Reaching Both Conservatives and Liberals

For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the fathers, and [Christ has become a servant] for the Gentiles to glorify God for His mercy.... (Romans 15:8-9)

As I meditate on these verses to get a sense of the underlying truths here, I remember the two main ideas or attitudes that define the differences between the thinking of Jews and Gentiles. It is the same contrasts that can be seen yet today between what some term conservatives and liberals, legalists and teachers of “only grace”. The first group is generally concerned mainly with what they view as justice and righteous living. They put great emphasis on keeping rules and on obedience and living a righteous life. Their focus is generally on the externals and behavior and most of their effort and attention is absorbed in trying hard in one way or another to satisfy what they believe are the demands and requirements of God.

The second group sense that there is something inherently wrong with the obsessions of the first group and so they shift their focus to the opposite extreme. They might seize upon all the texts that talk about grace and mercy and love and generally move past the passages that might make them uncomfortable in their lifestyle choices or bring painful conviction to their souls. They believe that believing in Jesus only means just having good feelings in connection with church or enjoying emotional highs each weekend. Anytime the subject of the law of God comes up they are ready to discount any obligation for obedience and teach instead that Jesus was the fulfillment of the law so we are somehow exempt from perfect obedience. Of course, this kind of talk plays right into the hands of the first group and they are appalled and outraged at the liberal views of the second group and so the fight is on.

But is truth to be found by winning the argument conclusively that has gone on for centuries between conservatives and liberals? Or have both groups failed to listen to the real Spirit of God with a humble heart to discover the face of God in Christ Jesus? Is truth a carefully crafted compromise between the radical extremes of the left and right or is it something along a completely different line?

As may be seen, I am firmly of this last opinion. I am disenchanted with the strident claims of both camps that engage endlessly in bickering, attacks and criticism of each other while they both base their opinions and doctrines on false premises about the character of God. In fact, because of this it will be seen in the end that both conservatives and liberals will join in a strange coalition to fiercely attack those who dare to believe a completely different picture of God with their lives demonstrating evidence of the kind of transformations that the other two camps have been claiming to pursue all along.

I believe a careful look at these verses from this perspective reveals some important things about how God relates to people coming from either of these two directions into the real truth that bonds them together in a completely new body called the body of Christ. It will be seen that these believers in the truth about God's character will increasingly demonstrate a new spirit of acceptance, humility and love toward each other that is not forced or faked in any way but is spontaneous and heart-felt. But at the same time this genuine kind of relationship is one that will have its times of conflict due to the element of maturity. Just as it takes time to grow up as a child and many mistakes will be made in the process, so to learning to view each other through the eyes of heaven takes time as our hearts are carefully molded by the Spirit to think and feel and react differently than we are previously accustomed to doing.

Last time I visited a little about what it looked like for Jesus to relate to the first group of people, the Jews who also generally represent legalists. I want to maybe revisit that a little while at the same time explore how He reached out in the spirit of a servant to Gentiles who generally represented the opposite extreme.

I notice that what this verse says was important to Jews was “truth” as well as the promises given to their fathers, meaning their ancient ancestors early in the Old Testament period. In contrast to this, Paul notes that what was evidently more important to reach the mind of Gentiles was the revelation of a God who is full of mercy. This would seem to imply that the deep need of the Gentile heart was to encounter a God who was not obsessed with justice so much that it dominated all His dealings with humans. They were used to gods that demanded attention and were harsh and arbitrary. And the God presented by the Jews who claimed to serve the only true God was not that much different from the demanding gods of the pagans from their perspective.

Now, I realize that some of these statements can easily be misconstrued by anyone wishing to discredit me. But the underlying problem is that we must be very careful to understand the real meaning of each of the words we are using before we can begin to comprehend the deeper truths revealed when these words are used together. Justice is one of those words that has been very much hijacked by religion and is generally filled with all sorts of dubious notions at best. What we generally think of when we use the word justice is quite different, I believe, than what God means when He talks about justice. I am not saying they are totally opposite. However, justice is a word and concept that is seriously misused both by religious and non-religious people alike.

This actually takes us straight to the very core accusation that initiated the whole war, the great controversy between Christ and Satan that has gone on for millenia now. Lucifer (now Satan) laid out the accusation that God was not just and fair in His dealings with His created beings and he proposed an alternative form of government that he claimed would be based on real justice for all. Lucifer claimed that the way God ran His government was enslaving and restricted far too much the real freedoms that intelligent beings deserved. He came up with a new slant for defining justice that was so convincing and deceptive that vast numbers of brilliant minds throughout the universe, minds far more acute than any human mind has ever been, fell for the deception and joined Lucifer in his grand new plan.

So it comes as no surprise that each of us has grown up with very distorted perceptions of the real meaning of justice given that we were born and raised in the enemies territory and under his deceptive influences. God is very patiently providing means and ways for us to become reacquainted with the real truth as it is revealed in Jesus, but it is a process that is taking a very long time, but it will soon come to a final conclusion. Part of this process called salvation (which means healing or being restored to wholeness) is having our distorted assumptions replaced with real truth and being filled with God's Spirit at the heart level so that we can once again reflect the realities about God that were obscured by Satan so long ago. God intends to find a people who will be completely willing to be perfect reflectors of His truth, His character and His grace. And these will be people from all sorts of backgrounds and cultures. They will come from the left and the right, from the high and the low, from everywhere imaginable. And in the process of being knitted together by God's Spirit into full unity they will often find their old assumptions in conflict with each other and in need of further adjustment and repair or replacement by God.

So in contrast to the background of a heavy emphasis on justice by Jewish minds, Gentiles were in need of seeing a God who was full of mercy in contrast to the stern view of God presented by the Jews. The Gentiles, living in much more open sin than the self-righteous Jews, were in some respects much more aware of their fallen condition and their need for grace. What they needed was not a God who demanded justice (read “harsh punishment”) as the Jews delighted to believe, but they needed to encounter a God who would surprise them with overwhelming grace and mercy and forgiveness that would awaken love in their own hearts in response. In turn, this awakening love would be the catalyst that would motivate them to praise God for His faithfulness, love, forgiveness, mercy and all the other wonderful things about God obscured by the lies promoted about Him by both legalists and satanic influences.

The greatest surprise that then emerges is that as praise and gratitude fills the heart, the whole being becomes transformed and new life springs up in the soul. This is the kind of life that Jesus was constantly trying to educate people about and introduce them to while He was among us here on earth. He came to demonstrate the servant-spirit of God that was not afraid to stoop to suffer any disgrace or humiliation to entice us to change our opinions about His Father.

So Jesus came to serve the legalists. And those among them with honest hearts would perceive that indeed Jesus really did fulfill all of the predictions of the prophets and all the real requirements of the law when properly understood. However, Jesus did not fulfill the expectations of the false ideas about justice and national bigotry that had been built up for centuries in the traditions of men, and that failure to meet their false expectations led them to kill Him on a cross for not complying with their demands for a God who would support their false criteria.

But when understood properly and perceived with the heart, everyone, whether liberal or conservative, will see in the life and death of Christ a radical revelation of the God who does not fit any of our paradigms. This is a God who simply will not fit into any of our boxes or be controlled by our restrictions and regulations or religions. This is a God so full of mercy and extravagant forgiveness that the conservatives are scandalized just as were the unbelieving Jews. And this is a God who is so meticulous and particular about details and determined to perfect His character fully in His people that unbelieving liberals are likewise scandalized.

But for those willing to surrender their own paradigms and have their hearts transformed by a power outside of themselves, God comes to offer His perfect and effective plan of healing and restoration that will bring a final end to all this long history of sin and pain and death. He is right now drawing all men unto Himself as He promised to Nicodemus, and all who are humble and willing enough to be drawn will find themselves energized and empowered to live the very life of God – full of grace and truth.

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