Papa’s approval. That was (is?) me.

This is the joy of the emotional picture that Young’s parable offers. I already knew it intellectually, but emotionally I need to feel it in my gut. I needed to know–to know in ways that are not mere cognition but reach deep within my soul, my shack–that God delights in me and yearns to give me a big ole’ bear hug. I needed to know that God was “especially fond” of even me even when my performance is not “good enough.”  I need to feel deep down within me that God already delights in me and that I don’t need to seek his approval. Young’s thrilling picture of Mack’s encounter with God provides an image–a relational picture–that I can hang my hat on emotionally.

Even more….God is already present in my shack waiting for me to show up, waiting for me to be my true self. When I come to my shack, and when you go to yours, God is already there. He is waiting to renew, sustain, enjoy and pursue relationship with us. We find ourselves, even in the shack, right where we were designed to be–in the center of God’s circle of relational, triune love (p. 111).

Ultimately, Mack leaves the shack with a “Triune shine.” He comes to know that all his “best treasures are now hidden in” the Triune God rather than in his little tin box with Missy’s picture (p. 236).  His encounter with the Triune God has filled his emptiness and his nightmares have now become colorful, vibrant dreams.

The “Triune Shine” is what I call that deep recognition that I am loved by the Father, filled with his Spirit, and live in the life of the Son. The “Triune Shine” is the joy of living in a circle of relationship with Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu.

When the shack is filled with God and we choose to embrace that relationship, our shacks become log cabins (maybe even mansions :-) ).

Yet, we know that is a long journey. It is not a quick fix. But it is a divine promise.

P.S. As far as the controversial metaphors and ideas about the Trinity in The Shack, I will leave those for another day and another post. I think the point above is much more important than precision in our Trinitarian theology…and who can be truly precise about that anyway?!  :-)

8 Comments | Pastoral Care, Personal, Spirituality | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by John Mark Hicks

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