thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31 NIV). The approach of the divine can present a real danger to fallen human beings. We take our own security and ways of thinking very seri- ously and fear the loss of control that God’s sovereignty brings with it. Here lies the root of our rebellion and idolatry. In spite of what we say in our choruses about wanting to be touched and ravished by God, we don’t really mean it: we generally prefer to worship and know God at a safe distance. British missiologist and theolo- gian J. V. Taylor rightly says of our encounter with God:


To encounter the Holy Spirit will be more like suddenly catching sight of the volcanic inferno beneath our earth’s familiar crust. The Holy Spir- it is totally primordial. His is the elemental force beyond all other forces, and to call it, correctly, the force of love is not to temper its intensity but to increase fearfully our estimate of love’s fervor.


Another problem for the more conservative mainline churches is doctrine worship. Doctrine is good, but only as a guide to the right experience of God. And make no mistake, doctrines of God can intrude into the actual God relation- ship. In fact, this is what we think has happened to a large portion of Christianity today. It certainly was the problem of the Pharisees: when their doc- trine became too hard-set, it preset their understanding of God. That meant they were unable to comprehend God as He appeared in Jesus; Jesus simply did not fit their theological categories. However, they refused to change their categories to suit the revelation of God, and so they ended up rejecting the Messiah they longed for. Much of the Gospel of John explores this tragic misapprehension, and it is called the power of darkness.


We must learn from this: we must not use the Word of God as a shield against the actual presence of God.


Lesslie Newbigin rightly warns, “A proper confidence in the ancient promises of God must not become an improper and even- tually fatal barrier against recognizing and rejoicing in the action of God now.” As important as theology is in guiding our understanding of God, it must never be allowed to substitute for our relationship to God himself. God cannot be limited to ideology or theological assertions about Him. This is another, very subtle form of idolatry. Truth must guide the relation- ship, but it is an easy slip from there


as a result we became less Spirit-directed than we were at first. As church leaders, we now know all too well that this is the tragic story of so many new churches and moves of the Spirit, as religion and technique creep in and subvert the primal forces and more chaotic freedoms associ- ate with the Spirit, or the “Beyond-in-Our- Midst,” as J. V. Taylor calls Him.


Light and Power


As the moth is drawn to the flame, believers who have made God into a system of ideas need to RISK BEING OVERWHELMED BY GOD again if they wish to be AUTHENTIC DISCIPLES. Being an UNTAMED FOLLOWER of Jesus means risking ecstasy and losing control.


into worshiping the idea of God rather than God himself. It was the early church father Gregory of Nyssa who, knowing the propensities of the Hellenistic mind, warned that “every concept which comes from some comprehensible image by an approximate understanding and by guess- ing at the divine nature constitutes an idol of God and does not proclaim God.” Perhaps you, like us, have experienced some of these same excesses firsthand. For us it meant becoming increasingly dis- illusioned and cynical about the negative aspects of both ends of the spectrum, and


Truly we need both light and power, and thankfully the Holy Spirit provides both. In the Spirit, one need not be gained at the expense of the other—we are guided into a direct encounter with truth, but we are also baptized in a holy fire. A kind of holy burning should describe aspects of our life from that point on (John 14:16; Acts 2). The conservative Evangelicals need to be willing to fly closer to the flame and cope with holy chaos in their lives and churches, while the more charismatically inclined need to learn the value of objective truth and communal accountability. It is characteristic of a flame that it brings both heat and light. The challenge for all of us is to get to know the Holy Spirit in deeper ways and to remember that God will not be reduced to a set of ideas and beliefs. Untamed disciples must allow themselves to be drawn into the numinous and somewhat dan- gerous orbit of the divine if they are going to be genuine lovers of God. As the moth is drawn to the flame, believers who have made God into a system of ideas need to risk being overwhelmed by God again if they wish to be authentic disciples. Being an untamed follower of Jesus means risk- ing ecstasy and losing control.


From the book Untamed, by Alan and Debra Hirsch. Used by permission of Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, copyright 2010.


EVANGEL | November 2010 15


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