Christians, not Pneumians

This is now the fifth post in a series on my church's new "mission and vision." The first 4 posts are here, here, here, and here.

I should note right away that this is not going to be an exercise in sermon-nitpicking. I am not going to take up the content of these sermons in any great detail, but simply to ask a question of great importance to me: is Christ in his rightful place at the center, as the "main thing," or has he been displaced by other, lesser lights? Do I find in these messages a clear expression of the central importance of Christ and him crucified, as I would have hoped? Or, do I find the cross shunted aside for other preferences?

In this latest sermon, my pastor expressed the first two of a promised ten items which he says are encompassed within his vision statement for the church, "A people for Christ, for the kingdom, and for the world."

These first 2 items are:

• we will be a people who worship God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
• we will be a people experiencing Christ's rule and reign both personally and corporately.

There is nothing here that I wouldn't eagerly accept and extol. But the question that I want to ask is, where then does the cross of Christ stand in relation to these things? In his explanation for the first item above, my pastor emphasized the work of the Holy Spirit in our worship. He referenced, among other verses, Eph. 5:18-19, 1 Peter 1:8, 2Samuel 6:21b-22a, and Ps. 100:1-3. As the Ephesians quote would indicate, the premium here is on the filling of the Holy Spirit. As many commentators have noted, the sense of the verb in that passage is, "be being filled with the Holy Spirit," indicating an ongoing experience of filling. So then: how does this "being filled" relate to the preaching of the cross that in other places Paul so pointedly emphasized?

I'm not sure that I'm ready to give an answer to that question just yet, but I want to share something I found over at C.J. Mahaney's blog that seems quite relevant. Mahaney is quoting Graham Cole's He Who Gives Life: the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

He [the Holy Spirit] has not come . . . to thematize himself but Christ (John 14–16). Christology is at the center, not pneumatology.

A great Christian leader of an earlier century, Bishop J.C. Ryle, suggested that the gospel may be spoiled in a number of ways.…We can spoil the gospel when the NT sense of proportion is lost and pneumatology becomes our primary emphasis rather than Christology. The idea in some charismatic circles, for example, that "the major compass point for moving ahead in active ministry" is not "the cross" but "charisma" is extremely troubling. (pp. 274–275)

C.J. later adds the following quote from the same book:

The magnificence of the Spirit lies in this self-effacement or divine selflessness. For this reason believers are rightly called “Christians” not “Pneumians.” (p. 284)

I will be returning to this subject in the next couple of posts, but I want to leave you with one more quotation. This one comes from a book called A Man in Christ, by the Scottish theologian, James S. Stewart (written back in the 1930s). I've been browsing this book lately, reading bits and pieces, and yesterday I came upon the following comment concerning the doctrine of justification, which of course is integrally related to the cross:

Even among Christians the attempt to develop Christian graces (which are the circumference of religion) without having first faced up to the question of self-surrender and rightness with God (which is religion's centre) is not unknown: and as long as this is so, Paul's doctrine of justification, so far from being an obsolete survival of merely historical and antiquarian interest, will remain a living word of God, challenging and convincing and convicting, and mighty to save.

I will have more to say on these matters in the coming days. Bear with me please as I ruminate!

[Note: also relevant (and timely) is a post called Christ-free substitutes over at Anti-itch Meditation. HT: Milton, as usual.]