The Church of Christ: Yesterday and Today . . .

THE CHURCH AS A PILGRIM COMMUNITY

The Word became a human person, and lived awhile among us. —Jo. 1:14

In the likeness of Jesus, believers are but pilgrims and sojourners in this world. One idea of the incarnation is that Jesus “tented among us” for awhile, indicating that this world was not his home, just as it was not to be the permanent abode of his disciples. Barclay’s translation of John 1:14, given above, makes the proper emphasis. The Word became a person, which was to be permanent since his humanity would eventually be transferred to heaven (1 Tim. 2:5), but his presence in this world was to be only for awhile. The Logos thus left heaven non-human and returned human, becoming both God and man. But the divine presence in this world, in the form of human flesh to be sure, was as temporary as a camper’s tent, the Spirit using that kind of imagery to make his point.

Paul employs this same figure in referring to our bodies as but tents or tabernacles, which we will one day discard and go home to be with the Lord. As the NEB renders 2 Cor. 5:1: “We know that if the earthly frame that houses us today should be demolished, we possess a building which God has provided —a house not made by human hands, eternal, and in heaven.” Peter goes at least as far as Paul in using the same figure: “I think it right to keep refreshing your memory so long as I still lodge in this body. I know that very soon I must leave it; indeed our Lord Jesus has told me so” (2 Pet. 1:13-14). The Jerusalem Bible underscores the point: … as long as I am in this tent … the time for taking off this tent …” This is the heart of the Christian hope, that the real person dwells in the body, which at death will be left behind as the believer goes to be with God, not unlike any sojourner who folds his tent and moves on into the distant horizon.

If Augustine could speak of the believing community in this world as the City of God, in contrast to the secular world which he called the City of Man, then we could just as well refer to ourselves as “the tent community”. Just as Jesus “pitched his tent among us,” which is what John 1:14 literally says, we can view ourselves as but pilgrims in this world. If we see people building their homes by laying heavy stones on deep foundations, it is evident that they are planning for something permanent.

But “a tent community” has the sense of pilgrimage, a people with intentions of moving on ere long. The figures are clear enough, but which one is a true picture of the church in our day? Not only is the world too much with us, but we behave as if this world is all there is to it.

The apostle has such a contrast in view when he writes in Phil. 3:19-20: “Their minds are set on earthly things. We, by contrast, are citizens of heaven, and from heaven we expect our deliverer to come, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Moffatt properly renders politeuma “a colony of heaven,” which indicates that Paul is drawing a contrast between Philippi, as a colony of Rome, and the Church of Christ as a heavenly commonwealth. A Roman colony reflected in miniature the glory of the capital, bearing its likeness as a political unit. As a colony of heaven the saints of God reflect heaven’s image, bearing Christ’s likeness. He is not only saying that we are pilgrims here and that we belong elsewhere, but that as heavenly citizens we are mindful of spiritual things and seek to reflect God’s likeness as much as Philippi reflects the image of Rome.

Paul makes it clear that believers are citizens of an earthly dominion (Rom. 13:1-7), a view that he does not contradict even when the state persecutes the believers, but earthly citizenship is not vital in his thinking. What is vital is that Jesus is Lord and it is his dominion to which the believer is dedicated. And so in Acts 17:7 he is accused of believing in “another emperor, one Jesus,” even though the disciples generally refrained from calling Jesus by the monarch’s title, basileus (king or emperor), preferring instead to acknowledge him as the Lord of their lives. They believed that his Lordship extended over the pagan world as well, the whole universe in fact, even if the pagans did not realize it.

The disciples are therefore to be resident aliens in this world even if they are citizens of various political systems. Peter is saying this in 1 Pet. 1:1: “Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ, sends greetings to all those living among foreigners” (Jer. Bible) or as the NEB puts it: “… to those of God’s scattered people who lodge for a while in Pontus, etc.” If our environment is not alien to our values and desires, we need to take a closer look as to how seriously we are taking our profession as saints of God. This is what the apostle is urging upon believers in 1 Pet. 2:11: “Dear friends, I beg you, as aliens in a foreign land, to abstain from the lusts of the flesh which are at war with the soul.”

This certainly does not suggest that we are to be freaks in our communities, whether in dress, speech, or behavior. It does mean that the values we hold will set us apart as “a colony of heaven.” The Epistle of Diognetus (about 150 A.D.) addresses itself to this point: “Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind either in locality or in speech or in customs. They do not live apart in cities of their own, nor do they speak some different language or practice some extraordinary way of life.” He goes on to say: “Every foreign land is home to them, and every home is foreign. Their existence is on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven.” He says the difference is that they look for the incorruptible things while living in a corruptible world.

Heb. 11 sees the pilgrim community as including the saints of the Old Covenant: “They were not yet in possession of the things promised, but had seen them far ahead and hailed them, and confessed themselves no more than strangers or passing travelers on earth. Those who use such language show plainly that they are looking for a country of their own” (11:13-14), and the writer goes on in 13:14 to apply the same thought to saints of the New Covenant: “Here we have no permanent home, but we are seekers after the city which was to come.”

As a pilgrim community the saints not only looked for a city to come, but they were also persuaded of the transitoriness of this world. “Those who have to deal with the world should not become engrossed in it. I say this because the world as we know it is passing away,” Paul says in 1 Cor. 7:31.

It was in being a pilgrim community that the Church of Christ upon earth is a rejoicing community. After all, those who give themselves to the allurements of this world not only find little joy, but they struggle to gain any meaning from it at all. And religion itself is not the answer to this freedom and joy: “Come to me, all whose work is hard, whose load is heavy; and I will give you relief. Bend your necks to my yoke, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble-hearted; and your souls will find relief. For my yoke is good to bear, my load is light” (Mt. 11:28f. NEB). Pilgrims are happy people with a mission; they know where they are going. Freedom and joy are theirs. As the believer looks to Jesus he assumes a destiny rather than a fate.

Johannes Weiss, that renowned scholar of primitive Christianity, says in reference to the joy of the believing pilgrims: “Unless one can understand this constant mood of victorious, jubilant happiness and confidence, he simply will not understand primitive Christianity. This is the feature that marked it off completely from Judaism” (Earliest Christianity, I, p. 41). He might have added: unless the modern church cultivates this same victorious joy it will miss the point of being Christian. Once we restore the sense of community to our church life, we will be in a position to recapture the notion of pilgrimage.

How can the faith of a people be explained who sang in prisons, rejoiced in dungeons, praised the Lord in the face of devouring lions, and prayed for those who abused them? Only in terms of having that victory that overcomes the world. From his prison cell Paul could write, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice,” only because he was assured that no human power could deny him of being with Jesus in the end. “I have the desire to depart and be with Christ” is the hope of a sojourner who has his face turned toward home.

The Church of Christ today can have that same victory that overcomes the world only by looking to Jesus and by being a pilgrim community with a destiny that bears it upward and homeward. —the Editor

 

As thou wilt; what thou wilt; when thou wilt. —Thomas a’ Kempis