SPIRITUAL FORMATION

You Can't Carve Rotten Wood!

Within the evangelical movement, especially on the part of the emerging church, we hear a lot of talk about "spiritual formation."[1] The difference I have with the spiritual formation movement is not regarding the destination--Paul wrote that Christians need to grow-up "to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13)--but over the journey, the means emerging evangelicals are proposing to get there. For the journey, we need God’s GPS system in Holy Scripture because in sanctification, success is the destination, and I have grave doubts that human devices will get us there. As through the Scriptures the Holy Spirit incorporates Christ within and among believers, He sets Christ-likeness as the objective for every believer because that is the very meaning of the name, "Christian."

The problem with so many evangelicals today is that they are not Christ-like.[2] Three decades of "pop worship," with its emphasis upon entertainment at the expense of edification from God's Word, has led to spiritual-emptiness that is now giving rise to spiritual directors, spiritual formation, and spiritual disciplines in the emerging evangelical church. "Happy church" has created a spiritual climate for the spiritual formation movement to flourish as the emerging church embraces the mystery of faith in a postmodern culture. To its credit, the emergent church recognizes that "happy church" does make for a holy church.

Recently, I listened to a pastor explain to his congregation why they were not an emerging church.[3] In his conversation--they no longer call it preaching--he referenced Paul's statement in Galatians 4:19 to justify employing methods of spiritual formation in the congregation. The text reads: "My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you . . . for I am perplexed about you" (Italics mine, Galatians 4:19-20). Connect the dots--formed . . . formation. At the surface of it, the pastor assumed Paul was a kind of spiritual director who was advocating spiritual formation practices to the Galatians. His assumption caused me to look at the biblical text to see whether or not by his use of the phrase, until Christ is formed in you, Paul was promoting spiritual formation. Ironically, what I discovered turned out to be opposite from what this pastor inferred the text to say. But first some background . . .

The Gospel is good news, not good advice. But for years now, for reason of the promotion and proliferation of the formulaic self-help message by publishers and pastors who took their cue from secular psychologists and leaders like Norman Peale and Robert Schuller, I have believed that another gospel was mesmerizing and seducing evangelicals. This seduction is not unlike the threat the Judaizers posed to the Galatians. Theirs too was a legalistic self-help message masquerading as a new gospel. By this other gospel, the Galatians were being deceived. Let's review some similarities between then and now.

First, the Galatians had been "bewitched" by a different gospel (Galatians 3:1, KJV). From the beginning to the end of the letter, Paul called them back to grace. At the outset, he wrote, "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel" (Galatians 1:6; Read verses 6-9). The Judaizers had convinced the Galatians that law (self-help), not grace, was the means by which they could be saved and sanctified (i.e., to become like Jesus). This reversion back to law was serious, for as Bruce commented, "if they put themselves under the law, then they are not justified by faith in Christ and Christ is not 'in them' . . .."[4] Whatever else might be understood about the statement--until Christ be formed in you--the epistolary context is one in which "another gospel" had "bewitched" the Galatians thereby causing them to fall away from the message of grace (Galatians 5:4). For this reason, Christ was not being formed in them. In fact, under this circumstance Christ could not be formed in them.

Second, in another epistle, Paul described his relationship with the Thessalonians to be as that of a "nursing mother" and an "imploring father" (1 Thessalonians 2:7, 11). Though in this Galatians context he calls them "my children," Paul pictures himself as once again being in labor (i.e., in the pains of childbirth) over them for reason of their spiritual defection. Burton remarked: "The reactionary step which the Galatians are in danger of taking, forces upon the apostle the painful repetition of that process by which he first brought them into the world of faith in Christ . . .."[5] In Paul's view, this was a spiritual life and death struggle for the churches of that region. Personally, he felt deep agony of soul over their spiritual condition. By conning the churches of Galatia into believing a different gospel, the false teachers thwarted the work of God as the virus of the new self-help gospel spread in the region. The congregations' spirituality was being threatened. So again the apostle found himself in great labor pains for apparently, Christ had not been formed in them. Longenecker notes that the expression again "points to the need of returning to basics, repeating, as it were, the Galatians 'conversion to Christ'."[6] I would clarify that those Galatians that had joined up with the Judaizers did not need to be resaved, but saved.

Third, the verb "is formed" suggests Paul understood that he was limited in what he could and could not do for those lapsing from grace. The verb (is formed) is passive, not active. If perchance the Galatians were to turn back to the teaching of grace, it would have to be for reason of the sovereign God's working in their hearts.[7] The final outcome of the law-versus-grace struggle was beyond Paul's power. He could not control what was going on in their souls. Had he stated, My children, I am in great labor again until I form Christ in you, then he might have been writing about spiritual formation. But that approach would have resembled the methods of the Judaizers! So he chided the Galatians, "Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (Galatians 3:3). No human activity could turn the tide of the battle so that Christ would be formed in them. If that was to happen, God would have to do it. From Paul's perspective, the outcome was uncertain and indefinite. But he would agonize over them until Christ might be formed in them. No techniques or disciplines would cause Christ to be formed in them.

Fourth, what did Paul mean by the phrase, until Christ be formed in you? By his use of the verb "formed" (Greek, morphoo), was the apostle referring to spiritual formation or to spiritual regeneration? In other letters, Paul speaks of believers being "conformed to" or "formed with" Christ (Greek, summorphos, Romans 8:29, or "fashioned," Philippians 3:21), and of believers being "transformed" (Greek, metamorphoo, Romans 12:2). Paul does not say that he was in labor so that the Galatians would be conformed to or with Christ. Rather, with his birthing metaphor, he infers that the Galatians were not spiritually formed.

So, what are we to conclude? Does Galatians 5:19 support the idea that the Apostle was advocating the practice of self-help disciplines to achieve spiritual formation? Such methods would have been like those proposed by the Judaizers.

Because they had lost grace because of their embrace of the legalisms--the spiritual self-help formulae of another gospel--the apostle appears unconvinced that they had been truly formed in Christ to begin with. It appears he was experiencing the pains of childbirth with the hope that they would be born in Christ so that they might be conformed to Christ. For how could the Galatians have become conformed to Christ if they had not yet even been formed in Christ. Paul was in agony of heart for their spiritual regeneration, not spiritual formation. As Bruce observed, "It is not that Paul sees two stages in Christian experience--being justified by faith and having Christ formed within one--it is rather that the one implies the other and reliance on the law for salvation negates both."[8]

Like the self-esteem and self-help which morphed the gospel into "another gospel" during the previous thirty years, the current emphasis on pursuing spiritual disciplines to affect spirituality appears to be another legalistic approach to spirituality like that promoted by the Judaizers of Paul's day. As Paul told another congregation in the region of Galatia, "These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion . . . but are of no value against fleshly indulgence" (Colossians 2:23)

The Chinese have a saying: There's no use trying to carve rotten wood. Only people originally formed in Christ are capable of being carved by the Spirit into the likeness of Christ. Researchers have observed that between contemporary born-agains and non-born-agains there is no behavioral and moral difference in lifestyles.[9] If the behavior of those within evangelicalism gives any indication, then what is needed is not spiritual formation, but spiritual regeneration! And that appears to be what Paul meant when he wrote to the defecting Galatians, "I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you."

Pastor Larry DeBruyn

_________________

ENDNOTES

[1] "Spiritual formation is the process of being conformed to the image of Christ by the gracious working of God's spirit, for the transformation of the world." See "Small Group Experience in Spiritual Formation," Companions in Christ, A Ministry of Upper Room, (http://www.upperroom.org/companions/tipsarchive.asp?act=details&loc_id=2974&item_id=203312).

[2] See Larry DeBruyn, "No Fear," Slice of Laodicea (http://www.sliceoflaodicea.com/uncategorized/no-fear).

[3] Mike Erre, "Position Papers: Is ROCKHARBOR Becoming an Emerging Church?," (http://www.rockharbor.org:80/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=79&Itemid=109).

[4] F.F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians, A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983) 213.

[5] E. deW. Burton cited by Richard N. Longenecker, Galatians, Word Biblical Commentary, Volume 41 (Dallas: Word Books, Publisher, 1990) 195. One Greek dictionary adds, "The address in Gal 4:19 is intended metaphorically for children for whom Paul is once more undergoing the pains of childbirth." Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, Translators, Revised by F. Wilbur Gingrich and Frederick W. Danker (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979) 808.

[6] Longenecker, Galatians, 195.

[7] Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996). Wallace notes the passive subjunctive can be used "when God is the obvious agent" (p. 437). The subjunctive mood denotes a potential outcome contingent from "the time of the main verb," which in this instance is, "I labor." (p. 479).

[8] Bruce, Galatians, 213.

[9] David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, Unchristian (Grand Rapids: BakerBooks, 2007) 47.