The Covenant of
Grace and Family
of God
.
A biblical
theological reflection on being
members of God's Family in the Body
of Christ
.
by Peter Toon
Many people believe that the essence of
Christianity is “a personal relationship with
Jesus” (or “the Lord Jesus Christ”). Conversion is
seen as entering into such an arrangement, and the
Christian life is felt to be the experience of
this relationship.
Such a way of speaking seems to be so sincere and
so meaningful that few question its authenticity.
Thus it has been granted a kind of orthodoxy by
Christians of various backgrounds and theological
traditions. “A personal relationship with Jesus”
has become a standard form of expression for
conservatives and liberals alike.
Few of those who encourage the use of this
descriptive expression seem to realize that it is
found neither in the Bible nor in classic
theology. It is relatively recent and owes its
origin and popularity to particular developments
in Western culture—individualism, for example.
Within evangelicalism, it is usually part of a
popular theology that, claiming to be straight
from the Bible, emphasizes that “God loves you as
an individual” and that “Jesus Christ died for you
as an individual” and that, therefore, “you as an
individual can have a personal relationship with
God or Jesus.” When a model of “a personal
relationship with Jesus” is sought in the New
Testament then, one is pointed to the disciples
who followed Jesus in Galilee and Judea or the
disciples who met with the risen Lord Jesus in the
forty days before his Ascension.
In the New Testament, baptized Christians are
described as being in the family of God as adopted
children, within the Body of Christ as members and
under Christ the Head, as branches of the vine
whose trunk is Jesus Christ, as sheep following
the Shepherd, as travelers in or on the Way to the
Father, as members of the royal priesthood, as
soldiers in the army of the Lord, and via many
other images. They are called to be the salt of
the earth and the light of the world, and they are
to adorn and commend the gospel by what they are,
what they do, and what they say.
Certainly the call to become a Christian is
addressed by the Father through the Lord Jesus
Christ and by the Spirit (in the preaching of the
gospel) to each person, for God loves the whole
world. Further, the response to this call in
repentance and faith is personal, made
individually by each believer. Then, also, the
gift of the indwelling Spirit who comes to live in
the soul is a gift to a real person, which he
individually experiences, for “the Spirit bears
witness with my spirit that I am a child of God.”
Christianity certainly involves and includes an
encounter with the Holy Trinity by each Christian.
It is personal and experiential.
However, the act of personal decision and
commitment to the Father through the Son is only
possible because of the invisible and secret
activity of the Holy Spirit within the mind,
heart, and will. It is the Spirit of the Father
and of the Son who unites the repentant believer
to the Father through the Son for forgiveness,
salvation, and eternal life. And it is the same
Holy Spirit who places the new Christian in the
Body of Christ, the family of God, and the royal
priesthood as he brings that person into union
with Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior. Therefore,
there is never an individualistic union of a
believer with God. The fellowship, union, and
communion are truly personal and very real (as the
saints testify), but are always also together with
all others who are in Christ Jesus by faith and
love with the Holy Spirit.
It is not within the power and capabilities of any
human being to place himself in friendship with
God or in communion with the Holy Trinity. The
Bible speaks of God establishing his covenant with
man. The Lord Jesus Christ established the new
covenant by the shedding of his blood—his
propitiatory and expiatory sacrifice of himself on
the cross. Only when God has established his
covenant of grace is it possible for people to
enter into it. So this action is not to be seen
merely as God taking the initiative and man
responding, as if it were a contract between a
major and a minor partner. It is the Holy Trinity
actually establishing the way and the means for
sinful human beings to be reconciled with their
Creator and Judge and brought into the fullness of
life everlasting.
Through and in Jesus Christ, and by the Holy
Spirit, God the Father created and maintains a
gracious relation with the human race. This is his
covenant of grace. It is all of mercy, for even
the response of sinners to the invitation of the
gospel is by the assistance and power of the Holy
Spirit. Certainly, the acts of repenting and
believing and confessing and obeying and trusting
and loving are the acts of free human persons, but
the freedom to act is only possible through the
presence and assistance of the Holy Spirit, who
indwells the soul and quickens the faculties.
A careful reading of the classic Book of
Common Prayer (1928 in the United States)
and of the other Anglican formularies (the
Ordinal, the Thirty-nine Articles) will confirm
that sinful human beings can only have fellowship
with the Holy Trinity because the same Holy
Trinity has established a covenant and created a
relation with mankind through the new Man (Adam).
This covenant and relation has its center and its
meaning in the Lord Jesus Christ, the new Adam,
who is the Word made flesh and the Mediator and
the High Priest.
In the Common Prayer tradition, the Collect for
the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity reads:
O God [our Father], forasmuch as
without thee we are not able to please thee;
Mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all
things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.
And a Collect that may be used with any public
service reads:
Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings
with thy most gracious favour, and further us
with thy continual help; that in all our works
begun, continued and ended in thee, we may
glorify thy holy Name, and finally by thy mercy
obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen.
These with other Collects point to the truth that
salvation is wholly by grace. (It may be noted
that the general approach of the 1979 Prayer Book
is to suggest that the covenant is more like a
contract between a major (God) and a minor player
(man) than a covenant that is wholly established
by the one party, the Holy Trinity. Thus there is
much talk in the ECUSA of “the baptismal
covenant,” meaning what we must do on God’s behalf
for our neighbors in terms of peace and justice.)
On the basis of the biblical theology as this is
known within the Anglican way in the tradition of
the Book of Common Prayer, it may be said
that any talk that suggests that I can negotiate
the terms of the covenant with the Father through
the Son and by the Holy Spirit is to be rejected.
Further, any talk that suggests that there is such
a thing as a one-on-one union of the individual
Christian and the Holy Trinity is also to be
rejected.
We need to be very clear that any union that we
sinful creatures have with God the Father is,
always and only, through and in Jesus Christ. He,
as the Son of God incarnate, has an eternal union
with the Father within the Godhead, and we are
united with the Father by being enclosed within
the Son—that is, within his vicarious and sacred
humanity. This is why the apostle Paul speaks
often of Christians being “in Christ.” There is a
perfect, personal relation of the Father and the
Son and of the Son and the Father, and on the
basis of this relation and within this relation
there is a relation of all who are “in Christ”
with the Father and of the Father with all who are
“in Christ.” All these relations exist in and by
the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit.
To use the word “relation” (Latin, relatio)
is to follow the vocabulary created by the early
Fathers to denote the way in which the Three
Persons of the Holy Trinity are united and
connected to each other within the perfect unity
of the one Godhead. Here relation carries the
strong sense of that which is objectively in
existence and necessarily true of the reality of
God, the Holy Trinity. Without relations of order
there would be no Holy Trinity.
To translate relatio by the modern word
“relationship” is to make a major mistake. While
“relation” points to a fixed order or a precise
union, “relationship” (strictly speaking) points
to experience—experiencing what the relation
actually is.
Based on the relations of order within the Holy
Trinity, there are relations of order within God’s
creation and redemption of the world. Thus both
the Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant (by
Christ’s blood) are expressions of a relation with
man established by God as the God of all mercy and
grace. The origin, nature and content of these
covenants or relations of order are created,
fixed, and guaranteed by the Holy Trinity, and
there is no room in them for negotiation from the
human side. Ours is to love the Lord our God with
all our being.
Again, to speak of these relations of God to man
and of man to God as “relationships” is to invite
confusion of thought.
Adding “ship” to the end of a noun changes the
meaning to denote the state or condition of being
so-and-so. So “relationship,” strictly speaking,
is the state of being related. First there is the
relation between persons; then there is
relatedness of those in the relation, and finally
there is the relationship, the experience or
reality of the relation.
However, while the word “relation” seems to have
kept its traditional meanings (which include of
course the blood-ties of a family—thus relatives),
the word relationship has taken on a
meaning that is much broader than the one it had
earlier this century. A “relationship” now refers
to any kind of association or union, temporary or
permanent, licit or illicit, moral or immoral,
between two or more persons (or two or more groups
of persons). Thus I have a relationship with my
therapist, butcher, doctor, broker, dentist,
friend, acquaintance, brother, lawyer, senator,
pastor, daughter, teacher, plumber, baker, and
wife—to name but a few! If I am gay, I have a
relationship with one or more persons of the same
sex. If I am heterosexual and committing adultery
or fornication, I have a relationship with my
“lover.” And so on.
Apparently the use of “relationship” in the modern
sense began in the 1960s as a way of making
neutral what was known as “having an affair.” It
is perhaps one of those words (such as
“interesting”) that is intended to have no moral
connotation. It simply refers to some kind of
association between persons, and it creates the
impression that all such associations are of
similar value—temporary and transient. Further, it
belongs to the culture of modern, autonomous
individualism.
“A personal relation to God” is a correct way of
speaking if it is understood that this relation is
of grace and is always and only through and in
Jesus Christ, that is, in his Body, and with the
Holy Spirit. “A personal relation to Jesus Christ”
is an acceptable way of speaking if it is
understood that this relation is that of the
disciple to the Master, of the sinner to the
Savior, and of the servant to the Lord, and is
alongside and with other such disciples in the
kingdom of God.
It is best, however, to avoid speaking of “a
personal relationship with Jesus,” even though it
can be given a sound meaning by those who have a
right theology. In today’s environment and
culture, as we have seen, “relationship” is a word
that points to temporary and even immoral
associations of persons. And whatever it is that
unites the forgiven sinner to the gracious God, it
is certainly not ephemeral, temporary, or immoral!
We do not want to give the impression that
becoming a disciple of Jesus is only for a short
time while you or I feel good about it!
To make clear that
being a Christian truly involves communion with
the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity within the
household of God, one ought to use biblical and
patristic terms. Thus one should say that one is
a child of God, a disciple of Jesus Christ, a
member of the Body of Christ, a soldier in the
army of the Lord, a patient in Christ’s
hospital, a lamb in the flock of Christ the
Shepherd, a friend of God, a brother of Jesus
Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit, a servant
in God’s household, and so on. One can say with
the apostle Paul, “I know in whom I have
believed,” and one can say with the apostle
John, “Our fellowship is with the Father and
with his Son.” What one cannot claim is an
individualistic relationship with either the
Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit or with the
Three in One.
If we allow our minds to be formed by classical
theology (in our case as Anglicans, using the
Rites, Offices and Collects of the classic Book of
Common Prayer), then we shall not fall into
questionable modern ways of speech. Rather, by
grace, we shall speak joyously and faithfully of
our relation to the Holy Trinity grounded in his
relation to us. Because the Father through the Son
and by the Holy Spirit has come to us (each one of
us), so we (each one of us) approach the Father
through and in the Son and with the Holy Spirit.
We have a personal and corporate relation to the
Holy Trinity because our individual and corporate
union is through and in the One Person of Jesus
Christ, God incarnate.
Communion with the Holy Trinity and the communion
of the saints is experienced uniquely on earth by
the faithful at Holy Communion. The very elements
used, which become for us the sacramental body and
blood of the once crucified but now exalted Lord
Jesus Christ, have an innate symbolism that points
to the nature of our communion with God.
The bread is the composite of many grains of wheat
that were first mingled and then changed by forces
outside of themselves. Likewise the wine is the
composite of many grapes that also have been
united and then changed by forces outside of
themselves. Each of us, as born from above by the
Holy Spirit, is related to God by grace and is in
communion with him, but that relation of grace and
that communion of love only exist and are only
known within the unity of the Body of Christ.
There is no autonomous individualism in the
covenant of grace, for we are all one in Christ
Jesus. However, in this unity of the Body every
member is precious.
This
article
was originally published in the
September/October
1998 Issue of
Touchstone:
A Journal of Mere
Christianity, copyright
© 1998 the Fellowship of St.
James. Used with permission. Touchstone
is a monthly
ecumenical
journal which
endeavors to
promote
doctrinal,
moral, and
devotional
orthodoxy among
Roman Catholics,
Protestants, and
Orthodox.
The
Reverend Dr. Peter Toon, was an
Anglican priest and author of many
spiritual books, including Protestants
and Catholics: A Guide to
Understanding the Differences among
Christians, published in the
United States by Servants Books, Ann
Arbor, 1984
Many of his books, including Protestants
and Catholics, and Meditating
as a Christian, can be read
online for free at: http://newscriptorium.com/toon-collection
Peter Toon was born in Yorkshire,
England, October 25, 1939. He was a
graduate of King’s College, London,
and Christ Church, Oxford, with a
Doctor of Philosophy from Oxford
(D.Phil.). He was ordained a priest in
the Church of England in 1973. He
taught theology in both England and
America, and was also a visiting
professor and guest lecturer at a
variety of seminaries and universities
in Asia, Europe, and Australia. Dr.
Toon was a parish priest and was in
demand as a visiting preacher and
lecturer. He was a recent
past-President of the Prayer Book
Society of the U.S.A. He and his wife
lived in San Diego where he died April
25, 2009. [bio
source]
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