Both in theology and in practice, we’ll get ourselves into trouble by picking between two equally true ideas. We make enemies of what should be friends.
For example, should we highlight divine transcendence or immanence? Is it better if our theology is Trinitarian or Christ-centered? Ought we to focus on the “objective” or the “subjective” sides of Christian life? Do we need to think of the church as universal or as local? The list could go on and on.
But why pick?
The mark of a good theologian (whether armchair or academic) isn’t simply affirming the “right things” but the ability to uphold multiple aspects of scriptural truth and not just pick the one that seems most useful at the time.
Take the classic matter of how divine and human agency relate: Some people so highlight God’s sovereignty that human response appears irrelevant, while others so focus on individual agency that they appear to devalue or ignore God’s presence, primacy, and power.
While I was researching and writing a theology of Christian life, I found myself right in the middle of these tensions, wrestling with how to uphold multiple biblical truths rather than pick between them.
We can summarize Christian life as a response to the love of God. To unpack that in a simple but nonsimplistic way, we need to recognize multiple layers to that human response.
Theology of Life
After some years thinking through this basic idea of what this response to the love of God looks like—yes, I’m that slow—I finally framed a theology of Christian life in three sentences:
Thesis: Christian life is a response to the love of God.
Underlying Theology: The triune God not only first loved us, but the incarnate Son also first loved God for us. We (corporately and personally) respond to God’s love as those who have been united to Christ by the Spirit.
Those brief statements describe a Christ-centered, ecclesially grounded, and personal response to God’s love. Let’s unpack this more.
I think of the human response to the love of God as three strands of a rope: Messiah, ecclesia (church), and ego (me). These three cords together allow our understanding and experience of Christian life to be Christ-centered and subjectively engaged, while also ecclesially anchored. Trying to pick only one from among them is a false and destructive choice.
Threefold Cord
Ecclesiastes 4:12 tells us that “a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” I’m proposing that a biblical account of Christian life will keep in mind this threefold dynamic of the human response to God’s love.
1. Christ
The objective reality and foundation is outside of us (extra nos). He’s the faithful One who lived, died, rose, ascended, and ever lives as our Mediator. And this Messiah not only receives our worship but also leads it.
Jesus of Nazareth, God incarnate, leads and grounds the human response to love God. This is done outside of me (objectively) and yet by one of us—a true human. As the God-man, Christ isn’t just the object of our worship but the leader of our worship. This doesn’t undermine the cross’s centrality but rather frames it within the wonder of the incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, and ongoing session of Christ. Jesus perfectly loves God and neighbor, and he does this on our behalf.
As the God-man, Christ isn’t just the object of our worship but the leader of our worship.
Since Christian life is a response to the love of God, and Jesus is the One who leads that response, from first to last we encounter love and grace in him. As those united to our Messiah, we’re also recipients of his life and activity.
We can be so familiar with the central doctrines of Christianity that we stop seeing them, so don’t miss this: Jesus doesn’t just love us—he loves God for us. Christ is both God’s ultimate expression of love for humanity and humanity’s ultimate expression of love for God. Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, the gospel is so much bigger and more beautiful than we tend to realize.
2. Ecclesia (Church)
Ecclesia is the communal context, the body of Christ. Union with Christ puts us into union with his people.
Since the body of Christ corporately follows its head, to speak of Christian life apart from this larger communal framework contradicts biblical descriptions. One’s Christian life is necessarily connected not only to Christ but also to his people. We in the West easily make individualistic interpretations even of the biblical image of the body without realizing it.
For example, we talk about being a “hand” or an “ear” as if the body of Christ is like Mr. Potato Head, but the biblical image of the body is more organic and interdependent than that. If you cut an ear off a real body, the ear dies! Only with a strong understanding of corporate union and communion will we appreciate how vital our corporate response to God’s love is for our Christian life.
3. Ego (Me)
We also need to reckon with the personal, subjective dimension (I trust, I obey, I follow Jesus). Christian life includes a deeply personal and particular relationship with God.
As well as working outside of me, Christ also works in me (subjectively) by his Spirit. A biblical account of Christian life avoids radical individualism while affirming personal involvement.
A biblical account of Christian life avoids radical individualism while affirming personal involvement.
Although Paul describes faith as a gift from God (Eph. 2:8), it’s also clear that God doesn’t believe for us; we believe. I am called to believe, to be baptized, to swallow the bread and wine, to trust, and to follow the Savior in the little and the big things. While Christ is the center, our ego—the “I”—isn’t lost but properly centered in Christ through union with him and his people.
All Christians would do well to have a much thicker account of Christian life than we currently do. This doesn’t require that we discover new theology but that we acquire a deeper understanding of classic orthodox theology that has guided the church for millennia.
May God give us a fresh vision for this threefold dynamic essential to a theology and experience of Christian life.
