Theology in the Pulpit for the Pew
The steady flow of articles on theology posted on this website in recent months has been enormously helpful. As I have found myself encouraged and challenged by much of what has been said, I thought I might be able to add one further reflection to the mix of what has already been written. It has to do with the final journey our theology makes from the pulpit to the pew and what it ought to achieve when it gets there.
It is a link in the theological chain that is every bit as vital as all the ones defined already and it will determine whether or not the teachings of the Bible lead to saving transformation in the lives of those who hear it and doxology towards the God by whom they have been given. God has chosen to reveal his truth, not for its own sake, but for the salvation of sinners and the ensuing glory this will bring to his Name.
It is a key component in Paul’s understanding of doctrine as presented in his letters. It is truth with a telos, a goal: namely the lives of men, women, boys and girls being renewed in the image of God through the saving work of his Son.
It comes out classically in the great transition-point of the apostle’s exposition of the gospel in Romans. After eleven chapters of careful explanation of what the gospel is, why it matters and how it came to be, he then goes on to explain what it achieves in the lives of those who truly believe it. As Paul moves into the application of the gospel, he says,
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will (Ro 12.1-2)
The backdrop to what he says is ‘God’s mercy’ – a shorthand encapsulation of the entire panorama of the gospel that has dominated the preceding eleven chapters. It represents the supreme indicative of what God has done for sinners through Christ which guarantees their response to the imperative he goes on to issue to ‘offer [their] bodies as living sacrifices’ and ‘be transformed through the renewing of [their] mind’. In other words, as the Truth of God as a coherent whole and its component truths of which it is comprised leads people to salvation through Christ, then its impact will be plain to see in their life and behaviour.
As theology makes its final journey from the pulpit to the pew, it must make an impact on the lives of those who have received it. And, as it does so, the result will be lives consecrated to God in what the apostle calls, their ‘spiritual act of worship’ (12.1) – the kind of doxology in which God truly delights.
To fully appreciate what lies behind Paul’s confidence in this gospel-driven exhortation (which applies not just to the life of faith in its inception, but also in its continuation through to its consummation) we need to go back to something he has said much earlier in the letter. It is found in the statement, ‘But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted’ (Ro 6.17).
The context in which this occurs is Paul’s response to a distorted understanding of the grace of justification. Having opened up the sheer extravagance of God’s grace in the justifying work of Christ in his life and by his death, he anticipates the way some of his hearers might take that as a license to sin. Hence his saying, ‘What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase?’ (6.1). But he immediately answers his own question with an adamant, ‘May it never be!’ (6.2). Distorted doctrine leads to corrupted conduct.
However, despite his concerns over how some might choose to mishandle the doctrine of justification, Paul thinks better of the Christians in Rome to whom he was writing. He knew from what he had learned of them that their response to the gospel was ‘from the heart’ (6.17) and it had led to a visible transformation in their lives as the consequence of that. But what is interesting is the way Paul describes the impact of gospel truth on the lives of those who have truly received it by faith. ‘You became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were entrusted.’
Two things stand out especially in that statement. Both of which help us to understand how doctrine proclaimed by the preacher impacts the lives of those who truly receive it.
The first is the fact he does not merely speak of gospel truths (plural) but of ‘that form of doctrine’ (singular). The kaleidoscope of doctrines revealed in God’s word is but the spectrum of colours which comprises the single white light of God’s truth as a whole. And it is that truth in its wholeness that leaves its imprint on people’s lives. The underlying word translated ‘form’ in our English versions is tupos in the Greek. A word that was used for both a die and the imprint it made either in soft wax, or else in a mark on a page. It is not unlike the type head on an old typewriter and the letter it formed when it struck the page: there was a direct correspondence between the two.
So with the saving impact of God’s revealed truth in his word: it leaves its mark on those who embrace it by faith. And it leads, not to lives that are ‘book-shaped’, or ‘scroll shaped’, but actually Christ-shaped as he is the very embodiment of God’s truth revealed. So much so that Jesus could actually say, ‘I am the Truth’ (Jn 14.16). It was for this reason that Paul could say to the Galatian churches in the midst of all his frustrations in dealing with all their problems that he would continue to labour tirelessly among them ‘until Christ is formed in you’ (Ga 4.19).
The second thought arising from the way Paul phrases his statement about doctrine is that it is not something committed to those who hear it (for them to do with as they please); but, rather, something to which they themselves have been committed. The power and authority that brings about change in a person’s life does not reside in them as individuals, but in the saving power that resides in God’s truth.
That thought actually brings all readers of Romans back to Paul’s great conviction about the gospel he articulates at the very beginning of this letter. ‘I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes’ (Ro 1.16). Biblical doctrine in all its different facets coheres in the One God has sent to bring salvation into our lost world. And when a person experiences that great salvation, through their being united with Christ in his life, death, resurrection and exaltation, then their lives will be transformed into an every-increasing likeness to Christ which will finally be perfected in the glory of the age to come.
All our musings on theology, which can so easily get as far as the pulpit only to become trapped there, must lead ultimately to the difference it makes to the lives of those who sit in pew.
