Even those who are committed to practices of reconciliation often assume that the central concerns of the Christian faith are the gospel and the kingdom of God, and that it’s worth whatever it takes to get to the place where they and others can wholeheartedly share the gospel and dwell in the kingdom of God, and all their work in reconciliation is a humble and self-denying precursor to that wondrous ministry and mission.
But the truth is, far from being an essential, tiresome, and time-consuming precursor to the gospel, reconciliation is the gospel. There isn’t anything more important to which reconciliation is but the prologue.
It all gets back to one of the most fundamental theological questions of them all, which is this. Did Jesus come in response to the fall, as an agent to do the work of restoring human relationship with God—and thus was his saving work, his passion, death and resurrection a device to rectify that relationship and secure forgiveness and eternal life? Or was the coming of God written into the DNA of creation, because of God’s primordial and eternal decision never to be except to be with us in Christ?
If one takes the first view, then Christ’s saving work is a ladder both humanity and God ultimately kick away because the whole point is the restored relationship; for both parties the moment will eventually come when the historical events of the gospels are all a very long time ago and, profoundly grateful for them as we will always be, they will be displaced by happier, more blissful, and more seamless joys.
But if one takes the second view, that the coming of God was always going to happen, regardless of whether or not there was a fall, because of God’s decision never to be except to be with us in Christ, then Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection aren’t a means to an end: they’re the revelation of the truth about us and the truth about God. And the truth about what happens when we and God get as close as God always destined for us to be. In other words the tension and conflict we see in the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus aren’t a mechanism to bring about the kingdom of God: they are the kingdom of God.
There is no God lurking beyond Christ’s passion to which Christ’s passion is but an entry ticket. This is God—constantly vulnerable to human rejection, embodying agonising love, and yet never letting that suffering have the last word. And there’s no sublime Pacific Ocean of repose beyond the glory of resurrection: there’s only the breaking-through of wondrous love amid the scars and hurts of painful conflict.
Most of all, there’s no gospel to which Christ’s passion, death and resurrection are the precursor: Christ’s passion, death and resurrection are the gospel. Christians don’t believe in the God of Jesus Christ because we want forgiveness and eternal life and Jesus is the best route to both. Christians believe because they are drawn into the mystery of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection, and find in that story all the truth they can imagine about who God is and who they are. It’s not a stepping-stone: it’s all there is.
Revd Dr Sam Wells
St-Martin-In-the-Fields, London
