Tim Keller says this in The Reason for God:
In missional circles, a lot of emphasis is placed on following Jesus, living out the ways of Jesus, taking him seriously as a rabbi. I think most of this talk and emphasis is good, but do you think it can sometimes end up as a way of avoiding Jesus as Savior? It's easy to look heroic as we try to live out the ways of Jesus, but it is a lot more uncomfortable to take a good long look at the gospel and realize that what makes us Christians isn't how well we follow Jesus, but the fact that we are complete and utter failures who have been accepted and blessed by God because of what Jesus did for us on the cross.
What do you think? Does an emphasis on following Jesus make it more difficult to remember the gospel of grace?
Hi Ben, glad you’re back. I don’t comment much but I check your blog daily. As for the post, I think we just need to be continually called back to Jesus’ first core value from the sermon on the mount: “Blessed are the poor in spirit…”
If we’re thinking we have it all together, then we’re not following Jesus. We’re not being humble and broken. We’re not being aware of our desperate, acute need for God.
I actually don’t agree, and I think Tim Keller does a great disservice by trying to make a dichotomy out of the two. How many people have you met who actually resemble the Jesus we see in the gospels AND are arrogant about it? I’ll bet your answer is “none,” because you can’t look like Christ if you’re arrogant or self-reliant.
The self-sacrificial and communal nature of the actual way of Jesus as described in the sermon on the mount eliminates the possibility of that life becoming haughty or self-reliant. That’s akin to saying an alcoholic could rely faithfully on the twelve steps without actually realizing that they’re an alcoholic in need of the twelve steps. It’s just not possible. They may begin that way, but they’ll either repent or quit because the steps themselves are far too humiliating and painful to allow the human ego to thrive. Humility is inherent in the praxis.
Now, I do think it’s very possible (and common) to walk the way of Christianity as we’ve defined it in the modern American west without relying on the grace of Christ, because that particular “way” is merely the way of consumption and spectatorship, which requires virtually no sacrifice and very little (if any) dependance on others. I know lots of people like that (including myself), and I’ll bet you do too.
I think Keller’s mistake is that he’s confusing a life of actual virtue (the way of Jesus) with a life of vain religious practice. Vain religious practice is, of course, famously condemned in scripture, but the life that Jesus models and teaches is not merely another set of religious practices. It is far too deep and broad to be faked or practiced vainly. Paul has much to say about this in his Galatians rant. Jesus and virtue cannot be separated.
Hi Ben,
I met you once at the missional seeding thing you hosted. Hate to butt in, but just wanted to say that this has been on my mind since you posted it.
I really do think this is the crux of the issue for a lot of “church people.” In fact, I wonder if we don’t all struggle with walking that fine line between trying to follow Jesus (in our own power) and learning to live in grace.
And I don’t know that they need to be mutually exclusive in order to be different and separate things.
Anyway, I haven’t read this book yet, but it’s been on my “want to read” list for some time. So thanks for posting this.
The more I’ve thought about the quote, the more I agree with you, Jason. Thanks for delineating the distinction so well.
Following on from your thoughts, then, I wonder if the phenomenon Keller is describing is only euphemestically described as “following Jesus” – i.e. I am following the Jesus in my head who basically just preached “Be nice to others.”
You see this in some so-called “liberal” forms of Christianity, where to be a Christian and “follow Jesus” basically just means to try to be a little nicer to people.
An actual following of Jesus that includes reading his words in Scripture and realizing what he was actually saying will never lead to a naive assumption that following Jesus means relying on my own moral effort. Following Jesus as teacher flows naturally from receiving him as Savior. Likewise, seeing him as Savior leads naturally to following him as Lord. I agree that they ought not to be separated.
To be fair to Keller, I think he’d probably agree, too. I quoted only a few words from his book, and he was just making one point.
“…what makes us Christians isn’t how well we follow Jesus, but the fact that we are complete and utter failures who have been accepted and blessed by God because of what Jesus did for us on the cross.”
Amen! Exactly!
The emphasis shifts when WE follow Jesus. He comes TO US. He died FOR US.
That puts the emphasis where it belongs and outs the onus on Jesus and His work…FOR US.
Thanks!
“Complete and utter failures”?
I don’t know what that means. I don’t know any complete and utter failures.
In answer to your question, I reckon an emphasis on following Jesus probably does make it more difficult to remember that we are complete and utter failures, if that is the definition of “the gospel of grace”. I never thought about the gospel of grace that way. But I can see how some would.
But yeah, I’m definitely tracking with Tim Keller’s quote. Living morally and avoiding sin are WAY overrated.
~moonshine