Ch 6 Proclaiming Jesus' Gospel

For a person has been given to be vulnerably present and relationally involved with us

…there shall be endless peace for…his kingdom family. He will establish and uphold it with justice and righteousness from the present through the future.

relationally respond to everything that I have shared in relational terms with you.

Given the pervasive problem of distinguishing the uncommon from the common in our everyday life, it is critical that the tension and conflict between them be an open, ongoing and discomforting issue that confronts us for resolve. Hopefully, our further discussion will magnify this issue in our theology and amplify it in our practice.

Jesus’ post-ascension critique of churches (Rev 2-3) made apparent this defining reality:

Churches and ministries have their own agendas that are prioritized in their theology and practice, the existence of which composes the diversity of the global church.

However important those agendas might be, when Christians pursue their agendas at the expense (minor or major) of the whole picture (not just the big picture), they fall into giving their agenda priority over the primary constituted by God’s whole picture. Christian agendas are a disguised problem of immeasurable consequences, because they (even inadvertently) fragment (subtly by compartmentalizing) God’s whole by their human shaping. This all reflects, reinforces or sustains common thinking, perception and action. As Jesus exposed in the churches, our agendas identify the gospel we use and further indicate our underlying theological anthropology and view of sin.

Therefore, at this stage in our study we are acutely faced with basic matters since recurring issues require us to assess ongoingly how we think, perceive and act. This ongoing process needs to be engaged with the relational involvement in triangulation with the Trinity and others in everyday life, while in reciprocating contextualization between God’s relational context and our surrounding human contexts. In this relational process, we need to keenly assess basic matters with Jesus’ paradigm:

The right (as in best) conclusions for these basic matters are indispensable for the call to justice and are irreplaceable for the work of peace. And these conclusions, therefore, are nonnegotiable to the premature justice and immature peace existing among Christian diversity.

With the evolving development of modern technology, the line between reality and augmented or virtual reality (e.g. human generated images) has become so blurred that it is often difficult to discern the truth from misinformation or fake representation of the truth. The latter represents an acceptable norm in postmodernist thinking, while the former represents the bad assumption in modernist thinking that has not recognized (or acknowledged) its own bias in shaping the truth. This distinct line is also concurrently blurred in relation to the gospel.

Our view (picture or even video) of the gospel can be either partial or complete, either distorted or lucid, either virtual or real. Portions of that picture could be either-or, but to have the whole picture we cannot include any elements of both-and. That makes God’s whole picture distinguished from any of our portrayals, and the tension and conflict between them needs to be magnified in our theology and amplified in our practice.

There are three pivotal issues that bring out the main composition of any picture of the gospel:

1. Who and what is the person created by God, and how are persons to function in their created human order, which constitutes their likeness to God? This issue is essential to understand the persons with whom God was involved in the beginning, and is vital for composing the theological anthropology at the heart of human life—the lack of which alters the picture of the gospel accordingly.

2. What changed who, what and how that person was, and thereby fragmented the human order between persons and reduced their likeness to God? This issue is pivotal to understand the sin that encompasses the breadth and depth of the human condition, and is critical for having the view of sin that gets to the fragmentary heart of the human condition—the shallow view of which composes theological anthropology accordingly.

3. How did the whole-ly God respond to this human condition and what is the nature of God’s response? This issue is fundamental to understand who, what and how God is, and is definitive for embracing this whole-ly God’s gospel from the beginning—the reduction of which opens the gate wide, accordingly, to a diversity of agendas.

God’s whole picture is never complete until these interrelated issues are fully understood. And the key to this full understanding is the 2^nd issue and our working view of sin in everyday life.

As composed by reductionism from the beginning, the human condition is in ongoing tension and conflict with God the creator and ruler of all life. In this overt and covert battle, God is routinely rendered (a) nonexistent in ontology/being (as in atheism), or (b) irrelevant in ontology and function (as in scientism), or (c) detached or removed in function (as in deism). With the reduction of God, the human order and its essential justice from creation are reconstructed, revised or simply ignored. Certainly, Christians don’t define their theology by (a) or (b), though in their practice they may live daily as if (b) were true. Less obvious, however, most Christians do practice (c) in one way or another, as if to live in a virtual reality. The subtle function of (c) is a functional substitute for God’s likeness and thus displaces the function of God’s creation justice with the human shaping of “good and evil”; and it is this view that has evolved from the primordial garden to entrench human life in this human condition. Without understanding reductionism, a shallow and weak view of sin has pervaded our theology and practice, and relegated the gospel to diverse portrayals, with a lack of redemptive significance for the breadth and depth of the human condition and no transforming significance for the wholeness of persons and relationships.

The truth composing Jesus’ gospel of essential justice integrates these three dimensions: (1) fully encompasses the past, (2) whole-ly embraces the present, and (3) completely encircles the future. The 1^st dimension of his gospel encompasses both creation and the fall into reductionism. The 2^nd dimension embraces both human life in the qualitative image and relational likeness of the Trinity, and how the human condition has evolved from the beginning; and the 3^rd dimension encircles the whole relational outcome of his gospel in completion. All three dimensions are integrated for the whole 3-D picture of his gospel. Therefore, omitting any dimension or reducing any of them no longer distinguishes Jesus’ whole gospel but determines a partial (flat or distorted) or virtual (realistic but not real) portrayal of a gospel shaped by human terms and bias—the tension and conflict between his gospel and our gospel.

His 3-D gospel is necessary to identify, respond to and embrace the whole person created also in 3-D based on the image and likeness of the Trinity: (1) the person as an individual subject (not individualism), (2) the person in collective/corporate union with other persons, and (3) the life-order of these persons in relationship together. Jesus embodies and enacts the relational response to the 3-D person of human life with his 3-D gospel in order to transform persons and relationships for the whole relational outcome of the new creation of persons and relationships in God’s kingdom-family. Anything less and any substitutes do not, will not and cannot portray the whole 3-D picture of his gospel; and the outcome from any such gospel will be measured accordingly—nothing more.

Part of that outcome directly includes the gospel we claim for our person and relationships.

Another part of that outcome also includes the gospel we proclaim. Yet, proclaiming the gospel is less about articulating a narrative and more involved in sharing a relational experience; the former makes aspects of doctrine primary without the whole picture, while the latter makes primary the relationship composing the whole 3-D picture.

And based on the agenda of our gospel over his gospel, a further part of that outcome is unavoidable with inevitable consequences.

No matter how realistic our picture of the gospel is, his shepherds and sentinels can only fulfill their purpose by the integral relational reality and experiential truth of his gospel. That purpose is fulfilled only by whole persons as subjects transformed from inner out, who function vulnerably involved in reciprocal relationship with the Trinity in the integral fight against the reductionism composing the breadth and depth of the human condition, and fight for Jesus’ gospel of wholeness for all persons and relationships in human life. This integral fight against and for converges in what should be the practice of evangelism, and it emerges just in the evangelism of justice.

The traditional proclamation of the gospel (euangelion) has revolved around the conventional practice of evangelism (euangelizo). The evangelism practiced, however, depended on the gospel used, which tradition has limited to a truncated soteriology of mainly being saved from sin—a shallow or weak view of sin lacking reductionism. This tradition of evangelism has been challenged not so much in its theological limits but to supplement its practice with social action. That is, many have called for a response to the various needs in the human context in addition to proclaiming salvation, with varying priorities given to each practice. A major consequence from this challenge has been the emergence of a false dichotomy in our theology and practice between evangelism and social action. Supporters of both sides have engaged in “holy debate,” and any conclusions that have evolved have only compounded the underlying problem and deepened the consequence.

It is critical for us to move beyond the misleading and misguided dichotomy between evangelism and social action. For the most part, both sides in this “holy debate” presume to speak for God—as in the “holy debate” about theories of human order (discussed in chap. 1)—and thus push their agenda. Their biased agenda, however, fails to get to the heart of Jesus’ gospel and, consequently, to the heart of human life and the human condition. Therefore, the hard reality is that both sides don’t fully claim and proclaim Jesus’ gospel of just-nection essential for our creation and salvation. With this underlying problem, any attempt in this “holy debate” to reconcile reduced sides or to synthesize fragmented positions neither resolves the problem nor composes the whole picture of Jesus’ 3-D gospel. Rather this well-intentioned effort only constructs a hybrid of fragmentary parts that do not add up to the whole. This whole outcome requires that how we think, see and act go beyond these limits and constraints, and get to the depth of his gospel and thereby down to the heart of whole-ly God.

In the 3-D gospel integrally embodied and enacted by Jesus, “he will proclaim justice…until he brings justice to victory” (Mt 12:18,20); “there shall be endless peace for…his kingdom-family. He will establish and uphold it with justice and righteousness from the present through the future” (Isa 9:6-7). How does this unfold for our theology to be congruent with his gospel and for our practice to be compatible with who and what he embodied and how he enacted the 3-D gospel?

The whole gospel emerged in the beginning with the Word and unfolded from the beginning in God’s whole response to what evolved from the primordial garden. The gospel centers on salvation (including redemption and deliverance), but unlike other portrayals of the gospel this salvation is constituted only in relational terms and defined as follows:

Salvation is the shorthand relational term that integrates the whole relational response of uncommon grace from the Trinity to the inescapable human condition, in order to fulfill this relational purpose and outcome:

1. To redeem persons and relationships from the reductionism prevailing over them that has violated the created justice of human ontology and function and broken their just-nection.

2. To bring the uncommon redemptive change necessary to transform this human condition to restore persons and relationships to their whole ontology and function created in the qualitative image and relational likeness of the whole-ly Trinity.

3. To restore persons and reconcile relationships to the created wholeness of life and its essential order, the relational process of which must by its constituting nature involve the justice composed by God for human life to be whole.

4. To raise up the new creation of the whole-ly Trinity’s family for all persons, peoples, tribes and nations to relationally belong both equalized without distinctions and intimately in uncommon peace.

Salvation, then, in Jesus’ 3-D gospel is the distinguished relational dynamic that encompasses the whole theological anthropology from creation and its reduction as the depth of sin. The relational dynamic of salvation also embraces the existing human condition that disables justice and enables injustice at all levels of human life. Since salvation brings uncommon redemptive change to the human condition of reductionism, salvation is not, will not and cannot be claimed if just-nection is not the new relational order and if persons are not distinguished in everyday life by the image and likeness of God’s ontology and function. That is, with the 3-D view of sin as reductionism, no one is saved from sin as long as reductionism shapes persons and relationships together. Therefore, in Jesus’ 3-D gospel, by the necessity of sin as reductionism salvation both saves from reductionism and saves to wholeness; no one is saved from reductionism alone because only wholeness emerges when reductionism is removed. If wholeness doesn’t emerge, reductionism still remains and any saving from so-called sin doesn’t encompass reductionism.

Salvation from and to are inseparable and integrate the relational response, purpose and outcome that Jesus fulfilled in proclaiming his gospel. Anything less and any substitutes neither claim nor proclaim this 3-D gospel, but rather fall into a default mode with a gospel on a different theological trajectory and an agenda on a different relational path than who, what and how Jesus enacted.

Default salvation is a justice-less salvation that centers on saving from sin that either doesn’t include sin as reductionism or doesn’t include saving to wholeness. In Jesus’ 3-D gospel, justice is not merely the fruit of salvation but it is salvation. Those pursuing the social action agenda over evangelism engage in whole-less justice and thus fall into default social action, likely motivated by default love. In his gospel, this default mode does not “bring justice to victory” as Jesus proclaimed (Mt 12:20). Accordingly, evangelism revolving around justice-less salvation falls into default evangelism. Like default social action and love, this default mode neither encompasses the good news of what Jesus brings nor embraces what he gives, and thus neither claims the depth underlying his Great Commission nor proclaims the extent of it. Therefore, in their default modes of justice-less salvation and whole-less justice, both sides fail to restore the vested and privileged rights from creation justice that all persons require to fulfill their inherent human need for their everyday well-being. In so doing by not doing, both sides counter what Jesus brings and contradict what he gives.

Since salvation is justice in Jesus’ gospel, Christians cannot be satisfied with the lack of justice or settle for any type of justice. For example, merely working within permissible rights, around them, or for changing them is inadequate, and it distorts the whole 3-D picture of his gospel. We are accountable for the justice by which God created all life and saved it with the wholeness of the new creation. Anything less and any substitutes of God’s justice are not what we are saved to be and called to share with others.

This brings us to another disjunction facing us in our theology and practice between Jesus’ Great Commission and our view of it:

Proclaiming the gospel assumes that the gospel has been claimed first. Yet, what has been claimed cannot be assumed in the proclaiming of Jesus’ gospel. Proclaiming his 3-D gospel is based on claiming what Jesus brings and gives. What Jesus brings and gives, however, also cannot be assumed in the claiming. Jesus’ definitive paradigm (Mk 4:24) outlines this irrevocable equation for us:

This determinative equation unfolds in our practice from what emerges in our theology.

This fact of life leads us into the discipleship paradigm that Jesus made conclusive for all his followers. If the gospel we claim and proclaim makes primary the doctrine of Jesus (Christology) or his teachings, we have displaced his whole person embodied and enacted in the primacy of relationship. Displacing his person, even with correct doctrine and teachings, has major consequences for the discipleship imperative that Jesus made definitive for all his followers: “Follow me—my whole person in the primacy of reciprocal relationship together” (Jn 12:26). In particular, those serving him must be relationally involved in the primacy of “where my person is,” not where his location is. The depth of this relational involvement is not common—as Peter demonstrated noticeably in his discipleship—and thus requires uncommon change for persons to be vulnerable from inner out, that is, without their identity and function constructed from outer-in distinctions as the early disciples struggled with. The transition in this relational process is only possible by the transformation (metamorphoo, not metaschematizo) composed in his salvation (never default salvation). Jesus’ salvation brings just-nection and gives the uncommon peace of wholeness for persons and relationships. When these are claimed in relational terms from Jesus’ person, the relational outcome is disciples who “follow me in relational involvement where my person is.” Since the depth of this relational involvement is uncommon, how and what distinguish it from what’s common?

What’s common is composed by the human relational condition of relational distance, separation and brokenness with creator God. This relational condition is signified in the earthly dwelling of whole-ly God, in which the temple was constructed with an irreplaceable curtain that prevented direct relational connection between the Uncommon and the common. This relational structure became the norm for the relational practice of God’s people, evolving into their tradition and the shame of the status quo that reinforced the human relational condition and sustained its human order. Nevertheless, in God’s relational response of grace Jesus brought the uncommon change that tore down the curtain to reconstruct the dwelling of whole-ly God’s presence, in order to have direct relational connection in the primacy of face-to-face relationship without the veil (Mt 27:50-51; Heb 10:19-20). The reality of what Jesus brings is how the depth of this relational involvement was opened to us for this relational purpose distinguished from the common.

Paul made conclusive this relational reality and how this relational purpose is fulfilled (2 Cor 3:12-18). In contrast to those living in the norm of the old, Paul distinguishes the new that Jesus brings: “the veil is removed…there is relational freedom…all of us with unveiled faces have relational involvement with the Trinity”—how?—by “being transformed [metamorphoo] in our persons from inner out into the same qualitative image and relational likeness of the Trinity.” This is the uncommon change that Jesus brings to transform our persons and relationships for what he gives, which further distinguishes the uncommon from the common (2 Cor 4:4,6; 5:16-18).

Removing the veil is pivotal in the relational process, because it makes our person vulnerable from inner out to have the depth of relational involvement necessary for face-to-face relational connection with God as if behind the curtain. Without this inner-out vulnerability, we remain as if in front of the curtain without this face-to-face relational connection. The relational connection face to face with the whole-ly Trinity reconciles the relational distance, separation and brokenness existing in the veiled relational condition—the prevailing condition formed in the primordial garden, “both covered their nakedness” (Gen 3:7). In face-to-face reconciliation, persons are then restored to the just-nection of their relational order in likeness of the Trinity. When the relational distance, separation and brokenness are removed, persons come together face to face in the depth of relational involvement heart to heart, which is definitive of intimate relationship. Anything less than face to face does not have intimate relational connection.

For this intimacy to have this depth of relational involvement, however, requires whole persons—that is, persons who have been equalized from inner out and thus who are involved without outer-in distinctions defining their identity and determining their function. The presence of any veil evidences persons still using outer-in distinctions, which prevents their equalization. When persons come together in the depth of relational involvement of both intimate and equalized relationships, they function just like the trinitarian persons (as in Jn 15:9 and 13:34).

Just-nection is only possible for persons involved in intimate and equalized relationships together. These are the whole persons whose outer-in distinctions have been removed to free their persons to be vulnerable together; this is the just-nection first witnessed in the primordial garden, “both naked and were not ashamed” (Gen 2:25). When the veil of outer-in distinctions is not removed or has resurfaced, persons are relegated to the unavoidable comparative system intrinsic to distinction-making that fragments their relational order accordingly. That loss of just-nection in the human order sustains the human relational condition. The presence of the veil in our persons and relationships prevents our involvement in intimate and equalized relationships, which is the relational condition that pervades Christian fellowship. Our relational condition with the veil quantifies the measure of the gospel we have claimed and qualifies the measure of the disciples we are. Moreover, what are quantified and qualified both counter what Jesus brings and contradicts what he gives in his 3-D gospel.

Jesus’ salvation removes the veil unequivocally, thereby redeeming human persons from the injustice of the existing human order and constitutes the just-nection of the new relational order in the primacy of face-to-face intimate and equalized relationships together (cf. Isa 25:6-8). This new creation order of human life in likeness of the whole-ly Trinity is the wholeness first promised in God’s definitive blessing (Num 6:26), and that Jesus’ relational response of salvation saves us to in the Trinity’s family to be whole together “as we are one” (Jn 17:22). These are the unmistakable disciples who “follow me” in reciprocal relationship together, “just as I have been relationally involved vulnerably with you.”

His disciples emerge only when their veil is removed and their whole person is transformed from inner out, in order to free them for the depth of face-to-face relational involvement in intimate and equalized relationships together in likeness of the Trinity. The face-to-face, heart-to-heart involvement in both intimate and equalized relationships together is what distinguishes the uncommon from the common that Jesus’ 3-D gospel brings and gives. When the measure of disciples is distinguished by claiming his whole-ly gospel, they are the only disciples who can proclaim his gospel by making other disciples distinguished in likeness. Only to those disciples distinguishing the uncommon does Jesus give his Great Commission to complete the being-making disciples equation:

“As you go through everyday life in reciprocal relationship just as I am relationally involved with you to the end of time, be the whole persons from inner out I saved and thereby whole-ly distinguish your just-nection in the contexts of the world, in order for you to make disciples who also follow me with their whole person in the primacy of relationship together according to my relational terms, so that they likewise will relationally belong in the Trinity’s family” (his 3-D view of Mt 28:18-20).

Therefore, the fact of our life as disciples unfolds in this equation and determines the disciples we can, will and do make in proclaiming the gospel:

This determinative equation still operates even when we aren’t explicitly proclaiming the gospel. The reality for all followers of Jesus is that how we live everyday also in itself proclaims the gospel we have claimed (as in Jn 13:34-35). This reality challenges what we proclaim and confronts what we claim.

Currently in the U.S., faith has become less and less associated with organized religion. This trend is evident notably among younger generations who have reacted to the lack of significance witnessed in the practice of Christian faith. Many of them appear to think, see and act in ways that suggest a belief that they can experience the common good and even serve it better than what is demonstrated by the organized practice of Christian faith. Realities like this, and many exist globally, challenge what we’ve been proclaiming and confront the reality of what we have claimed by our faith.

The nature of the gospel’s theological trajectory embodied by Jesus is foremost uncommon (as experienced by the Samaritan woman at the well and by Nathaniel), plus being whole (as constituted by the Trinity). The nature of the gospel’s intrusive relational path enacted by Jesus is distinguished whole (as Levi and Zacchaeus, among others, experienced) and uncommon (as Peter struggled with). The nature of faith goes beyond merely believing what Jesus embodied and enacted but it embraces the direct relational response to Jesus and vulnerably trusting him in his whole-ly gospel. Accordingly, the nature of gospel faith by necessity (not out of duty or obligation) is the integrated relational response both whole and uncommon—whole-ly faith.

By its nature, gospel faith is uncommon, and this faith has been faced with the ongoing problem of being distinguished from the common thinking, perception and act of faith prevailing in our theology and practice. Underlying this problem are the pervasive issues of a reduced theological anthropology that emerges from a shallow-weak view of sin not encompassing reductionism. How we live daily reflects who and what we are, not to mention reflecting the gospel we’ve claimed. In gospel faith, who, what and how we are reflects the ontology and function of the person created, saved and newly created by the whole-ly Trinity in likeness. Therefore, when our faith is whole-ly, how we live reflects that whole-ly likeness; but when our faith is not whole-ly, whatever likeness we do reflect then also reflects on who, what and how our God is. This reality informs us that the witness of our faith speaks volumes about the God we claim and proclaim. Thus, not any variation of faith can reflect the whole-ly nature of gospel faith, and our faith never does when what we practice is common-ized. In other words, when the response of our faith to Jesus is reduced to the common way that relationship is engaged, the uncommon nature of gospel faith is no longer distinguished from the common. The relational consequence of such common-ized faith (even by church leaders and activists) is the hard-to digest reality that “I never knew your whole person from inner out” (Mt 7:22-23, cf. Lk 13:26-27).

There is no way for Christians to avoid the witness that the nature of their faith creates. Nor can they discount the implications that the practice of their faith defines the God they claim and determines the gospel they proclaim. Given the nature of faith, its practice also includes the formation of a culture of that faith, whether intentional or not, formalized or not. We can understand this culture of faith as follows:

A culture of faith is the life and practice unique to a collective group of Christian persons that relatively both defines who and what they are and determines how they function, thereby being a primary source of their identity. As such, culture is not about an individual person but a corporate dynamic of persons who belong and/or identify in this context together.

Perhaps most Christians would align the culture of faith with a particular or local church, whose practice may or may not be significant depending on their faith. Churches certainly generate a culture in their faith practice, but how significant that culture is depends solely on the nature of their faith.

How relative a Christian culture defines and determines those persons evolves also from the nature of their faith. When their response to the gospel is not whole-ly, the relative defining and determining extent of a culture ranges on a spectrum from near total (as in a cult) to negligible. The culture of gospel faith is not a cult because it is whole and not fragmented by reductionism as found in a cult. Nor is gospel-faith culture relative in defining and determining the wholeness of its persons because it is uncommon. The culture of whole-ly faith goes beyond this spectrum, and when it is qualified along some point on the spectrum it falls out of Jesus’ gospel culture and its whole-ly faith. The key in this faith-culture process once again is the underlying measure of theological anthropology and sin used, which bias how the gospel of what Jesus brings and gives are thought of in theology and seen in practice.

For example, a cult reduces persons by object-ifying them to strictly conform to its culture, under the false assumption that its gospel is superior. Consider also how other Christian cultures fragment persons by compromising the integrity of their identity and function by not clearly being distinguished from the common surrounding context, or by compartmentalizing their identity and function into some hybrid with the common—perhaps influenced by the desire that their gospel be inclusive or not exclusive. Any routine reducing of persons or conventional fragmenting of them is engaged when a culture’s view of sin does not encompass reductionism—the prevailing sin that composes the breadth and depth of the human condition in general and their human relational condition in particular. Thus, any Christian culture defining the identity of persons and determining their function by a reduced theological anthropology subtly both reflects the sin of reductionism and reinforces or sustains the human condition. Such Christian cultures—which pervade Christianity and dominate the global church—counter the uncommon that Jesus brings and contradicts the whole that he gives for the uncommon good of all persons and relationships in wholeness. The immeasurable consequence increasingly evident today is that these cultures exist in ongoing tension and persist in varying conflict with Jesus’ gospel culture and its whole-ly faith, even as they may serve the common good.

When Jesus cleaned out the traditional temple and reconstructed God’s dwelling without the curtain for the intimate and equalized involvement of all persons, he brought the uncommon change necessary to distinguish God’s family from the common. When Jesus constituted the new wine fellowship, it consisted of persons defined from inner out, who were involved in the primacy of relationship together over any other secondary practice (Lk 5:33-39)—the uncommon nature of which defines and determines those persons in wholeness. The uncommon that Jesus brings and the wholeness he gives can only be claimed by whole-ly faith; this was the surprising lesson learned by Nicodemus about his conventional faith. When so claimed, by its nature the gospel’s whole-ly faith also unfolds distinguished uncommon and whole, and it cannot unfold distinguished by the practice of anything less and any substitutes.

The unfolding of whole-ly faith formulates the gospel’s culture, which can only be composed uncommon and whole. What constitutes the culture of the gospel’s faith as whole-ly is the distinguished image and likeness of the Trinity that Jesus embodied and enacted to reveal the heart of the Trinity’s ontology and the depth of the Trinity’s function (2 Cor 4:4,6; Col 1:15,19). Jesus embodied the qualitative image of the trinitarian persons’ uncommon ontology with his whole person from inner out (Jn 10:38; 14:9), and he enacted the relational likeness of the Trinity’ whole function as One in relationship together (Jn 10:30; 15:9; 17:21). When we claim Jesus’ gospel by whole-ly faith, we are transformed into the whole-ly image and likeness of the Trinity (2 Cor 3:18; Col 3:10). Living this gospel faith together in everyday life composes the whole-ly culture of what Jesus brings and gives, which converges, emerges and unfolds on the basis of his relational process distinguishing the uncommon identity and whole function of his true followers:

“Following me…where I am,” and being who, what and how they are from inner out together without the veil of distinctions “so that they may be one whole as we, the Trinity, are One,” distinguished by their vulnerable depth of relational involvement in the primacy of intimate and equalized reciprocal relationship together “just as I have been relationally involved with you,” whereby “the world may know the gospel I bring and give and may believe with whole-ly faith”—just as Jesus prayed (Jn 17:21-23).

Just having the image and likeness of the Trinity in our theology is insufficient. Bearing the Trinity’s qualitative image and relational likeness in practice requires that our theological anthropology not reduce our persons and relationships to the limits and constraints of a quantitative identity and function composed primarily by outer-in distinctions. And growing in the qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness of the Trinity’s qualitative image and relational likeness necessitates that our view of sin both understand sin’s reductionism and ongoingly fights against all expressions and levels of it in human life—first and foremost in our own lives as persons, and our life of relationships together. Bearing the Trinity’s qualitative image and relational likeness and growing in this qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness are the key to distinguish the whole-ly culture of persons who claim Jesus’ gospel by their relational response of whole-ly faith.

The qualitative image of the Trinity—signifying the very heart of the Trinity—emerges only in whole persons from inner out, whose veil of outer-in distinctions has been removed to reveal the very heart of those persons. In this qualitative image, persons are free to function vulnerably in the relational likeness of the Trinity. This relational involvement is determined by the primacy given to relationship over any other activity, and it involves foremost the primacy of relationships together in wholeness that are integrally intimate and equalized from any distinctions fragmenting relationships in a comparative process. This uncommon relational context and process that compose the whole-ly culture integrally come together with the most significance on the Sabbath, which integrates all persons vulnerably in the primacy of our relational response of worship. Yet, this relational response is not centered on the activity of worship but involves the relational response of subject-persons (not as mere objects conforming) in reciprocal relationship embracing the Trinity. This relational quality further unfolds as our primacy in relationship embraces other persons by our vulnerable relational response and involvement.

Jesus highlighted the culture of what he brings and gives in the primacy of relationship together, with two defining interactions that make clear the composition of this vulnerable relational response and involvement. The first interaction centered on Mary’s (Martha’s sister) vulnerable relational response and involvement with Jesus. Perhaps surprising to many Christians, Jesus proclaimed that her primary action (relational work) distinguishes his gospel and its whole-ly faith and culture (Jn 12:1-8; Mt 26:8-13, discussed previously). Without any distinctions defining her, Mary’s whole person acted with the qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness of Jesus’ person that are necessary to be involved in the primacy of reciprocal relationship together. As preparation for the burial of his person, by implication Mary’s relational response celebrated both the removal of her veil through his death and also his resurrection of the new creation of persons and relationships in wholeness. Her relational response would not have proclaimed his gospel and could not distinguish its whole-ly faith and culture, unless her response involved her whole person from inner out with the veil of distinctions (notably her gender, role and resources) removed. Such distinctions didn’t define her identity and determine her function, whereas the other disciples present reacted to her on the basis of their role as servants and their primary function to serve the poor—at the expense of the primacy of relational work distinguishing Jesus’ gospel. Does this relational dynamic seem familiar in Christian interactions today, especially for many church leaders and activists who depend on their role and resources? Given this defining interaction, which identity and function sole-ly distinguishes the culture of Jesus’ gospel, and which identity and function prevail today in Christian culture, in spite of even celebrating Jesus’ death and resurrection?

The second defining interaction unfolded on the cross when Jesus made special relational connection with his mother Mary and his closest disciple John (Jn 19:25-27, noted earlier). Jesus brought uncommon change to their identity and function by having each embrace the other as “your son” and “your mother” respectively. This was a transformation from the common to his new creation family that he gave them for the wholeness of their persons and relationships together. The relational outcome of what Jesus brought and gave unfolds in his gospel’s culture as they grow deeper in their new identity and function. By embracing each other in their new identity and function, his gospel’s culture unfolds in two essential ways that are nonnegotiable for distinguishing this culture as inseparably whole and uncommon. Based only on the gospel of what Jesus brings and gives, the two ways emerge:

1. Their new identity is not defined by the reduction of their person to merely an individual, but rather their persons are whole just in the primacy of relationships together as his family in likeness of the Trinity. Any individualism counters what he brings and contradicts what he gives.

2. Therefore, their new function is determined neither by individualism nor by their biological family, which is an uncommon change from existing function but indispensable to be distinguished from the common. In his gospel’s culture, the biological family is always secondary (not unimportant) to the primacy of his family—persons together as one in likeness of the Trinity, who relationally belong by their ongoing relational response and involvement of whole-ly faith.

These two ways are indispensable to define the identity and determine the function of persons growing in what Jesus brings and gives, and thereby irreplaceable for unfolding his gospel’s culture. Anything less and any substitutes—which are typical in Christian cultures—no longer distinguish such a culture as whole and uncommon. The resulting ambiguity, conflict or contradiction in our theology and practice must be resolved, in order to be compatible with the theological trajectory of what Jesus alone brings and congruent with the relational path of what he gives without less or substitutes.

The whole-ly culture of Jesus’ gospel unfolds in our midst when (1) it integrates persons and relationships in the wholeness of his new creation family (not our versions of church), (2) it encompasses the breadth and depth of the human condition in all its reductionism, and (3) it embraces all of human life and its diverse human order at all existing levels of the human context and its surrounding creation. The whole person from inner out functioning in the primacy of relationship together is at the heart of whole-ly culture—persons reflecting the heart of the Trinity—whereby this distinguished culture unfolds with those persons relationally involved to bring uncommon change in order to give uncommon peace. This vulnerable function goes beyond merely engaging in Christian ethics conforming to a moral code of justice,[1] and it goes deeper than default love such as peacemaking with common peace for the common good (e.g. as in being irenic). How so? Because this distinguished function exercises Jesus’ sword of uncommon change for the sake of creation justice to be enforced for the vested and privileged rights of all persons, in order to have their inherent human need fulfilled in the just-nection of uncommon peace. Christian culture becomes ambiguous, if not a contradiction, with anything less and any substitutes.

By encompassing the human condition and embracing all of human life, no area or level of the human context is ignored or left unaddressed by his gospel’s culture. This includes the political realm of life, which is certainly a major operation in everyday life. To be nonpolitical, as many Christians advocate and promote for Christian culture, is to counter what Jesus brings by compartmentalizing life by subtly separating the so-called uncommon (sacred) from the common, rather than distinguishing the uncommon from the common as Jesus did (notably with his sword). Moreover, to avoid politics in the exercise of Christian faith contradicts what Jesus gives by fragmenting the wholeness persons and relationships could have in everyday life (not as an ideal or in theory) if the existing human order were changed by the uncommon Jesus brings—an existing order that inevitably shapes Christian culture. Jesus’ gospel culture is nonpartisan politically, but there is no way to get around engaging politics and not fall into countering what Jesus brings and contradicting what he gives.

From the political in everyday life to the surrounding creation, the whole-ly culture unfolds in our midst to embrace the life God created and to encompass its existing reduced and fragmented condition. Yet, this only unfolds among persons made whole in relationships together as the Trinity’s family. Paul made conclusive the Spirit’s relational work to constitute persons in their inner-out transformation into the qualitative life (zoe, not bios) of wholeness (the only peace the Spirit gives) in the Trinity’s new creation family (Rom 8:5-16). Then he revealed the amazing reality that all of “creation waits with eager longing for the distinguished function of the family of God.” Why? In its existing condition of “bondage to decay,” the hope of creation is to be redeemed from its reduced and fragmented condition and restored to the wholeness constituting the Trinity’s new creation family (Rom 8:19-22). In anticipation of creation’s decay in modern life, the hope of creation includes caring for existing creation—from personal lifestyles to the ozone layer and outer space. But creation’s hope goes beyond creation care to the integration of creation into the whole of God’s new creation as distinguished by the persons of whole-ly faith belonging to the whole-ly Trinity’s family. This hope of creation is realized as the Trinity’s new creation family embraces all of God’s creation and encompasses its existing condition of decay, in order to integrate creation not merely into Christian stewardship and the church’s mission. More so, by integrating creation deeply into the wholeness of the new creation family’s identity and function, the relational reality of which integrates all of life at all its levels without making distinctions and being selective about this family’s uncommon relational response and whole relational involvement.[2]

More than a counter-culture, the whole-ly culture of Jesus’ gospel is always unequivocally anti-reductionism for this ongoing purpose: to bring uncommon change to human life and to redeem, heal, reconcile and transform the human relational condition in order to give it the uncommon wholeness that distinguishes the collective identity and function of persons belonging to Jesus’ culture. If the Christian culture in our midst operates with anything less and any substitutes, it does not operate with whole-ly faith but some reduction or fragmentation of it. Furthermore, such Christian culture does not unfold the whole-ly culture from Jesus’ gospel, but in the reality of its theology (not its theory) and its practice (not its ideal), this culture has been influenced by reductionism and common-ized accordingly, such that it counters the uncommon Jesus brings and contradicts the whole he gives. Sadly, these cultures proclaim a different gospel because they have claimed a different gospel from Jesus’. As Paul experienced with churches in his day, he would continue to express about our pervasive conditions today: “I am astonished that you are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another gospel” (Gal 1:6-7).

When the gospel we claim and proclaim is not the whole-ly gospel embodied and enacted by Jesus, we fall into the default modes of discipleship that practice justice-less salvation and whole-less justice. This disjunction pervades Christian culture and the global church’s mission to render our identity and function to an ambiguous condition challenging our faith (as Jesus does, Mt 5:13-16).

The creation justice Jesus proclaims to “bring justice to victory in the new creation” (Mt 12:18-21) can only be claimed by persons without the veil, in order to make face-to-face relational connection with the intimate presence of the Trinity. The integral theological truth and thus relational reality are that the Trinity’s presence and involvement were made vulnerable to us for this face-to-face relational connection when Jesus tore down the curtain—the truth for our theology and the reality for our practice needing to distinguish what we claim and proclaim. This face-to-face relational connection without the veil of human distinctions gives hope to all persons, peoples, tribes and nations to claim the uncommon Jesus brings and the wholeness he gives. Their hope fades when those who proclaim the gospel do not engage the face-to-face relational dynamic of Jesus’ gospel necessary to have the relational involvement to make relational connection with them. In any such proclamation, the face-to-face relational connection is not distinguished for them to claim the just-nection Jesus brings and gives, and whatever they may claim would only be a different gospel.

The reality keeps surfacing that how we live (individually and collectively) proclaims the gospel we have claimed; and this reality reflects both the image of God we bear and the God of our image. What Jesus proclaims is face-to-face justice, and he brings justice to victory only in the primacy of face-to-face relationship together to constitute persons and relationships in wholeness—the uncommon wholeness in likeness of the Trinity. The face-to-face likeness of the Trinity, therefore, is essential for defining our identity and determining our function. We reflect this likeness of the Trinity by our ongoing vulnerable relational involvement (also known as love) in the primacy of face-to-face relationship. Consider then that any call to justice without face to face could only be incomplete and not bring the change for the just-nection of others. Consider further that any work for peace without face to face could only be fragmentary and not give the relational response and involvement for the relational connection that others need for their wholeness. Such a call is made on behalf of premature justice, and such a work is made for the sake of immature peace.

With creation justice, God didn’t merely create life in what is right, as if to be lived within the limits and constraints of a mere moral-ethical code of justice. God created life in what is best, to which a mere moral-ethical code of justice is in contrast, and often since in conflict with. God’s justice is the superlative, and anything less and any substitutes compose simply comparative injustice. The spectrum of injustice, which includes benign injustice, encompasses every consequence resulting from any lack of God’s justice (consider Lev 19:15; Jam 2:1-10). The human struggle for justice centers on improving its comparative state of injustice, and benign injustice is often not part of that struggle. Christian practice that is focused on what is right over what is best, also converges with the human struggle to conflate the superlative of God’s justice with the comparative of injustice. This conflation of the superlative with the comparative is evident notably when Christians ignore or don’t address benign injustice. In creation justice, the Trinity created human life with the superlative of just-nection for persons to be whole from inner out (without outer-in distinctions) in the primacy of face-to-face relationship together in the Trinity’s likeness—that is, only in what is best.

In their human relational condition, the psalmist cried out to his God for justice; that God would respond and “decree justice” by “your rule over them” (Ps 7:6-7, NIV). To rule (yashab) means to sit, dwell in their midst, not merely as a judge (cf. NRSV) but for the relational purpose and outcome of covenant relationship together distinguished in wholeness (the tamiym of Gen 17:1). In other words, this is the primacy of intimate involvement (as in Dt 7:7-9) in the relational response by God to bring peace to his people face to face (fulfilling God’s definitive blessing, Num 6:24-26). This face-to-face justice is the sole gospel that Jesus embodied and enacted whole-ly. Therefore, the uncommon change he brings, even with his sword, and the uncommon peace he gives both emerge, unfold, grow and mature exclusively face to face. This primacy is irreducible from what is best and is nonnegotiable by merely what is right, even if it serves the common good.

The primacy of face to face is how the justice of Jesus’ gospel is proclaimed, and this primacy leads justice to victory face to face in the relational response and involvement of the Trinity’s new creation family. Just as “decaying creation waits with eager longing for the relational response and involvement of the Trinity’s family,” all human life and its human relational condition long for the redemptive change that the face-to-face relational response and involvement this new creation family brings and gives whole-ly. When our persons come together face to face without the veil, we make the relational connection necessary for our just-nection in the Trinity’s new creation family. As the uncommon Jesus brings and gives is claimed face to face, we are distinguished whole-ly to proclaim his gospel face to face just as Jesus did—to call for superlative justice face to face and to work for the peace of new relationship together in wholeness face to face.

This primacy of face-to-face relationship together is how God created all life in what is best, and how the Trinity constituted the new creation in likeness with nothing less and no substitutes. Anything less and any substitutes in our thinking and perception of the gospel are challenged by Jesus’ gospel face to face. Anything less and any substitutes in our actions are confronted by his face-to-face justice, which exposes a different gospel we have claimed behind the gospel we proclaim.

Anything less and any substitutes for face-to-face relationship together have become more complex in the modern context of technology. What is virtual has evolved into such realistic representation that it blurs the line with reality. What has simulated face-to-face connection or substituted for face-to-face involvement have become so pervasive on the internet and social media that they prevail for defining human identity and determining human function in everyday life. In this modern life lacking face to face, persons are experiencing the greatest lack of qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness witnessed in human history. The accelerating consequence is reconstructing persons and relationships in a default mode that includes benign injustice, such that their practices in real reality further enable comparative injustice while they disable superlative justice.

The only hope to redeem anything less and any substitutes is the face-to-face justice of Jesus’ gospel, which remains in disjunction with the prevalence of our gospel. Since that hope will not be realized until it is claimed face to face, those persons indeed proclaiming his whole-ly gospel will need to intensify their face-to-face relational response and involvement in order to deconstruct anything less and any substitutes—first in Christian culture and the church. This deconstruction includes exercising Jesus’ sword of uncommon change that will expose the virtual reality of relationships (as in Mk 7:6-8), break apart the simulation of relationships, for example, in biological families (as in Mt 10:34-36), and will unavoidably involve the relational depth to clean out God’s house in order to restore the primacy of face-to-face relationships for all persons without any and all distinctions. Wherever anything less and any substitutes exist, at whatever level of human life, Jesus’ gospel of face-to-face justice urgently needs to be proclaimed by persons in the primacy of face-to-face relationship together for the sole relational purpose to bring superlative justice to victory—nothing less and no substitutes.

Proclaiming Jesus’ gospel, therefore, is in ongoing integral tension with his bad news, the reality of which is unavoidably facing us in our theology and practice:

Wherever Christians are complicit with anything less and any substitutes, and whenever we (individually and collectively) compose our theology and practice with anything less and any substitutes, we common-ize what Jesus brings and gives. Such proclamation claims that who, what and how we are in our theological anthropology is common-ized, which brings out the everyday reality that how we think, see and act with our view of sin are common-ized.

[1] Claire Disbrey advocates for the Christian practice of “virtue ethics”—going beyond merely conforming to an ethical-moral code out of obligation and focusing on the virtues of being a good person—in Wrestling with Life’s Tough Issues: what should a Christian do? (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2007).

[2] A Global Consultation on Creation Care emerging from the Lausanne Movement perhaps points to but definitely stops short of this whole integration of creation care with the gospel for the theology and practice of the church, which is discussed in Colin Bell and Robert S. White, eds., Creation Care and the Gospel: Reconsidering the Mission of the Church (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2016).