The Story of What We Believe
What follows is not your typical "statement of faith." If you are looking for something quick and digestible, here are some great statements that we would agree with wholeheartedly: the Apostle's Creed, the Nicene Creed, and this evangelical statement of faith.
But...what we believe is more than a series of bulleted propositions. What we believe is a story, a grand narrative inscripturated in an "utterly authoritative" Bible and lived for generations; an ancient truth we find ourselves living in even now.
Let's begin here: We believe that all things will be made right.
Because they were right at one time long ago, at a time only vaguely imaginable. Can you imagine a garden of perfection? Can you imagine the most serene and sublime place you have ever been, where the atmosphere seemed thick with peace and pleasure, so much so that it began to seep into you as a cool ocean breeze seeps into your skin? We can only fathom moments of this, but imagine if the world was like this all the time.
In the beginning earth was such a place. God made everything, and especially God made people who looked in many ways just like himself, more than any other creature; and he loved his people like a Father, and there was perfect shalom in all the world he had made. And God and man walked in perfect relationship to one another. And this was how it was to be. It was all very good - all of it.
And it was good because God is the essence and embodiment of goodness, truth, love, and beauty, and God made all things, and all things exist in relationship to him, to the praise of his glory. But of course, that is where the story takes a turn.
For a servant-spirit, who was with God before he made man, had fallen; and he was hellbent on taking God's man and woman - God's Eikons - down with him. See, there was this forbidden tree in the garden, not because trees are magic but because insignificant things can arouse deadly motives; and so that snake Lucifer licked his lips at the irony as man and woman bit at his bargain. In eating they made their statement to the glorious Father: "Your perfect love and your perfect world are not enough unless we possess absolute power." (They really worshiped self and not God.)
And the result then, as now, was corruption, absolutely.
This treason would not do - a good God and a good garden could not remain good in the presence of such sin. And so mankind began a journey, that continues today, east of Eden - further and further away from the perfect shalom God intended at the first.
But this is not the end of the story.
For we believe that while the Father of creation was distressed, angered, saddened at his children's choice, he did not lose his love for them. In fact, God is love; it is his most identifiable attribute. And in point of fact, God had a plan - a plan to pursue and to redeem.
Do you remember the stories about Abraham? God pursued this desert wanderer and struck a covenant with him, a covenant intended to save the human race from destruction (and which, by the way, has succeeded in doing so). The Father kept his covenant when Abe's great grandson Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt, causing him to rise to great power and guarantee the vast multiplication of the children of Israel. They became a massive nation, prosperous, powerful, just like God promised.
And then a Pharaoh, following in Adam's footsteps, sought to wield godlike power over this nation, oppressing and enslaving them, slaughtering them, taking away their God-given dignity even as he sought to be a god. And no wonder - people always destroy things when they put themselves in God's place.
But the Father would not have it, and with legendary acts of power he showed Pharaoh how impotent a man he truly was. Israel was redeemed by a God of love and grace and set on a path back to Eden, back to shalom. And so began a journey, a journey of thousands of years, where God dwelled with his beloved people, the Jews.
It is sad, isn't it? For we are forced to believe by history and experience that no nation, not a Jewish one, not even an American one, has successfully made the journey back to Eden. The Father was so patient with his people, but on the whole, they could not keep his ways; many Israelites worshiped selfish gods, lived in addiction and excess, and oppressed or ignored the widows, the poor, and the refugees. They were God's hope for the world but they became like the world instead: and reaped a harvest of sin - individual, corporate, systemic. Even the Father's chastening judgments and endless second chances didn't ultimately set them in the right.
See, because God is good and goodness is justice, there must be a payment when shalom is fractured by corrupt people. In the old days, there were animal sacrifices which helped to make up for all of the Israelites' sins. But it was not enough. They didn't actually make up for it all, and they just weren't powerful enough to change minds and hearts to God's way.
So the prophets in Israel told of one who would come to finally take away sin and restore peace. He would make things right once and for all. He would come from the line of Abraham and David, to make a total fulfillment of the covenant. He would be called Messiah. (He would also be called God-With-Us.)
We believe that Israel's Messiah was a Galilean called Jesus. And we believe that Jesus was not only Galilean but also the incarnate God, that is, one with the Father as his only begotten Son. (And that's why he was born of a virgin named Mary.) Jesus, God the Son, existed before all worlds and servant-spirits with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, making an eternally loving and relating three-in-one God. We believe that this is baffling but sublime - God loved within himself, a divine community, and the making of the world was the overflow of his love.
Likewise, we believe that all of us, like Adam and like Pharaoh and like Israel have sinned, left the way of goodness, forsaken true shalom, and rebelled against our Father. We've chosen to worship selfish gods (i.e., the god of self) instead of him. But because we were his wayward children, the Father sent his perfect Son to make up for our sins.
Where would we be without Jesus? We would be lost, on a collision course with ourselves, moving towards a hell of a lot of destruction and the destruction of hell itself, now and forever. We would be subject to the just judgment and anger of God at the end of all things. But because Jesus lived like God for us, and died on the cross like a sinner for us, and rose from the dead as righteous for us, we now stand before our Father in perfect reconciled relationship, as if we had never taken the old snake's bargain.
And so it's not about religion - it's about our right relationship with the Father through Jesus.
And because we have changed our direction and turned to God (that's called repentance), and because we trust only in his grace (in Jesus alone and not our self-effort), it is guaranteed that we will partake in a future world in which all is made right.
But that's not the end of the story, either.
Because we believe, finally, that when Jesus rose he unleashed a life- and world-changing power, the likes of which this earth has never seen, in the form of his Holy Spirit; and that Spirit has come to us to dwell in us and begin to transform us, so that we are becoming more like Jesus, like God; and when people so transformed come together they form something called the church; and this changes everything.
We believe that the kingdom of God is here! And it is coming! Let the people of the Son follow their Father in the power of the Spirit on a mission to bring ever-increasing shalom into this broken world through the gospel of Jesus Christ...until he returns, and all things are reconciled, made right...
...to the praise of his glory.
Yes, let it be so.