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"And the Word became flesh and lived among
us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full
of grace and truth." (John 1:14).
In a word, spiritual formation is "Christlikeness" from
the inside out. It is this end to which God has been working since the beginning.
Christlikeness does, in fact, create the all-inclusive community that genuinely
unites us and knits us together as one. It is the wholeness and holiness
for which, by nature, the human heart hungers, and which is displayed among
the people of God through the fruit and the gifts of the Spirit. Qualified
and powerful "ambassadors for Christ," we live here and now as "children
of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation,
in which you shine like stars in the world" (2 Cor. 5:20; Phil. 2:15).
Limits and Liabilities for Our Formation
The primary limitations of this form of God-with-us
are twofold. First, social conditions shaped expectations in a manner that
prevented many people from being able to receive Jesus as "Messiah." In
the minds of nearly everyone the Messiah would bring a kind of radical political
reform and restoration of national identity that was flatly incompatible
with the realities of God's kingdom and the central teachings of Jesus. This
prevented a correct understanding and reception of that kingdom, and made
the personal presence of Jesus, though extremely powerful and convincing,
also confusing and enigmatic, even to his closest followers. Neither Jesus'
behavior nor his teaching could be understood within the cultural assumptions
at the time he lived; and to step outside those assumptions was almost impossible,
even for the most well-intentioned hearer. Further mediation was needed.
Jesus, of course, understood all this, and provision was made for a correct
understanding to develop, as the resurrection, Pentecost, and the story of
the Church unfolds in the book of Acts and continues to unfold up to this
very day.
The second limitation is the fact that "the Spirit was not
yet given" (John
7:39, NASV). The death and departure of Jesus and the coming of the Spirit
upon the disciples was, in point of fact, a liberation of Christ from the
self-imposed limitations of the divine presence in the individual life of
a Jewish rabbi (Phil. 2:5-8). With this liberation the person of Christ became
free to move with the word of the gospel of the kingdom throughout the inner
life of the disciples and about the world at large (Acts 6:7, 19:20, 2 Tim.
2:9, John 14: 15-26, Col. 3:16, etc.). But the Gospels do not provide the
final and ultimately perfect way God will dwell in his people as Acts, the
Epistles, and Revelation vividly reveal. History's work is not yet complete.
 
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E-newsletter Archive
January/February 2005
