The Story of the Naked Church

The specter of insufficient goodness haunted me all of my life.  It is what drove me first to despair and then to the cross.  All my life I have longed to be good and that longing wasn’t motivated only by the fear of an angry God.  That longing was placed in me by a Holy God, a God who was calling me, not so much to be good, but to know how good He is.

Our Action/Consequence natures miss that point.  We have taken something that is secondary, our moral improvement, and made it into the primary; and we have taken who Jesus was, what he did and why he did it, which is primary, and made that merely the Forward in the book on Christian Living.  

By nature we are obsessed with ourselves.  Bette Midler sums it up in my favorite line from the movie Beaches, “But, enough about me, let’s talk about you, what do you think of me?” It is unnatural for us to keep our eyes focused on Jesus and what he did; we seemingly cannot help but turn the focus back to ourselves by making Christianity about us and what we should be doing. What do you think of me? What does God think of me?

The answer to that first question is, what others think of me is not my concern; and the answer to the second question is not based, in any part, on what I am or am not doing. It is based solely on the doing and dying of Jesus Christ.  If I have been made alive with Christ, when I was nothing but dead in my transgressions (Ephesians 2:1,5; Colossians 2:13) then the answer is firmly “This is my beloved son/daughter in whom I am well pleased.” Period. End of story.

Wait for it…wait for it…Nope.  There is no “But”.

And you know what? We can’t stand that there’s no “But”! It drives us crazy because we know there should be one.  It drives us crazy because each one of us has an understanding of what good is, that we aren’t it, and that we should be.  Romans 2 tells us that God put that knowledge in everyone, whether we claim to believe in God or not.  We all know at some level that we are not good enough, and we’re right! That knowledge is meant to show us our true condition and lead us to the only hope, which is Christ. 

Christ is supposed to be the whole book, from title page to the epilogue and footnotes.  But we want to fill the book with ourselves.  We want the story to be, “I once was bad but now I’m good” instead of, “I once was dead, but now I’m alive with Christ” Even worse, we want to take “now I’m alive with Christ” and make that mean “now I’m good because God is giving me the power to be good”. 

The reason I say that’s even worse is because we can feel proud about giving God the credit for how good we have become, when the fact of the matter is, we might be somewhat better, but we aren’t enough better that we ought to feel proud about giving God the credit! And if we think our improvement is something to parade around, we’re like the Hans Christian Anderson story with the naked Emperor who was hoodwinked into believing he had on a fine set of clothes; or the Laodicean Church which Jesus himself rebuked:

“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.” Revelation 3:15-19

Notice that Jesus begins by saying he knows their works.  Here’s the problem with their works, if they had been on fire with the Good News of the finished work of Christ on their behalf, Jesus would have seen their works as “hot”.  If they were not on fire because of Jesus, it would be better if they just sat on their hands and kept their mouths shut.  Then, at least, their works would be virtually non-existent, and not much damage would be done.  In that respect, Jesus would have seen them as cold.  But, instead, they were lukewarm and so disgusting that Jesus wanted to spit them out like you would a big bite of rotten food.

Their problem was that they were parading around their riches, showing off how they had prospered and were no longer in need.  Do you see it?  They had lost touch with their need of a Savior!  They were proud of their goodness.  If we accept the Action/Consequence version of the Christian life, the Holy Spirit will help us to become better and better so that there will be fewer sins for the blood of Jesus to cover as we grow, consequently we will need Jesus less and less. Some churches teach that we can and should reach a point in our lifetime where we no longer need a mediator at all!

But what does Jesus say? These people were now so proud of their riches, how they had prospered, that they did not realize they were actually wretched, pitiable, poor blind and naked.  They were deluded in regard to their own goodness; so deluded that Jesus told them they needed gold refined by fire.  1 Peter 1:7 tells us this represents the trials which come to test the genuineness of our faith, meaning our faith in Jesus, and that is what makes us truly rich.  Jesus then said they needed white garments—which are nothing but the robe of Christ’s righteousness—so that they would have real clothing and the shame of their nakedness could not be seen.  And finally, Jesus told them they needed eye salve, which would enable them to see their true condition. Jesus was talking to a church here, not some group of heathens. He reminded them that he loved them, and sometimes needs to rebuke and discipline those he loves.  He told them they needed to zealously repent of their belief in their own sufficiency.

Because we know we aren’t good enough even though we should be, Action/Consequence expects Christianity to be about making us good. But Christianity is not about that.  Jesus didn’t come to die so that the Holy Spirit would then be able to help us become good enough.  Christianity has always been about how Christ came to be good enough, specifically because we weren’t and never could be, regardless of how much help we received. 

Will the Holy Spirit help us to become better people? Yes, he will produce fruit that grows only in the soil of relief which nothing but the gospel can supply;  but, this fruit qualifies us for nothing and will never be the main storyline. Jesus alone is able to remove the burden of insufficient goodness and qualify us for salvation (Colossians 1:12). He alone is the central figure of every story; his salvation is the plotline of scripture.  He alone is the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).