December 21, 2010: What It Means To Abide In Christ

In her great novel about missionary disillusionment, No Graven Image, Elizabeth Elliot tells about an American pastor, Reverend Perkins, who gave a series of messages at a missionary conference. Elliot writes,

[Mr. Perkins] told one or two humorous stories and proceeded to speak about bearing fruit for Christ, using the fifteenth chapter of John as his text. "The secret, beloved," said Mr. Perkins, "is to abide. Abide in the Vine. Christ is the Vine. Just abide. Now isn't that simple? You and I get so busy running here and there, doing things for Christ, trying to serve the Lord, when all He tells us to do is abide." He explained in careful detail how the branches abide in the vine, and left me wondering, as I had wondered all my life, what Jesus had meant by the word abide. The secret that Mr. Perkins had set out to divulge was still a secret to me.

Thank you, dear sister Elizabeth!

I too have heard over the years unintelligible, vaguely mystical interpretations of the phrase "abide in Christ." Just the other day I heard a shining example of it. A preacher on Christian radio talked about a man who was in debt and worried about finances. As the man fretted over the pile of bills on his desk, he suddenly decided that he was going to "turn it over to God" (whatever that means) and not let the money problems bother him any more. "That, my friends," said the preacher, "is abiding in Christ."

No it isn't.

Abiding in Christ is not a matter of adopting a "no worries" attitude toward your finances - or toward your family, work, or mission in life. Calmness in the face of trouble may reflect - at best - strong faith and a determination to obey Jesus' command not to "worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear" (Luke 6:22). Or it may reveal - at worst - a contemptibly lazy dismissal of duties and responsibilities of the sort condemned in 2 Thessalonians 3:10: "If a man will not work, neither let him eat." But either way, "letting go and letting God" has nothing to do with the commandment of Jesus, "Abide in me" (John 15:4).

The Greek word for "abide" means remain, stay, continue, persevere. Perhaps it is best understood by referring to its opposites: depart from, abandon, go away, desert.

Simply put, "abiding in Christ" means remaining true to him. It means not committing apostasy, not renouncing or rejecting him. It is a mistake to scold harried missionaries and financially troubled fathers for failing to "abide in Christ" during those times when they are busy or burdened. They're still abiding. Judas was the only disciple who did not abide in Christ. He deserted and betrayed Christ. The rest abode. When Jesus gave them the option to depart, or to cease their abiding ("Will you also go away?" John 6:67) - they turned it down, and Peter spoke for all when he said, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God." (John 6:68-69).

Preachers like the fictional Reverend Perkins (or the real one I heard on the radio the other day) fail to see that just two verses after Jesus commands his disciples to abide, he warns them, "If you do not abide in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned" (John 15:6).

In Jesus' preaching, getting burned by fire is a picture of going to hell, as in the six examples below.

Matthew 13:40-41: "As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Luke 16:24: "So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’"

Matthew 5:22: "But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell."

Matthew 7:19: "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."

Matthew 18:8-9: "If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire."

Matthew 25:41: "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.'"

To summarize:

"Abiding in Christ" is not a mystical antidote for the busy activity of serving the Lord, nor is it an attitude of deliberate indifference to the pressure of unpaid bills. It is a simple description of faithfulness to Jesus. If you abide in him - that is, if you remain true to him, you will bear the fruit of righteousness. If you do not abide in him - that is, if you choose to commit apostasy by rejecting him, you will go to hell.