Relationship, pt. 5

Part One   Part Two   Part Three   Part Four

To review, people want to be happy more than anything and they think relationship is the top reason for that.  Taking this further though, when they say relationship, they don't mean what God intended for relationship.  I heard a commercial the other day, that I discovered was using an audio clip from the British rock band, Queen, a movie about which was nominated for the Academy Awards this year.  Perhaps the Oscars and the usage in the commercial fed off each other. I looked up the lyrics and the refrain or chorus were the operative words, except with two preceding lines:

It ain't much I'm asking, if you want the truth
Here's to the future for the dreams of youth
I want it all (give it all I want it all)
I want it all (yeah)
I want it all and I want it now.

I wondered if those lyrics were intended to express irony, as if Queen were mocking millennials or the present generation, rather than admiring their point of view.  "I Want It All," I recognize as a perfect millennial anthem.  Apparently band member Brian May wrote the words at the time he had left his first wife for a second, the words serving as a defense of the relationship.  Lead singer, Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara), perhaps got what he wanted, but he also contracted the HIV virus, then full blown AIDS, something nobody would want, and died age 45 in 1991, two years after "I Want It All" was released.

What people want in relationship and what God designed or what scripture teaches conflict with one another.  You can't actually "have it all," even if you want it, unless you mean that you are committed to wait for it and then inherit all things in and through Jesus Christ.  That is usually not what people mean when they say, I want it all.  Maybe the key is, they want it, now.  They want the relationship that they want, even the one they have with God -- they want that to be like they want it.  Nobody gets a relationship with God by subjugating God to his desires, what he wants, but by submitting his wants to God's wants, just like Jesus did with His Father.

Horizontal Relationship

In part four, I alluded to the identification of the "horizontal relationship."  Scripture evinces equality.  In Galatians 3:28 Paul writes:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

This teaching corresponds to what James demands of believers in James 2:1-12, starting with verse one:

My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons.

No believer is better than another believer.  Peter expresses it as "like precious faith" (2 Pet 1:1).  The equality arises from "his divine power [having given] unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness" [2 Pet 1:3].

Everyone has equal opportunity to live as obedient a Christian life as anyone else.  God's grace is available to every believer to an equal degree.  God is light.  Everyone in a church walks in the same light of God, equal to everyone else.  Everyone has sinned.  Everyone has an equal advocate with the Father.  The Jews in Ephesus elevated themselves above the Gentiles, but Paul wrote that every believer in Ephesus was blessed "with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" (Eph 1:3) and "have access by one Spirit unto the Father" (Eph 2:18).  No one believer breathes some unique brand or blend of pure spiritual air.  Every person has equal value, is equal in essence.  Role doesn't determine worth.

Relationship, however, is still hierarchical, a God ordained hierarchy.  An older person is equal to a younger person, but the younger person in a church is not to rebuke the elder, but to entreat him as a father (cf. 1 Tim 5:1).  Of course, the implication is that a son is only to entreat his father, and even a younger man should entreat an older man.  God ordained hierarchical relationship.

Elimination of Distinctions in Relationship

The false idea of horizontal, the misnomer, is the postmodern elimination of distinctions.  It proceeds from a wrong view of God.  Distinctions exist in the Trinity.  The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three different Persons.

In evangelicalism the distortion of God reaches to the incarnation of Jesus.  Jesus didn't come to be like us.  He came to make us like Him, as Peter wrote, to "be partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet 1:4).  He became man, but He was still "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners" (Heb 7:26).

Evangelicals lower and profane Jesus and immerse Him in the culture, the world's art and music. Jesus takes on their commonality and profanity.   Life imitates evangelical art.  Affections are shaped by distorted imagination.  The incarnated Jesus descends to their level.  The feelings in the music give an impression of intimacy and closeness, emphasizing immanence over transcendence.  All relations become more egalitarian and less complementary.

When I think of the new relationship with God characteristic of the relationship church, I also think of Isaiah 29:13:

Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men.

The words, "I love you," are powerful.  The teenaged girls in our church, where I grew up, were warned about them.  They were told that boys would try to use those words.  They were not just meaningless and a lie without commitment, but they were appalling and revolting.

It's good to tell people we love them, but we shouldn't say we love someone if we don't.  Jesus said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15).  That wasn't anything different than what He required of Himself.  He kept every commandment of His Father -- "not my will, but thine, be done" (Luke 22:42).

Biblical love, the only love, is elevated, separated, or unique.  The horizontal relationship has become mired and mixed in the dirt, rejecting the hierarchy and respect.  It flattens relationship and cheapens love.

Love derives from scripture.  It comes from above.  Love is not a feeling.  It is fruit of the Spirit.  It has objective meaning.  It isn't an arbitrary connection with another person.  If the word "love" isn't springing from biblical origins, it shouldn't be used.  It's a heinous lie.  Be careful with just throwing it around and putting it in regular print unless you are capable of and committed to practicing what you are saying or writing.

Egalitarianism neutralizes love.  Love elevates God above self, truth above self, and others above self.  That isn't horizontal.  Scripture itself is above men.  To practice love requires submission to God.  Love isn't a fancy.  It isn't a communal experience that flows through us.  It is pure.  We're not, so we must depend on God, Who is above us, to live the life of love toward others.  The goal isn't a shared feeling.  It is the eternal betterment of someone else.  That doesn't occur by tolerating others and whatever they might think or do. Walking in the light isn't just keeping it real, attempting not to be a put-on.  God is light.  Love is doing what God does.  When we belittle God to our level with profane worship, we are not more likely to submit to Him.

Relationship of God with man hasn't changed.  God sets the terms for the relationship.  Someone can conform God in His imagination to a God that accepts what he wants in a relationship with God, but that doesn't mean it is a relationship with God.  This trickles down to the relationship of people with one another too.

More to Come