goodness exists to be given away
Goodness is not a commodity to be secured.
In a class with Bruce McCormack last week, he argued that “theological goodness is not the conformity of externally perceptible behavior to the law.” This, he continued, is secular goodness.
What then, is goodness for the Christian?
Well, it certainly includes the law. Yet, it must be more than adherence to the law.
I am reminded of Paul’s words in Philippians 3:
…as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ…Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul, who was blameless before the law, presses on to Jesus Christ.
This sounds much like John Calvin’s third use of the law (Inst. 2.7.), which stresses the law as more than God as Judge, but God as Father to the justified. This stresses the law in right relationship to and with God.
What does this mean for us?
I believe we ought to live a life of striving and pressing on towards the “goal” of knowing Christ Jesus and living into our oneness with him made possible by the “grace of God in Jesus Christ” (Barth, CD iv.1.58.1). It is through this grace that we can grow continually as Christians as we, to quote McCormack again, “turn to God every day in joy” in the daily realization of our salvation still secured in Christ.
This striving is not towards securing goodness for ourselves but doing good (giving away goodness) towards our neighbors as an outpouring of gratitude and obedience towards God's continual and unbroken action towards us and calling of us by name.
Reading:
Swarup Bar, The Spirit Shaped Church: A Spirit Ecclesiology in India (Fortress Press, 2021)
Felipe Hinojosa, Apostles of Change: Latino Radical Politics, Church Occupations, and the Fight to Save the Barrio ( University of Texas Press, 2021)
Watching:
The Batman (HBO Max)
Better Call Saul (AMC)
Listening:
Ashish Varma, A Theology of Land - The Moody Profcast (Podcast)
Sidelines - Phoebe Bridgers
The Kingdom is Yours - Common Hymnal