C-R-O-S-S is for
Christ the Rock Or Sinking Sand
One meaning of "Crossings" refers to a way of "programming" a biblical text. It is a way of sorting out what a text says, not to prize some parts and devalue others, but to make clear to our sometimes hazy minds what the Lord is and is not saying to us in the text.
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The other distinction Crossings uses to understand Biblical texts is between our outer, visible behavior, our inner, invisible values, and our eternal fate. These are our external, internal, and eternal selves. How this helps will be clear in the following Crossing of a text many Christians will hear soon, Matthew 7:21-29, the appointed Gospel for the Second Sunday after Pentecost, this year on June 2.
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?' Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evil-doers.'
"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell--and great was its fall!"
Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.
As an initial observation, Jesus Christ concerns Himself with a group of people with surprising properties. They call Jesus "Lord." In His name they prophesy, cast out demons and do many miracles. Wouldn't we like to have such devoted and powerful followers in our churches!
Maybe not. Jesus Christ implies that some of these do not do His heavenly Father's will and, Jesus says, He has never known them (despite their "Lord, Lord" name-dropping). He says they are workers of lawlessness. In all this, He is making His own distinction, between people who will enter the kingdom and others who, despite strong indications of belonging to Christ, will not.
DIAGNOSIS: Here is how Crossings programs this text. We begin with the external element of the diagnosis, that is, what are the observable behaviors Christ criticizes? In the parable that He uses to conclude the Sermon on the Mount, He describes people who hear His words but do not do them. These must be people in the church, since they hear His words. He says the people are workers of lawlessness, a strong word, referring to plain disregard for the law, rather than to mere failures due to weakness. When Dietrich Bonhoeffer claimed that it is better for a lover of the truth to tell a lie than for a liar to tell the truth, he meant something like this. Lawlessness is the practice of lying or of any other sin as normal procedure, as policy.
As bad as all that is, it is not all that is bad. Jesus Christ sees behind the diseased behaviors also an illness in the values and loves of the heart. One of these is, to judge by their surprise, that the wonder-workers thought that those wonders were certain signs that they would enter the Kingdom. A second one is, Jesus says, "I never knew you," which is not due to His negligence but to some fault of theirs; while dropping his name liberally they never presented themselves to Him. A third internal malady, from the parable, is that they build on sand: they counted on something unstable. Their faith was false, not that it was weak, but that the object of their faith was the wrong one.
The picture is clear, though it may not resemble any of your acquaintances. People were able to make liberal and effective use of Jesus' name without being in relationship with him (Mark 9:38 refers to the same situation). These people called Him Lord and heard His words, but they did not do His words, which is like building on sand. They did lawlessness, not the Father's will.
Worse yet is the eternal aspect of their sickness: they will not enter the kingdom of heaven. They will hear Jesus Christ say, "Get away from me." Their "house" will fall, and the greatness of its fall will be their surprise.
An observation, before we move on to the happier prognosis. Jesus Christ is not describing all people, but speaking of a particular set of people. These are among his followers. Yet they are not all of his followers, for there are other people who do the will of His Father, who hear Christ's words and do them, and who will enter the Kingdom. Apparently these people gave a significant problem to the church in Jesus' day and in St. Matthew's, even if it is not such a problem today. Does this mean that there is no message here except for people who do miracles in Jesus' name without doing what he says? No. This text serves as a warning to church-goers in any age of what is a real possibility for them. It is an advisory to be mindful of what they are counting on to get them into heaven. While it may not describe them, it describes what they may be.
PROGNOSIS. The diagnosis exposed both sin and the sinners' destruction, two things that God does not want. The prognosis reveals what God Himself will do to execute His good and gracious will, so that houses stand and people enter the kingdom. Here is the most dramatic difference from the diagnosis, in the eternal dimension: God will get people into His Kingdom.
Notice that we begin the prognosis where we left off the diagnosis, with the eternal dimension, rather than where we began the diagnosis, with external behavior. This is the particular feature that makes the Crossings scheme so Biblical. For God's work does not begin with changing our behavior, and then lead up to, based on that, changing our eternal destiny. Quite the opposite: God gives us a new eternity, then uses that gift to create in us a new heart, which issues in renovated behavior. The divine working brings change in this order: eternal, internal, then external.
About the internal dimension of the prognosis Jesus Christ says little in this text (only rarely does a small segment of the Bible contain explicitly all six elements of the Crossing program). He does say, pictorially, that the wise ones build their houses upon the rock. They establish themselves, their lives, their hope and future on what will indeed support and sustain them. This is clearly a matter of faith, of heart, even if it is only a picture.
The external dimension of the prognosis is the lives of these people, doing the will of the heavenly Father, hearing Christ's words and doing them.
While this completes the sorting of the text, something is missing. There is no talk of what God does to bring about the prognosis, specifically there is no mention of the atoning death of Jesus Christ. When we say a text must not be interpreted apart from its context, what we first mean is that it must be related to Jesus' death and resurrection, the center of the Bible. If not, if we are not explicit about Christ's work, with the excuse that He Himself is not explicit in this text, then the prognosis becomes: "those people enter the kingdom who do what Jesus says." While this is true, some could take this (wrongly) to mean, "Those people enter the kingdom because they do what Jesus says." But that would strip Christ of the glory of His cross, make Him merely a law-maker, and make salvation a function of our works.
Besides, the text actually does refer to Christ's saving work: it is the Rock upon which the wise build. Or did we think that the solid rock was their obedience? Still, what is the connection between "those who hear my words and do them" and "building on the Rock." Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ describes discipleship as doing things for God's sake. From the Beatitudes, in which the blessedness comes from what God will do for them, to practicing our piety for the Father's eyes only, to storing our treasure in heaven, to not worrying about life because of the Father's care, we are to act with this awareness of God. In fact, without that awareness one could not be said to be doing Jesus' words, for he specifies acting out of a profound trust in God.
But from where can we honestly have that trust, especially when Jesus, in the same sermon, makes our entering the kingdom seem so doubtful? ("Wide is the gate and broad the way that leads to destruction, and many enter though it." "Anyone who says, 'You fool,' is in danger of the hell of fire." "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees you will not enter the Kingdom.") Our trust must be--only can be--based on God's grace, even if we are those who do the Father's will. And God's grace is Jesus Christ and His self-sacrifice. Taking these things together, Christ's death to deal with sin once and for all is what we count on to get us into the Kingdom. That is the Rock on which we build. From Christ's cross we obtain that "profound trust in God" and His beneficence to us that enables us to hear Jesus Christ's words and do them.
To repeat, what makes Crossings so Biblical is that the prognosis begins with what God does for us in Christ, and then proceeds to how that creates in us new hearts, which issue in renovated behavior. Because of His grace, we live for God's sake. We are moved by the revelation of His love to love Him in return. This is "building" on the Rock: living out what Christ has accomplished for us. If there is no living out, no building, then there must not have been faith in Him, even among those who drop His name so powerfully. But where the gift of the new future has been received by faith, our new hearts study the words of Jesus Christ to do them. Not only the words of the Sermon on the Mount, but "all the things I have commanded you" (Matt 28:20) are the design, the blueprint, for our lives built on the Rock.
tbcm