Going the Wrong Way

One of my all-time favorite movies is Planes, Trains and Automobiles. This 1987 comedy follows the adventures of two businessmen trying to get home to Chicago for the Thanksgiving holiday. Steve Martin portrays a dapper, refined marketing executive named Neal Page. The late, great John Candy plays the role of Del Griffith, a corpulent, rough-around-the-edges salesman who peddles shower curtain rings. At one memorable point in the film, this odd couple are driving through rural Illinois in a rental car during the middle of the night. Griffith is behind the wheel and Page is asleep in the passenger seat. While motoring down the freeway, Griffith hilariously attempts to take his parka off but only manages to get himself tangled up in the process. He loses control of the car and spins off onto one of the freeway exits. But when he resumes driving, Griffith gets discombobulated and unknowingly heads northbound on the southbound side of the interstate.

After a few minutes, another car on the correct side of the freeway pulls alongside Griffith and Page. The travelers in this car – presumably a husband and wife – desperately try to avert disaster. They frantically scream out their window, “You’re going the wrong way! You’re going the wrong way!” Despite these warnings, Griffith and Page remain oblivious to their peril. The puzzled businessmen ask themselves, “How do they know where we’re going?” Amused by the apparent confusion of their fellow-travelers, Griffith and Page share a hearty laugh. Griffith even heaps scorn on the well-meaning couple, pretending to be drunk and scoffing, “What a moron!”

Griffith and Page’s joviality fades when the people persist in their frantic warnings. Finally, the horror of their predicament dawns suddenly upon Page. But his moment of clarity comes too late; two semi-trucks are bearing down upon them side by side. A head on collision seems inevitable. Miraculously, their rental car just manages to scrape between the trucks, although the sides of the vehicle are horribly damaged. It’s a very funny scene, brilliantly acted by Martin and Candy.

Several blogs ago, we noted that many modern Christians have badly misunderstood the concept of God’s coming kingdom. To say the least, this is a serious problem, since the kingdom of God is the central narrative of the Bible. In this regard, much of the church is like Steve Martin and John Candy – happily driving in the wrong direction. Far too many Christians anticipate a future whereby God evacuates his people from the corruption and evil of the present creation and transports them to an otherworldly sphere called heaven. Once the people of God have been safely carried away to heaven, the earth descends into fiery destruction. Unfortunately, this scheme of thought badly misunderstands the grand story of the scriptures. It’s absolutely crucial that Christians recognize that the story of the Bible does not involve the abandonment of creation, but the complete rescue and redemption of creation.

Some readers might want to quibble with this claim. They might ask, “Why do you think this is so important? Isn’t this just a matter of semantics? After all, whether we speak about Christians being evacuated to heaven or God rescuing the present world, both scenarios basically involve a happy ending, right?” I hope to demonstrate that these two different paradigms – we shall call them the evacuation scenario and the rescue scenario – produce two very different visions of what Christian faith and life are all about.

Those who hold the evacuation paradigm conceive of salvation in terms of going to heaven when you die. The emphasis then falls upon the saving of souls so that individual human beings can enjoy eternal, heavenly bliss. Under the evacuation paradigm, evangelism involves calling people to accept the forgiveness offered to us on account of Jesus’ death on the cross. What is of paramount importance is encouraging people to have faith in the very narrow sense of trusting that Jesus’ death covers over our transgressions and reconciles individual sinners to God. The most important feature of ongoing Christian life then involves holding onto such faith despite the degeneracy of the dark world around us.

The rescue paradigm generates a much richer and more Biblical version of salvation. Yes, believing in Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross is still central and vital. But true faith goes far beyond simple trust or belief. Faith involves giving our complete loyalty and allegiance to Jesus. Such faith is not simply a matter of the soul, but of the entire human person. We’re called to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength. True faith involves not just believing in Jesus but offering him our complete obedience.

The rescue paradigm also challenges Christians with a starkly different vision of the Christian life. This perspective strongly affirms the one true God who created the world and declared that his creation was good. God has no absolutely no intention of giving up on the present world and starting all over again. The cosmos that we inhabit, though deeply marred by evil, is still God’s stunning and majestic handiwork. The creator is not about to allow the world to spin off into madness. Rather, he fully intends to set everything right again. And this setting right goes far beyond merely saving souls so that those souls can await their future evacuation. Rather, salvation involves bringing the entire creation back into alignment with the good and wise purposes of the creator. By necessity, this vision involves every sphere of human activity.

Human sin and rebellion is not just a matter of individual souls estranged from God. Evil has poisoned everything: family and communities; work and industry; business and economics; art and literature; the environment; politics and government. Recall our definition of God’s kingdom: when the creation functions and flourishes in the way God intends. Salvation will not be complete until every last bit of creation is flourishing. If we haven’t recognized God intention to redeem all things, then we haven’t grasped the full scope of God’s rescue plan.

And here is the real kicker: God has granted his people a vital role to play in this drama. This is part of the reason why it’s so important to realize that Christian faith is so much more than just belief. Biblical faith involves complete, whole-person allegiance to God. It requires that we become a part of God’s enterprise to redeem all things. For those who have long been nurtured by the evacuation paradigm, it seems rather foreign that salvation should entail more than just saving souls. If God will eventually carry us away to heaven, why should we really care about things like soaring inflation, or feeding hungry orphans in Haiti, or transgender propaganda in our schools, or rising crime, or severe shortages of baby formula, or injustice in our courts, or war in Ukraine? Those who hold the evacuation paradigm might say, “Sure, those things are important, but ultimately they’re a distraction from the main thing, which is saving souls.”

To those “evacuation paradigm” Christians who hold this view, I would begin by affirming that nothing is more important than bringing individual human beings to loyal faith in the Lord Jesus. However, there are serious consequences when the church fails to recognize that our kingdom work must involve bringing about the thriving of creation at every level.

I would like to briefly address just two of these consequences. First, Christians who don’t comprehend the full nature of salvation tend to stagnate in their faith. If faith means simply accepting God’s forgiveness on account of Jesus’ death, then once people have undergone a conversion experience, the really important part is done. But what happens next? Do we just wait around until God decides to close up shop and carry us off to heavenly bliss? Far too many Christians suffer from an anemic, shrunken understanding of faith and salvation. They’ve lost any clear sense of purpose. They’ve never recognized that allegiance to Jesus involves implementing his sovereign rule and reign- not only in every area of their own lives – but in the world around them too. Such Christians often develop a bunker mentality. Rather than joining God in his magnificent mission to rescue the creation, they just hunker down and await the time when God will pluck them out of this dark and horrible world. It must sadden the heart of God to see his people robbed of any clear sense of ongoing vocation, and to see important kingdom work left undone.

Second, evangelism (even defined in the narrow sense of “saving souls”) badly suffers when Christians fail to engage in the full scope of God’s redemptive work. The simple fact is that the central claims of Jesus the Messiah are most acutely brought before the eyes of the non-believing world when Christians are at work to redeem the created order. This is a large claim which we shall more fully engage over time. But the main thrust is this: people are much, much more likely to give their loyalty to Jesus when they see or experience the people of Jesus going about his business in the world. Countless people have come to know the Lord when his faithful people have offered them food during times of famine and distress. Others have become Christians when the church has cared for them through poverty, addiction, or sickness. When courageous followers of Christ are working in the public sphere to protect unborn children, it’s a powerful proclamation about the nature of our God.

This principle holds true even when applied to areas of human activity which don’t seem very “spiritual.” Take inflation, for instance. Americans are currently suffering through the worst inflation in over 40 years. High inflation erodes wages and destroys savings, bringing about poverty and misery. Thankfully, many Christians are advocating for wise monetary policies which will prevent the further debasment of our currency. In doing so, Christians are helping to promote human flourishing and thereby reflecting the heart of God.

So let’s stop waiting for God to evacuate us to heaven. Instead, let’s commit ourselves to God’s grand rescue project: calling each and every human being to give their full devotion to the Lord Jesus and implementing his rule and reign over every inch of creation.