Ch 6 Sent by Jesus' Whole-ly Commission

The twenty-first century world is globalizing and getting smaller every day, especially in the realm of the Internet, while cyberspace is growing and the universe appears to be increasing well beyond the Milky Way. We live within the tension of this contextual interaction, which converges with what is common in the human context to further fragment the human condition. The ambiguity of its outcome either challenges us to adapt to existing conditions for as good an outcome as we can under the circumstances. Or it motivates us to take action to change existing conditions from fragmentation to wholeness. For many, the latter seems idealistic and perhaps unrealistic, but for Jesus this is how his disciples “Follow me” and are involved “where I am.”

Is the twenty-first century church globalizing? And is the current surrounding tension causing the church and its persons and relationships to adapt to existing conditions, hoping for the best outcome? Many would observe the fact of the majority of Christians having shifted from the West to the Two-Thirds World as evidence that the church is adapting to become the global church. The ambiguity of this current outcome, however, leaves unresolved the fragmentation of the church’s diverse condition—in spite of joint ventures and other efforts at mission conferences to compose a global mission for all nations.[1]

Looking beyond the quantity of change in Christian demographics, what kind of change is taking place in the global church depends directly on the measure used by the church and its persons and relationships. That is, as Jesus made absolute in his paradigm (Mk 4:24), this measure is critical:

The measure of Jesus’ person we use in our theology and practice will be the measure of the gospel we claim; this gospel we claim will be the measure of the gospel we proclaim; and this gospel we proclaim will be the measure of this gospel’s outcome. Therefore, the outcome we get from this gospel claimed and proclaimed will be the measure of change the church and its persons and relationships undergo other than maintaining the status quo—which either merely re-forms/re-news their theology and practice, or transforms all of them together to be whole and, on this uncommon basis, to enact to live whole-ly together and thereby make whole the human condition of all persons, peoples and nations in this fragmentary globalizing world.

Perhaps more urgent than ever in human history, the twenty-first century presents conditions needing to be changed, for which Christians have both the opportunity and responsibility. To meet this opportunity face to face and to fulfill this responsibility in its primacy, we need to understand our purpose in life and what we are here for.

Even before I was a Christian, I was aware that Christians shared about Christ with others. After I became a Christian, it seemed natural for me to share about Christ with other colleagues in the U.S. Air Force. My actions didn’t seem forced or artificial. Later, when the Great Commission became visible to me, the main theme I heard revolved around “Go into the world.” Since I had global exposure to the world while in the air force, the world didn’t seem like a big thing to me but I felt the responsibility to do something more to fulfill this commission. After all, it was imperative to “go.” Much later, it was clarified for me that “go” wasn’t the imperative of Christ’s commission, even though that’s the imperative that prevailed among Christians in their theology and dominated their practice. Little did I realize, even during my early period of theological study, that correction was also necessary if his commission is going to be fulfilled—a depth of correction.

Part of this depth of correction involved my view of the world itself. My previous exposure to the world shifted as the shrinking globalized world “came” to me. This shift faced me with the need to explore deeper into the world and get to the depth of the diverse persons, peoples and nations composing the world now in my neighborhood, at my doorstep. Clarification of this depth unavoidably exposed me to their human condition, and thus made me vulnerable to my human condition. This depth has been further corrected in my theology and practice to provide the understanding of the human condition (starting with my own condition) necessary to address the world with whole theology and practice. Such clarification and correction continue to be needed in the global church, which faces challenges in a globalizing world that require the church’s response to the depth of the human condition at all levels of life.

Clarification of the Great Commission with the real imperative of “make disciples” doesn’t appear to have made a significant difference in his followers’ practice. This apparent lack of change is likely the direct outcome of their theology lacking the change from being corrected. So, what exactly is Jesus’ commission for all his disciples, and how is it fulfilled beyond what exists today?

In the Great Commission directed to us in relational terms (Mt 28:18-20; Lk 24:45-49; Jn 20:21), Jesus implies that he counts on the identity of all his disciples who belong to his new creation church family, and who are living in relational progression of the new relational order. He counts on them only in these relational terms because this is the whole relational outcome of the only gospel that he enacted and thereby fulfilled for them to be whole and uncommon in likeness of the whole-ly Trinity. This is implied by Jesus since only those who claim this gospel have the necessary basis to proclaim his whole gospel in response to his commission. Here again we are faced with the reality of the measure we use:

The type of gospel (whole or partial) we use will be the measure of the outcome we get; the measure of the outcome we experience in our life, as persons and in our relationships and churches, will be the identity of the disciples and the extent of discipleship we get.

Therefore, we cannot expect to engage the Great Commission beyond the gospel we embrace and the disciples we have become.

The only relational imperative in his commission is for us to “make disciples of all persons, peoples and nations—without distinctions between and among them.” To make such disciples whole without fragmentation, however, would be uncommon, and thus this relational outcome requires us first to be whole-ly disciples in order for this outcome to emerge. The reality, in other words, is that the disciples we are will determine the disciples we make—nothing more no matter how dedicated we are to fulfill the Great Commission. This reality is pivotal for the global church, and all its churches, persons and relationships, to distinguish in its theology and practice.

Accordingly, the Great Commission sending us into the common context of the changing world is based on the validity of presuming that we have responded, embraced and progressed in his nonnegotiable call to us to be whole and uncommon. If this is a false assumption to make about us—despite any of our good intentions—then whatever effort we make in the Great Commission cannot make whole-ly disciples but is limited to make only disciples in likeness as we are. Such an outcome unfolds subtly conforming to be like us (e.g. as Western Christian mission composed the Great Commission) rather that transforming to be whole in likeness of the Trinity. And even though Two-Thirds-World Christians have been refuting Christian colonialism from the West, their outcomes from the Great Commission (even as postcolonial) are still ambiguous and also in need of clarification and correction.

The indisputable fact that the disciples we are (no matter what or where) will determine the disciples we make is the ongoing reality for all missions in the global church. In the midst of the growing diversity of churches and their persons and relationships, this pivotal issue remains significantly unaddressed, basically ignored, or essentially unrecognized in their theology and practice.

Our purpose in life is integrated with Jesus’ commission for all his disciples, and how his commission is fulfilled beyond what exists today determines the primacy of what we (together individually and collectively) are here for. How do they integrally converge and unfold?

To distinguish the irreducible breadth and depth of his commission, Jesus first identified his person as the source of all life (Mt 28:18), who also constituted the new creation of life (Lk 24:44-47). In relational response to our fragmentary human condition, this new life is constituted whole. Wholeness distinguishes the new life of his disciples, nothing less. Therefore, as he communicates to his disciples their commission, he embraces them in new life with “Peace be with you” (Jn 20:21). That is, beyond the significance of a warm greeting or traditional blessing (cf. 20:19,26), Jesus interjects this irreducible and nonnegotiable qualifier to distinguish their new life together in the bond of “My peace is with you to determine your wholeness.” Equally important, this is not merely the peace defined in the human context (common peace) but only his uncommon peace, no substitutes (as in Jn 14:27, cf. Mt 10:34)—all based on “as the Father sent me.” “My uncommon peace determines you in wholeness.” His qualifier is irreducible because it constitutes us in nothing less than whole, and is nonnegotiable because it distinguishes us in no substitutes for the uncommon.

Integrally then, the new life of his disciples is distinguished whole and uncommon. It is only to his whole-ly disciples that Jesus directs his commission: “As the Father has sent my whole-ly person into the world, so I send you my whole-ly disciples into the world” (Jn 20:21; and as Jesus prayed, 17:18)—composing his commission in the dynamic of nothing less than wholeness and no substitutes for the uncommon.

Our purpose in life is to live the new life in uncommon wholeness, both vulnerable together in the new creation church family and vulnerably in the world to make whole-ly disciples of all persons, peoples and nations. Making whole-ly disciples is not by mere reforms (even postcolonial) or renewal (limited to the Spirit) but by the transformation of trinitarian baptism (the old dies and the new rises, Mt 28:19). Furthermore, as these whole-ly disciples emerge, then nurture them to grow and mature together in the new creation church family according to all that whole-ly Jesus embodied, enacted and fulfilled in the primacy of relational together both in the present and age to come (Mt 28:20). When his commission is fulfilled by these whole relational terms according to the primacy of this relational process, it becomes integral to define our purpose in life and to determine the primacy of what we are in the world for.

As our commission becomes clarified and corrected, there is more to embrace and enact together in Jesus’ whole-ly commission.

In his qualifier distinguishing his whole-ly disciples “as the Father sent me,” Jesus reveals an essential truth and reality for his commission sending us into the world, which is lacking in the prevailing understanding of the Great Commission. “As you, Father, have sent me into the world” (Jn 17:18) composed the experiential truth and relational reality of the incarnation as neither the initial nor unique expression of the whole-ly God’s presence and involvement in the world; but the incarnation certainly was the most vulnerable.

The incarnation embodied the most vulnerable presence and enacted the most vulnerable involvement of God in the world to distinguish the full profile of God’s face; and this full profile could only emerge and unfold by the dynamic of nothing less and no substitutes. Yet, what Jesus also reveals is the continuity of his face with the face of God disclosed in the Old (First) Testament, whose presence and involvement in covenant relationship together face to face unfolded in God’s definitive blessing for new relationship together in wholeness (Num 6:24-26) and is now fulfilled by the face of Jesus’ whole-ly person (2 Cor 4:6).

Jesus’ whole-ly commission has continuity with the face of whole-ly God within covenant relationship together (profiled in Gen 17:1-2), and this continuity is essential for the integrity of our wholeness sent into the world. The gospel can only be whole when the incarnation has continuity with the gospel initiated by the face of God within covenant relationship. Our wholeness sent into the world is contingent on the whole outcome of the whole gospel, which is whole only in continuity with the face of God’s whole-ly presence and involvement from the beginning. While this further clarifies our theology, perhaps you wonder what significance this has for our actual practice.

Without this continuity, our presence and function in the world become shaped by the diverse conditions in our surrounding contexts, and thus no longer are following Jesus’ intrusive relational path from the Father. In this subtle process, our discipleship separates Jesus from his defining ontology and function with the Father, whereby (1) he has no functional continuity with the whole-ly God and (2) his person has been reduced to the quantitative framework of the incarnation. Thus, in contrast and conflict with John’s Gospel, the embodied Word may still be God in our theology but limited in continuity with being also the Creator (Jn 1:1-4), and further constrained in continuity of vulnerable function also as the whole-ly Trinity (1:18). Moreover, this limit and constraint imposed on whole-ly Jesus also denies him from having the authoritative basis and means (exousia) to make whole the human condition—the claim he made to introduce his commission (Mt 28:18, cf. Jn 1:4-5). Therefore, as John summarized, this is the continuity of Jesus’ whole-ly person in relational progression from the beginning that we, by the necessity of his irreducible and nonnegotiable qualifier, must follow into the world in order to be distinguished whole-ly “as the Father sent me.” This is the continuity that Jesus prayed for all his disciples to embody and enact distinctly in the world (Jn 17:13-19).

The continuity issue is certainly essential to fulfill Jesus’ commission, notably beyond the diverse ways existing today. Yet, the issue of continuity is often less obvious in our discipleship than the presence of discontinuity. Any discontinuity with the whole-ly God’s presence and involvement from the beginning reduces our persons and function and thereby fragments our relationships. This indicates that our practice is shaped by a reduced theological anthropology that defines our persons and determines our function and relationships accordingly. This is what emerged from the primordial garden to compose the human condition, and how our practice (if not also our theology) can reflect, reinforce and even sustain the human condition. This raises further and deeper issues of continuity and discontinuity.

When Christians are sent into the world on the basis of Jesus’ commission, their presence and involvement in the world are distinguished to be whole and uncommon in distinct contrast to fragmentation and conflict with the common. Accordingly, their persons and function should not be ambiguous if they understand their purpose in life and what they are in the world for. Such ambiguity has prominently existed among active Christians, however, and a major cause for the ambiguity of those serving in the world is the false dichotomy between evangelism and social action—not necessarily as an either-or but of defining priorities, which in practice has been usually at the expense of the other. The artificial distinction between a so-called salvation gospel and social gospel has been generated by proponents (even opponents) of both in the reverse dynamic of anything less and any substitutes for the whole gospel of Jesus’ relational progression from the beginning. Even though significant efforts have been made to resolve this dichotomy and remove this distinction, the fact of having this difference at all evidences the underlying issue of not progressing with Jesus from the beginning—nor do efforts for resolution appear to be progressing either.

As God, Jesus’ essential progression—again not to be confused with process theology—unfolded from being the Creator of human ontology and function to enacting that whole ontology and function created in the image of whole-ly God (2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15). His sole purpose and what he was in the world for was for humanity to be redeemed from the human condition of its reduced ontology and function—the condition existing at all levels of human life—and thereby be transformed to the new creation of whole-ly ontology and function in the image and likeness of the whole-ly Trinity (2 Cor 3:18; Col 3:10).

Evangelism supposedly proclaims this Good News, yet it can only proclaim what it has claimed. To make an artificial distinction with a social gospel and the false dichotomy with social action means having both claimed a gospel of truncated soteriology (not saved to uncommon wholeness together) based on an incomplete Christology of Jesus’ whole-ly person—i.e. Good News that hasn’t been fact-checked with the Source who composes the experiential truth and relational reality of the whole gospel. Conversely, and likewise, social action supposedly claims the good news of Christ, yet what it proclaims is not the whole-ly Jesus whose peace is uncommon—peace neither defined by the human context (Jn 14:27) nor determined by existing situations and circumstances (Mt 10:34). Its good news becomes the alternative news of a virtual reality. Consider this reality, social action works for the common good but, more often than not, that “good” has been commonized (as from the beginning, Gen 3:5). Thus, social action’s artificial distinction with a salvation gospel and false dichotomy with evangelism means not understanding the extent of the human condition and the whole-ly Jesus’ encompassing depth of relational response to make it whole in the dynamic of nothing less and no substitutes.

Therefore, the presence and involvement of both sides of this dichotomy and distinction are ambiguous (at best) in the world. More critically, in their mutually reduced theological anthropology underlying their diverse identity, their persons and function reflect, unintentionally reinforce, or unknowingly sustain the human condition rather than make it whole. That is, in contrast for them to live and to make the uncommon wholeness with-in which Jesus sent his disciples into the world as the Father sent him. In continuity with-in Jesus, these are the disciples of whole theology and practice uncommon to the existing diverse condition of disciples and their discipleship.

Our presence and involvement in the world will be ambiguous until we have continuity with the whole-ly Jesus in relational progression from the beginning. This gospel of Jesus is not a common gospel and thus is not the gospel usually claimed and proclaimed today. It should not be surprising, then, when the identity of his disciples as “the light of the world” (Mt 5:14) becomes ambiguous even though they are responding to the commission to proclaim the gospel. Our identity in the world as the light becomes ambiguous when it doesn’t have continuity with “the Light of the world” from his beginning (Jn 1:4; 9:5). The gospel is a key to our identity formation, thus the gospel we have and use will be the identity we get. Yet, whatever its variation, that identity is always ambiguous when it is not the gospel of Light we have. How so?

The Light from the beginning as Creator constituted human identity in a distinct ontology and function, and thereafter the integrity of this anthropology was compromised. The Good News (summarized in John’s Gospel), of course, is that the original constitutor of life, “the light of all people,” came into the world to restore human ontology and function. This is where our perception and understanding of the incarnation have to extend beyond the embodiment of Jesus in history in order to have continuity with whole-ly Jesus from the beginning.

Jesus, the Word from God, integrally embodied the whole-ly God and enacted the whole-ly Trinity. Having the vulnerable presence and relational involvement of the Trinity was essential to illuminate the uncommon whole of who, what and how God is in order to distinguish God from all human shaping, which includes how Christians have shaped God in their diverse terms. Equally important, and perhaps more so for understanding our purpose in life and what we are here for, since Jesus created human ontology and function in the image and likeness of whole-ly God, the Trinity, he also enacted this “image of God” (2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15) to illuminate unmistakably the whole-ly who, what and how of human ontology and function created in that image and transformed to the new creation in likeness of the Trinity. What emerges from this experiential truth is the fact that Jesus illuminated human ontology and function as the relational purpose of his earthly life as “the Light of all people.” And what unfolds from this relational reality is the fact that his illumination of the condition of human ontology and function needing wholeness by “the Light shining in the darkness” enacted what he was in the world for. In the distinguished ontology and function enacted by Jesus in his whole-ly identity, there is no ambiguity for who, what and how we are to be in the likeness of the Trinity, whereby we can live whole-ly in the world.

What emerges from the embodied image/likeness of whole-ly God enacted by whole-ly Jesus is our purpose in life to live this whole-ly ontology and function in our own person and inseparably with other persons together as the church family, in continuity with who and what whole-ly Jesus is and congruent with how Jesus lived in his person with the Father and the Spirit together as the whole-ly Trinity. And how this whole-ly likeness unfolds in our whole-ly ontology and function together will illuminate the uncommon wholeness of all life “so that the world may know that you Father have sent me for this relational purpose and have loved my church family even as you loved me” and thus “may believe” to be made whole also, as Jesus prayed (Jn 17:21,23). Therefore, while we are in the world, living vulnerably our uncommon wholeness together just as Jesus was sent will fulfill what we are in the world for.

The whole-ly Jesus, neither diversely contextualized nor subtly commonized, composed as the Light only this gospel from the beginning in order to transform the existing ontology and function of all human persons and their relationships to uncommon wholeness. Yet, this whole and uncommon gospel has not been the defining key for the identity of Christians both in the church and in the world. As diverse substitutes, the whole-ly gospel has been frequently fragmented by a contextualized lens and/or consistently reduced by a commonized lens. This is evident in the results from the gospel used instead, results which have lacked qualitative relational significance; though these lacking results are not observed if focused on the quantitative results. For example, for evangelism merely to gain decisions for Christ is an incomplete gospel that does not fulfill Jesus’ commission, even if they increase church membership to new heights. Likewise, for social action merely to improve human situations and circumstances—as good as that may be—is an insufficient gospel that doesn’t fulfill what we are in the world for. Whether the gospel is constrained to traditional evangelism or limited to conventional social action, how Christians are present and involved in the world bear the identity of their gospel and its breadth and depth.

It is crucial, therefore, to understand the implications of continuity and discontinuity with whole-ly Jesus. The whole-ly outcome of the whole-ly gospel of the Light is the essential transformation of common secular anthropology to the uncommon theological anthropology (neither contextualized nor commonized). When the gospel we claim is not the Light from the beginning, the anthropology we get is not clearly distinguished from the prevailing anthropology in our surrounding contexts. Consequently, the identity of our persons and relationships based on a so-called theological anthropology becomes assimilated into or co-opted by a common anthropology, or we form a hybrid identity with a common anthropology, all of which defines our persons and determines our function by a reduced ontology and function. That renders us ambiguous in the world, perhaps even a contradiction, unable to be distinguished in the whole-ly ontology and function restored by the Light. Rendered to what has become a subtle condition of reductionism due to a weak view of sin underlying a reduced theological anthropology, there is no illuminated continuity with the Light of whole-ly Jesus but, at best, a mere association of the Light with the name of Christ.

As the Light of all persons, peoples and nations, Jesus’ only purpose to be sent into the world was to redeem all life from the compromised integrity of their ontology and function in the condition of reductionism. With redemption they can be transformed to the new condition of whole-ly ontology and function in likeness of the Trinity and, therefore, be reconciled (as in redemptive reconciliation) in relationships together both equalized and intimate as the Trinity’s whole-ly family. The relational outcome of this redemptive reconciliation of all life also encompasses all of physical creation: “For the creation waits with eager longing for the unambiguous revealing of the family of God…in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the uncommon wholeness of the family of God”—as Paul illuminated the gospel of whole-ly Jesus (Rom 8:19-21).

Our purpose in life as Christians is not merely to be like Jesus. We are to follow the whole-ly Jesus in his essential relational progression from the beginning, which involves nothing less and no substitutes of the whole-ly Trinity. Our purpose as disciples requires our reciprocal relational involvement with the full profile of God’s face in intimate relationship together face to face without the veil (notably of human shaped distinctions), so that our persons and function will be in likeness of the Trinity revealed whole-ly to us. To be in this whole-ly ontology and function together is our purpose in life, not merely as an individual person but only as persons together in uncommon wholeness just like and with the Trinity—which is composed only in relational terms with the dynamic of nothing less and no substitutes. Anything less and any substitutes stop short of Jesus’ essential relational progression and are in discontinuity with his relational purpose.

In addition, integrally just as the Father sent whole-ly Jesus into the world, Jesus commissions his whole-ly disciples to be sent into the world to be nothing less and to live in no substitutes. His whole-ly commission involves also not merely making individual disciples because that is inadequate to meet his terms for a whole-ly commission. Each disciple is to be baptized in the transformed new life together of equalized and intimate relationships with all other disciples in likeness of the Trinity, according to the whole-ly terms of Jesus (Mt 28:19-20). The depth of his commission is irreducible by anything less and its breadth is nonnegotiable by any substitutes. Only whole-ly Jesus together as the Trinity and his whole-ly disciples together as family in the Trinity’s likeness distinguish the ontology and function necessary to respond to the human condition existing in reduced ontology and function. Our whole-ly condition is necessary in order for our response to have the relational outcome of nothing less and no substitutes of the qualitative relational significance of uncommon wholeness—all of which composes the ongoing relational process of making whole-ly disciples of all persons, peoples and nations. This integral function, integrated with our whole-ly purpose in life, fulfills what we are in the world for.

Following Jesus in his relational progression unfolds as our relational reality only when in the dynamic of nothing less and no substitutes. Anything less and any substitutes always shift us to a reverse dynamic that regresses subtly in reduced ontology and function. This counters progressing distinguished in whole-ly ontology and function, and this discontinuity makes ambiguous our purpose in life and what we are in the world for. Therefore, continuity with whole-ly Jesus is no mere theological issue for the global church, because discontinuity illuminated in the practice of the church and its persons and relationships exposes deep issues. His gospel from the beginning gets to the heart of the identity of who we are and whose we are, and then this whole gospel confronts the diverse condition of our churches and their persons and relationships to determine “Where are you in your purpose in life?” and “What are you doing here in the world?” And the gospel we have in our theology and use in our practice will make evident how well “you know me even after I have been among you such a long time” (as exposed in the early disciples, Jn 14:1-11).

The ambiguity of our presence and involvement, most notably as “the light of the world,” will only have clarity when we are in continuity with whole-ly Jesus, and therefore congruent with “the Light of all persons, peoples, nations and life” sent into the universe to “shine in the darkness (i.e. all aspects of the human condition).” Until the Light has clarity in his whole-ly disciples, locating our light in the darkness will be an ongoing issue—no matter how doctrinally correct our theology and dedicated our practice in his name.

Having said all this about the need for our continuity with Jesus in relational progression, there is an essential given about whole-ly Jesus in which we must also have congruence for our light to shine in the darkness. Jesus didn’t belong to the world into which he was sent. Thus, to be distinguished as the Light of all persons, peoples, nations and life, he had to have discontinuity with their way of life—just as Jesus intruded on culture (discussed in chap. 5)—in order for his light not be absorbed in its darkness and thereby be rendered ambiguous or lost (as he prayed, Jn 17:16-19). This is analogous to black holes in the universe engulfing stars by their gravitational force and extinguishing the life of those stars, or at least being lost in the black hole. Whole-ly Jesus, by the nature of who he is and whose he is, could not be and did not become assimilated, absorbed or co-opted into the gravitational influence of their way of life in order that the integrity of his identity as the Light not be compromised.

Therefore, this illuminates the experiential truth and relational reality that whole-ly Jesus has discontinuity with their (including our) common way of life at all levels: personal, interpersonal, collective, institutional, structural and systemic. His whole-ly disciples, sent into the world that we also don’t belong to just as whole-ly Jesus does not, engage in his same discontinuity as we are relationally involved in his continuity—the illuminated continuity and discontinuity integral to who we are and whose we are. Without this discontinuity also, our light in the world becomes assimilated, absorbed or co-opted by the gravitational influence of any or all of these levels of life in the human context, and thus rendered ambiguous or lost, unable to impact the darkness and make the essential difference needed at all levels of human life.

To make whole-ly disciples together of all persons, peoples and nations requires them to be equalized without the distinctions that keep them “to be apart.” For all of us to be equalized in our persons and relationships necessitates being equalized based on a theological anthropology that defines our persons and determines our relationships beyond the reduced ontology and function of human contextualization, whose underlying basis in all its human diversity is from commonization. Yet, having a theological anthropology that gets us beyond any contextualized and commonized biases is only possible (1) when our view of sin goes beyond the knowledge of “good and evil” that emerged from the primordial garden (Gen 3:5), and (2) when our lens gets to the depth underlying all sin definitively as reductionism.

Sin as reductionism is the ongoing pervasive and prevailing counter-relational process of reducing whole ontology and function by explicit and implicit conflict with the whole relational process of living, making, growing and maturing in whole ontology and function. The breadth and depth of this view of sin is not the common view existing among Christians today. Having the existing view is problematic for the light to be distinguished in the darkness, and a contradiction for those claiming and proclaiming the gospel. Only sin as reductionism envelops the spectrum of the human condition at all its levels of human life. This human condition is inescapably our human condition also, which we either maintain or change—depending on having discontinuity with its common way of life.

Can you grasp a discipleship that follows a narrative of Jesus wielding a sword (as in Mt 10:34) in your surrounding contexts? This seems hard to imagine, especially since Jesus chastened sword-wielding Peter with “all who wield the sword will be reduced by the sword” (Jn 18:10; Mt 26:52). Implausible also would be trying to justify such action and reconcile it with loving others, which is the primary relational purpose for all his disciples that unmistakably distinguishes their identity as “my disciples” (Jn 13:34-35). This nonnegotiable commandment by Jesus illuminates the whole relational terms of relationship together both with God and others that distinguishes his disciples in the world. Though the terms are nonnegotiable, his commandment has been diversely interpreted and practiced by our contextualized and commonized biases, thus having a view of love that essentially only idealizes our presence and involvement in the world. Therefore, his terms require the clarification and correction from Jesus in order to compose our moral presence and ethical involvement in the human context as his unmistakable disciples.

Being disciples and making disciples are never merely an individual matter, though they certainly involve individuals. The reality of the individual person, however, is a social reality that includes the convergence of all the levels of human life into the personal—converging the interpersonal, collective, institutional, structural and systemic levels. Jesus’ interactions with individual persons also engaged their social reality, and he was never involved with them in isolation, as if each lived in a human vacuum. Sociology provides a lens for this social reality, which helps each of us understand how all of us are part of a larger context and a life and practice greater than our individual self.[2]

This rightly points to the relational design of humanity and the need for certain character qualities and conduct to optimize function of human persons together. Contextualization, however, cannot stop at the social level, as tends to happen in various biblical studies (e.g. new Paul perspectives) and missions; when it stops here, this contextualized bias hinders or prevents going deeper to the underlying issues of commonization. While sociological contextualizing provides useful descriptive information of collective behavior, this is insufficient to understand the significance of humanity’s relational design, and thus inadequate to explain what is necessary for relationships together to be optimal. As much as our knowledge of human life has advanced, it is still based on a limited epistemic field that is unable to complete our understanding of the human person and relationships. We need an encompassing epistemic field that takes us beyond current limits.

Our theological anthropology should take us deeper into the human life of persons and relationships, but this requires having a view of sin composed beyond “knowing good and evil” that itself is composed from its source of reductionism. Having this theological anthropology is indispensable and applying this view of sin is irreplaceable for our moral presence and ethical involvement in the world to be distinguished from this social reality. This is necessary to fulfill our purpose in the world and to make an essential difference in the reality of existing social orders surrounding us, whose operating mode labors in ethical contradiction or relativism and struggles in moral disorder. The sword Jesus wields focused on the biological family as just an example (Mt 10:35-38), because our family of origin represents only one of the levels of our social reality that his disciples’ moral presence and ethical involvement need to address in the human context—that is, to fight against all reductionism in the human condition that prevents, diminishes and minimalizes uncommon wholeness.

Christians make assumptions that our presence and involvement in the world don’t contradict our identity as the light in the darkness, unless of course we’ve done something bad or evil based on the knowledge of “good and evil.” This self-appraisal presumes that our moral presence and ethical involvement have not been compromised, based on further assumptions about ethics or morality. Few would deny that ethics is the correct thing to do, even though many may not practice it. We assume that ethics is right for everyone (e.g. for the common good) without considering if that moral code is simply the common’s function of the world—the function that routinely composes an illusion that does not result in wholeness for persons and relationships (e.g. that peace should constitute). Such an assumption renders ethics to an end in itself, or perhaps a means for self-determination that may serve some quantitative end (e.g. less tension or better reputation) but have little or no qualitative and relational significance.

In this regard, Jesus may in fact be part of the minority who disclaim that ethics is the right thing to do. His conduct was a cause of much discord among his religious counterparts, who objected to Jesus not following the moral code of the law. The issue Jesus consistently raised was distinguishing the primary from the secondary, thereby exposing what had become merely an end in itself and a means for self-determination—as he exposed conclusively in the Sermon on the Mount (discussed shortly). Directly underlying this issue is the plenary issue of theological anthropology and the ontology and function used for their/our person and relationships. We make assumptions involving these issues, which then create illusions about our ethics and for its practice. For the light to be illuminated clearly, we have to eliminate any fog in our theology and practice; or, perhaps, this light simply needs to be turned on.

When we become functional followers (not in name only) of whole-ly Jesus, we are relationally connected and involved “where I am” (nonnegotiable in Jesus’ paradigm for discipleship, Jn 12:26). By sending us into the world as the Father sent him, he involves us conjointly in the primary relational context and process of our belonging with the whole-ly Trinity while living in the human social context—our secondary social reality limited by human contextualization and constrained by its commonization. We certainly need help in fulfilling this function, with clarification and correction along the way to be distinguished unmistakably as “his disciples.”

The dynamic of reciprocating contextualization is critical for our whole understanding of life and practice in the surrounding contexts, whether for Jesus’ life and practice or ours. With reciprocating contextualization Jesus connects us to an even greater context and an even deeper process of life and practice beyond the limits of sociology, that is, to the theological anthropology that is integrated to the embodied light. As the Light, Jesus functioned to embody the relational design and purpose of the human person created in the image of (and his relational context in) the whole-ly God, and he embodied the function of the relational ontology of human persons together created in likeness of (and his relational process with) the Trinity. Following Jesus on his relational path involves going further than moral ideals, values and virtues, and deeper than ethical character and conduct, to intrusively engage human persons together not only for optimal function but for the ongoing relationships in everyday life and practice necessary together to be whole, God’s irreplaceable whole. This is where morality and ethics converge with his sword.

This ongoing life and practice in qualitative distinction was neither a static framework for engagement nor a program of ethical involvement, no matter how useful such ethics may be conceived to be. This was a process of the vulnerable presence and relational involvement of the zoe-life of the embodied whole-ly Word as communicative action of the whole-ly God. Thus, involvement in his relational context necessitates more than character, and function in his relational process necessitates more than conduct—that is, as character and conduct are commonly perceived in ethical studies.

Ethics in general involves a moral philosophy of how persons should live in a certain context and/or in the presence of others, thus establishing a system or code of moral values, standards and principles for character and conduct. This tends not to be directly associated with identity, yet in function ethical practice (or its absence) does indeed relatively define who, what and how persons are. Christian (biblical) ethics should signify Christian identity and, moreover, needs to be composed by the identity that is both relationally compatible and congruent with whole-ly Jesus. Otherwise, as good as our ethics are perceived, we will be on a different path than Jesus and will not be distinguished as “my disciples.”

Jesus’ whole-ly life and practice in his kingdom-family and the surrounding context, and in relation to persons in those contexts, went beyond a system of ethics and a predetermined code of conduct. This is not to say that situations determined his ethical practice (as in situation ethics, situationalism), nor to only emphasize principles (as in principalism). Ethics, in specific practice, require a forensic framework that is applicable for all situations and circumstances, or else ethics become merely situational. The three qualifying issues involved in his engagement of a culture continue to inform us of his ethical practice: compatibility, partially overlapping, or incompatibility with wholeness (discussed in chap. 5). His whole-ly life and practice, in both his kingdom-family and the surrounding context, was a predisposed relational involvement of his whole person guided by triangulation with the Trinity to fulfill his relational purpose and function in the world for relationships to be whole, and was thereby necessary to make whole. This is the integrating theme of Christian ethics, to which practice adheres ongoingly. This relational context and process are only on God’s terms, which defined and determined Jesus’ identity and function, and thereby defined and determined his ethical practice—all of which cannot be reduced to referential terms or negotiated to our terms.

Jesus was sent into the world by his Father in congruence with God’s terms for the relational context and process to be whole and to make whole. This purpose of living and making whole in the new covenant relationship together as God’s family is the end (telos in Greek) of this relational process—the teleological focus guiding all life and practice in his kingdom-family and the surrounding context. Yet, this telos does not justify the use of any means to this end (e.g. using force) or disregard the nature of all means used (i.e. its commonization), even if compatible with existing ethical practice. Any means from reductionism is incompatible to be whole or to make whole. This telos by its nature necessitates congruence of its means, thus the telos to be God’s whole also constitutes what means are compatible for this end.

The focus of means to balance a teleological focus in ethical studies is defined as the obligatory (deon in Greek) means necessary to an end, or refraining from the wrong means—known as a deontological focus.^{^[3]} Yet, the pivotal issue for ethics in terms of character and conduct is when ethical practice becomes the primary focus. That is, as ethical means become separated or blurred from their particular end, ethical practice is problematic in clearly understanding its significance to that end, tending to become an end in itself, at least in function if not also in purpose. This also reduces the significance of such character and conduct, whose attributes and right behaviors tend to become the end subtly revolving more around oneself, for example, for self-determination or even self-justification.

Deontological ethics (based on the obligation and duty to do what is right) is synonymous with the biblical term opheilo: morally obligated to (e.g. do something) or by virtue of personal obligation. Opheilo in the practice of God’s law easily becomes the fulfillment of covenant obligation rather than the reciprocal relational response to God on God’s terms (relational not referential) for covenant relationship together. In contrast to opheilo, Jesus consistently made a matter definitive and/or imperative (as noted in the course of this study) with the term dei: must, necessary by the nature of things. Yet, for Jesus, a matter was necessary not by the nature of some principle, value or virtue; that subtle focus would be reductionism, notably of the whole-ly God. For Jesus, dei involved only by the nature of who and what he is in relationship together with the whole-ly God (e.g. Lk 2:49; Mk 8:31), thus defining and determining the nature of how he functioned (e.g. Lk 19:5).

In relational compatibility with Jesus, Christian (biblical) ethics implies a transition from opheilo to dei, the nature of which necessarily involves a transformation to dei by redemptive change from reductionism to be made whole with Jesus in new covenant relationship together. In relational congruence with Jesus, this process of forming Christian ethics is following Jesus in the relational progression to the Father, which (1) defines and determines who and what we are in relationship together with the whole-ly Trinity, and which (2) thus defines and determines the new nature of how we function. Being relationally compatible and congruent with Jesus will then by its nature reconstitute deontological emphasis and fully deepen teleological significance. While Christian ethics may still be considered a teleological type, it is foremost functionally significant as the relational process to wholeness on God’s terms—the relational outcome of the gospel of transformation embodied by Jesus’ whole-ly person and enacted by his whole-ly function. Therefore, the practice of Christian ethics can be summed up as the uncommon process of living in relationships to be whole only on God’s relational terms. And getting on whole-ly Jesus’ ethical path is the only way this relational outcome unfolds.

How Jesus lived and practiced emerged ongoingly from the who and what of his identity and function to be whole and to make whole—based only on God’s relational terms defining and determining identity, function and practice. The forensic framework—required for ethics to go beyond being merely situational—emerges from God’s terms of wholeness, which Christian ethics must have as its basis to constitute the integrity and significance necessary to be compelling in all human life and practice. This is the sum of Christian ethics that Jesus enacted whole-ly, and the definitive terms of his whole-ly ethics he vulnerably disclosed as the communicative action of the whole and uncommon God and the Trinity’s thematic relational work of grace. These uncommon terms, only for relationship together to be whole, compose the specific relational involvement necessary in his kingdom-family to be whole and in the surrounding context to make whole—which contrasts with and is contrary to what is common. To understand integrally the uncommon terms for ongoing relational life and practice disclosed by Jesus’ communicative action, we have to correctly understand both his words and his actions, that is, his whole person within his relational context and process.

As Jesus declared in the Sermon on the Mount, his coming adhered to and integrated with the collective word of God in the OT, not to abolish but to fulfill (Mt 5:17-20). The Sermon on the Mount is framed in the larger context of the OT and thus in the full context of God’s thematic action. What his life and practice adhered to and integrated with, however, was not a mere list of demands of the law, nor a system of ethics and moral obligations (opheilo). The law specifies God’s desires and terms for covenant relationship together, which cannot be limited to a contextualized lens of ‘the rule of law’ or constrained by a commonized lens of the Rule of Faith but composes the Relationship of Faith. In his relational context and process, Jesus paid attention not merely to the oral and written word of God but to those words from God—that is, the communication from God. Unlike much of human communication, God’s communicative action is not merely informative for a cognitive purpose, nor was it to announce terms for ethics. God’s communication composes distinct relational purpose and function to which Jesus’ life and practice adhered and integrated with: God’s thematic relational action in response to the human condition for the purpose only to be whole in relationship together. His incarnation was indeed Emmanuel, God’s uncommon moral presence and whole ethical involvement with us for relationship together in uncommon wholeness.

As we focus on the definitive terms for Christian ethics that Jesus disclosed, we need to pay attention to the whole of his relational context and process—namely, that Jesus’ teaching was communicative action, and that he used relational language to disclose (not merely apokalypto but phaneroo, signifying relational context and process) God’s desires and terms for the function of relationships together to be whole. To fully understand his relational language is to receive the whole-ly Jesus extended to us in the context of relationship, which necessitates reciprocal relational involvement and further engaging him in the relational process of discipleship.

Jesus’ definitive manifesto distinguishes us in our social reality with our presence in uncommon morality and our involvement by the ethics of wholeness. This also clarifies and corrects when this whole-ly identity has been compromised, which is the indispensable help we need to be his disciples indeed. Therefore, we need to listen carefully in relational terms to all his words, which make definitive the measure to use for our theology and practice in order that this is the measure we get in our ontology and function in the world (as Jesus declared imperatively, Mk 4:24).

The definitive terms Jesus disclosed for the integrity and quality of their functional involvement in relationships—composing “righteousness” ethics if you wish—are also a necessary function of his followers’ identity based on the ontology of the person from the inner out. This ontology of the person underlies his discipleship manifesto and points to the integrating theme of God’s terms: the function of whole persons (constituted by the involvement of the heart, yet not in dualism) in relationships together (signified by the primacy of intimate involvement) necessary to be whole and to make whole, the function of whom are defined and determined only by the whole-ly God and not shaped by human terms in the surrounding context.

The ontology of the person is a key variable in understanding God’s terms disclosed in this discourse. The lens through which we perceive the person, thus define human identity and determine human function, is ongoingly challenged or influenced by reductionism. This then urgently addresses our perceptual-interpretive framework, thus our contextualized and commonized biases, and holds us accountable for two basic issues: one, how we define our person, and as a result, two, how we do relationships. God’s terms will have either more significance or less depending on our assumptions. Revisit the first part of his manifesto as necessary.

As we discussed previously, Jesus clearly defined the process of identity formation for his followers (Mt 5:3-12) and the identity issues of clarity and depth necessary to have qualitative distinction from the common’s function of reductionism, and to distinguish who, what and how we are with others in the surrounding context (5:13-16). This necessitates by its nature (dei, not opheilo) the ontology of the whole person created in the image of God and those persons in relationship together created to be whole in likeness of the relational ontology of the Trinity; moreover, this is the theological anthropology that integrates with the light. This composes the relational compatibility and congruence necessary to function as whose we are, those not belonging to the world as his disciples. Thus, the remaining sections of Jesus’ summary teachings (the manifesto for all discipleship) for all his followers (5:21-7:27) distinguish unmistakably the function of this new identity integrated with relational righteousness and the ontology of the uncommon whole—the whole-ly enacted by Jesus and unfolding in his disciples.

His defining teaching for all of us is nonnegotiable to define our presence and determine our involvement in the world at all levels of our social reality. Just as he wielded the sword directed at the pivotal level of the family, in this teaching his focus is narrowed to the religious institutional level of practice, yet it encompasses all levels of human life that should not be ignored. His teaching is further integrated throughout with the progression and interaction of three critical concerns: (1) self-autonomy, (2) self-determination, and (3) self-justification. It may seem like a modern or Western bias to say Jesus addressed something self-oriented in a non-individualistic setting. As noted previously, however, in this collective-oriented sociocultural context, self-autonomy was not the modern self-autonomy of individualism in the West but rather the self-autonomy of persons (individually or collectively) who self-determined function in relationships together “to be apart” from the whole—for example, by the absence of significant involvement while in relationship together, or by merely keeping relational distance in those contexts (cf. Martha and Mary). This variable condition pervades in a collective context as well (even in churches in the East and global South), though due to ontological simulation and epistemological illusion it is less obvious than in the individualism of the modern West. The subtlety of self-autonomy (as an individual or a collective) involves the work of reductionism, which signifies its counter-relational influence. Jesus disclosed the terms to be whole, and thus ongoingly confronted common life and practice reducing the whole in each of these terms. In the process, he broadens and deepens our understanding of sin, and its functional implications and relational repercussions. Therefore, these three concerns illuminate the general applicable character of the Sermon on the Mount, which should be neither idealized nor considered impractical for our practice in order to avoid its inconvenience. Thus, the urgent need in particular is for all his followers in the present to respond to his manifesto in order to follow him on his ethical path of, to and in uncommon wholeness together. Jesus’ relational words are neither for the future nor unattainable ideals for realistic practice today.

In this section, Jesus began to define specific terms for the function of the new identity formed by the interdependent process of the Beatitudes—the new identity redefining the person and transforming persons to be whole-ly. Since he already disclosed his complete (pleroo) compatibility with Torah (5:17-18), his focus remained on the law of the covenant in terms of this issue: either essentially reducing (lyo) these commandments (entole) or acting on (poieo) them (5:19). This issue precipitated Jesus’ definitive statement to his followers about the nature of their new identity (righteousness, what and who they are) determining how they function, thus acting on the relational righteousness necessary to go beyond the reductionists (5:20). This involved the interrelated issues outlined above, which necessitate going beyond the mere practice of ethics.

The commandments (entole) Jesus focused on was not a specific list of demands, code of behavior, system of obligations or rules of ethics—all denoted by the term entalma, a synonym for commandment. While entalma points directly to its content and stresses what to do, entole stresses the authority of what is commanded, that is, its qualitative relational significance. These commandments didn’t converge in their Rule of Faith to conform to a rule of law. In other words, with entole Jesus focused on the law beyond merely as the charter for the covenant, but he went further to the whole of God’s desires for covenant relationship together in love (cf. Ex 20:6, Dt 7:9) and deeper to God’s necessary terms for relationship together to be whole in likeness of the Trinity (signified by his emphasis on the Father). Jesus’ teaching engaged this communicative action to compose the Relationship of Faith.

This is not to say that Jesus did away with the entalma of the law. Jewish ceremonial law, for example, served to maintain purity as a key identity marker, and thus to have clear distinction as God’s people. Whole-ly life and practice serves this same purpose on a deeper level to have qualitative distinction from the common’s function and to be defined only by God as God’s—that is, the whole-ly identity of who they are and whose they are. Yet, Jewish practice (post-exilic Judaism in particular) of the law often fell into ethnocentrism and national protectionism—maintaining the law was a symbol of this—thereby essentially reducing God’s terms for covenant relationship and making their collective self-determination an end in itself. This shift became a subtle substitute that served foremost for themselves rather than as “the light to the nations” for the whole-ly God and the primacy of relationships necessary to be whole together. This is how the practice of the law deteriorates when seen only as entalma.

When entalma is the dominant focus, the qualitative relational significance of the law is diminished by this misguided priority, creating an imbalanced emphasis on what to do whereby secondary matters displace the primary. Consequently, even with good intentions, the law’s purpose for relationship together is made secondary, ignored or even forgotten—pointing to concerns from or for self-autonomy, self-determination and self-justification. When the law is reduced, God’s primacy of this relationship is lost and thus also the priority we give it. The practice of the law then becomes a code of behavior to adhere to, not about the terms for involvement in the covenant relationship together God desires. Moreover, this conformity signifies that the person presented has been redefined by an outer-in human ontology focused on what one does; and this reduction of the person raises the issue of the quality of one’s communication, while at the same time reducing the level of relationship that person engages, if at all.

Such reductions have relational consequences both with God and with others, the counter-relational implications of which Jesus contrasted with God’s terms to be whole and to make whole in new covenant relationship together. This is the ongoing tension/conflict between reductionism (and its counter-relational work) and God’s whole (and the relationships necessary to be whole) that Jesus addressed in his nonnegotiable manifesto by placing in juxtaposition the following six examples of the law (or its tradition) with God’s desires. These six examples should not be seen separate from each other but seen together.

When Jesus interjected God’s desires by declaring “But I tell you” (5:22,28,32,34,39,44), his intrusive juxtaposition made evident the substantive meaning of the law and the prophets. The focus of entalma on the ‘letter of the law’ was a prevailing norm in his day. That practice, however, operated essentially as a system of constraints to prevent negative acts, without any responsibility for further action: “Do not murder” (v.21), “Do not commit adultery” (v.27). Based on the ontology of the person from the outer in, which is defined primarily by what one does, this kind of system invariably focused on outward behavior as the main indicator of adherence to the law. No physical murder and adultery meant fulfilling those demands of the law, without consideration of the significance of that behavior. This opened the way for God’s law to be reduced and its function to be shaped by self-autonomy, self-determination or even self-justification. To formulate practice based only on the letter of the law is to reduce the integrity of human ontology in the divine image and to redefine the significance of human identity based on merely the quantitative aspects of what we do. Furthermore, this self-definition also determined how others are perceived and how relationships are done—which filters how church is practiced. All of this converges in the social reality of the human comparative process that measures persons, peoples and nations as ‘better or less’, ‘good or bad’, in a stratified structure of relations, which formalize in a system of inequality. The examples used by Jesus involve all these levels in one way or another, such that one level should not be separated from the others or our focus gets skewed.

For Jesus, this was an inadequate human ontology and an insufficient response to God’s purpose for the law. More specifically, it was contrary to both. In contrast, he disclosed what can be called the ‘spirit of the law’ (not to be confused with spiritualizing) for which to be responsible, thus deepening the involvement necessary on God’s terms. This must by its nature (dei, not opheilo) involve the conjoint function of both the following: (1) the ontology of the whole person from inner out, thus the words (vv.22,37), thoughts and feelings (v.28), as well as the overt behavior, constitute actions; and (2) based on this ontology of the whole person, other persons also need to be so defined and thus engaged for the relationships together to make and to be whole (5:23-25,32,34-36,39-42,44-48). By embodying our whole person and enacting our function for the involvement in the spirit of the law, Jesus essentially restores the person and their relationships to their created ontology of God’s whole. Conjointly, the spirit of the law restores the primacy of covenant relationship together and makes definitive its priority in life and practice. In other words, the spirit of the law demands that persons and relationships go further and deeper than the limited (if not constrained) ethics of the letter.

The law signifies God’s desires and terms for covenant relationship together. This is neither about merely avoiding the wrong behavior nor about a code of merely the right thing to do, neither about not making mistakes nor about trying to be right—that is, about mere ethics. Such action becomes legalistic, and its preoccupation is legalism, which we engage even unintentionally when our focus revolves around what we do. Rather these are terms for relationship together and how to be involved in this primacy over any secondary, thus the positive action to live whole necessary to make relationships whole; this cannot be fulfilled by merely re-acting to others in situations and circumstances but only by the involvement implemented by the response of our person regardless of those situations and circumstances (as in 5:38-48). Accordingly, the specific correctives Jesus presented to these six examples should not be taken as an end-practice for ethics; they are only provisional steps in the relational process to uncommon wholeness. For example, merely clearing up something someone has against you is not the sum of reconciliation—nor all that peace involves—yet is a provisional step to that end to be uncommonly whole. When Christian ethics stops at provisional steps, its practice will not function to be whole and make whole but function only as a reductionist substitute in an incomplete or fragmentary process—functioning in a reverse dynamic of regression in anything less and any substitutes. Such substitutes have not been significantly reversed in Christian ethical practice to be congruent with whole-ly Jesus’ relational progression in nothing less and no substitutes, despite the fact that clarification and correction are highlighted in his manifesto.

Jesus clearly countered the underlying concern of the reductionists about doing the “right” thing by the letter, which did not serve to lead them to this positive action. While refraining from negative behavior certainly has some value, the absence of positive action is of greater importance to God—distinguishing the deeper significance of God’s design and purpose for those relational terms involving murder, adultery, divorce, oaths, an eye for an eye, and love for enemies. As the counterpart to legalism, even moralism is not the righteousness that God expects and that Jesus constitutes in his followers. Moralists and legalists are misguided in thinking that such conformity is congruent with, and even compatible to, God’s desires and who, what and how God is. We should not be thinking in the limits of mere conformity to God’s terms, which would tend to become merely about doing the right thing.

Conversely, since the law signifies God’s terms for relationship together, the practice of God’s law is irreducibly the function only of our whole person, thus making practice vulnerable (vv.44,46-47), threatening (vv.39-42), if not even demanding (vv.29-30) for us. Yet, the further relational responsibility of God’s desires in the spirit of the law is not given to burden or constrain human persons, and thus should not be considered negotiable to make it more convenient for us. It was disclosed only for relationships together to be whole; and the various terms of this deeper responsibility signify positive relational opportunities to grow in the new identity of our whole person to make relationships together whole, as uncommon and inconvenient as this may seem. The interrelated focus and conjoint function between the whole person and relationships together always emerges in whole-ly Jesus’ words and action because they embody the essential relational ontology and enact the essential relational function of who, what and how the whole-ly Trinity is. In his definitive manifesto, Jesus is giving us understanding of the heart of God’s desires for human persons and the integrating purpose for God’s relational terms vital for his whole-ly disciples together, therefore irreducible and nonnegotiable. As we reflect on these six examples taken together integrally in this section, they clearly disclose the loving purpose God has for us: to relationally belong in the relationships together as the whole-ly God’s family, nothing less and no substitutes.

Without the spirit of the law, we have no whole understanding of God’s law and God’s integrating thematic purpose for the law in response to the human condition “to be apart” from God’s whole. Without the spirit of the law, Christian ethics has no basis to compose the integrity and significance necessary to be compelling for even Christian life and practice, much less for all human life and practice. His manifesto integrates the spirit of the law into the law to qualify the application of the letter of the law. Yet, Jesus disclosed that this forensic interpretive framework is composed both further in the qualitative relational context and deeper by the intimate relational process of the whole-ly God in order to complete this whole-ly relational purpose and outcome. This composition signifies the relational language by which his teaching needs to be received in order to be understood, and constitutes how it must by its nature (dei) be responded to in order to be experienced, enacted, matured and fulfilled.

The relational dynamic underlying the spirit of the law goes beyond merely a greater flexibility (than legalism) and application (than moralism) of God’s law. Its whole function is to lead persons into involvement in their relationships with others—namely, to care for and to love persons not merely in their situations and circumstances but foremost in relationship together. Jesus is taking us to a further and deeper level of relationships, beyond our prevailing ways of doing relationships. With the spirit of the law he made undeniable: (1) what it means to love, (2) the intimate relational process of love, and (3) the integrity and dignity of the persons involved in this process. This necessitates the inner-out human ontology signified conjointly by the importance of our heart and the primacy of relationships in which our hearts open and engage others for relationship together. This practice is qualitatively different than the letter of the law and uncommonly more vulnerable, thus the more inconvenient if not threatening practice. The depth of the spirit of the law defines and determines the relational involvement necessary to be whole in the whole-ly God, with the whole-ly Trinity and for the irreducible whole and nonnegotiable uncommon of God.

The function of this human ontology and its qualitative relational process, however, are ongoingly challenged by reductionism and its counter-relational work. Each of the six examples represents a situation or circumstance that has this either-or: either redefine our person and let that determine how we function in that relationship; or, instead, be an opportunity to grow in being our whole-ly person and to function in that relationship to live whole-ly and make uncommon wholeness. The former alternative involves a contrary dynamic that regresses in anything less or any substitutes for uncommon wholeness. For these situations and circumstances to gain primacy to redefine who and what we are, and to determine how we function, implies that we react to other persons in these contexts essentially out of a concern for self-autonomy. We are reduced to merely reactors by pursuits in self-autonomy pursuing self-determination, thus ironically indicating an absence of freedom to be our true person. This focus preoccupies us with secondary matters rather than being free to function as respondors by the relational involvement of love for the sake of God’s whole. As reactors, we become more like objects shaped and measured by a human comparative process, while respondors require being distinct subjects determined by our whole-ly identity of who we are and whose we are in the primacy of relationship together.

This self-autonomy emerges in the priority or dominance given progressively to these reactions: (1) self-interests, for example, signified in acting on anger or sexual desires (involving issues of how the person is defined and how relationships are done); (2) self-concerns, for example, signified by unwarranted divorce (overlapping in self-interest), or depending on oaths for validation (involving issues of the significance of the person presented, integrity of one’s communication and level of relationship engaged); and (3) self-centeredness, for example, signified by seeking restitution/revenge (overlapping with self-concern), or keeping relational distance from those who contest you, are different or are simply not in your social network (involving issues of how the person is defined and level of relationship engaged). In other words, the concern for self-autonomy overlaps into self-determination and interacts with the major and basic issues outlined above.

Each of these six expressions of self-autonomy can find some justification, yet at the expense of reducing persons and their primary function and thereby reinforcing reductionism’s counter-relational work “to be apart” from the wholeness of relationships together. The persons involved are reduced to less than whole persons, and relationships become self-oriented in relational distance instead of relationships together—even in a collective context. This is the contrary dynamic Jesus confronted in his juxtaposition of the qualitative relational significance of the whole-ly God’s terms necessary for relationships together to be whole, and to be made whole as needed. In the process, he deepens our understanding of sin by clarifying for us the functional workings of the sin of reductionism. His definitive manifesto exposes the sin of countering (knowingly or inadvertently) God’s desires, as well as God’s created relational design and purpose, by reducing one’s own person and then reducing other persons to reinforce the human condition “to be apart.” This is how the limits of ethics can reflect, reinforce and even sustain the human condition in spite of intentions to improve it.

The relational terms Jesus made definitive in this discipleship manifesto restores this fragmentation, and thereby functions for his followers as the definitive call to be whole. His major teaching counters, confronts and transforms the human shaping of persons and relationships, with the relational outcome of distinguishing his followers in uncommon wholeness. Even his apparent severe injunction in 5:29-30 serves this purpose. This is not a mere injunction to prevent sexual sin, thus not about self-mutilation—which in effect would be reductionism. (Remember, Jesus used relational language in his teaching.) This action was about decisively not letting one part of our body or human make-up (thus “eliminating” its use to) redefine and determine our whole person, and likewise not looking at other persons in only certain parts of their body or make-up as a consequence of fragmenting and dishonoring their person (cf. 1 Sam 11:2). His strong corrective paradoxically is about restoring such fragmentation to be whole and to engage others to live whole—involving the issue of the depth level of relationship engaged based on the issue of how the person is defined.

The only alternative to function in anything less or any substitute of our whole person is to function in nothing less and no substitute of who, what and how we are in our new identity formed through the Beatitudes in relational involvement with whole-ly Jesus as his whole-ly disciples together. Following Jesus in his relational context and process involves us in the relational progression to his Father for relationship together in the whole-ly Trinity’s family, thus constituting us to relationally belong as his very own daughters and sons by the redemptive process of adoption (as discussed previously). The function of this relationship together in this new identity (whole-ly identity) is only on the whole-ly God’s relational terms that Jesus made definitive in his manifesto. Therefore, these terms for function are irreducible to any alternative or substitute—notably to common human ontology and relationships together—and are nonnegotiable for all self-autonomy, self-determination and self-justification.

To provide clarity and depth of function for this new identity on God’s terms, Jesus concluded this section with the functional key (the first of three for the entire manifesto), with which the six examples converge and whole-ly identity’s life and practice is integrated.

First Functional Key: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (5:48).

Jesus directed this to those who have been adopted by his Father into God’s family. Moments earlier he said essentially “Love others (even those against you) to be in the uncommon wholeness of your identity, that you may begin to function [ginomai, begin to be] as the sons and daughters of your Father in heaven” (5:44-45). It was a recognized responsibility in the ancient Mediterranean world for adopted children to represent their new Father and to extend his name. Jesus defined this responsibility here but qualified it essentially with this key: “You are to be involved with others as your heavenly Father is involved with others, notably with you.” This is the relational significance of agape love, which Jesus enacted to fulfill God’s thematic action to make us whole in relationship together. Now he calls his followers to enact this love in relationships together to be the whole-ly God’s family and to make whole for God’s family—to enact, however, not merely as his disciples but further and deeper as their Father’s very own sons and daughters. The seventh Beatitude (5:9) integrates directly with this key to give depth of meaning to the practice of peace (wholeness).

Once again, Jesus’ emphasis here is not on what to do but on how to be involved with others. Certainly, we cannot be involved with others to the extent in quantity or quality as God is involved. That was not what he stressed in this key. Quantity, like ethical or moral quantity, is not the goal of “be perfect,” although many misguided Christians strive for perfection. Jesus’ purpose is focused on involvement with others according to “how” (hos) God is involved; this is not an unrealistic ideal since God created us “to be” (eimi, verb of existence) in the image and likeness of the Trinity, to which the identity as the light points. While “perfect” can never be the outcome of what we do and how we do it, “perfect” (teleios)—describing persons who have reached their purpose, telos, thus are full-grown, mature and complete—can indeed “be” (eimi) the growing function (i.e. ginomai in v.45) of who, what and how we are as the very daughters and sons of the whole-ly God’s family.

Thus, the first functional key becomes: “Live to be (eimi) uncommonly whole and then make uncommon wholeness as your Father is whole-ly in the Trinity and is vulnerably present and intimately involved to make us whole-ly in relationship together as his family.”

Jesus does not want his followers “to become” reduced to mere reactors to this or that situation or circumstance and to these or those persons, even with ethical intentions; that would be counter-relational work, even on an ethical basis. He calls us “to be” persons who live in relationships to be whole-ly and are sent to function to make relationships whole-ly, thus free to be respondors in love. His call-commission and its function are ongoingly challenged to be redefined and determined by reductionism, notably with subtle self-autonomy apart from God’s relational terms or by substituting referential terms. This first functional key begins to form the basis necessary for the process of triangulation with the Trinity to navigate the depths of human of human life in relational congruence with the triangulation Jesus used to engage the surrounding contexts and relationships with persons in those contexts without being redefined or determined by reductionism. Just as it was for Jesus, the main aspect of this triangulation process is ongoing intimate involvement in relationship together with our Father and the whole-ly Trinity. In this relational involvement, the three major issues for all practice—the person presented, the quality of communication, the depth-level of relationship engaged—are also addressed ongoingly. Hereby also, the primacy of relationships together is conclusive to define ethics and determine the primary function of its practice.

Relational involvement with our Father, which also embraces the Spirit, is the guiding point of reference for the function of our whole-ly identity in the surrounding contexts and in relationships with persons in those contexts, including in his whole-ly family together as the church. Furthermore, this involvement is the dynamic necessary for Jesus’ followers to enact the reciprocating contextualization needed to clearly both be whole-ly and make uncommon wholeness. This is an ongoing relational process involving the Trinity, our involvement with whom is indispensable for any needed clarification and correction about becoming contextualized and commonized (illuminated also in the Hebrews manifesto, 12:4-6), in order for our light to shine in the darkness clearly as whole-ly Jesus’ (who embodies the Trinity) whole-ly disciples.

In the next section, Jesus takes this relational process even further and deeper.

In this discipleship manifesto, frequently preempted by assumptions (either assumed for the future or as unrealistic ideals) about the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus constitutes his followers in the relational righteousness (not a mere attribute) that by its nature functions beyond reductionism. Relational righteousness is the process to ensure that the integrity of our identity of who, what and how we are as his followers functions unambiguously in ongoing life and practice. It is crucial for our identity to be in integrated function with relational righteousness in order to present whole persons in congruence with the nature of our full identity, thus as those respondor persons who can be counted on to be those unreduced persons in relationships—both with God and with others, in his kingdom-family and in the surrounding context, composed by the dynamic of nothing less and no substitutes. In this section Jesus illuminates (or exposes) that Christian identity without righteousness is problematic and merely righteousness without wholeness of identity is equally problematic (cf. 5:20), both of which are consequential for ethics. This addresses deeply two of the three major issues for all practice: (1) the significance of the person we present to others and (2) the integrity and quality of our communication—underlying issues that determine the significance of ethics.

Jesus began this section immediately focused on righteousness with the imperative to his followers that shifts their focus to the essential: “Pay attention to (prosecho) how your righteousness functions” (6:1). Righteousness is neither a static attribute nor a function in a vacuum, so Jesus is not pointing to mere introspection or related spirituality to enhance the individual. The significance of righteousness is not isolated to the individual but only as it affects relationships in some way. In what way it does directly depends on the person presented. All relationships are affected by the specific presentation each participant makes, thus the quality of any relationship depends on the accuracy of that presentation. This is where righteousness needs to have congruence with who and what a person truly is, or else others cannot have confidence in what to expect or count on from how that person functions. Christian identity without righteousness is acutely problematic, rendered by Jesus earlier in his manifesto as insignificant or useless (5:13).

The incarnation clearly demonstrated God’s righteousness since Jesus (the pleroma, complete, whole, of God, as in Col 1:19) presented the embodied whole-ly God’s vulnerable presence and intimate involvement. For the embodied God in relational progression, “Righteousness will go before him and will make a path [the intrusive relational path] for his steps” (Ps 85:13). How we present our person to others involves this issue of completeness and the function of righteousness, thus what others can expect and count on from us—including what God expects (cf. Jn 4:23-24, discussed previously). Ethics must, by its nature, be composed in this relational process to have validity and thereby distinguish our whole ethical involvement.

How we function in the truth of who and what we are emerges from the depth of significance of the person we present. In this section of his irreducible manifesto, Jesus continued to expose the workings of reductionism and disclosed the deeper process of relational righteousness, specifically in direct relationship with God. Paying attention to how our righteousness functions involves examining not only the person presented, this also further involves understanding our perceptual-interpretive framework and the human ontology by which we live and practice—namely as influenced and shaped by our contextualized and commonized biases.

To make definitive what God expects in relationship together, Jesus focused specifically on three important areas of religious practice and prevailing methods of enacting them: giving to the needy (6:2-4), prayer (6:5-15), and fasting (6:16-18). In each of these relational contexts, Jesus interjects relationship with “your Father” (with the emphasis on your Father, not merely the Father, 6:1,4,6,8,14,15,18) and also intrudes by his conflict with prevailing methods signified by the term hypokrites (6:2,5,16). I prefer not to use its English rendering (hypocrite) because of its limited connotation. Jesus broadens our understanding of this term and takes us deeper into the process behind it. This is crucial to embrace since it not only involved a prevailing norm in his day, it also involves a prominent mindset and practice today. While sincerity is an issue of hypokrites, it is not the main issue. The primary issue involves the function of the whole person verses the enactment of a fragmentary version of the person in reduced life and practice (cf. our previous discussion contrasting metamorphoo and metaschematizō, as in Rom 12:1-2).

Besides the particular lens we use and our operating human ontology of the person presented, other issues emerge to interact with this part of his teaching: two life-determining issues of how we define our person and thereby do relationships, which directly determine the integrity and quality of our communication, and the level of relationship engaged. And the overriding issue throughout this section of his inconvenient teaching is the concern for self-determination. What follows in this section is a progression from self-autonomy in the previous section, because self-determination is always in ongoing interaction with self-autonomy and directly interrelates with that section’s teaching.

As noted previously, hypokrites involved playing a role or taking on an identity different from one’s true self—for example, by projecting or using an enhanced image that veils the whole person. Just like an actor, this presentation of a person was made to a crowd, an audience, observers, that is, before others with interest, or anyone who took notice, since that is the purpose for creating an image about our self. When Jesus focused on righteousness, he was specific about “paying attention that you do not live your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them” (6:1). The term for “to be seen” (theaomai) denotes to view attentively, deliberately observing an object to perceive its detail. In other words, this is a presentation intended to be observed and noticed by others. Moreover, theaomai (related to theoreo) involves more than merely seeing (as in blepo, to be discussed shortly); the observer regards the object with a sense of wonderment (maybe even imagination) in order to perceive it in detail. This implies that there is a certain effect, image, even illusion, that the “actor” seeks to establish about one’s presentation of self, which will result in a response “to be honored,” “be praised” by observers, and ultimately by God (6:2). The term doxazo, from doxa (glory), denotes to recognize, honor, praise. This is what they seek in the prevailing comparative process of human life; and shaped by contextualization and commonization, this is all they will experience, as Jesus said unequivocally: “they have received their reward” (6:2,5,16) with “no reward from your Father” (6:1).

Whether performed overtly (as Jesus illustrated) or enacted simply in performing a role of service (as commonly seen in Christian ministries), this subtle yet common image-projecting points to the self-determination motivating the act; and the practice of ethics is not immune to this dynamic. Consider in all this these critical, pivotal, essential issues: how the person is defined, how relationships are done and the level of relationship engaged.

Such practice was addressed further when Jesus exposed such efforts to “be seen by others” in their praying (6:5, consider the wordiness of public prayers) and “to show others” their acts of fasting (v.16, consider any visibility given to spirituality). The same term (phaino) is used for both, which denotes to appear, be conspicuous, become visible—that is, essentially to be recognized by others for one’s presentation of self, and, of course, ultimately be recognized by God. Both of these acts were accentuated to elevate (v.7) or dramatize (v.16) the effects for greater attention, thus greater recognition and honor. Whether elevated, dramatized or performed simply in religious duty, the effort for self-determination underlying these acts is clearly exposed; and for some persons, this effort also overlaps into self-justification—all of which exposes a reduced theological anthropology and weak view of sin.

While the term phaino comes from phos (light), there is no clarity of light in this practice, even if punctuated with correct doctrine or accentuated with the right ethic and spiritual discipline. The identity of light in this presentation of the person is ambiguous at best, and mainly just reduced to outer simulation and inner illusion. In the absence of relational righteousness, there is no basis for completeness of the person presented or of the integrity and quality of the person’s communication whereby to distinguish their whole ethical involvement. This is how we need to understand hypokrites and perceive its operation today—not so much as a blatant lie or subversion of the truth but as the reductionist substitute (sometimes even enacted unintentionally) for authenticity of the whole person, and thus for the function of one’s full identity with others, notably with God. When the pursuit of recognition and affirmation is left to self-determination, it invariably becomes reduced to being seen by others and how others perceive what one does, thereby easily compromising the complete presentation of the person in order “to be seen in a better light.” Obviously then, to be “better” takes place in a comparative process with others, whether in the church or the surrounding context, which results in stratified relationships based on false distinctions. What is also exposed here is the reality of relational orphans who seek the approval of others and to belong, even as they are members serving in the church.

This is Jesus’ purpose for making imperative the ongoing need to pay attention to how our righteousness functions. It has direct relational implications for determining the level of relationship we engage. In highlighting these three important areas of religious practice, his concern is foremost our relationship with our Father and the level of relationship we engage with him. The major implication of merely performing roles in Christian duty is the significance of the specific relational messages we communicate to God implied in such practice: (1) about how we see ourselves—with an outer-in human ontology and the responsibility for fulfilling obligations by self-determination; (2) about how we see God—that God is similar to us, and thus sees us as we see ourselves, holding us accountable to fulfill our obligations by self-determination; and (3) about our relationship together—it functions neither on the basis of grace nor on the intimate relational involvement of agape, which would be on God’s terms, but rather it functions on the basis of obligation (opheilo) and fulfilling those expectations (from entalma, not entole), thus the preoccupation with what we do, reducing the relationship to our terms. There are assumptions about God made in these relational messages that we have no legitimate basis to make—assumptions that Jesus corrected with the relational truth of the Father (discussed below). Ethics practiced on this basis becomes in reality unethical treatment of God. And ‘faith alone’ (sola fide) and ‘by grace alone’ (sola gratia) become merely alternative facts of the Good News that we use to enhance our image doctrinally before others—which composes much of the diversity from the Reformation.

These are pivotal relational messages implied in such practice constituted by self-determination in all its diverse expression. Their communicated meaning emerges from a lens contextualized and/or commonized and an outer-in ontology of the person that reduce life and practice to quantitative (over qualitative) function embedded in reductionism. This existing reality among Christians appears to elude our awareness, which Jesus is clarifying and correcting in his manifesto. How self-determination emerges in this process that reduces life and practice to quantitative function and how it unfolds in the church involve a two-fold dynamic:

1. Self-determination (of whatever variation) reduces function and practice to what a person can both control (overlapping with self-autonomy) and thus manage to accomplish for success in determining one’s self, identity and worth—which is conveniently in contrast to inner-out qualitative relational function that necessitates more from the whole person.

2. Yet, this desired result cannot be determined in a spiritual vacuum or in social isolation, but by necessity of its outer-in quantitative approach can only be determined in comparison (and competition) with others, thus requiring the use of distinctions (the components of image) among them as quantitative indicators to ascribe “better” or “less” to self-definition, identity and worth, and, unavoidably, to establish higher and lower positions in their relationships together to establish subtly a stratified order—which some would justify as merely the unequal differences composing the body of Christ, or would justify as the application of the standard of measurement necessary in the church (the self-justification discussed in the next section, cf. 7:1-5).

This reductionist focus, reinforced by a contextualized bias and sustained by a commonized bias, becomes the preoccupation (even compulsion or obsession) in practice with the relational consequence implied in the above relational messages. The accompanying reality is that ethical and moral practice alone does not address this but indeed can reflect, reinforce and sustain this, as existing practice makes evident.

In contrast and conflict, Jesus disclosed the intimate relational messages from his Father, both in these three areas of religious practice and the rest of this section. He made eleven references to “your Father” (6:1,4,6,8,14,15,18,26,32)—vital relational messages about how our Father feels toward us and defines the nature of our relationship with him. In conflict with self-determined pursuit of recognition and validation, Jesus enacted God’s relational work of grace, and in his teaching he communicated the holy and transcendent God’s vulnerable uncommon presence and intimate whole involvement to distinguish the uncommon and whole righteousness of the whole-ly Trinity. From the midst of this apparent litany of prescriptions and injunctions emerged his relational language clearly divulging the intimate involvement and response of our heavenly Father. Contrary to the reductionist effort to be seen, he fully disclosed that “your Father sees” (6:4,6,18). The term for “sees” (blepo) is the most basic of a word-group having to do with sight and observation; others include horao, theoreo and theaomai discussed above. Blepo simply denotes exercising one’s capacity of sight, to look at with interest, to be distinctly aware of—suggesting an intentional or deliberate act (cf. 5:28, the implication of blepo as a relational act). The significance of his relational language that your Father simply blepo is vital to what Jesus taught about these practices.

Jesus did not compartmentalize various acts (like giving to the needy) to different areas of function, thus fragmenting the person (“…do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,” 6:3). Nor, in this, was he suggesting to be subconscious in practice (“so that your giving may be in secret,” v.4). Rather he was directly addressing the issue of practice becoming self-conscious, that is, self-oriented (for recognition) instead of giving one’s self in relational involvement with the person(s) receiving. Jesus rendered such practice unfulfilling and unnecessary, despite any benefit from such mere practice. Likewise for praying (6:6-7) and fasting (6:17-18), Jesus was not suggesting these practices be inconspicuous, neither inward nor detached. These are relational acts of involvement for relationship together—namely, prayer as a means for greater intimacy with God, and fasting as a means of submission to God for deeper relationship. And Jesus targeted the completeness of the whole person in intimate relational involvement together with our Father—nothing less and no substitutes, just as “in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:24)

Therefore, Jesus declared the experiential truth for relationship together: our Father blepo us because he is relationally involved with us; such giving of our whole person to others (in service) and to God (in prayer and fasting) is relationally compatible with his involvement and is relationally congruent with how he sees us, as well as both defines our relationship together and functions in it. Jesus used the term “secret” (kryptos) to describe this relational involvement together. In an apparent play on words, kryptos (6:4,6,18) is in juxtaposition to hypokrites (6:2,5,16). Kryptos means hidden and hypokrites functions essentially to hide the whole person. Yet, in function they are contrary and in conflict. Kryptos (“in secret”) signifies the qualitative relational function of the whole person (constituted by the heart) in intimate involvement in relationship together; hypokrites avoids and/or precludes this deeper involvement by the quantitative function of reductionism. Since this involvement signifies the relational truth of how God functions, our Father blepo intimately “what is done in secret,” that is, what has qualitative relational significance from the inner out of the person. Our Father neither needs to use wonderment or imagination (as in theaomai) to see what we are, nor does he need deep contemplation (as in horao) to experience who and how we are, as we need to experience him. Our Father simply blepo the truth of the person presented, thus he intimately knows what, who and how we are, including what we need (6:8). The relational reality of this experiential truth eludes many Christians yet always awaits us on his whole relational terms.

In this relational process, then, he “will reward you” (misthos, wages, recompense received, 6:4,6,18), which needs to be understood in his relational context and process and not by a reductionist perceptual-interpretive framework. Jesus is using only relational language to build reciprocal relationship together. “Reward” involves our Father’s relational response to us—not with quantitative things, secondary matter, or on our terms—by giving his intimate Self further and deeper (including some things or matter, yet not on our terms). In this intimate relational outcome and experience, we are clearly being recognized for what we are and affirmed for who we are as persons belonging to his own family. This not only challenges but confronts our self-determination to be recognized and to belong.

On the relational basis of the Father sending his Son into the world, Jesus whole-ly embodied and thus vulnerably disclosed our Father’s intimately relationship-specific involvement with us—which is the basis for his Father’s imperative “Listen to my Son.” This is the experiential truth of their complete presentation of their whole persons, with nothing less and no substitutes for what, who and how the whole-ly Trinity is. In this teaching as the whole-ly Word of God’s communicative action, Jesus called his followers to be whole in what, who and how we present of our person in relationship together with him, our Father, the whole-ly Trinity, so that we can also be sent into the world in the congruence with how the Father sent him.

Yet, self-determination continues its urgent call also. Situations and circumstances in life and practice always emerge seeking to define who we are and what our priorities are, and thus to determine how we function. The ongoing issue is whether those matters (however large or small) need both to have priority and to be determined by our own efforts, which overtly or covertly constitute self-determination—however normative the practice, even in Christian culture. This function becomes our default mode until essential change takes place. Or, “therefore” (dia, on this account, for this reason) as Jesus said (6:25-32)—given our Father’s involvement with us and the nature of our relationship together—we can entrust our person ongoingly to our Father to define who we are and what our priorities are, and thus to determine how we function in whatever situations and circumstances because our Father is both intimately involved (both “sees” and “knows,” 6:32b) and lovingly responsive (6:26,30) with us in reciprocal relationship together.

This relationally penetrating polemic led to the second functional key to provide clarity and depth for the intimate relational involvement of our whole-ly identity in relational righteousness with our Father.

Second Functional Key: “Seek first his kingdom-family and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (6:33).

“Seek” (zeteo, actively pursue to experience) in Jesus’ relational language is not about obligatory striving (opheilo) to belong to God’s kingdom-family, which becomes self-determination overlapping into self-justification. Likewise, “seek” is not about striving for an attribute of righteousness, and thus to be righteous in likeness of his righteousness to justify and/or ensure receiving “all these things.” Nor is this about practicing mere “kingdom ethics.” In his relational language, the imperative of zeteo, by the nature (dei) of God’s relational terms, is the qualitative pursuit of the whole-ly God (“his righteousness”) for intimate relationship together in his family (“kingdom”). This qualitative pursuit necessarily (dei) involves the vulnerable presence and intimate involvement of the whole person, constituted by the heart from the inner out, nothing less and no substitutes; such a pursuit, then, provides the clarity and depth for both who we are and whose we are in relationship together as his very own daughters and sons. The intensity of this pursuit expands on the pivotal fourth Beatitude in our identity formation (5:6), which unfolds in this relational outcome to complete our identity.

This intimate relational process of belonging to his family and participating in his life has the relational outcome of ongoingly experiencing the whole-ly Trinity further and deeper, as well as receiving what belongs to our Father in his family. The benefits of belonging is the qualitative relational significance of “all these things” that is included in this relational outcome necessary to be made whole-ly, to live whole-ly and to make uncommon wholeness. Thus, this integral relational process of belonging and its relational outcome are the only basis and means for ethics in God’s family and in the world. Anything less and any substitutes render us to our default mode, which redefines who and what we seek and sustains how we seek the results.

This functional key also provides the relational process by which our Lord’s summary prayer (6:9-13) needs to be submitted to our Father and from which it will be fulfilled in his reciprocal relational response. Moreover, this key relational process integrates with the interrelated process between the fourth and sixth Beatitudes (5:6,8). The second functional key of pursuing our Father on his terms further composes—integrally with the first functional key of living by how our Father loves us—the basis for the process of triangulation by making functional in our life and practice the main aspect of this triangulation process: ongoing intimate involvement in relationship together—face to face, without the veil of our images and distinctions—with our Father and the whole-ly Trinity as family. Guided from this intimate relational point of connection, we are defined in the surrounding context by the trinitarian relational context of family, and how we function in relationships and in all our situations and circumstances is determined by the trinitarian relational process of family love for relationships to be together in uncommon wholeness—the whole relational process and outcome by which our uncommon moral presence and whole ethical involvement distinguish our identity as his whole-ly disciples, the light in the darkness of the human condition at all its levels.

Self-determination is never an individual action (or an individual group action) done in isolation from others (or other groups). Self-determination is a social phenomenon requiring a process of comparison to others to establish the standards of measuring success or failure in self-determination, which is embedded in the social reality of human life at all its levels. Invariably, as noted above, these comparative (and competitive) differences lead to “better” or “less” social position (historically, even ontological nature, as seen in racism), thus the operation of stratified relationships together (formalized in systems of inequality). When relationships become separated, partitioned or fragmented, there is a basis of justification needed either to access a “better” position or to embed/maintain others in a “less” position. The pursuit of this basis is the effort for self-justification (by individual or group); this was the underlying process of Christian colonialism and its forceful use of manifest destiny. That is to say, the effort for self-determination inevitably becomes the function in social context for self-justification; and the results of this effort invariably come at the expense of others, even unknowingly or inadvertently. Accordingly, our ethics cannot be distinguished with relational significance as long as it emerges from such a practice. On the contrary, ethics becomes contradictory or relativized, along with promoting moral disorder if only by complicity. The testimony of persons, peoples and nations, such as persons of color and Native Americans, expose this social reality in churches and among Christians.

Jesus continued to expose the dynamics of reductionism, its counter-relational work and the functional workings of the sin of reductionism countering the whole of God’s desires. In his initial teaching here, the subtle shift of self-determination to self-justification emerged from an invalid application of “righteousness”—or an inadequate practice of ethics and morality—to effectively create distinctions (“with the measure you use”) of “better” and “less” for relational position in religious and social context (7:1-2, cf. Mk 4:24). This so-called righteousness was not merely about “the holier the better” but about “holier than thou.” Judgment based on an outer-in human ontology exposed their reductionism, with the relational consequence from counter-relational practice diminishing relationship together to be whole (7:3-4). This mere role performance of righteousness (even with good intentions, e.g., by church leaders) is characteristic of hypokrites and is a function of the sin of reductionism lacking the inner-out practice of the whole person constituted by the heart (7:5). In addition, to be whole is the outcome of God’s relational work of grace, not self-determination, thus humility precludes self-justification—for example, humility in ethical and moral practice, or in spiritual development, which would involve epistemic humility. Yet, this humility should not be confused, for example, with being irenic and thereby diminish Jesus’ intrusive relational path of his uncommon wholeness that even wields a sword against reductionism.

The dynamic of reductionism in religious/Christian life and practice is embedded in ontological simulation and functional illusion of God’s whole. Yet, Jesus exposed the efforts of self-autonomy, self-determination and self-justification as insufficient (not to mention unnecessary) to be whole. Reductionism and the whole are obviously incompatible, yet less obvious is the ongoing conflict between them. Consequently, they cannot be conjoined in any pluralistic or syncretistic way, and any attempt to do so will fragment the whole, thereby reducing the new (cf. Lk 5:37-38)—which hasn’t stopped Christians from constructing hybrid theology and practice. It is the integrity and significance of this whole that Jesus pointed to in a vivid illustration of the issue of whom/what we will pursue (7:6). This verse is not merely an added injunction thrown into his manifesto but needs to be directly integrated into this issue at hand. Given the full identity of his family in relationship together in uncommon wholeness, to function in anything less is to pursue an alternative substitute of reductionism, even with good intentions. The dynamic Jesus described is consequential:

The integrity (“sacred”) and significance (“pearls”) of your whole person and relationship together in essence are thoughtlessly thrown (ballo) to reductionists, who treat with disdain (katapateo) anything whole, and even turn (strepho) on you to break down your wholeness and leave you fragmented (rhegnymi).

While this may appear as hyperbole, the regressive nature of this reverse dynamic is rightfully described because of the essential violence reductionism exerts on the whole—although the influence reductionism exerts, notably in its counter-relational work, tends to be a very subtle process, appearing even in Christian roles (cf. 2 Cor 11:14-15) or as the Christian norm, for example, in ontological simulation and functional illusion of God’s whole.

The choice of whom/what we will pursue is really quite simple, as Jesus’ unvarying manifesto made definitive: God’s whole or anything less and any substitute—the former progressing in the dynamic of nothing less and no substitutes and the latter regressing in the reverse dynamic of anything less and any substitutes. The results are profoundly consequential, as Jesus fully disclosed in this concluding section of his most compelling communication to his followers.

The whole-ly word enacted by Jesus to communicate the whole-ly God’s desires is declared simply: self-autonomy, self-determination and self-justification are insufficient and unnecessary, no matter how their practice is punctuated and accentuated to enhance their self-image. The whole-ly experiential truth embodied by Jesus to fulfill the whole-ly God’s thematic relational response to the human condition “to be apart” is profoundly simple: God does not define our person based on what we do and have, thus the whole-ly God’s vulnerable involvement and intimate response is fully based on the Trinity’s relational work of grace for relationship to be together in uncommon wholeness—the whole-ly Trinity’s family.

These are the uncommon God’s whole relational terms and the only way the Trinity does relationships. Since this precludes self-autonomy, makes self-determination unnecessary and renders self-justification insufficient, Jesus invited his followers to partake of God’s relational work of grace (7:7-8). Yet, God’s grace constitutes involvement only on God’s whole terms, not to partake for self-determination (or indulgence) on our reduced terms. Integrally, then, “ask…seek…knock” signify only our reciprocal relational work of involvement to be whole together in intimate relationship with our Father and his relational work of grace. His vulnerable involvement and intimate response can be counted on because of his relational righteousness (7:9-11), and participating in his life in this reciprocal relationship together necessitates by its nature (dei, not opheilo) our relational righteousness. On the basis of God’s relational work of grace for this relational experience together—our Father’s intimate involvement and response of love—Jesus disclosed the third functional key, commonly known by its reductionist title, the Golden Rule.

Third Functional Key: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets (7:12, NIV).

This teaching tends to be reduced by interpreting it only in the limited context involving us with others. This bases how we do relationships with others on the self-orientation formulated from two basic issues, which Jesus addressed throughout his manifesto: (1) how we define our person, and thus, on this basis, (2) how we do relationships. If this self-orientation has been influenced by reductionism, then “in everything we do to others” will not go beyond and deeper than a reductionist practice of how we do relationships based on a reductionist self-definition. In other words, what we desire others to act on (thelo) in relation to us will always be seen through this lens—influenced by contextualized and commonized biases—which in turn will determine how we function with them. This use of self-orientation, even with the best of intentions as the Golden Rule, is insufficient basis for our life and practice “in everything”—for example, even for Christian ethical decisions and practice. Moreover, the practice emerging from this approach is inadequate to be the sum and substance (eimi, what is) of the law and the prophets (i.e. God’s communicated Word), which Jesus vulnerably both embodied in his teaching and enacted in his involvement for relationship to be transformed together in uncommon wholeness. Any reduction, therefore, would diminish his intrusive relational path with more comfortable and less demanding relationships, and this would make ambiguous our moral presence and ethical involvement with others even if that’s what they want.

The alternative to this reduction is the whole. The third functional key cannot be limited to only the context involving us with others, which would then take it out of its whole context, as the Golden Rule does. Its whole context involves us further and deeper than this. This functional key can only be understood in the relational context of “your Father” and embraced by his relational process in intimate relationship together, which is the relational context and process Jesus disclosed and made definitive in his encompassing manifesto. That is to say, in our Father’s relational context and process we have engaged vulnerable relationship together and have been intimately involved to experience the whole-ly God’s mercy, grace and agape involvement to be made whole. In his relational context and process, we ongoingly experience being redefined as whole persons, redeemed from reductionism and its sin, transformed necessarily in human ontology from the inner out and reconstituted in the relationships necessary to be whole. From this vulnerable experience we know: (1) how we need and thus want to be seen (from the inner-out human ontology), (2) how we need and thus want to be treated by others (as whole persons, nothing less), and (3) what we need and thus want to experience in relationships (the intimacy together to be whole, no substitutes).

Therefore, on the basis of this uncommon relational experience together with our Father, Jesus calls those made uncommonly whole to live whole-ly “in everything,” namely with others in relationships to make uncommonly whole. In other words, to paraphrase his third functional key:

“Use what you are intimately experiencing in your relationship with ‘your Father’ as the basis for defining and determining how to function with others, both in his kingdom-family and in the surrounding context—‘in everything’ live to be whole-ly and make uncommon wholeness, as summarized in God’s whole terms for relationship.”

This points to the triangulation process. The third functional key completes the basis for the process of triangulation by making definitive the relational experience of being made whole-ly in relationship together with our Father. In integral function with the second functional key (of pursuing our Father in relationship together as family on his terms), the third functional key uses what is being experienced in that intimate relationship to interact in integrated function with the first functional key (of living how our Father loves us). Functioning together, these three functional keys provide this intimate relational point of connection by which to be guided in the world in order to be defined in any human context by the trinitarian relational context of family and to function in any human relationship and at any human level by the trinitarian relational process of family love. Triangulation with our Father (including the Spirit) takes us further than the right ethics and merely doing the right thing, and engages us deeper than acting in life and practice as mere reactors to others in situations and circumstances in order to navigate the depths of their human condition as responders. As Jesus functioned and calls us to function in likeness, triangulation with our Father takes our whole person and engages us to be vulnerably involved with others just as he is involved with us for relationship together necessary to be whole, that is, nothing less than God’s whole and no substitutes for God’s uncommon wholeness.

Without ongoing relational function in these three functional keys (all focused on our Father) and the triangulation process, Christian life and practice is left with only alternatives to the whole—alternatives that may mislead us in ontological simulation or misguide us in functional illusion of wholeness. To pursue, settle for or be resigned to anything less and any substitutes for the whole is to engage in reductionism, which only renders us to a default mode needing to be transformed. Jesus clearly illuminated in the juxtaposition of reductionism with the whole throughout his manifesto that there is no other alternative in-between. Consequently, in each moment, situation, circumstance and relationship encountered in our life and practice, we are faced with the decisions of what is going to define us and what will determine how we function, most notably with others in relationships. And we have only two alternatives (7:13-14): God’s whole, which is irreducible and nonnegotiable, thus imperative to only one function (“narrow gate and road”); or anything less and any substitutes, which is amenable to any variation away from the whole, thus adaptable to various functions (“wide gate and road”). “Gate” is a metaphor for what defines and determines us, while “road” is a metaphor for the ongoing function in our practice emerging from that “gate.” The wide one leads away (apago) from the whole of life (zoe) to loss (apoleia, i.e. reduction) or ultimate ruin, while the narrow one brings before (apago, same word for opposite dynamic) the depth of zoe (not the limits of bios, common life) of the whole-ly God and to the qualitative relational function of zoe in God’s whole.

With a contextualized bias Christians have narrowly rendered the “wide gate and road,” and with a commonized bias have widely assumed who lives the “narrow gate and road.” Jesus corrects such latitude among his followers and clarifies this reality: The former in all it variations only regresses and never remains static, but only the nonnegotiable terms of the latter progresses. This either-or in Jesus’ manifesto is an inconvenient reality for many of his disciples to accept—inconvenient for self-autonomy and thus impractical for self-determination—who render it to a virtual reality in their theology and support it with alternative facts in their practice to justify their diversity.

The depth of zoe, however, is irreducible and thus invariable to human shaping, because it signifies the qualitative relational function of the whole-ly God and the Trinity’s relational action in the trinitarian relational context of family by the trinitarian relational process of family love. Zoe involves the practice of this qualitative relational work made definitive in Jesus’ teaching, which is contrary to prevailing practices and norms (as implied above) and in conflict with quantitative outer-in presentations of a reduced human ontology (7:15-20). In other words, Jesus distinguishes the life of zoe as both whole and distinctly uncommon in the human context; and those who “Follow me” in his zoe on the intrusive relational path (“narrow gate and road”) also bear his minority identity, and their uncommon wholeness intrudes on human life at all its levels.

Moreover, the authentic relational work of his whole-ly disciples is not about doing something (like performing ministry, 7:22), nor about beliefs, associations or having intentions with “Lord” (7:21) that reflect not really knowing whole-ly Jesus (as in Jn 14:9) or being known by him (7:23). This qualitative relational work is only about involvement in intimate relationship together to be whole, experienced first with the whole-ly God—contrary to “I don’t know you” to the reductionists. This is the qualitative relational work of those being made whole in relationship together in God’s family, and thus who are able to live whole as their Father’s very own daughters and sons—those “who do the will of my Father” (7:21b). This whole function is distinguished only as uncommon, which means being invariable to human contextualization and the common of all levels of human life. Thus, does his manifesto clarify and correct the diversity of disciples and discipleship existing today?

As Jesus vulnerably embodied and intimately disclosed the whole-ly God, he made definitive what constitutes completeness of God’s whole. In his closing communicative action to all his followers (then and now), he conjoined completeness with accountability (7:24-27). We are accountable for all his words communicated to us in his manifesto of discipleship, which was not merely to inform us but only God’s terms to make whole our relationship together and its relational significance to be and live whole with others in his kingdom-family and to live and make whole with persons, peoples and nations in the surrounding contexts at all levels. The completeness of how we live and practice emerges directly from the completeness of who and what we are in our whole-ly identity (see contingency of the sixth Beatitude, 5:8), which inseparably involves whose we are. And what validates completeness are all his words and our relational involvement with him on those whole relational terms (“the foundation on rock”). This accountability is relationship-specific, and thus being accountable not for the self-orientation of what we do but rather for our vulnerable involvement in intimate relationship together—that is, accountable for this qualitative relational work of who and what we are in reciprocal relationship together with the whole-ly Trinity. To separate how we live and practice from the function of our whole-ly identity renders how we live and practice to reductionism—namely defined by only what we do, which does not go beyond the righteousness of the reductionists (5:20).

The global church in all its diversity is faced with the reality that not all who claim “Lord, Lord” belong to whole-ly Jesus and accordingly belong to his whole-ly family. Given the manifesto of the Word, his disciples and their discipleship together as the church are distinguished integrally whole and uncommon in likeness of the whole-ly Trinity. Therefore, the global church and all its churches, persons and relationships must examine their diversity, because they are accountable for their moral presence and ethical involvement in the world.

As Jesus unfolded the truth for relationship in his teaching, he clarified for his followers:

In reality, the function of self-autonomy is not free but only an ironic form of enslavement—namely because of the outer-in human ontology that defines it and determines its practice—which self-determination reinforces by being constrained to the limits of ontological simulation, and which self-justification then embeds even deeper in functional illusion.

The events, situations, circumstances and relationships (“rain…wind,” 7:27) experienced in life and practice will expose their lack of uncommon qualitative substance to be whole, of uncommon qualitative significance to live whole, and lack of uncommon qualitative function to make whole. This is a reality check for those engaged in any form of reductionism (even inadvertently or naively), which extends our accountability with the clear need to ongoingly account for what defines us and what determines how we function—notably in what we specifically characterize as our Christian practice to define our moral presence and to determine our ethical involvement.

As the manifesto for discipleship, nonnegotiable for all his disciples, Jesus’ words to his followers made conclusive that discipleship is following him only in relational progression to his Father for relationship together as his very own to be whole in the Trinity’s family (cf. Jn 12:44,49-50). This clearly involves discipleship and frames discipleship formation in only the whole-ly Trinity’s relational context and process. While there are more than a few variations of discipleship and approaches to discipleship formation, his closing metaphor of building a house warns us that this diversity may only appear to be authentic to define his disciples and valid to determine discipleship. Jesus was unequivocal that the completeness and validity foundational for all his followers is grounded in the inner-out functional practice of all his words. All his words, communicating our Father’s terms for relationship together, are what his Father also made imperative for us to “Listen to my Son.” Therefore, all his words communicated to us from our Father are not optional, negotiable, nor can his serious followers be selective about which of his words to practice (cf. Lk 6:46). His whole-ly words integrate inseparably as the whole-ly Trinity’s terms necessary for relationship together to be uncommonly whole.

When we get past our contextualized and commonized biases, the Sermon on the Mount emerges accordingly:

As the manifesto of Jesus’ irreducible relational purpose and nonnegotiable relational terms for his disciples to be distinguished whole and uncommon, in order for their identity to have the uncommon moral presence and whole ethical involvement of light in the world, so that he could send out whole-ly disciples as the Father sent him to relationally respond to the human condition and make uncommonly whole all levels of human life.

And as Jesus made unavoidable in the Beatitudes, being whole-ly disciples will not be the experiential truth of our persons and the relational reality of our function, until we first in vulnerable humbleness admit our own human condition in reduced ontology and function whereby we are transformed to uncommon wholeness.

The twenty-first century world is increasingly in conflict at all levels of human life, with global terrorism only the most apparent. The Hebrews manifesto for discipleship makes it imperative to “Pursue peace with everyone” (Heb 12:14). This is not a mere challenge but defines our purpose in life as Jesus’ whole-ly disciples and determines what we are in the world for. Yet, this purpose and function have also become ambiguous, misguided and/or distorted in our theology and practice.

In his manifesto, Jesus made complete the identity formation of his disciples with their function as “the peacemakers” (the 7^th Beatitude, Mt 5:9). The issue continues: How do we respond to these manifestos in our discipleship while following Jesus wielding the sword that counters peace—which Simeon anticipated for us (Lk 2:34-35)? The related question that will emerge with the answer is ‘how can we respond without asserting his sword?’ Both questions involve the apparent paradox of Jesus’ sword regarding peace.

This Beatitude of peacemaking integrates with the sixth Beatitude (“pure in heart,” 5:8) to outline the process to wholeness. This integral process of our identity formation is also conjoined with the fifth Beatitude (“the merciful,” 5:7) for the person made whole to function in the relationships necessary to be whole. As the process of the new (new creation and new wine in contrast to the old) identity formation engages others in relationship, there emerges a distinguished presence and involvement that is neither ambiguous nor shallow. Yet this peacemaking Beatitude is often not fully understood or integrally enacted, because the peace of Jesus is misperceived through the lens of a contextualized or commonized bias.

Peace is generally perceived without its qualitative significance and with a limited understanding of the relational involvement constituting it. As discussed previously about Jesus approaching Jerusalem in his triumphant entry, he agonized over its condition: “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace” (Lk 19:41-42). “The things that make for peace” is a critical issue focused on what belongs to peace, and thus by necessity involves the persons who bring this peace, not just the work of peace.

Reviewing previous notes on peace, in the classical Greek sense peace is perceived as the opposite of war and the tension in conflict. The NT, however, does not take its meaning of peace from this source; its concept of peace is an extension from the OT and of the Hebrew shalôm. The opposite of shalôm is any disturbance to the well-being of the community. That is, biblical peace is not defined in negative referential terms by the absence of any conflict but in positive relational terms by the presence of a specific condition of ontology and function, which also goes beyond any comfort or pleasantness from the absence of conflict. Throughout the Bible the primary concept of peace is well-being and wholeness. Peace is a general well-being that has both an individual dimension and a corporate/collective dimension. This wholeness extends to all aspects of human life (including physical creation) and by necessity includes salvation and the end times, but it certainly is insufficient to limit it to the latter. Going beyond the mere absence of negative activity, all of this involves what must be present for peace; this is what belongs to peace—and constitutes more than commonly understood or even wanted. Yet, uncommon peace is what Jesus distinguished from common peace to compose nothing less than uncommon wholeness.

The gospel is clearly composed by and affirmed as this uncommon peace (as in Acts 10:36; Eph 6:15). This is the only peace in which Jesus constituted his followers, and distinguished from conventional peace common to human contexts (Jn 14:27). It is thus insufficient to signify the gospel of peace with a truncated soteriology (only what Jesus saved us from) without the relational outcome of what he saved us to. The whole gospel’s salvation necessitates the relationships together of the whole-ly God’s family in which Jesus constituted his followers to be whole-ly as the new creation. Uncommon wholeness is intrinsic to this peace, and to be whole-ly is a necessary relational condition for those who bring this peace. Who then are the peacemakers?

Their identity is clearly defined by Jesus as the sons and daughters of God (Mt 5:9), not God’s servants but the Father’s very own children (as in 5:44-45, cf. Jn 15:15). This tells us not only who and what they are but whose they are and how they are as peacemakers.

The adopted children of God have been made whole in God’s family and partake equalized in the new wine communion together with the whole-ly God, no longer separated by the holy partition and without the veil of human distinctions. As whole persons receiving the whole-ly Trinity’s relational work of grace, it is insufficient for God’s children merely to share mercy (compassion) with others. It is also insufficient for them merely to engage in the mission (however dedicated) to reduce violence, stop war or create the absence of conflict—the insufficiency of the model commonly used from Micah 6:8. On the basis of the ontology of who they are and whose they are, how they function to clearly reflect the depth of their uncommon wholeness—thus the relational responsibility to represent the Father and to continue to extend his family—involves a deeper level of relational involvement. “Peacemakers” (eirenopoios) denotes reconcilers, those who seek the well-being and wholeness of others, just as they experience (cf. 2 Cor 5:17-18). The reciprocal nature of the process of peacemaking is both a necessary and sufficient condition for peacemakers. This means not only to address the conflict increasing in the world today but to restore relationships in the human condition to wholeness uncommon to the human context, just as God’s thematic relational action and the relational work of the Trinity engage. Such involvement can only be vulnerable by the whole person from inner out not defined by outer-in distinctions, and thereby renders any participation in peacemaking with relational distance (created also by bearing enhanced images, e.g. a loving or sacrificial person) “to be apart” and consequently insufficient, inadequate and even contrary to peace.

This brings us back to Jesus’ sword that he wielded to expose the reductionism underlying common peace. The illusions from common peace mask the existing reductionism of persons and their function in relationships at all levels of human life composing social reality. For example, racism is not merely a personal prejudice expressed at the relational level; racism is a distinct pattern of discrimination reducing human ontology and function, whose framework is composed at the collective, institutional, structural and systemic levels—which is why racism (and other major forms of discrimination) has not been eliminated from our social reality, notably in the U.S. but also in the global church.

All reduced ontology and function needs to be confronted (including our own)—which Jesus did initially at the level of the biological family (Mt 10:34-35, cf. 12:48-50)—in order that the fragmentary condition of human life (even in the church) can be transformed to the depth of uncommon peace. Common peace, at best, can only simulate uncommon peace, yet it creates the illusion that there is no difference, and that Christians can use common peace to make a difference in the world. This has to be exposed in order that the uncommon truth and reality of peace can be illuminated, which for common peacemakers would be an inconvenient truth for their theology and inconvenient reality for their practice. The apparent paradox of Jesus’ sword is that he wasn’t against peace but fought against the reductionism composing common peace; and this doesn’t exempt common peacemakers (as in Lk 2:35). His sword was not optional but necessary, so that uncommon peace could be made in the human condition at all its levels. On this essential basis, how else could we be peacemakers without asserting his sword against reductionism?

Jesus’ peacemakers, accordingly, are not only those persons who “pursue uncommon wholeness with everyone,” but whose own persons have been transformed to uncommon wholeness (Heb 12:14). This inner-out change of transformation was necessary for them first, so that “uncommon peace be with you…the basis on which I send you into the world only as whole-ly disciples” (Jn 20:21)—those fighting against reductionism to make uncommon peace for “everyone.” In the identity formation of his whole-ly disciples, this refocuses us on the necessary antecedent integrated with the seventh Beatitude of peacemakers: “the pure in heart who see God in face-to-face relationship together” (6^th Beatitude, Mt 5:8). These persons, who are being further redeemed and transformed, are engaged in the process of becoming whole by vulnerable involvement necessarily both from their whole person and in the relationships together constituting the whole. This Beatitude integrated with the seventh outline what is involved in this process to wholeness, and therefore the maturation of our identity.

The tendency in a context pervaded by reductionism, even though not enslaved by it, is to pay more attention inadvertently to the behavioral/activity aspects of our life and practice. We readily make assumptions about the qualitative presence and involvement of our person in that behavior or activity. A relational context and process make deeper demands on our person; the whole-ly God’s relational context and process hold us accountable for nothing less and no substitutes than our whole person—the demands of grace. Accordingly, we should never assume the ongoing condition of our heart nor the state of our relationship with the whole-ly God. Wholeness is contingent on their qualitative function in vulnerable relational terms, which referential terms cannot account for in its default mode with relational distance.

A shallow identity lacks depth. A shallow person lacks the presence and involvement of heart (cf. Mt 15:8). Persons lacking heart in function (even inadvertently) lack wholeness. Intimate involvement with the whole-ly God (i.e. who is unreduced to common terms) necessitates an ongoing process of our hearts open and coming together—God’s nonnegotiable terms. As discussed previously about the significance of holy, the Uncommon and the common are incompatible for relationship, further necessitating our ongoing transformation to “the pure in heart” (katharos, clean, clear, Mt 5:8) to be compatible. This katharos is not a static condition we can merely assume from God’s redemption and forgiveness. God’s relational acts of grace are always for reciprocal relationship, thus “pure in heart” is a dynamic function for deeper involvement in reciprocal relationship to be whole together. This involves a heart functioning clear of any relational barriers or distance, functioning clean of Satan’s reductionist lies, substitutes and illusions—signifying the catharsis of the old to be constituted in the whole of the new. Yet, any subsequent turn from the heart interjects gray matter, making our function ambiguous.

An ambiguous identity lacks clarity. An ambiguous person lacks clarity of one’s ontology. Christians lacking ontological clarity lack the qualitative distinguishing them from the common’s function in the surrounding context, notably from reductionism existing in all levels of human life. Being distinguished includes from the mindset, cultural practices and other established ways prevailing in our contexts and social reality, which we assume are compatible with God but effectively shift relationship with the whole-ly God to our common terms (cf. Rom 8:5-6). When the identity and ontology of the Uncommon cannot be clearly distinguished from this common function (even in a Christian subculture), this generates ambiguity in our identity and counteracts wholeness for our ontology—which increasingly becomes life and practice without the whole person and without the primacy of intimate relationships necessary to be whole (cf. Col 3:15). The theological implication is that the Uncommon and common can neither coexist in functional harmony nor can their functions be combined in a hybrid. The functional implication is that the tension between them must by nature always be of conflict, the nature of which is ongoing and, contrary to some thinking, irremediable. Therefore, “pure in heart” also signifies catharsis of the common to be constituted with-in the whole of the Uncommon.

The function of the depth of this person’s heart will have the relational outcome to more deeply “see God.” The significance of “see” (horao) implies more than the mere act of seeing but involves more intensively to experience, partake of, or share in something, be in the presence of something and be affected by it. This depth of significance in “seeing” God in the substance of relationship is the intimate process of hearts functionally vulnerable to each other and further coming together in deeper involvement to be whole—the purpose of Jesus’ whole-ly life and practice and formative family prayer (Jn 17:19-26). When our ongoing experience (not necessarily continuous) with God is not horao, we need to examine honestly where our heart is and address any assumptions. If, for example, we don’t dance around our ptochos (“poor in spirit,” 1^st Beatitude, 5:3) and pentheo (mourning about it, 2^nd Beatitude, 5:4), our heart will respond with greater functional trust and vulnerable intimacy—the relational posture of submission to God’s whole relational terms signified by meekness (the humbleness of the 3^rd Beatitude, v.5). It is only when we assume or ignore this inner-out aspect of our person that we essentially keep relational distance from God, hereby impeding the process to be whole and the relational outcome of the new wine signifying the whole ontology and function of the new creation.

The early disciples’ struggles were essentially with heart issues, and consequently they had difficulty seeing (horao) God even in Jesus’ vulnerable presence (Jn 14:7-9). Mary enacted this heart to illuminate the difference that intimately connected with whole-ly Jesus. Without a clean and clear heart there will be shallowness in our identity formation and ambiguity in the ontology and function of our person (both individually and together) in ongoing relationship with the whole-ly Trinity. The catharsis of both the old and common make the sixth Beatitude essential as the contingency function in the process to be integrally whole and uncommon, and for the maturation of our identity as the whole-ly persons composed in Jesus’ call and for his commission. Whenever his disciples, however, are not in ongoing engagement of the contingency function, like the early disciples we also can expect the growth of our persons to be stunted and the maturity of our whole-ly identity to be underdeveloped.

In these seven Beatitudes Jesus defined the natural relational flow from repentance to redemption to reconciliation to wholeness. Jesus functioned vulnerably in this essential relational progression and ongoingly engaged the relational work necessary to be whole. While peace describes interpersonal relationships only in a corollary sense, the condition of wholeness and well-being is the new relational order of the new creation as the whole-ly Trinity’s family (as Paul made definitive, Eph 2:14-22; Col 3:15). Uncommon peace, therefore, is a necessary condition for the whole relational outcome of the gospel, the whole gospel, thus the missing sola that integrates all the other solas. Moreover, each emerging act of reconciliation and peacemaking must function in the same natural relational flow to become whole. This will advance the relational process in progression to wholeness for others and will deepen the wholeness of those so engaged, and therefore the maturation of the distinguished clarity and depth of their identity integrating their uncommon moral presence and whole ethical involvement as unmistakable light in the world.

Those who think they can make peace without asserting Jesus’ sword have a weak view of sin that doesn’t encompass the reductionism in all human life (including theirs) at all levels (including their relationships and churches). Thus, they are unable to distinguish uncommon peace from common peace, which ironically means their efforts to make peace could in reality reinforce or even sustain the human condition. Uncommon peacemaking is the assertive action of those who are maturing in the identity distinguishing them only as whole-ly disciples living in the dynamic of nothing less and no substitutes—foremost in face-to-face relationship together with the whole-ly Trinity in the church family and then vulnerably facing all others in the world (Ps 149:6).

For those who don’t assert his sword, Jesus weeps further with the lament: “If you, even you serving, would only recognize on this day the depth that makes for peace! But now this depth is hidden from your eyes with the lens of your contextualized and commonized biases” (Lk 19:41-42).

Jesus embodied God’s relational response to the human condition, yet the incarnation of whole-ly Jesus cannot be reduced to merely a historical event that we reference in our theology. This incarnation was always in relational progression on Jesus’ intrusive relational path. In his relational purpose, Jesus vulnerably enacted God’s relational response of love for the human condition; yet, we cannot merely idealize his intrusive action of love, for example, with references to John 3:16 or by just acts of love for humanity. Jesus whole-ly embodied and enacted God’s relational response of grace by his uncommon moral presence and whole ethical involvement, which intrusively impacted human life at all levels and thereby changed the human condition. This is the experiential truth and relational reality of the whole gospel, the gospel of whole-ly Jesus. Thus, the composition of the gospel we possess, measured by the Jesus we use, is essential for what we claim for our own human condition, and thereby for the light we bring to the darkness. Therefore, this composition is essential for what Good News we bring to the human condition of all life.

Just as the Father sent him into the world, this is who, what and how Jesus sends us into the world to embody and enact. Our congruence with Jesus’ commission, however, emerges only from our compatibility with whole-ly Jesus (no one less) and thereby in likeness of the whole-ly Trinity (no substitutes). This compatibility has been in ongoing conflict with subtle variations that are incompatible to be whole-ly—variations that are consequential for the outcome of our presence and involvement in the world and, therefore, for the human condition (obviously including our own).

Reductionism would have us believe that “knowing good and evil” and making that distinction in the human context would “be like God”; and to believe that to function on this basis, our human condition “will not be reduced in ontology and function”—as reductionism has claimed from the beginning of human life (Gen 3:4-5). This claim from reductionism has constructed secular anthropology in variable forms of reduced ontology and function, yet it has also shaped theological anthropology in a hybrid that defines persons and determines their function under the same original assumption of not being reduced in their ontology and function—or at least not reduced to the extent that emerged from the beginning. Such a hybrid theological anthropology has rendered ambiguous not only Christian identity as undistinguished in the world, but interrelatedly it also has made ambiguous the human condition in its breadth of all levels of human life and in its depth in the heart of persons’ ontology and at the core of their function. Hybrid theological anthropology in the modern world, notably assimilated with developmental biology and neuroscience, still assumes that human ontology and function have not been reduced to the extent that encompasses the breadth and depth of the human condition (and our human condition as Christians).[4]

This assumption and related thinking and positions about existing conditions in human life have become a recipe for making merely reforms (re-formulations) to the human condition. Re-forms of the human condition focus primarily on changing its existing condition from outer in; that is, re-formulations primarily address the situations and circumstances of those conditions without getting down into the primary issue of their underlying cause, which then merely re-forms its existing condition without deeper change. Thus, how far “in” of ‘outer in’ such re-forms penetrate the human condition depends on the operating theological anthropology generating these reforms. Yet, regardless of the theological anthropology operating in an outer-in approach, as much as it may appear to encompass the breadth of the human condition it is insufficient to get down to the depth of the existing human ontology and function underlying the human condition from inner out.

Reforms, with all good intentions, don’t change the underlying human ontology and function, which are composed from inner out by the sin of reductionism. The depth of the human condition can be addressed only when its reduced human ontology and function is exposed from inner out; and this condition can only be changed by transformation from inner out—never changed by mere reforms from outer in, no matter how “in” it goes. This change also applies to the human condition of churches and their persons and relationships, for whom reforms (and related renewals) have become seducing ontological simulations and functional illusions of their human condition supposedly changed from inner out.

Our theological anthropology is the key determinant in our theology and practice for knowing and understanding the human condition as God sees it. In Jesus’ indispensable paradigm for our clarification and correction, the theological anthropology we use will be the measure of the human condition we get. And our theological anthropology and its related human condition are directly contingent on our view of sin that either incorporates reductionism or omits it. The latter weak view of sin doesn’t assert Jesus’ sword to expose the reductionism at the depth of the human condition, nor does it confront the reduced ontology and function in variable theological anthropologies without asserting his sword. So, where do this weak view of sin and variable theological anthropology leave the human condition and our efforts to change it?

Some would argue strongly that many significant accomplishments have been made for the common good, and thus have benefitted multitudes and made an impact on the human condition. The juxtaposition of the common good and the human condition is a typical counterpoint that Christians frequently use to qualify their efforts. However, when Jesus’ sword is asserted, a deeper understanding emerges about the dynamics involved here. First of all, the human condition from the beginning was propagated by the joint assumption of “knowing good and evil” and that its condition “will not be reduced.” Secondly, efforts benefitting the common good are (1) based on “knowing good and evil” and therefore (2) assume that what is common is good for all and thereby helps change the human condition. And lastly, when these assumptions are exposed and their underlying reductionism of human ontology and function is confronted by asserting Jesus’ sword, then the common good is not in reality a counterpoint to the human condition but perhaps more of a counterpart—a critical distinction between merely virtual and real. That is to say, despite the extent of its efforts, serving the common good does not change the human condition at its depth, and any relief or comfort it brings only makes the human condition more palatable and enduring. This also applies to common peacemaking, not to mention evangelism that only serves to save persons from sin without including reductionism and what they are saved to.

Therefore, the argument in favor of serving the common good and related reforms to the human condition don’t measure up to integrally changing the human condition in its breadth of all levels of human life and in its depth in the heart of persons’ ontology and at the core of their function. Where does this change measure up and how does it emerge?

Jesus’ sword involves asserting the strong view of sin that incorporates reductionism in all its subtle forms and counter-relational workings. Asserting Jesus’ sword (not any sword even for the sake of peace) also integrally involves the intrusive action of whole persons and function enacted from the whole theological anthropology composed in likeness of whole-ly Jesus enacting only uncommon peace. When the human condition is put into juxtaposition with both this strong view of sin and this whole theological anthropology, the only change to the human condition that would measure up in significance is transformation: the inner out change of the old condition in reduced ontology and function to the new condition in whole ontology and function in likeness of only the whole-ly Trinity, the ongoing relational process and outcome of which unfolds in the essential dynamic of nothing less and no substitutes.

When Jesus commissioned his whole-ly disciples and sent them into the world just as the Father sent him, our congruence with him specifically involves (1) asserting his sword on the human condition in order to (2) enact uncommon peace at all levels of human life, so that (3) in the uncommon moral presence and whole ethical involvement of our whole-ly identity we (4) will make whole-ly disciples of all persons, peoples and nations in the human condition by their transformation from the old to the new on the basis and in the likeness of the Trinity. Whole-ly Jesus sends us only as whole-ly disciples, only for this whole-ly relational purpose and this whole-ly relational outcome. Anything less and any substitutes are no longer whole-ly.

“Uncommon wholeness be with-in you…as I send you” to fulfill your sole purpose in life and to complete what you are in this world sole-ly for—the solas for the global church needing urgent response in uncommon wholeness, the missing sola integrating all the other solas so that they will be nothing less and no substitute.

[1] Allen Yeh examines close-up these mission efforts in Polycentric Missiology: Twenty-First-Century Mission from Everyone to Everywhere (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2016).

[2] Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann and his son John Brueggemann, a sociologist, engage each other in an important dialogue that examines this social reality facing Christians in the U.S., in Rebuilding the Foundations: Social Relationships in Ancient Scripture and Contemporary Culture (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017).

[3] For a discussion on teleological and deontological reasoning, see Glen H. Stassen and David P. Gushee, Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2003), 119-122.

[4] I engage this discussion more extensively in The Person in Complete Context: The Whole of Theological Anthropology Distinguished (Theological Anthropology Study, 2014).