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My Strong Convictions
Gary Allen Henecke DD
“On a spring morning in about the year 30 C.E., three men were executed by the Roman authorities in Judea.” [1] At the request of the Hebrew temple hierarchy, the governor Pontius Pilate hanged the three publicly outside the western gate of the ancient city of Jerusalem. Two of the three, of whom the world has little memory, were terrorists. The third we profess to be the divine agent of the only true God – the Lord of the Hebrew covenant. It is what we profess that magnifies this execution. This event and its climactic finality at sunrise on the first day of the next week shook all of human history as its accompanying earthquake (at the time of the death of Jesus) and its Sunday morning aftershock (at the moment of resurrection) shook ancient Jerusalem.[2]
To the Romans the death of Jesus of Nazareth was but one execution among thousands deemed necessary to bring former autonomous peoples into submissive unity to the new world order. Jesus is condemned and hanged as “King of the Jews.”[3] This of course met with strong resistance from the temple rulers. Caesar’s authority was not the issue for the religious priests and learned teachers who were assembled under Joseph Caiaphas. For them the issue was theological rather than political. This man claimed to be the Son of God.[4] The defining of orthodoxy and the issue of what and who Jesus was became the reason for their zeal. The priests could embrace a foreign monarch but not God as defined in Jesus. They found it easy to cry, “We have no king but Caesar,”[5] but could notembrace the truth that the God of their ancestors was revealing himself in this Jesus of Nazareth. To do so would call for the reorientation of all of their theological convictions. They were able to comprehend that Jesus was a threat to the temple system and to religion, as they had known it.[6] The issue for them was a crisis of doctrine and, in that, a crisis of life meaning and established order. The death of Jesus on the cross at Golgotha was a meeting place of theological conflict and world politic. For Christians the revelation of God in Jesus is the culmination of all Israeli covenant and goals. In Christ the church defines the ancient Hebrew descendents of Abraham and the prophets and interprets their message.[7] In the crucifixion is found the final act of incarnation and ultimate revelation and fulfillment of Divine redemption. Therefore any teaching, which purports to be Christian theology, must be an explanation and proclamation of the great God-event. If God is to be known he must be understood in the dying and rising of Jesus. The core of all we call Christian thought must be brought both to ponder that historic moment and to harmonize with that moment - not simply as a historical event but for the content and meaning of the Divine revelation – for doctrine and creed. What is true of Christian thought is, nonetheless, absolutely true by inclusion for those holding the doctrine of Christian holiness in a Wesleyan framework. The atoning act of God in the death of Jesus is the defining standard of Christlikeness. All other discussions and focuses have the illusion of relevancy but are secondary at best. Any proclamation that would conform men to the Divine heart must be brought to the person and the meaning of the Christ who went bound to the cross. If we are to be transformed into the image and mind of Christ we must meet that Christ in his most defining act and revelation. Here is to be found his mission and purpose. At the core Christian preaching and teaching can be none other than the proclamation of the Person of the cross. I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and know him crucified.[8] Many of the discussions taking place in the local congregations and in the circles of Wesleyan pastors on the issues of holiness are actually peripheral and colloquial. They tend to center on the secondness of entire sanctification or upon the nature of the cleansing that takes place in a Wesleyan understanding of an experience. The real core of a discussion of the holy life is to be found in the cross and the Christ-event and in the nature of Christ’s challenge to all of his disciples when he said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny (renounce) himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”[9] Holiness as a truth and a life is to be found, comprehended, and defined in the God who by his incarnation as Jesus of Nazareth, on the eve of the Passover in 30 A.D, met mankind in revelation and transformation into a holy people. It is this crucified, forsaken blasphemer who is the Lord of the apostolic proclamation – He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.[10] The truth of sanctification is not to be found separate from him, even if that separation is so subtle as to be truth about Christ instead of the truth of Christ. When one finds the Christ who is our sanctification he finds the Christ who died to the Father in Gethsemane and for us at Golgotha. He is holy and defines holiness by calling us to the same standard: By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. [11] We live in an hour when the church in America is in a constant quest for newness. In the marketplace of religion, all causes are measured on the basis of “usefulness.” This places a theology of the crucified at the risk of being redefined into a program or a church method. In our hour of church pragmatism, truth is defined by its results. In such an hour we must be aware of the following dangers:1. The loss of the scandal of the cross. The cross is in danger of becoming a sentimentalized piece of memorabilia for the moving of a congregation or the symbol of desirability in a devotional book. The radical scandalous execution of the Lord of glory is often lost in the sweetness of Christ’s love for us. The cross becomes adjusted to the corporate goals of the business of religion. The cross must not be softened and made palatable.2. The challenge of Post-Modern mentality. Because ultimate truth has been internalized and made subjective to the one who holds it, the theology of the cross may become an individual’s position rather than the absolute that it is in the New Testament. Post-Modernism promotes inclusion, which is incompatible with the radical call to absolute surrender. The cross proclaims one way as the only way and tolerates no other.3. The challenge of assimilation. The call to self-surrender and the crucifixion of self was commonplace. Here I will remind us of Martin Luther’s presentation of the Heidelberg Disputations in May of 1518. Dr. Luther’s position was that all theologies other than the cross are to be summed up under the label “theologies of glory.”[12] The theologies seeking glory are actually to be seen as anti-Christ and not as alternative approaches to Christianity. Though I do not embrace in this paper all of Luther’s positions, in his theology of the cross I will stand with him that the cross defines Christian orthodoxy. True Christlikeness calls us from self-glory to the God of the cross. Man seeks and finds himself in everything, and this is the essence of sin. Self-promotion and career building are not compatible with self-renunciation. The crucified God in Jesus is the God with whom we have to do. Through the march of the 20th century and the growth of denominationalism, a spirit of self-promotion and self-development grew among all Christian groups, including those who, while continuing to profess a deeper work of grace, moved away from the crucified life and into a life of achievement. Theories of self-promotion and personal glory war against the traditional concept of self-surrender. While early holiness peoples were able to hear preaching that is comical to the ear today, such as “you must get under the porch and die like a yeller dog,” modern holiness people would not only find such phrases quaint, but would not be in harmony with the truth that is masked in such a phrase. Paul warned in his hour that a substitute gospel and a secondary Christ was being preached that was in fact an enemy of the cross of Christ because those who proclaimed it had made a god of their appetite.[13] In the name of Church growth we adopt methods and messages that are incompatible with being identified with the forsaken Lord.4. The challenge of accommodation. Step by step planning for the advancement of the institutional church produces Christian ministries that have at their heart the need to create a world of happy living. The word happy in such a framework is used as a substitute of equal worth to the word blessed, which it is not. A true theology of the cross cannot be made attractive but is desirable - it transforms and does not conform. The cross is God addressing man with a revelation of his righteousness. It cannot be reduced to a comfortable message. The church is always living under the tension to present the gospel in a form that will not antagonize those it is trying to win. A non-offensive theology of the cross is a challenge if not a paradox. 5. The challenge of business realities. Whenever the truth of holiness is institutionalized into a denomination or congregation, it is of necessity compromised. Holiness is often made synonymous with institutional advancement. Wesleyans are always tempted to think that the planting of a church is synonymous with spreading the holiness truth. The corporate church is always at risk to embrace a practical theology based upon performance or “usefulness.” 6. The challenge of a sinless society. We live in an hour when everything is permitted, and the church finds its ultimate sin in offending another. As a result evil has been redefined. The worst evil is that which may embarrass. We see ourselves as victims rather than as sinners, and we discuss our heritage as at the source of inconsistencies rather than original sin. The call to holiness and the form of a naked Christ hanging between heaven and earth speaking “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is a form of truth that is often uncomfortable in the parlor of the local sanctuary.[14] A theology of the cross is a confrontation of self-survival, confronts selfishness, and calls to abandonment of the safe and convenient to a fully dependent life on the faithfulness of God.7. The challenge of Universalism. Talk of holiness and Christlikeness is not the property of any one group or theological position. It is alive in the broader family of Christianity. Talk about the doctrine of holiness and the writing of books on the subject are prevalent in non-Wesleyan circles. Reformed theologians are leading the way in writing about and discussing the purity of the believer. In this climate there is a clear necessity for a theological approach from Wesleyans that is centered in a New Testament vocabulary. Founding ancestors of the Christian holiness movement unashamedly sought “to christianize Christianity” by seeking the “simplicity and power of the New Testament church.” Their special mission of evangelism was within the Christian family of churches. God had called them to preach believers into completion. Holiness was neither sentimentalism nor a cliché, but was the heart of the New Testament work and was to be understood beyond the experience of any individual. Believers were called to unite with Christ in an absolute renunciation of self and to be crucified through full submission. Their evangelism was primarily within the Christian context. They were often classified as calling believers to a higher way and a deeper commitment. Holiness was a modifier of a life to be gained and a spirit in which one was to understand reality and establish the values of life goals. They did not simply defend a doctrinal or denominational position. The experience and proclamation of holiness was rooted in their biblical understanding of being like Christ. We must again seek to unite the atoning act of God with the transforming work of the Spirit in the believer so that the God act properly defines the goal of the Christian life and gives New Testament understanding to the church. In other words, holiness must be proclaimed in a biblically defined New Testament vocabulary. This I now seek to do. The cross in Christ To even the most critical scholar in the field of the studies of the historical Jesus, the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth is accepted as a defining event in the life of our Christ. Every believer who would be serious about the truth concerning Jesus and the truth of Jesus must confront the historical event of the crucifixion. This confrontation must include the historical as well as the theological meaning. The cross of Christ is an historic reality but is also an event in the triune God and may be properly seen as the cross in Christ. In dealing with the cross of Christ we must always begin with the historical event and the truth of God’s act in humankind. This paper is not designed to deal with the historic agony, trial, humiliation, and execution of Jesus of Nazareth. Let it be sufficient for us to say that all the studies seeking to harmonize the four preserved accounts in the gospels are another discipline. Beyond all the debate and detail, Christians unite to agree that Jesus of Nazareth accomplished his ministry in his death upon the cross. The primary sources of that truth remain to be the writings of four excellent editors – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Centuries of great scholars have added distinguished names and brilliant works but are all secondary sources. Whatever may be debated about the Jesus of history, his execution under Pontius Pilate is an historical fact that Christians must define and embrace. In the question of meaning, we must ask ourselves about the revelation of God in the Christ event. Most evangelical Christians can readily accept that the cross reveals the depth of sin in the mind of God. The atonement of Christ in the cross and its subsequent resurrection event is filled with the awful nature of our sin and God’s defining act of death. Verses of scripture that talk about “the wages of sin is death” are rooted in Christ’s commitment to his own sacrifice.[15] The cross event is also a revelation of the righteousness of God and our Lord’s concept of holiness. Beginning with the Apostle Paul, the New Testament authors and theologians throughout church history have read into Jesus’ submissive commitment to his Father’s will the call to his disciples to become one with him in a unity of attitude toward submission to the cross.[16] Simply stated, the death of Jesus is a statement by God in his redeeming ways and the statement of God concerning himself. It is not only a revelation of the awful consequences of sin and cost of atonement, but it is a revelation of God’s value system. Jesus died to God before he died for us. In the simplest of terms, Gethsemane is the beginning of Golgotha. The resurrection of Christ is the natural conclusion to his atoning sacrifice. The struggle of Christ in Gethsemane is the preface to the submission of Jesus to the horrors of the cross. The cross itself is an event which extends beyond the moments of judgment and execution of Good Friday. The preaching of the cross includes all the ramifications of the meaning of the Messiah experience. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.[17] He was also laying out the perfect life and the mind of the mature believer. We Christians profess that the cross did not “happen” to Jesus. He embraced it as his mission and called it his glorification. The cross of Jesus Christ is not only the source of our salvation, but it is also the revelation of the goal of that salvation and holiness. The cross is not only the cross of Christ, but also The Cross in Christ. The early believers were confronted with the paradox of the cross. Jesus of Nazareth died horribly and [apparently] powerlessly.[18] Yet out of this traumatic forsaken death, the church came to embrace the preaching of the cross as not only the work of God but as the power of God. Out of the surrender of their Lord in utter weakness was birthed the power of God for the Christian life. He was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we are weak in him, but in dealing with you we shall live with him by the power of God.[19] Beginning with apostles, the earliest Christian proclamation readily admitted that this was foolishness to the rulers of this age. Had this been clearly understood by human reasoning, they would not have crucified the Lord.[20] Yet this very foolishness had become the gospel. To all religious system this is more than paradox. It is nonsense. The clearest picture of this nonsense is the presence of the chief priests mocking the Messiah as he dies on the cross and saying, “If you will now come down from the cross, we will believe.”[21] Yet in spite of this the cross will be embraced as not only the chief symbol of Christianity but as the theological message of the gospel to be proclaimed throughout the world. The warfare between Saint Paul and the other pillars of the church will be based upon his refusal to dilute the message of the cross by the embracing of any forms of religious proclamation or tradition, such as the continued observance of Hebrew legalism. Paul will define the message of the cross as his singular mission, even superseding the Sacraments. For us, however, the message of the cross needs to be embraced as the message of the Christian life itself. Jesus’ annunciation of his crucifixion to the early church in Caesarea Philippi is synonymous with the founding and announcing of the church itself. He will proclaim - "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life? For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done”.[22] The cross is lifted from something that happened to Christ, or something that was necessary for the Christ to endure in his redeeming act, to a life experience which each disciple is to enter. The crucified life will now fill the New Testament pages. Jesus himself will proclaim, “Whoever does not bear his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”[23]What began in the proclamation of Jesus is furthered throughout the epistles. Paul will proclaim, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” [24] What Paul proclaimed for others he also professed. “I have been crucified with Christ: it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”[25] More than a personal testimony of an apostle, this experience became the standard of all believers. Romans 6:6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. This is the true test of the definition of holiness - rather than in terms of experience of heritage or attempting to bring a renewal of the doctrinal distinction or denominational emphasis. This defines our message in terms of the quality of person to be sought and created as well as in terms of New Testament kerygma. The truth of this crucified life begins in Jesus and defines all sacred text. Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.[26] The entire Old and New Testaments are read and proclaimed in the theology of the crucified. In this proclamation, God is interpreted and presented as actively creating a people shaped by the Christ life and transformed into the Christ spirit. God, who in Christ reconciled the world through his submissive agony in Gethsemane, endured the betrayals of man and the forsaking of his Father. He died alone in the absolute surrender of himself and calls his people into the same abandonment of personal cause, career, and institutional advancement. We are called in terms of the Christ experience to a renunciation of self, going out to him outside all human encampments - - being united to his sufferings [27] Jesus as crucified Lord creates a crucified people united in life experience to him. The church is a community of the cross. Holiness is then a bringing of the believer into the experience of Christ on his cross. That experience creates a people of like-mindedness with their Lord. While in the world they live in the spirit of another. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.[28] We live in an hour of religious trivia. We are tempted to embrace momentary methods and popular terms and to market the faith to the wants of the non-believer. Not having an inner grasp of the centrality of the cross we can embrace the latest religious gimmickry without knowing it is actually of a spirit contrary to the proclamation of the surrendered life. The ultimate mission and message of the cross in Christ must measure every ministry and method lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
[1] P. 1, E.P. Sanders, The Historical Picture of Jesus, The Penguin Press, 1993
[2] Matthew 27:54; 28:2 [All references are taken from the Revised Standard Version Bible, 2nd edition 1971]
[9] Luke 9:23-24, (renounce) is the author’s word
[12] Luther and His Times, E. G> Schwiebert, Ph. D.; Concordia Publishing House, Saint Louis Mo. 1950
[14] Psalm 22:1; Mark 15:34
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