Gordon Fee

Grace Communion International presents You're Included, the good news of Jesus Christ. Our host is Dr. J. Michael Feazell. Welcome to You're Included, the unique interview series devoted to practical implications of Trinitarian theology. With us today is author and New Testament scholar Dr. Gordon Fee. Dr. Fee is Professor Emeritus of Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He's considered a leading expert in the field of biblical interpretation, and his author of many books, including How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth and How to Read the Bible Book by Book, both of which he co-authored with Douglas Stewart. His latest book, Revelation, which will be part of the New Covenant Commentary Series, is due for publication in 2010.

It's a joy to have you with us today.

Thank you. Nice to be here again.

You've been preaching and writing for most of your life, and I just want to ask you to tell us, what is it that you want people to know about God?

I think I can get at that best by telling a story. I was a freshman at Seattle Pacific College in those days and had a rather remarkable encounter with God. I was there on a basketball scholarship, and it was an idolatry to me. And I, the Spirit really led me to give that up, to be a fully devoted follower of Jesus. And so that happened in early December of that year, '52. Then later that year, we had a chapel series, no, they called it Spiritual Emphasis Week, a special speaker for each chapel in that week, and her name was Eugenia Price. She was a well-known figure in Hollywood, a writer, and that kind of thing, who five years earlier had been converted in Billy Graham's first crusade in Los Angeles. She was a marvelous person and a gifted speaker. And then, but she, as she said in her dis somewhere, at the beginning of things, she said, "You will never find a more relieved person in all the world than I, when I discovered that God is just like Jesus Christ." And she admitted that wasn't theologically well said, but her point was well-set. And I think that's pretty much where any true believer in Jesus, any true Christian, let's come to terms with theology, with how one understands God. That in John's Gospel, particularly, where this is put on display in every imaginable way, it's the Son is revealing the Father. It isn't that the Son is separate from the Father. The Father and the Son and Spirit are the one God. But in incarnation, God became present among us. Oh, my way of putting it is, he came among us, took the wraps off and said, "Here's what I like. Here's what God is and what God is like." Every false theology in history has been a failure to take that seriously. That the only true understanding of God is that which comes through revelation of the Son, who is the full, perfect, absolute representation. It's hard to find language now. We'll begin to talk theologically, but understandable, they stood representation of who God is and what God is like. And every false theology is a theology that has steered away from what we learn about God through the revelation in the Son. Every false theology, because that is where the full revelation of God takes place. And then I'm going to probably cry, but it's part of my character, the ultimate expression of that revelation is in the crucifixion. God on a cross with his creatures trying to get rid of him, and instead of getting rid of him, they got him forever. You can't get rid of him. Death followed by resurrection, followed by the Holy Spirit, with a total, complete passion on God's part to do what was intended in the Garden of Eden, and that's to create human beings in His image. And what God has done in Christ and by the Spirit is to recreate fallen human beings back into the image of God, so that we live this on this planet as the image bearers of God, which should constantly point people toward God because we bear that image. So, I, the great relief that God is just like Jesus Christ. Not well said theologically, but well said in terms of the point being made. So many Christians do think of the Father being this a scary God, of the only an old man in heaven, yet, and and Jesus is the the nice guy who kind of shields us from this the anger of this scary God of the Old Testament. Everybody who does this does not read the Gospel of John. "Have I been with you for so long?" Jesus asked, "And you don't know who I am? The one who has seen me has seen the Father." It's the Gospel of John that finally takes all of that, that story, that gospel, that incarnation, and raises it to the next level, so that we hear the Gospel story in a theological setting of who this is. It's in the gut, in the Synoptics as well, but John just makes it so stark that you can't miss the point that this is not just another human being. This is God incarnate, like, are taking off the wraps and saying, "Look, this is who God is. This is what God is like."

John also records Jesus talking about his oneness with the Father. No, but then he also prays that that the disciples, "so they may be one as we are one." What is he driving at there?

Yeah, that's one of, obviously, one of the more difficult texts to spell out in, you know, fine detail. And but the concern throughout that whole section of the gospel has to do with just in this case, we totally to to believers, to followers of Jesus, but they both together reflect the likeness of God that's found in Christ in their relationship with one another. So all of that had to do with how we become the bearers of the image. And we do that not because we pray a lot. We do that because we love our neighbor. And our neighbor is often our enemy. So that as God loved his enemies, namely you and me, and redeemed us by that love, He wants us to be His image bearers and to be redemptive agents in a world where people not only don't believe in Him, but would prefer to curse. They don't even believe in Him, but they'll use His name and curse. That's how terribly fallen the human race has become. Interestingly, he's when he's saying that, praying about the disciples, they have been at each other's throats over who's going to be the greatest. And he's having to interrupt their disputes over all that. And yet he's talking about a oneness, you know, that will transcend all of that. And it doesn't scold them, he by a little bit here, but no, it's it's constantly bringing them back, "Look, watch the works that I do are the works of the Father. I am doing the Father's work. Pay attention. This is what God is like." So people ask me, "What God is like?" Yeah, this is not theologically well put, but it says, says it, God is just like Jesus Christ. And we're not afraid of Jesus. We read about Jesus, and we can see that, well, I I think I could trust Him to not, you know, surprise me with condemnation. But but we are a little afraid of the Father. We're a little worried that what He might do next. That is understandable because most of us, many of us, have broken fathers who aren't people we wouldn't necessarily emulate. My case is different from that. My father was a true representation of my Heavenly Father. So I never had to overcome the frailties and the difficulties and the weaknesses of my own father, because I regularly saw the revelation of God in the way he treated my mother, and the way that he was a pastor, in the way that he treated the congregation, became a professor in the Bible College, the way he treated students, he was simply an image bearer. So that was never a difficulty for me. But I wasn't long as a pastor or a teacher, but I realized that image didn't work at all for some people, because their fathers were so bad, so brutal, that they didn't want God to be a father. So what had to happen in those cases? That they had to rethink what they would like a father to be, and then come to terms with the fact that God is infinitely more even than that. So it's it's an image that in our culture does have its drawbacks, but I won't leave the image because not only is that the biblical one, but correctly expressed, it's the best one.

The Holy Spirit comes into the picture as well. And in John, and Jesus is talking about his oneness with the Father, he's talking about, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father." He's talking about how they may be one, and early the disciples may be one as He and the Father are one. And then he starts to talk about the Comforter, "I'm going to send you a Comforter." That's necessary that I go away. How does the Holy Spirit fit into the relationship with Father and Son?

Yeah, well, that isn't what I call carefully spelled out in the text. Well, yet, that's where theology finally comes in. But it's quite clear in John's Gospel that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son. And therefore, the one Holy Spirit is the full image bearer of the Godhead. The, the reason, the point of the Holy Spirit throughout the New Testament is that the Spirit is to continue the work of the Incarnation by being, by incarnating us with God's likeness, as the Spirit bears the fruit of the God-likeness in our relationships with one another. This is the great problem with me that I had with the in history, they, the solitary monk, the one who went out into the desert to get Christian perfection. They said that's impossible. You, you can't find out whether a Christian, a person is a true Christian until they rub elbows with another Christian. That's where you find out whether the work of the Spirit is really taking place. So the solitary eremite, the monk, is is just so unbiblical. It doesn't have a, you know, a leg to stand on, because the real test is how one responds to another. And then when the other is doing things that are either distasteful, wrong, deliberately evil, how we respond to that is going to be the ultimate evidence of the Spirit's outworking the life of Christ in us. And Christ is about Christ forgives. He loves his enemies. Now, that's awful, isn't it?

Well, it's good. It's good for us. But we don't like it when He's forgiving.

There are you exactly. We don't like that part of it. Yes, it's we'd like to be Christians, but we also like to be fallen at points. So, but our fallenness can still find expression. We're glad He forgives us. Yes. Yeah. So the, but He does forgive His enemies. Hopping on his master on the collards us and our enemies. And here He is telling us that we can be one with each other. And and the Holy Spirit then is continuing that incarnation of that includes loving our enemies and for he isn't just telling us something that we need to do because we can't. We don't do that. We never have. And His ministry is the doing of, you know, that which we fail in. And one of the difficulties with this, of course, is the is the enormity of the population. And the fact that these are spoken in in basically rural contexts where people live in small villages and they have to get along or the village won't make it. We now live in a global village where nobody can hardly live in isolation anymore. And the context for us is so huge that we, we have a hard time even imagining what it's like to truly love our enemies because we don't even know who our enemies are. So, you know, I, I was a kid growing up in grammar school during World War II, and I would want to love Hitler. I'm sorry. Hitler was the incarnation of evil. So I, I quit thinking in those categories. The question is, how do I love the neighbor next door? Our neighbor is the one we're having the immediate problem with now. And and yes, this is the this is the person that we must. But it's easy to overlook that person and thinking in broader people terms. You know, I love the people in my church, just don't want to have dinner with some of them. You know, and and so it's, it's the one-on-one thing that Jesus is about, not the global or larger communal. And and I, I must admit that I'm one of those that, how do I love somebody out of their evil? I would assume that's the basic reason for loving them. But Jesus does that. As He does that, and He's in us, therefore we can rest in His doing of that without us having to take the burden. And here's where the Holy Spirit must come in.

Yep. It's a real rest, isn't it?

Yes. He does what we're unable to do. He heals us.

Yes. A good thing. Getting back to our, our immediate to the cotton, you've done a lot of work with reading the scriptures in the context in which they're written now. And as you just mentioned, this is written in the context of a village kind of thinking. Oh, and it really doesn't address the details and specifics of our kind of world in which we live on a block. Yeah, where we don't even know most of the people who drive by the front of our house. Exactly. We have, it's a different, that's a different kind of relationship from any of the relationships people would have known then. They talk about a stranger, but when a stranger comes to town, everybody knows that a stranger has come to town. Yeah, and it's one or one little group. Yeah, and pretty soon everybody does know a whole lot about them because they make it their business. We can't do that out. And then how that translates for us is very difficult. I have no, I don't pretend that I would not answer that in our context. I think I think the greater question is, how do I love those those neighbors that are closest that I know? Yeah, that are around me. In our case, modern, and I, we live in a, in a can, a unit complex of individual units of a strata. And we, we think in terms of how do we love. Now, happen to be in a very good straight. I, we were in a good community. We're the only believers, but, but we get along well with everybody. They get along well with one another. There's very little of the kind of infighting that I know happens at a lot of these kinds of communities. But that, that's would be the next step for us. How do I, how do we love? How do we care for somebody if they're ill? How do we get, you know, food to them or something like that? As a way of demonstrating that we're a part of or a part of this community, not trying to convert them by the, you know, the four spiritual laws, but trying to love them as they are. And then perhaps at some point, they might ask what, what about being ready to give an answer? But, but not cramming the odd because they pushing it down their throat. Yes. Yeah. And isn't there a certain amount of trust in the Spirit's power to work with somebody instead of taking it all on ourselves all together?

All right. But on the other hand, sometimes the doors aren't right, white open. And we get hesitant and don't step through the door. But that part of that is a personality matter too. Neither my wife nor I are extroverts in one-on-one relationship. So, and most people aren't, you know, we have to push ourselves to move in that direction. And we tend to make, and we tended to try to assume that everybody should be the same when it comes to evangelism. And yet, there are so many different, though aspects of how we are with other people. Yep. According to the way God has made us as individuals. And we're not all the same. True evangelism has to step out of good relationship. So, the only other evangelism, of course, the kind that happens in church when there's a sermon that and a visitor's there, and they hear the Spirit speaks. But, you know, true evangelism, it is as a relational thing, or the relationship is secure, and you really hope they might ask you, "Why are you so weird?" So it's a good idea for Christians to make friends with unbelievers.

Oh, yes. For the sake of friendship. And and neither Bob nor I are good at that, to be frank. But if they make the first step, we're good at it. Just as to do our personalities. In today's world, it's been said, what studies have shown that people would rather live next door to almost anybody than an evangelical Christian, because of the stereotypes of evangelical Christians being so pushy and judgmental and aggressive.

And aggressive. Yeah. No, the New Testament makes it quite clear that you love your neighbor by doing good for your neighbor. And evangelism will come out of that. Had no other way. The St. Francis quote is always so interesting, "Always preach the gospel. If necessary, use words." Actually, this comes from my wife. But and many years ago, she was struck by the fact how many times in Scripture it talks about doing good, doing good, not doing works, but doing good, doing what is good. And somehow evangelicals, I've never caught on, it seems to me too, that's the primary biblical text for how we live in the world. It's so funny when you hear a discussion going on about what we're going to do in the church, and here are some good things we can do in the community as a church. There's always the, "Okay, but then how do we set it up so that the good thing we're doing gives us an opportunity to hit them with the with the gospel?" In other words, it's like we don't know how to do good without also having to say something, or we haven't gone, or done what we need to do. The saying something is the most important, and the doing good is only a means to the end, rather than doing good being the taking a casserole over to the young couple that are set a new baby. What you do, it's not so that you can give them a spiel. No, just like you're doing good because that's the good thing. It's a good thing to do. Exactly. And interesting, a lot of people who don't make any profession of faith at all understand that better than Christians do. We should do good. So too many have angèle Christians are more interested in evangelizing as the first matter of business rather than loving their neighbor as the first matter of business.

Yeah, that's, is that all? I was listening to Jack Hayford was talking about that. Some people tend to think that or see evangelism and scalps on your belt. Oh, yeah. Jeremy. Yes. Rather than living with people as Christ would, loving them for their own sake, for their own sake, because they are people, yeah, and made in God's image, who need to be recreated into Christ's image.

No. Well, we sure appreciate being with you again. It's always a joy to talk to you.

Enjoy the time together. Thank you.

Pleasure. We've been talking with Dr. Gordon Fee. I'm Mike Gesell. For You're Included, your included is an ever-expanding resource featuring top Christian thinkers devoted to exploring God's perfect revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ. Watch other programs in this series on the Grace Communion International website, www.gci.org. Jesus asked His disciples, "Who do you say that I am?" We have a free booklet, The God Revealed in Jesus Christ, to help you answer that question. In the United States, to request your FREE copy, go to GCI.org/booklets or call us toll-free at 1-800-423-4444. That's 1-800-423-4444. You're Included is devoted to the good news that your heavenly Father loves you, wants you, and includes you in Jesus Christ. You're Included is produced by Grace Communion International.