There is another possible explanation for our failure to know God as deeply as we should. It was brought to my attention recently reading popular contemporary writer Dallas Willard.
Willard makes the point that many people fail to give Jesus the attention they should because they’ve been sold a distorted picture of the gospel. The “gospel” as it is presented to many people, Willard says, is little more than a gospel of “sin management.” It’s about what Jesus did to deal with our sin problem. From that point of view, he has more relevance to our death and our subsequent life in heaven than he does to everyday existence now.
Without detracting in any way from the importance of the cross, Willard points out that the gospel Jesus preached was about more than our sin problem. It was a gospel of the kingdom of God – about its nearness and accessibility through him. Jesus’ miracles, in particular, were a demonstration that God was with him exerting his kingdom rule through his actions. And the good news Jesus proclaimed was that it was possible for ordinary men and women to enter the realm of that kingdom and enjoy its life right here and now as they turned from their old way of life and welcomed him and his message.
Failure to see the larger purpose of Jesus’ ministry, Willard says, is a major reason why people – professing Christian people – fail to take his person and words as seriously as they should. And flowing from that, it is a reason why people don’t know God as intimately as they should.
Willard has a point. If our focus on Jesus is simply in his role as our sin-bearer, then it is possible to think he has little relevance to the rest of life. And if that’s the case, we are not going to see any real need (beyond gratitude) to maintain a close, moment-by-moment relationship with him. To put it crassly, having consumed his merits, we have little further use for him – at least until we get to see him again in heaven.
But if on the other hand, Jesus comes to us as the author of life – our sin-bearer, yes, but more than that, our life-giver also – then there is every reason to develop the most intimate of relationships with him. If our entrance into God’s kingdom and participation in its life are, as we believe, conditioned by our response to the Lord Jesus and our relationship with him, then we simply must seek to live in the closest fellowship with him that we possibly can.
When that reality grips us it makes fellowship with our Lord Jesus the most important thing in life. Like Paul we say that he (Jesus) is “our life,” and that the life we live each day is “by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me” (Col. 3:3; Gal. 2:20). It makes Paul’s prayer for the Ephesian Christians ours too, namely that God would strengthen us with power through his Spirit in the inner man so that Christ might dwell in our hearts by faith (Ephesians 3:16, 17). Our day-to-day life is spent clinging to Jesus.
Ideas do have consequences. If we have an incomplete or off-centre view of the gospel, we are sure to have a distorted experience of the Christian life. If we think that Jesus came only to deliver us from the burden, power and consequences of sin, then we will likely never pursue the intimacy with him that we might enjoy. But if we believe that he came also to give us access to the life of God through a moment-by-moment faith relationship, then we are sure to seek him with all our hearts.