The Myth of a Christian Religion

by Gregory A. Boyd

Paul then appeals to the analogy of Christ and the Church as he specifies what mutual submission in marriage looks like in a first-century context. In Jewish culture at that time, husbands held all the power. They were the “head” of the family. So Paul tells husbands how they are to use this culturally given power. They’re not to mimic the pattern of marriage under the curse and force their will on their wives. Instead, they’re to use their headship to sacrificially serve their wives, imitating the pattern of Jesus Christ. “Husbands,” he says, “love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (v. 25).

  The wife is then to respond to the husband the way the Church responds to Christ. As the husband sacrificially serves her, she is to reciprocate by sacrificially serving him.

  Paul then goes on to tell husbands they must love and care for their wives just as they love and care for their own bodies. And they are to do this “just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body.” Paul concludes his teaching by quoting Genesis 2:24: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” And then, most remarkably, he adds, “This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church” (vv. 28 – 32).

  What this teaching reveals is that the “one flesh” relationship God intends for a husband and wife is a sign of Christ’s relationship to the Church. Christ has something like a “one flesh” relationship with his Church, which is his bride and therefore his body. Just as we become “one in body” with anyone we have intercourse with, so too we become “members of Christ” and are “one with him in spirit” when we submit to his reign in our life (1 Corinthians 6:16 – 17). The profound intimacy and shared ecstasy of sexual intercourse is a sign of the profound intimacy and shared ecstasy of the relationship God the Father intends for his Son, Jesus Christ, to have with his bride, the Church.

  Yet it is vital to understand that the “one flesh” type of relationship Christ has with his bride isn’t cheap. To the contrary, it’s magnificently beautiful precisely because it cost Christ everything to initiate and costs us, who are his bride, everything to reciprocate. Christ lays down everything for his beloved, and we who are the beloved are to respond by laying down everything for Christ.

  In the same way, the “one flesh” relationship God creates between two people only functions as a sign of Christ’s relationship to the Church when it is costly. It’s intended only for couples who are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice of pledging their entire lives to one another. When people enter into “one flesh” relationships without making this sacrifice, they cheapen the “one flesh” reality they’ve entered into and thereby violate its meaning as a sign of Christ’s relationship with the Church.

  THE SIGN OF THE MARRIAGE COVENANT

  Third, sexual intercourse is the sacred sign and seal of the marriage covenant.

  In the Bible, covenants were the means by which relationships were defined, expressed, sealed, and protected. They specified what integrity and love looked like in a given relationship. Knowing that everything humans are created to enjoy and accomplish depends on the integrity of our relationships, God takes covenants very seriously throughout the Bible. In fact, the reason animals were usually sacrificed when covenants were entered into in the Bible was to proclaim that covenant breaking leads to death.

  Covenants were always sealed with a sign. The sign was some thing that symbolized the significance of the covenant and served as a visible reminder of the covenant. For example, when God made a new covenant with humanity after the flood, he sealed it with the sign of a rainbow symbolizing his promise to never again flood the earth. So too, when God entered into a covenant with Abraham and his descendents, he gave them the sign of circumcision. It symbolized that these people were set apart for God and that if anyone broke covenant with God they’d be cut off from the people (Genesis 17:14).

  It’s important to understand that the sign of a covenant was considered to be part of that covenant. To violate the sign was to violate the covenant. If a man wasn’t circumcised, for example, he wasn’t included in God’s covenant with his people.

  This is the role that sexual intercourse plays in a marriage covenant. It seals the covenantal vows of a couple and serves as an ongoing reminder of the “one flesh” reality they’ve entered into. This is why in ancient Jewish culture a couple wasn’t considered married until after they’d had sexual relations. In ancient Jewish culture, as well as in many other ancient cultures, blood on the bed sheets was in some circumstances used as proof that the marriage had been sealed and proof that the bride was a virgin. 2

  In this light, whenever two people engage in sex, they are actually sealing a marriage covenant, even if that is not their intention. As we saw above, even when a man has sex with a prostitute, he becomes “one with her in body” and the “one flesh” marriage principle applies to them. This explains why if a man forced a virgin to have sex with him in ancient Israel, he had to marry her and could never divorce her (Deuteronomy 22:28 – 29). Since he already sealed the marriage covenant, the reasoning went, he had an obligation to live up to it.

  While many today regard sex as a form of recreation, it’s clear that in God’s eyes it is anything but this. It’s sobering to consider how many “one flesh” unions are being inadvertently sealed and then flippantly destroyed in our promiscuous culture and in the Church today.

  HONORING THE DIAMOND

  Something is precious when it is not common. It costs a great deal to purchase a diamond but costs nothing to acquire an ordinary stone, because diamonds are rare while ordinary stones are not. Sex is intended by God to be a precious and beautiful diamond precisely because it’s not intended for common use. Sexual intercourse is the only place where God creates the “one flesh” reality that reflects his beautiful and costly relationship with humans in Christ. It is to be shared only by those who have paid the ultimate price of pledging their whole lives to one another.

  What God knows—and what we desperately need to understand—is that our own well-being and the well-being of society depends on our treating this diamond like the rare and precious stone that it is. When we treat this diamond like a common stone—as our contemporary recreational view of sex encourages us to do—we are desecrating the “one flesh” reality it creates, disdaining its role as a sign of Christ’s relationship with the Church, and violating its role as a sign and sealing of the marriage covenant. We are making a mockery of a beautiful, foundational aspect of God’s plan for humans on earth. And we are, consequently, bringing destruction upon ourselves and society.

  This is why God is so insistent throughout Scripture that sexual intercourse be reserved for marriage. God’s not being prudish or puritanical in forbidding sex outside of marriage. He’s simply trying to protect something profoundly beautiful and important. Our job as Kingdom people is to agree with him in his assessment of sex and partner with him in protecting this diamond.

  In the promiscuous culture of the West, therefore, a central part of the revolution Christ has enlisted us in involves manifesting the beauty of God’s original design for sexuality while revolting against the abuse of sex and the Powers that fuel it.

  Viva la revolution!

  CHAPTER 14

  THE REVOLT

  AGAINST SECULARISM

  God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

  How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves?

  NIETZSCHE

  …but we have the mind of Christ.

  1 CORINTHIANS 2:16

  I suspect this final chapter will strike many readers as the most unusual chapter in this book. And I’m convinced that it is, in some respects, the most important. I’m certain all who take it to heart will find it the most challenging, for it requires that we revolutionize the way we Western people think, live, and experience the world moment-by-moment.

  We’re talking about the Kingdom call to revolt against the secul
ar worldview.

  A BRIEF BUT IMPORTANT LESSON IN HISTORY

  The word secular comes from the Latin saeculum, meaning “the present world.” A secular worldview, therefore, is one that focuses on the present physical world and ignores or rejects the spiritual realm or the afterlife. To the extent that one is secularized, spiritual realities like God, angels, demons, and heaven don’t have a significant role in one’s thought or life. Historians generally agree that the Western worldview has been growing increasingly secular since the Renaissance (thirteenth to sixteenth centuries). 1

  A number of factors contributed to the secularization of the West. The religious wars that raged between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries played an important role, as did the success of modern science. During the Scientific Revolution (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries) scientists found that by treating the world like a closed system of causes and effects—basically like a machine—they could discover the laws by which it operates. This in turned enabled them to develop technologies that enhance the quality of human life.

  The earliest scientists were Christians who saw the laws of nature as the handiwork of God, but over time God was gradually forced out of the picture. While most intellectuals during the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment period retained some semblance of a belief in God, he was increasingly viewed as distant, uninvolved, and irrelevant. (This uninvolved view of God is often referred to as Deism.) Secularism was born.

  THE AFFLICTION OF FUNCTIONAL ATHEISM

  All of us raised in Western culture have been strongly conditioned by this secular worldview. Our natural orientation is toward “this present world.” Of course many of us continue to believe in things like God, Jesus, angels, demons, heaven, and hell. But as every study done on the topic has shown, our beliefs tend to have little impact on our lives. The majority of Western people hold some sort of spiritual beliefs but nonetheless continue to live much of their lives as functional atheists.

  Let’s be honest. Most of us don’t think about God in most of our waking moments. Still fewer consciously surrender to God in most of our waking moments. Even fewer experience God’s presence in most of our waking moments. Our day-to-day lives are, for all intents and purposes, God-less.

  This is the tragic affliction of secularism.

  IS GOD DEAD?

  This is what the nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche meant when he famously proclaimed “God is dead.” He wasn’t saying that God once existed and then died. He was proclaiming that the concept of God was functionally dead—or was at least dying. Nietzsche believed that the process of secularization had so permeated Western culture that it was no longer possible for God to be relevant in the day-to-day lives of modern, Western people.

  There’s no denying that Nietzsche was partly right. Secularism has indeed rendered it much more difficult for people to experience God as real and relevant. But Nietzsche was wrong to conclude that it’s impossible for people in the secular world to rediscover the reality of God and live in this reality day-to-day. Nietzsche drew this conclusion only because he was convinced God didn’t exist in the first place. So, he believed, the process of secularization was an irreversible process of humans waking up to a truer view of the world. But for people like myself who believe in God, the process of secularism isn’t a process of waking up, but of falling asleep. We aren’t arriving at a truer view of the world when we take God out of the picture; we’re degenerating into a deceptive view of the world.

  The question Kingdom people need to ask is, how can we reverse this process and wake up?

  CULTIVATING AN UNBROKEN COMMUNION

  As with all things about the Kingdom, the place to start is with Jesus Christ.

  The Gospels tell us that Jesus never did or said anything except what he saw and heard his Father do. His life was an unbroken act of obedient surrender to his Father’s will. Jesus perfectly manifested the reign of God precisely because there never was a moment in his life when he wasn’t consciously surrendered to God’s reign.

  This is the life we’re called to aspire to, and it’s the absolute antithesis of a life lived according to the secular worldview. Instead of thinking, living, and experiencing reality on a moment-by-moment basis as though God does not exist, we’re to think, live, and experience the world as though it is continually permeated with God’s presence—because, as a matter of fact, it is. We’re to live our lives with a moment-by-moment awareness of God’s presence.

  It’s not only the example of Jesus that teaches us this. The theme runs throughout the New Testament.

  For example, the need to surrender each moment to God is implied in Paul’s command to take every thought captive for Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3 – 5). We have thoughts every waking moment of our life, so to take every thought captive requires that we surrender our thought life up to Christ moment-by-moment.

  It is also implied in Paul’s teaching that Jesus’ disciples are to be transformed by continually renewing their minds (Romans 12:2) as well as heeding his instruction to “pray continually” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Jesus’ teaching that his disciples are to “abide” in him also entails a moment-by-moment surrender (John 15:4 – 10). The term abide (Greek meno) means to take up permanent residence. We aren’t supposed to visit Jesus on occasion—during special “quiet times” or worship services (as good and necessary as these are). Instead, we’re to live every moment of our life in Christ. We are to remain aware that we “live and move and have our being” in God.

  A central task for a Kingdom disciple, therefore, is to cultivate a life of unbroken communion with God through Christ. Far from living in a “secular” world where we rarely surrender ourselves consciously to God, our goal must be to abolish the separation bet ween the “secular” and the “holy” in order to make everything—and every moment—holy. This is our revolt against secularism.

  CONFESSING CHRIST AS LORD

  I’m convinced that the practice of remaining surrendered to God’s presence moment-by-moment is one of the most foundational (and the most challenging) disciplines of the Kingdom. It’s actually implied in the most foundational teaching of the New Testament; namely, if we confess Jesus Christ as Lord, we will be saved. To show this, I’ll address two common misunderstandings of this teaching.

  First, in a consumerist society like America, many treat this teaching like it was simply a good sales pitch. We can be saved—which these people think means we won’t go to hell—simply by reciting this magical confession. We’re basically purchasing fire insurance with a magical prayer. While submitting our life to Christ and thus having our characters and lifestyles transformed may be highly recommended, these things are not required of us to “seal this deal.” We need only believe and confess.

  For good consumers who are always shopping for the best deal, this offer is too good to pass up.

  The trouble is—this is utter nonsense! Think about it. According to Webster’s Dictionary , a “lord” is one who “has power and authority over others.” So when a person confesses that “Jesus is Lord,” they are confessing that Jesus “has power and authority” over them. And for a person to confess that someone “has power and authority” over them means they submit to them. So if someone confesses “Jesus is Lord” but doesn’t submit to his “power and authority,” they are literally contradicting themselves. Their confession is meaningless.

  It’s like confessing you’re a married bachelor or a round square.

  No wonder Jesus asked, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do the things that I say?”

  The simple truth is that when the Bible promises us that if we confess Jesus as Lord we will be saved, it’s not telling us how to get cheap “fire insurance” by reciting a magical salvation formula. Rather, it’s stipulating what kind of relationship we need to have with Jesus to participate in the healing and wholeness of God’s reign. This relationship, by definition, must be one of submission. We are “saved” when we authentical
ly surrender our life to Christ, enthroning him as Lord.

  THE PLEDGE OF LIFE AND THE LIFE WE PLEDGE

  This brings me to a second common misunderstanding of what it means to confess Jesus Christ as Lord. Though it’s hardly ever discussed in contemporary Christian literature, addressing this misunderstanding takes us to the heart of Kingdom living and shows how the Kingdom is centered on a revolt against secularism.

  We’ve seen that the profession of Christ’s lordship isn’t a magical formula. The confession has meaning only when it’s understood to be a genuine pledge to surrender one’s life to Christ. But we need to notice something that is both obvious and almost universally overlooked.

  We all make an initial pledge to surrender our life to Christ, but the actual life we pledge to surrender is the life we live each moment after we make our initial pledge. For the only life we have to surrender is the life we live moment-by-moment.

  Think about it. Our lives are nothing more than a series of present moments strung together. The only thing that’s real is now. Yes, we remember the past and anticipate the future, but we do this in the present, for our life is always lived in the present. And the whole of our life is nothing over and beyond the totality of these present moments.

  When we pledge our life to Christ, this is what we’re pledging—to surrender each of our present moments to Christ. By definition, this can’t be done all at once. It can only be done one moment at a time.

  You can think of it like marriage vows. Twenty-nine years ago I looked into my wife’s gorgeous eyes and pledged my life to her. But the actual life I pledged to my wife is the life I have lived each moment since I made that pledge.