The
Pastoral Care of God the Son
[This
is the fourth of five posts.]
Introduction
As we continue to explore
a Trinitarian pastoral theology for the pastoral care of sinners, we now turn
in this fourth study to how our theology of God the Son can guide us. With so much of Christian teaching about the
person and work of Jesus Christ, this phase of the study could be considerably
expanded beyond what will be offered here.
The entire study in these five posts is meant to initiate further such
reflections on a Trinitarian pastoral theology.
The occasion for these studies is the Church of England’s present consideration
of a ‘pastoral accommodation’ for persons in same-sex relationships. The concluding, fifth study in our series
will focus on this proposal more directly after considering pastoral care with
reference to the person and work of God the Holy Spirit. Our argument is that pastoral care, not
accommodation, is what the Church needs to offer sinners. Indeed, accommodation of sin is not pastoral
in the least. It is destructive. Moreover, as we will see in this study, Jesus’
ministry could be defined as a ministry to oppose a system of accommodation of
sin by giving his disciples a new moral vision of the Kingdom of God and by
performing the ultimate pastoral care of sinners, His sacrificial death on the
cross. This then leads us to consider
Jesus’ partnership and high priestly work on our behalf and then his example as
the chief shepherd—images that explain the pastoral role of God the Son.
The
Moral Vision of the Kingdom of God
What was the major point
of division between Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees? After all, both believed the Scriptures (the
Old Testament) were the Word of God.
Both believed that God called for a high standard of righteousness and
that this was revealed in His Law. Yet
Jesus minced no words when it came to the scribes and Pharisees. The division was precisely over pastoral care
for sinners. The Pharisees, whose very
name likely has to do with the word ‘separate,’ held to an interpretation of
the Law that involved the righteous separating from sinners. Jesus, on the other hand, called for a
pastoral care of sinners. He was accused
of being a friend of sinners (Matthew 11.19; Luke 7.34). Yet there is an irony to Jesus’ criticism of
the scribes and Pharisees: they were, Jesus claimed, actually offering a pastoral accommodation for sin by the
very ethic that involved separation from sin.
How could a separation
from sin lead to a pastoral accommodation of sin? The problem lay in having to make exceptions
to a legal system with high standards.
The same system that provided detailed definitions of sin also provided
loopholes to the laws in order to accommodate sin. Three examples suffice to make the
point. First, Jesus criticised the
Pharisees’ accommodation of divorce for any cause (Matthew 19.1-9). Second, he criticised the Pharisees’ law of ‘Corban,’ which allowed people to
designate something to God in order to avoid using it to support their parents’
when there was need (Matthew 15.1-6; note Mark 7.11). Third, he criticised the scribes and
Pharisees for scrupulously following the letter of the law so as to avoid the
spirit of the law (Matthew 23.15-33).
For example, Jesus says,
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you
tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the
law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced
without neglecting the others’ (Matthew 23.23).
The
problem with the ‘letter of the Law’ is not the letter but the limitation of
the Law to the letter. Jesus
does not overthrow the Law with a value or virtue ethic; he rather affirms the
Law and its further implications by
highlighting the fact that the laws are concrete expressions of God’s Kingdom values
and virtues.
Indeed, the solution to
the inadequate ethic of pastoral accommodation of the scribes and Pharisees did
not lie in lowering the standards of
righteousness. In fact, Jesus heightened the standards of
righteousness! He said to his disciples,
"Do not think that I have
come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to
fulfill. 18 For truly I tell
you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a
letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks one
of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be
called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them
will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of
the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew
5.17-20).
One
way in which Jesus corrected the ethic of pastoral accommodation was to return
to a creation ethic. Whereas the
Pharisees’ legal ethic was designed for living in a sinful world, the moral
vision of the Kingdom of God was designed for life in God’s world. Jesus made the point when rejecting the
Pharisees’ acceptance of divorce and remarriage:
Some Pharisees came to him, and
to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for
any cause?" 4 He
answered, "Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning
'made them male and female,' 5
and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be
joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? 6 So they are no longer two, but
one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."
(Matthew 19.3-6).
Christ
Our Saviour
So, what is the solution
that Jesus offered? The answer comes in
the last third of each of the four Gospels: Jesus’ suffering, death, and
resurrection. If God’s standards of
righteousness are not negotiable so that sin may be accommodated, then the only
solution for sinful humanity is a salvation from God. Such a solution is already articulated in the
Old Testament. Isaiah, for example, says
He saw that there was no one, and
was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm brought him
victory, and his righteousness upheld him…. And he will come to Zion as
Redeemer, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, says the LORD (Isaiah
59.16, 20).
Quite
possibly with reference to this passage,[1] Paul says
But now, apart from law, the
righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the
prophets, 22 the righteousness
of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no
distinction, 23 since all
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;
24 they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25
whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective
through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine
forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; 26 it was to prove at the present
time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith
in Jesus.
Christ
Our Partner and High Priest
Not only is Christ our Saviour and Redeemer in the
sense of his doing something for us. The
New Testament also speaks of our participation in Christ. Paul develops this notion through the repeated
phrase ‘in Christ’ (and variations). A
passage in Colossians is indicative of this view: we participate in Christ’s
death, resurrection, ascension, and coming again (Col. 2.20-3.17). This involves, e.g., our dying to the sinful
ways in which we once lived just as Christ died for our sins. Paul says,
Put to death, therefore, whatever
in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed
(which is
idolatry). 6 On
account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient
(Colossians 3.5-6).
It also means living the resurrection life, which in
Colossians Paul refers to as the ‘new self, which is being renewed in knowledge
according to the image of its creator’ (Colossians 3.10).
The author of Hebrews articulates the relationship
between Christian ethics and the work of Christ in a similar but different
way. He offers a very pastoral theology
for a church undergoing persecution and flagging of zeal—even abandonment—of
the faith. One way this theology is
developed is by describing Christ as our ‘partner’ and ‘high priest.’ Several passages make this point:
Hebrews 3:12-14 Take care, brothers and sisters,
that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the
living God. 13 But exhort one
another every day, as long as it is called "today," so that none of
you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partners of
Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end.
Hebrews 2:17-18 Therefore he had to become like
his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and
faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement
for the sins of the people. 18
Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who
are being tested.
Hebrews 4:15-16 For we do not have a high priest
who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every
respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore approach the
throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to
help in time of need.
Hebrews 5:7-9 In the days of his flesh, Jesus
offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who
was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent
submission. 8 Although he was
a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; 9 and having been made perfect, he
became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him,
The message of Hebrews is
that Christ knows our weaknesses and temptations, and He is the high priest who
has dealt with our sin and continues to minister on our behalf. Christ’s incarnational empathy with humanity
and His high priestly work give hope to anyone—all of us—struggling with and
needing forgiveness of sin. Every
minister offering comfort and hope to a person struggling with sin, like the
author of Hebrews, needs to do so by pointing the person to Christ our partner
in temptation and our high priest dealing with our sins and offering us
salvation in His perfect sacrifice.
Christ
the Good Shepherd
In his first epistle, Peter
refers to elders as shepherds of God’s flock, with Christ as the chief shepherd
(1 Peter 5.1-4). Jesus is an example to
ministers in their duties of pastoral care.
Peter’s main point is that Christians follow in the suffering of
Christ. The source of suffering—not only
for the ministers but for all believers—was in Christians deciding to give up
the sinful life of their culture. They determined
to give up their former life and to live the rest of their lives not by self-gratifying
desires but by the will of God (1 Peter 4.2).
Peter expands on what he means:
You have already spent enough time in doing what the
Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels,
carousing, and lawless idolatry. 4
They are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of
dissipation, and so they blaspheme. 5
But they will have to give an accounting to him who stands ready to judge the
living and the dead (1 Peter 4.3-5).
Positively,
Peter calls on believers to be serious and discipline themselves (4.7),
maintain constant love (4.8), be hospitable (4.9), serve one another with the
gift God has given (4.10), speak to one another only with the words of God
(4.11), and rejoice in the honour of sharing in Christ’s sufferings
(4.13-16). The role of an elder in the
community is to tend the flock of God that is trying to live in this way as
shepherds serving the chief shepherd, Jesus (5.4).
Frankly,
false shepherds abound. They are warned
against throughout the New Testament writings.
They likely did not see themselves as false teachers, but, in one way or
another, led their followers to continue to live according to their own sinful
desires instead of by the will of God.
They coddled sinners and applauded their sins (Romans 1.32). Jude says that they ‘pervert the grace of our
God into licentiousness’ (v. 4). Some in
our day, following a hermeneutic of ‘reading against the text,’ even locate the
power of Christian faith not in its teaching but in its subversiveness. They then use this subversive hermeneutic to
read against the Scripture, and they do so in order to exhort the very perverse
activities that Scripture condemns.[2] One has to wonder if—or when—this same hermeneutic
will also be applied to bestiality and not just homosexuality. ‘Because of these teachers the way of truth
will be maligned’ (2 Peter 2.2). They
‘indulge their flesh in depraved lust’ (2 Peter 2.10—‘depraved lust’ likely
includes a reference to homosexuality, given the reference to Sodom and this
text’s dependence on Jude 7). And they
‘speak bombastic nonsense, and with licentious desires of the flesh they entice
people who have just escaped from those who live in error’ (2 Peter 2.18). Indeed, their liberation teachings are
nothing more than the advocacy of slavery—a slavery to corruption: ‘They
promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for people
are slaves to whatever masters them’ (2 Peter 2.19). Peter concludes his description of these
false teachers in his day with words of equal relevance to today:
For it would have been better for
them never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to
turn back from the holy commandment that was passed on to them. 22 It has happened to them
according to the true proverb, "The dog turns back to its own vomit,"
and, "The sow is washed only to wallow in the mud” (2 Peter.2.21-22).
Thus,
the direction of false teaching is to accommodate oneself to the world rather
than find salvation in Christ. Jesus
died for sinners. Pastoral care
continuously points people to the cross: Jesus died for all our sins once for
all (1 Peter 3.18). False shepherds
undermine the cross because they undermine the presence of sin. Instead, they affirm the sins of the
people. What the early Church
encountered in false teachers was an accommodation of the Christian message to
Greek and Roman culture. The false
teachers in our day accommodate Christian teaching and ethics to the sinful
ways of our culture. As certain
preachers accommodated Scripture to a slave culture in the 19th
century southern America, so also in our day preachers are accommodating Scripture
to the sexual debauchery of Western culture.
But Christ came to die for our sins.
Jesus the Pastor died for our sins.
The Shepherd gave his life for the sheep (John 10.11, 15). This fact sticks in the throat of all who
whitewash what the Church has called sin: if Jesus died for our sins, and if
what Scripture has said is sin is not any longer considered to be sin, then why
did Jesus die?
Conclusion
The
language of ‘pastoral accommodation’ has helped give us language to understand
Jesus’ criticism of the scribes and Pharisees, whose accommodations to a status
quo of sin formed the backdrop for Jesus’ own Kingdom of God ethic. Jesus refused to relax the commandments of
God but, in fact, extended their interpretation to call for the sinlessness
expected at the pre-Fall time of creation.
Indeed, this point was made precisely in regard to the sexual ethics
around divorce and remarriage: Jesus argues that, except in the case of
immorality, this amounts to nothing more than adultery (Matthew 19.1-9). The relevance for this exchange is directly
applicable to other sexual ethics condemned in the Scriptures, including
homosexuality.
With
the ethical bar raised rather than lowered, the only hope for sinful humanity
is the work of Christ himself to bring God’s salvation, His forgiving and
transforming grace. Pastorally, this
means that sinners are not welcomed because their sin really is not sin or
really is not sinful enough. It means
that sinners are welcomed because they have a Saviour, who not only forgives
their sins but is at work in their lives to transform them from one degree of
glory to another into the image of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3.18). The incarnated Jesus knows our temptations and,
as our high priest, has offered the perfect sacrifice for our sins. He also continues to function as our
priest. The way to inclusion is not to deny
sin but to confess our sinfulness and turn to Christ.
Finally,
Christ as our Shepherd sets the example for elders serving the Church as
shepherds and that over against the false shepherds that have always plagued
the Church and assuredly do so today.
The false shepherds bend the Christian faith to the culture and away
from Christ’s death as it inconveniently points out our sin. Pastoral care of sinners helps them turn to
the cross, for the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1.7).
[1] Paul has earlier quoted from several verses in Isaiah
and may still be developing his interpretation of Isaiah 59. Romans 3.15-17 quotes Isaiah 59.7-8. His reference to the ‘righteousness of God’
and ‘redemption’ may continue the connection with Isaiah 59.20-21.
[2] This can be said, e.g., of Alan
Wilson, Anglican Bishop of Buckingham, UK.
He avers, ‘It’s the queering – the
subversion – that actually is the power in the religion, not literalism about
what was in the book.’ See the video of
his speech and Jeffrey Walton’s ‘UK Bishop Alan Wilson on Jesus’ ‘Queering
Project;’ available online at: https://juicyecumenism.com/2016/06/27/uk-bishop-speaks-jesus-queering-project/
(accessed 28 June, 2016).