The Church a Provocation

Jesus warns that we could be persecuted by the world because we have been chosen out of the world by the one who was persecuted by the world. The reason he gives for his persecution is because he is hated by the world; and the reason he is hated by the world is because he testifies to the world that its deeds are evil. (John 7:7) This suggests that Jesus’ relationship with the world is fundamentally antagonistic. Even though he comes in love to rescue the world, the fact that the world needs rescuing suggests that what Jesus represents is a reality that pulls back the curtain on the false reality that props up the world, a reality marked by a persistent and pervasive opposition to God. That fundamental posture, ethos, or characteristic spirit of humanity, is what John’s gospel identifies as the world. So, when his gospel famously proclaims that, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life,” it is, as D.A. Carson notes, “far from being an endorsement of the world, it is a testimony to the character of God.” 

Everything that Jesus does, from his teaching, to his healings and deliverances, to his re-humanizing of the likes of Zacheaus or the ‘sinful woman’ in Simon the Pharisee’s house, to the ‘good confession’ that he made before Pilate, all are acts that testify to the world that its deeds are evil and, as such, are a provocation to the world. Hence, the hatred.

When the Church lives up to its calling, it can expect to be hated as well. Even though we strive, by the grace of God, to be like Jesus in compassion and love, offering a foretaste of the New Heavens and New Earth, our very presence as those no longer of the world offers a continual provocation to our neighbors. It testifies that things are not as they assume them to be. For unless people are chosen out of the world they remain in the world and in opposition to God, no matter how nice or needy they seem to be.

In this country, the antagonism, while rising, is nothing compared to what brothers and sisters in places like North Korea and India are facing. That is why we must remember to pray for them. Those believers, having been chosen out of the world, stand in stark contrast to the prevailing rebellion of godless communism or nationalistic hinduism. Fatih in the King of kings pulls back the curtain on the petty tyrant, revealing him to be little more than a cruel narcissist. Worshiping the One who is the way, the truth, and the life, proclaims that veneration of the multitudinous deities of India is nothing but mindless idolatry. 

Christians, like Jesus, by reason of their not being of this world, are a provocation. And the more we live as we are called to live, we testify to the world that its deeds are evil. Hence, the hatred. May we give no other cause for the world’s hatred but our striving, for their sakes, to live for Christ.