Many aspects of the Christian faith perplex me. Many aspects cut hard against the way I naturally think the world ought to work. If the Lord had charged me with helping him to design the Christian faith, I would undoubtedly have suggested he do many things differently. I would have been wrong, of course, but I am self-assured enough that I probably would still have argued my point.
Let me offer an example. One of the aspects of the Christian faith that I find particularly perplexing is the freedom God gives his people to obey him in different or even opposite ways, so that one person’s obedience is another person’s disobedience. Even as two people take the same action, one might be obeying him and the other disobeying him.
For example, the person who believes it is wrong to eat meat that has been sacrificed to an idol honors God when he refuses it and dishonors God when he eats it. Yet the person who believes it is acceptable to eat meat that has been sacrificed to an idol dishonors God when he refuses it and honors God when he eats it. Two people can take opposite actions and both honor the Lord as they do so. (See Romans 14)
Similarly, the one who is convinced from Scripture that God requires him to baptize the children of believers honors God when he baptizes those babies and dishonors him when he refuses. Yet the one who is convinced from Scripture that God requires him to baptize only professed believers honors God when he declines to baptize infants and dishonors him if he shrugs his shoulders and baptizes them anyway. The same is true for those who believe the Lord calls his people to sing only Psalms or to sing only without the use of instrumentation. The same is true when it comes to using or not using wine in the Lord’s Supper, celebrating or not celebrating holy days, and so on.
Two people can take opposite actions and both honor the Lord as they do so.
If I had been in charge of designing and codifying the Christian faith, I would have created something like a systematic theology, except that I would have put Grudem to shame by making it a hundred times longer. It would account for every context, answer every question, and address every eventuality. It would plainly state exactly what Christians are to believe in every possible matter and precisely how Christians are to behave in every possible situation. It would be exhaustive, and undoubtedly exhausting. Through its innumerable volumes, it would press Christians to be exactly the same, assuming that the more Christians look like one another in their convictions and practice, the more they look like Jesus. I would gauge my success as a codifier by the degree of uniformity I saw in the church, whether in matters great or small, critical or mundane.
But that is not the book God has given us, and here’s what I find so surprising about the Christian faith: To conform to Christ, we do not need to conform to one another. In fact, to truly conform to Christ, we must not conform to one another in every way. Why not? Because God means for his people to reflect some degree of variety, and that variety is related to culture, conscience, and a host of other factors. We are to live the Christian faith in light of the setting we inhabit, in light of our theological understanding, and in light of the development of our conscience, not someone else’s. And this means that what is sinful to one person may be God-honoring to another, and vice versa.
Yet it’s important to state that God is no relativist. In each of these matters there is an objective truth and error or right and wrong. God either intends for babies to be baptized or intends baptism for those who profess faith. It can’t be both, because the positions contradict one another. Either God permits the use of instrumentation in worship or he does not, and again, it can’t be both, for while God may permit both A and B, he cannot permit both A and not-A.
And yet, God allows us to live and worship in ways that are different from one another, provided we draw our convictions from Scripture and carefully tend and heed a Spirit-informed conscience. The upshot is this: You can conform to Christ even if you do not conform to me, and I can conform to Christ even if I do not conform to you. We can both conform to Christ even as we do not conform to one another. It’s perplexing, but it’s true. It’s perplexing, but it must be good, because this is how God tells us we honor one another and, in that way, honor him.
