Doctrines and the Community of God
Yanadi encourages us to consider the importance of learning and living out doctrines together.
Doctrines can be a tricky thing. Not just their complexity, but also, and more importantly, their impact on people's lives, or lack thereof. I have quite experienced the full spectrum of the impact of doctrines in my own life—both negative and positive. There was a period in my life when I knew many doctrines, thought I was smarter than my pastors, and I used that as an excuse to skip gathering with God’s people and indulge in a sinful lifestyle. Many of us may also be be acquainted with a professed Christian who knows-it-all but whose life does not display a transformed heart. And being people of the post-war era, it is not a surprise if we have a natural suspicion towards anything to do with reasons, as the modern era of rationality ended with not just one world war, but two. So, I can sympathise with those who may be skeptical about doctrines.
Christian teachers are important as they explain what the doctrines mean and also explain what they should mean in our lives.
But doctrines are important. Paul in many of his letters, like Romans and Ephesians, start with explanations of Christian doctrines before making the implications to Christian living towards the end of the letters. Biblical doctrines are the premise to Christian living. Of course with the many “-ology” jargons, like soteriology, ecclesiology, eschatology, doctrines are not always the easiest to understand. This is why Christian teachers are important as they explain what the doctrines mean and also explain what they should mean in our lives.
On the doctrine of humanity
Early this year I taught one EQUIP class on “How People Change”, as part of our “Walking with One Another” series. The class is very practical as it deals with some helpful framework on how we help one another to change. What was helpful in my preparation for it was a meditation on the doctrine of humanity.
Let me first elaborate some aspects of the doctrine of humanity. Christians are human beings who have been converted by the Holy Spirit from the state of sin (or state of nature) into the state of grace (Ez 36:26; Jer 31:33). In the state of grace, we are still imperfect but we are growing towards Christlikeness (Rom 8:28-30). This is called sanctification. While sanctification gives a sense of passiveness, in the sense that we are the object of the Holy Spirit’s work in our life, there’s also an active sense whereby we persevere to trust and repent till the end (Phil 2:12-13). This is called perseverance. We will only be perfect when Christ comes again to give us the state of glory where we shall receive a new glorious body (1 Cor 15:42-49). Until then, although we have been saved, we are also in the process of being saved, in terms of perseverance and sanctification.
Living out the doctrine of humanity
A proper understanding of this doctrine of humanity has several implications. I can think of at least three. First, because we know that we are not meant to be lone Christians, but God has placed us in a local church, our perseverance and sanctification cannot be individualistic. It ought to be both ways. We need our brothers and sisters in Christ to help us with our perseverance and sanctification. But we also can be of help to our brothers and sisters in Christ in their perseverance and sanctification.
Second, because we are being sanctified by the Holy Spirit, we can be confident about godly changes happening in each other, no matter how impossible our flesh may consider a certain situation or person to be. In fact, being confident that Christians are in the process of being sanctified should make us both to be a change agent to fellow church members as well as to be a humble beneficiary of the change agents God has placed in our lives. A change agent speaks courageous grace and constructive truth to one another for the sake of sanctification. It’s good for us to persevere on being a change agent as well as a recipient of one in our sanctification process.
Last, because we are still imperfect, we should expect fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to still fall into sin, and the hardest time is when they sin against us. With sin, we should expect disappointments, we should expect hurts, we should expect conflicts. But we do not stay disappointed, we do not stay hurt. Instead, we press on, we persevere, not by some random sense of positivity, but because of the gospel—the reminder that we ourselves are undeserving beneficiaries of the gospel as well as the hope of the gospel, not in Christians, but in the perfect person and work of Christ who transforms Christians.
Falling into sin is normal, but falling into sin is not normal.
So, let me put this for our consideration: “Falling into sin is normal, but falling into sin is not normal.” “Falling into sin is normal” means that while we’re still living in this imperfect state in this broken world, we should expect sin, both for ourselves and people around us. It is normal because it is our reality and that should not surprise us.
But “falling into sin is not normal” because it is not part of God’s original creation. It is not normal because we, Christians, should be intentionally killing sin. It is not normal because we should anticipate change by the Holy Spirit living in every Christian, as well as the glorious perfection when Christ our King comes again to make “falling into sin” not only abnormal, but non-existent.
Beloved, I hope this short article has not only helped us to see how doctrines are relevant to our lives, but also our life as a local church. I pray that we do not shy away from learning doctrines and, more importantly, applying them in our lives, both personal and as a church.