THE ETHIC OF EVANGELICAL CONTEXTUALISM

The Rev’d  Dr. Felix Orji

As a Christian, you are confronted regularly with making moral decisions. What ethical compass would you use to decipher what the Lord would have you do normally and, especially in moral dilemmas. I want to commend to you  what Dr. Donald Bloesch calls ‘Evangelical Contextualism’ as a way forward in finding your way through the maze of moral quagmires. Evangelical Contexualism  is evangelical because it is based on the gospel and the law illumined by the gospel. It is biblical because the gospel and the law comprise the central content of Holy Scripture, the primary source of our knowledge of divine revelation.  It is contextual because the ethical decision is made in the context of the fellowship of faith (koinonia), and it is related to the context of personal and social need.  Its method is from the gospel through the church to the cultural situation.ADVANCE \u 3ADVANCE \d 3

The central criterion in this ethic is neither the law of love, the spirit of love, the divine ordering in nature, nor love united with reason. Rather, it is the divine commandment which unites love and truth, which signifies the union of law and gospel, the divine imperative and the divine promises.  That is to say, this ethic does not appeal to general principles but to the personal address of God in Jesus Christ and in the Holy Scriptures. The Scriptures constitute the norm in Evangelical Contextualism. The norm is never derived from the cultural and historical situation nor from human experience but from the living Word of God, Jesus Christ. This norm is extrinsic and therefore transcends human subjectivity and cultural relativity. As Bloesch notes, It is an absolute norm . . . made available to us through the historical witness that constitutes Holy Scriptures.

The absolute nature of this norm does not negate its concreteness and specificity. Hence, in ethical practice, it is never conceived abstractly as an ideal but always related to the actual situation in which we find ourselves.

Evangelical Contextualism is an ethic that calls the believer to a life of evangelical, not legalistic obedience. This obedience is always a response to the free grace of God given to us in Jesus Christ. It is by no means an attempt to earn grace or even to prepare ourselves for grace. It is rather a call to serve grace in the power of Grace. Christian Freedom is not freedom from the law but freedom for the law. But this law is no longer misunderstood as a legal code but now rightly seen as the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

Evangelical obedience embraces the call to obey the moral law of God as a rule for  believers under God’s grace and God’s Holy Spirit applied to their contextual situation. This obedience is the way of the cross most adequately represented by agape which is a denial of the self for the good of the neighbour. It is a religion of the cross which is characterised not by the securing of the self from harm but by the forgetting of the self in love.

Evangelical Contextualists do not ignore the motivations and consequences of actions but they insist that these things cannot be the final determinants in ethical decisions. The Scriptures must be consulted; the fathers and traditions of the Church must by consulted, even though their witness is not the last word; and importunate prayer must be embarked, as we seek to discover the will of God. Sometimes in moral quandaries, none of these activities can procure the divine commandment, but they can help us to recognize and receive it when it is made known. God must be depended upon because only he can enable us to know and understand His will. Human rationality and divine revelation are not the same (Isaiah 55:8, 9). As important as human reason is in deciphering the divine will, evangelical contextualists hold that there is a discontinuity between divine revelation and human rationality. And also, allowances must be made in moral discernment for some discrepancy between human hopes and expectation and the commandment of the living God.

The focus of this Ethic is not necessarily on the cultivation of virtues, as important as that is. Rather, it is the cultivation of the graces that God gives. The reason being that virtues sometimes are seen as the unfolding of human potentialities, whereas graces are manifestations of the work of the Holy Spirit within us. Evangelical Contextualism while affirming natural goodness manifested even in pagan virtues does not focus on the fulfillment of such human powers but on the transformation of the human heart. This ethic transcends the polarity between theocentricity and anthropocentricity. It recognises that the glory of God is man fully alive but it also perceives with Amandus Polanus that the glory of man is the living God. God’s glory does not mean the reduction of humanity to nothingness but the raising up of humanity to fellowship with its Creator and Redeemer as well as with the whole company of the saints.

Evangelical Contextualism affirms that the Moral life is both God’s activity as well as human activity. Unlike Quietism which  insists that the moral life is fundamentally God’s work alone, thereby denying the necessity of serious human endeavor and responsibility.

The believer is almost passive in sanctification. All she needs is to surrender totally. On the other opposite pole is Pietism, spearheaded by Philipp Jakob Spener. In his foundation book of the pietist movement Pia Desideria (Pious Longings) of 1675, he insists that human effort is the central element in sanctification. Pietism downplays God’s role and emphasizes human responsibility for holy living, self discipline and practical Christianity (2 Corinthians 7:1; James 2:17). Pietism, says Dr. John MacArthur, has the potential to lead to legalism, moralism, self-righteousness, a judgmental spirit, pride and hypocrisy. Therein lies the problem with pietism.

But when we turn to the Scriptures, MacArthur rightly insists that Paul the Apostle in his letter to the Philippian Church, brings into focus the appropriate resolution between the believer’s part and God’s part in sanctification. Yet he makes no effort to rationally harmonize the two.

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13); (cf. Ephesians 2:8-10; John 6:44; Acts 16:31; 2 Peter 1:3-10; 1 Corinthians 15:10).

Scripture is clear that the Moral life, the ethical life, that is the sanctified life involves both God’s sovereign activity of grace and discipline, as well as human response of faith, obedience and effort. In conclusion, as we live the moral life, it is important to remember that the goal of evangelical contextualism is to glorify God in every area of life, at all times, in all places, and with all people. As Bloesch concludes: We glorify God when we seek the welfare of our neighbour even above our own. We glorify God when we work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). We glorify  God when we put off the old nature and put on the new (Ephesians 4:22-24).