Pondering the Word
When truth and love embrace
by Ray Friesen
Truth or love. As followers of Jesus and as congregational leaders do we need to choose between them? Sometimes it would seem so, especially when we face contentious issues in our churches. Whether at the congregational or a denominational level, disagreement can threaten our unity. Sometimes it has broken us apart.
In part, the struggle is a contemporary clash between modernism and postmodernism—between an insistence on hard facts and test-tube truth on the one hand, and story, community, and good feelings on the other. In part, though, it is an ancient struggle. For 2000 years, Christians have heard both Jesus’s claim to be the truth and the stories of Jesus’s responding in love. Most of us wish truth and love could join hands so that we could be both unapologetically concerned to uphold the truth, and unconditionally loving.
It may be timely, therefore, that the Epistle readings for Easter to Pentecost are from 1 John. The season marks the gestation and birth of the church through the power of the Spirit.
John believed that a church holding to truth and a congregation vibrant with love-filled relationships were not mutually exclusive.
This letter is written to a church whose unity is not only threatened but has been fractured. The author, a deeply compassionate pastor, is concerned about the dangerous times in which the church lives (2:18). John invites the reeling congregation to return to orthodoxy—to the very basics of the Christian faith. There they will find an anchor in the storm of controversy. They will gain vision for a new future. They will find the building blocks of faith they so desperately need, since their faith seems lost in the rubble of division and hostility.
John offers four pillars of orthodoxy that can help any church struggling to be united as God’s community in the world.
The Incarnation of God in the person of Jesus
In Jesus, God came to earth to camp with people on the journey of life (1:1-4, 4:15). This was not some pseudo-incarnation that kept God holy and pure, separate from human life. This was not some myth that simply made for a good story. This was a down-and-dirty incarnation where God muddied God’s hands, feet, and entire being with the realities of human life. This incarnation, says John, is basic to all that the church and Christianity stand for. Anything less is not only untrue but cannot be trusted in the nitty-gritty of life (4:2-3). A Gnostic Jesus, a mystical Christ, untouched by human dirt, might be attractive, but weakens the faith and fails the church.
Sin and forgiveness
The conviction that God dirtied himself with humanity in Jesus makes it possible for the community of faith to deal boldly with two realities that form one larger, grander whole: sin and forgiveness (1:5—2:2). One separated from the other is an untruth, but the two together express the truth of Jesus, God present within real life. Sin, in John’s eyes, is not simply the violation of a moral code, but also the breaking and denial of relationship (3:1-7). It is a complete breakdown in the person’s and the community’s covenant with God. To deny sin’s reality is to be out of touch with the truth. But an even stronger reality is forgiveness. Because of forgiveness, sin can be acknowledged and faced head on (1:9). Sin is not the final word, John says; forgiveness is.
This reality—sin and forgiveness together—makes it possible for people to enter wholeheartedly into life. Like the Incarnation, forgiveness of sin enables believers to bring all of life into the sphere of their faith. There is no need now to compartmentalize life into the secular and the sacred. All life, no matter how unredeemed at the moment, is sacred because of the reality created by the joining of sin and forgiveness.
Love
The reality, strength, and relevance of God’s love have been profoundly
demonstrated in Jesus, God-become-human (4:9, 19). Again, as with sin and
forgiveness, the truth of the Incarnation means that love is not just a nice
idea or a romantic notion. According to John, it is a reality lived out in
daily life with Mary, the neighbor; Joe, the carpenter; Jim, the church chairperson;
Martha, the waitress; Pete, the fish monger; and Judy, the congregational
troublemaker (3:4-18). There is nothing more basic to Christian faith. John’s
equation is quite simple: if you hate the one who is easy to hate, you hate
God; if you love the one who is easy to hate, you love God (3:17, 4:7-8).
Since God came to us as a human being, that which is most true of God—love—must
be lived out at a human-to-human level. Hostility between people over theological
differences, and the consequent tearing apart of the family of God—these
have nothing to do with God. If either side in a dispute claims to be taking
a stand for God, that person is a liar, trying to bless his or her own self-righteousness
and lust for power with a veneer of godliness. Unacceptable! says John.
The Spirit
A true church, alive with the presence of God and the truth of the gospel, is a charismatic congregation. The Spirit is another way in which God becomes present and real within human flesh (5:6-7). The Spirit empowers people to live confidently in the face of struggle and opposition (4:4) and enables human minds to discern the difference between truth and untruth (4:6). It fills failing hearts with courage (5:14) and guides unsteady minds into the truth of the gospel. Spirit-filled Christians (the only kind there are in John’s way of thinking) can discern the truth and stand boldly for it, confident in the truth of the gospel and the power of the Word (3:24, 4:13).
In our contemporary debates and church struggles it seems at times that we are torn between two alternatives—a church uncompromisingly holding to the truth or a congregation vibrant with love-filled relationships. John believed wholeheartedly that these two were not mutually exclusive but could join hands. His letter, kept for us and read this Easter season, is an invitation to make that dream real.
For further reference, see Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in 10,000 Places (Erdmans, 2005) pp. 311-329, and Gary M. Burge, The NIV Application Commentary: Letters of John (Zondervan, 1996).
Ray Friesen and his wife, Sylvia, are co-pastors of Zion Mennonite Church and Emmaus Mennonite Church in the Swift Current area of Saskatchewan.