“Why do you not understand my language?”

John 8:43, NIV

 

For the word from the Lord is upright and all his work is enacted in faithfulness.

He loves righteousness and justice;

the earth is engulfed in the steadfast love of the Lord.

Psalm 33:4-5

 

 

 

            Christians in the past and the present typically have claimed a gospel commonly associated with some tradition.  Many traditions of the gospel, however, have been out of tune, because they are not tuned in to the right frequency of the gospel voiced by Jesus.  These diverse sounds of the gospel have a dissonance not often recognized, which is consequential (1) for lacking the integrity of the gospel claimed, and (2) for creating a bias or naiveté about the gospel practiced.  Such bias precludes the inclusive sounds voiced by Jesus; and any naiveté confuses dissonant sounds with having consonance with Jesus’ voice.

            For example, after cleaning out the temple, Jesus declared: “My house will be the relational context for direct connection with God through the intimate communication of prayer for all nations, tribes, peoples and persons” (Mk 11:17); he, thereby, reiterated and reinforced the inclusive response of God enacting the gospel (Isa 56:1-8).  Given Jesus’ inclusive voice, when any parts of this human diversity is precluded, this creates a bias that, for example, doesn’t reach out to take in and embrace  the scope of humanity.  Such bias exposes that the gospel claimed by those persons is out of tune with the voice of Jesus’ gospel, notably resonating in his protest at the temple.

            Also, when Jesus declared unequivocally and surprisingly, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division!” (Lk 12:51).  Hearing this directly from Jesus’ voice creates confusion, which the naïve simply assume to be consonant with the gospel—that is, assuming peace is not a priority for the gospel.  Or the naïve person could just assume it’s a mystery and practice a simplistic gospel without much sound.

            What the world witnesses from either biased Christians or naïve Christians is the practice of a gospel culture claimed to be from Jesus.  This culture is generated intentionally or unintentionally simply by the gospel they’ve claimed on their terms.  Such a culture emerged even in the early churches, which affected Paul: “I am astonished that you…are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another gospel” (Gal 1:6-7).  In the fact of reality, in such a culture these Christians are faced with the inconvenient truth that they effectively deafen or mute the sounds of the gospel voiced by Jesus.  Whenever anyone deafens or mutes, they also essentially become gospel deniers—much like  deniers in a political culture today.

            Given the issues before us, we need to be certain that we are tuning in to Jesus’ whole gospel or else be susceptible to belonging to such a gospel culture.  And we need to pay close attention and listen carefully, because we can only be tuned in at the right frequency of his voice—the frequency of Jesus speaking for himself and not others speaking for him.

 

 

Tuned In to the Right Frequency

 

 

            The sounds of the gospel voiced by Jesus don’t resonate at variable frequencies, even though such renditions may reverberate for many.  The main issue is less about the general teachings of the gospel and more about the person vulnerably embodying the gospel, and mostly about his whole person’s relational involvement enacting the gospel’s relational process for only the gospel’s irreducible and nonnegotiable relational outcome.

            The first sound of the gospel was heard in the Old Testament, in which God was offered to Abram in the distinct tune of covenant relationship (Gen 17:1-2).  In this gospel, God’s voice promised a fruitful life, but its measure was not centered on the quantitative.  Rather the gospel voiced by God resonated on the qualitative relational involvement of relationship together—the covenant of love initiated by God’s favor (i.e. grace), enacted vulnerably by God’s direct relational involvement, and constituted by the wholeness of God (see the Book of Love, Dt 4:37; 7:42; 10:15; 18:9,13; 23:5; 33:3).  These relational dynamics further unfolded face to face in God’s definitive blessing, in which God gives new relationship together in wholeness (Num 6:24-26). 

            God’s covenant of love did not compose the sound of the gospel’s frequency in a unilateral relationship of God’s promise; rather, God clearly voiced the frequency of the gospel’s reciprocal relationship together in order for Abraham and those to follow to be tuned in to the right frequency.  To make tis definitive God clearly delineated the terms for Abraham’s reciprocal response in the covenant of love: “walk with me and be blameless.  And I will make my covenant between me and you the relational reality” (Gen 17:1-2).  “Blameless” has been heard in a range of frequencies, for example, as “perfection”.  God knows without equivocation, however, that we all sin and cannot be perfect.  Thus, the frequency of God voicing “blameless” (tamiym) to Abraham only communicated for the involvement of Abraham’s person in reciprocal relationship together “to be complete, whole”; that is, only the wholeness of Abraham’s person could, would and had to be vulnerably present and relationally involved in order to reciprocate in likeness with God to consummate the covenant of love.

            Now Paul (Saul at the time) actively served God’s people of Israel and rigorously acted on their behalf—notably against Christians and the early church emerging.  Without any doubt in his mind, Saul assumed he was tuned in to the covenant promise made to Abraham.  This gospel history and his personal resume are the backstory for one of the most pivotal protests voiced by Jesus to enact his gospel: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4).  The frequency of Jesus’ voice was resonating to Saul; it was the sound of the gospel that he never truly listened to before, yet that he had assumed to be tuned in to.  Why did this frequency resonate with Saul like no other before?

            The frequency of Jesus’ gospel protest resonated deeper for Saul than what he audibly heard.  First of all, who came to Saul was unmistakable, because Jesus made his whole person vulnerable to Saul face to face: “I am Jesus, the person you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5).  In this face-to-face encounter (or confrontation), Jesus’ person took personally and directly (“persecuting me”) Saul’s efforts to eliminate Christians and the church, which served to reinforce and sustain the gospel culture among Jews.  After letting Saul know unequivocally how he was affected by Saul’s actions, what unfolded from his gospel protest of this bad news was the personal offer to Saul to experience the relational outcome of his gospel’s good news.  The frequency of Jesus’ offer resonated even deeper to penetrate Saul’s heart and turn him around.

            In his turnaround, Paul’s whole person not only tuned in to the right frequency of Jesus’ gospel, but he also exposed those not listening to the frequency of Jesus’ voice or those propagating divergent frequencies for the sounds of the gospel.  His epistles record the depth to which Paul’s protest went to counter those voicing an out-of-tune frequency for the gospel.  Most notable was Paul’s exposure of Peter, who should have known the right frequency of Jesus’ whole gospel yet voiced it out of tune (see Gal 2:11-14).  By being tuned in to the right frequency, Paul became the main human voice that would build the church in the sounds of Jesus’ whole gospel.

            In spite of all the sounds of Jesus’ voice that Peter heard during their time together, he had difficulty listening to the frequency of Jesus’ gospel.  His struggle to tune in pointed to the influence of a gospel culture had on him, which Peter didn’t recognize.  For example, his view of the messiah to save Israel was a dissonant frequency that he amplified to Jesus’ face, which essentially countered the frequency vulnerably voiced by Jesus directly to Peter (Mt 16:21-23).  The culture’s biased influence shaped Peter’s lens, which then blocked his ability to tune in to the right frequency even later in the early church (just as Paul exposed him above).  For Jesus and Paul, the sound waves voiced by Peter were shock waves.  This should alert all of us to the subtle and shaping influence a gospel culture can have to block us from tuning in to the right frequency; and, like Peter, we can be susceptible to voicing a bias amplifying a frequency out of tune.

            To counter a gospel culture, John’s Gospel reveals from the beginning that the person of Jesus vulnerably embodied zoe (the quality of life).  His zoe also magnified the light for all humanity, but those in the surrounding darkness did not understand its frequency (Jn 1:4-5).  Even though he enacted all of creation to be in his image and likeness, such creatures did not recognize him.  Moreover, he vulnerably revealed his whole person face to face with those identified as God’s people, but “his own people did not accept him” (1:10-11).  Contrary to the Word, the good news of the gospel voiced by Jesus was drowned out by the bad news amplified in the human condition.  Therefore, no one can tune in to the right frequency of Jesus’ whole gospel until the bad news is addressed directly and its diverse sounds silenced, cancelled and retuned in the only frequency voicing Jesus’ gospel.

            Later, John highlights those claiming the gospel in the wrong frequency, which essentially reflected their human condition in order to obtain for their possession what effectively just reinforced and sustained their condition (6:24-27).  They assumed that they could claim the gospel on their terms.  As they tried to fine tune their terms, Jesus voiced the right frequency requiring them to be retuned in order to be tuned in to the right frequency of only his terms.  Sadly, they chose to stay out of tune (6:28-66).

            The sound of Jesus’ protest has a distinct frequency that is unmistakable.  This is the existential reality even though the intonation of his protests have different intensity.  Peter can testify to the range of intonations of the protests that Jesus voiced to him personally (e.g. Mt 16:23; Jn 13:8; 21:17,20-22; Acts 10:13-15).  The different intonations of Jesus’ voice do not make the frequency of his gospel unclear or ambiguous to prevent tuning in to the right frequency.  His protest of the bad news is inseparable from the frequency of the good news.  The issue with tuning in to the right frequency revolves around hearing, listening, and then responding to his protest, in order that the good news can be claimed on only his terms for the gospel.  Peter obviously had difficulty tuning in to the right frequency, because in one way or another he imposed his terms on Jesus to cause dissonant sounds for the gospel.

            We need to learn from Peter’s experience three critical lessons:

 

1.     No one can connect with the right frequency of the gospel to claim the good news without first taking responsibility for the bad news of the human condition by first owning the specific condition about oneself and then by taking up the general condition about humanity.

 

2.     No one can be tuned in to the right frequency to experience the reality of the good news as long as they are defined and/or determined by their human condition.

 

3.     Anyone seeking to connect and experience the good news without changing from their bad news should expect to hear the intonation of Jesus’ gospel protest exposing their human condition.

 

            Too often Christians fail to learn lessons 1 and 2 but assume to be in tune with the gospel, because they haven’t encountered personally the protest of their bad news like Peter.  The intonation of Jesus’ voice, however, is present and involved, which necessitates being carefully listened to (as in Lk 8:17-18; Mk 4:24).  Such an assumption is common in a gospel culture, since it deafens and mutes any sounds of the gospel that are considered dissonant and unable to amplify the good news composed on their terms.  Obviously, the sounds of Jesus’ gospel protest would be at the top of that list.

 

 

Tuning In to Words or the Word

 

 

            In the beginning of John’s Gospel, he reveals the Word as God incarnate (Jn 1:1,14).  The Word didn’t merely speak words for teaching in the human context, but his whole person was vulnerably present and relationally involved “among us.”  The urgent question this raises for those claiming the gospel is whether we are tuning in to just his words of teaching or the Word himself.

            The Word of God is synonymous with the Bible, so when persons want to hear God’s Word they typically turn to the words in the Bible.  What becomes problematic in this process is that God becomes quantified by these words.  This reduces the revelation of God’s whole being (embodying zoe) communicated in the qualitative terms of relational language down to the quantitative terms of referential language merely to transmit information.  The relational consequence of merely hearing the words from God in referential language is that people merely tune in to those words; and no matter how much information about God is accumulated or how much that reverberates in one’s mind, it always stops short of constituting the Word in person.  Nothing less and no substitutes constitute the vulnerable presence and relational involvement of God’s Word communicating face to face, heart to heart with us (as the Samaritan woman would testify); and when the Word’s person is tuned in to on his qualitative relational terms, the Word resonates in the hearts of those responding (as Paul would testify).

            That’s why God protests the boasts of those based on their quantitative accumulation and possession—even of their vast information about the words from God, as heard from those in the theological academy—in order that they would turn around to “understand and know me” (Jer 9:23-24).

            The process of claiming the gospel also engages either tuning in to words or tuning in to the Word.  The words of John 3:16, for example, are well known, but how known and understood is the Father’s person who gave the Son’s person who came?  There is a substantive difference between the words of the gospel and the gospel’s Word, which needs to be distinguished in any claim of the gospel or else the frequency tuned in to becomes ambiguous, distorted or confusing.  How would you assess what Peter tuned in to in his early discipleship—words or the Word?

            In communicating the right frequency of his gospel, Jesus revealed his person as “the way, the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6), who, when tuned in to, would “set you free” (Jn 8:32).  The Word’s communication of this relational process and outcome necessitated countering those focused on merely the initial words from God composing the gospel (Jn 8:33-41).  Consequently, in his gospel protest of their human condition, Jesus raised the essential issue: “Why do you not understand my language?  Because you are tuning in to words, you are unable to tune in to the Word” (8:43, NIV).

            The Word communicated his person to others and not mere words.  This engages a relational context and process integral to the gospel enacted by the Word.  The ancient poet sets the focus for us that puts God into this relational perspective. This poet made the request of the LORD to utter: “say to my innermost, ‘I am your salvation’” (Ps 35:3). If the poet had been focused on his surrounding situations and circumstances, what he requested would have been a referential statement transmitting information merely about what God does—that is, deliver him from his negative situations and circumstances. Since his request was for the LORD to speak to his innermost (nephesh, the qualitative of God distinguished in the human person), he wanted only relational words from God, not referential. The relational response he wanted from God did not necessarily make his situations and circumstances unimportant but clearly secondary to the primacy of relationship together; therefore he was able to affirm God’s righteous involvement in their relationship in spite of his continued troubles (Ps 35:28).

            This speaks to the significance of the whole gospel. What the ancient poet wants is the depth of God’s relational response from inner out, which a response only to his situations and circumstances would not satisfy. His feeling is the affect of eternity-substance in his heart (Ecc 3:11) pursuing God for more, not in quantitative terms but qualitative. Therefore, he impressed on God to communicate this relational message to his innermost, a message that would be insufficient as an “I am” statement in referential terms. Only the “I am” as relational words in relational language can communicate on the innermost level these vital relational messages that the poet wanted to receive: (1) who, what and how the whole of God is; (2) who and what God sees in our person and how he feels about us; and (3) what the relationship between us means to God and how the whole of God responds to us for our person and the relationship to be whole.

            These relational messages integrally compose the heart (innermost) of the whole gospel, the depth of which is necessary to respond to the breadth of the human condition. And the gospel unfolds from the beginning with nothing less and no substitutes; otherwise our gospel is not whole, not a gospel at all, as Paul declared (Gal 1:7). Curiously then, this raises a question mark about the early disciples. As noted earlier, these disciples lacked knowing Jesus the person even as they engaged their discipleship with intense commitment (Jn 14:9). Obviously, the Word was embodied before them, yet not necessarily as zoe with them on his relational path. Any form of detachment (e.g. relational distance) from the Word’s relational path ensures disconnection from the Word as Subject, and thereby relates primarily to the Word as Object—in spite of their activity level together. This all-too-common relational consequence among Jesus’ followers occurs when the Word is transposed to a different language and terms (e.g. Mk 8:14-18).

            The zoe of God as Subject constitutes the Word in relational terms on an intrusive relational path, whereas God’s theological trajectory in referential terms only composes the bios Object of the Word. The shift to the latter refocused the theological task to pursue theological significance with a reduced lens. This lens from this quantitative interpretive framework emerged along with the construction of a new language in referential terms (i.e. referential language) that substitutes for God’s relational language.

            The shift to referential language opened the door to shape, redefine or reconstruct the so-called information transmitted by God to narrowed-down interpretation.  This interpretation is reduced to the intention of what God really meant by that, the implied meaning that “your eyes will be opened”—that is, opened to reduced referential terms that leads to speaking for God on our own terms (signified in “to make one wise,” Gen 3:1-5). When referential language is the prevailing interpretive framework for our perceptual-interpretive lens, then this shapes the way we see God’s revelation and the way we think about God’s words.

            What we tune in to is influenced, shaped or controlled by how we tune in.  That is to say, when we focus on listening to the words in language, we may or may not be focused on communication from another. Words in referential language are commonly what we use to transmit information to talk about something and to express how well we can talk about it, notably to explain it. It can also be about someone, such as God, in our discourse. Yet that other being remains impersonal if the focus is not on communication for relational connection; the focus on words in referential language becomes an I/we-it relation rather than the I/we-you relationship involving communication. In referential language the other is just an object while in relational language the other is always a subject. This distinction is critical for determining the message unfolding in the words in and from the beginning, and most essential for tuning in to the Word.

            What is the nature of the message God communicated with the Word?  The definitive nature of the message unfolding with the Subject of the Word in and from the beginning is (1) cosmological, (2) relational, and (3) whole.  This provides the full composition of the Word’s trajectory embodying and enacting the gospel. 

            Intruding from outside the universe, the whole gospel emerges cosmologically from the beginning. ‘In the beginning’ put into motion the relational dynamic of the thematic relational action of the whole of God, whose relational response of grace unfolds from this ‘starting point of relationship’. To fast forward, the whole of God’s thematic relational response of grace was enacted ongoingly throughout the OT to culminate in the relational process embodying the Word as Subject in order to be fully disclosed and fulfilled in, by and with wholeness. The integral relational work of the Word of God that unfolded in the incarnation must be contextualized from the beginning to fully understand the whole of God’s (thus Jesus’) relational work composing the gospel.

            The relational dynamic to bring change and establish whole relationship together was vulnerably embodied by Jesus, the Word unfolding, to intimately disclose (phaneroo, not merely reveal, apokalypto) the whole of God to completely fulfill God’s thematic relational response from ‘the starting point of relationship’. This is light unfolding in the Word (Ps 119:130; Jn 1:4): in the beginning, being the whole of God (Col 1:19; 2:9); relationally fulfilling “the light of the whole gospel” from the beginning and vulnerably embodying the whole of “the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:4-6); who has “turned his face to you” to live whole in the world and make whole the human condition (Jn 14:27; 16:33; Col 1:20; 2:10; 3:15; Eph 2:14; 6:15)—just as the gospel of wholeness was definitively enacted by God’s face from the beginning (Num 6:26).

            This is the whole gospel composed by the zoe Subject of the Word in the qualitative significance of relational language. And the gospel of wholeness, unfolded with the Word by its cosmological nature in the beginning and by its relational nature from the beginning, emerges whole only in this relational language. Based on this relational source, nothing less and no substitute can be definitive of the relational message that the whole of God communicated with the Word. Referential language, and its reliance on quantitative words to transmit information, is incapable of communicating the relational language of the Word and is deficient in accounting for the Word’s relational work. Furthermore, referential language is rendered impotent for the qualitative-relational significance necessarily involved in the whole of God’s definitive blessing (Num 6:24-26) to bring change and establish the new relationship together of wholeness (the shalom only the Word gives).  These referential words may serve a benedictory function but lack relational significance until communicated in relational language.

            Therefore, how we tune in will always determine what we tune in to.  In this process of tuning in, Jesus made it imperative to “pay attention to how” because the results are axiomatic: “the measure of language you use will be the measure of words or the Word you get” (Mk 4:24).  Be alerted, we cannot expect any other result from the measure of language we use, though the eventual outcome forecasted by Jesus of this axiom is loss for referential language and gain for relational language (4:25).

 

 

The Robust Tune of the Gospel Volition

 

 

            When Jesus declared rhetorically “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?  No, I tell you” (Lk 12:51), he also integrally voiced robustly “for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me” (Jn 6:38).  Jesus enacted the volition necessary to constitute the gospel (Jn 6:40; 17:3), and without his volitional resolve there is no gospel (as Paul protested, Gal 1:6-7).

            The resolve of Jesus’ volition unfolded even when he had contrary feelings of doubt, sadness, pain or discord.  He demonstrated his resolve at the peak of his feelings in Gethsemane to reaffirm his volition to the Father to fulfill the gospel (Mt 26:36-46).  In contrast, his disciples’ volition was situational, not relational; and despite any good intentions, they did not choose to be relationally involved with him to share in this critical time with his person (vv. 38,40-41,43,45).  Is it surprising then that they didn’t really know him, as Jesus lamented in protest (Jn 14:9)?

            The resolve of Jesus’ volition certainly signified the volition of God, which, on the one hand, would be expected from the Word.  On the other hand, what’s constituting the Word’s volition has a robust tune that is integral for constituting the gospel and the volition for those claiming it.  The robust tune of the Word’s volition is summarized by the psalmist: 

 

For the Word from the Lord is upright and all his relational work is enacted in faithfulness.  He loves righteousness and justice; and the earth is engulfed in the steadfast love of the Lord (Ps 33:4-5).

 

            When the frequency of this tune is tested, its robustness resonates the Word’s whole person (“righteousness”) whose volition (“faithfulness”) enacts his vulnerable presence and relational involvement (“steadfast love”) in response to the depth and breadth of the human condition (“justice”).  The Word’s robust tune then resonates in other whole persons who claim his presence and involvement, because he can be counted on in relationship together for his gospel’s relational outcome.  In the relational reality of his gospel’s relational outcome, the volition of these persons echo his robust tune to proclaim his gospel protest to the human condition.  This is the experiential truth of the gospel volition—as inconvenient as it is—which is tuned in to the only frequency of the Word to resonate as “my witnesses.”  These changed persons in his likeness vulnerably enact in faithfulness their relational involvement of love by the righteousness of their whole persons to respond to the human condition with nothing less than and no substitutes for justice.

            Therefore, all persons tuned in to the right frequency of Jesus’ whole gospel are tuned in to the Word only by his relational language, and not to the words of the Bible in referential language.  The volitional claim of these persons to the gospel voiced by the Word is constituted by the vulnerable relational involvement of their whole person with the Word’s whole person in relationship together as family.  Thereby in relational likeness, their function ongoingly enacts the gospel volition with the resolve of the robust tune voiced by Jesus.  Without enacting their volition with resolve, their practice is reduced to a diluted discipleship, which results from not being tuned in to the right frequency—as witnessed in his early disciples and others past and present.  The unavoidable relational consequence is claiming a different gospel, even with good intentions to serve.

            The relational outcome, however, of any claim tuned in to the only frequency of his whole gospel is irreducible, as well as nonnegotiable to our terms.  Accordingly, then, in the relational process of this volitional claim tuned in to the Word’s relational context includes by its nature proclaiming his sounds of protest with resolve.