Within the field of missiology in recent decades, many have concluded that the church’s mission includes everything that God calls the church to be and do. In other words, all activities of God’s people constitute missions—including business endeavors, efforts in social amelioration, and creation care, to name a few. This conviction has spread widely within evangelical circles since the landmark 1974 Lausanne Conference on World Evangelization (in large part due to the influence of John Stott and René Padilla).
Yet does such a “holistic” view of the church’s mission align with the Scriptures’ teaching concerning redemptive history and the role of God’s people therein? The answer to that question is complex and requires much more attention to biblical details than we can give here. One relevant biblical-theological observation worth considering in response to this question, though, is the fact that God created humans in his image and set them over the rest of creation.
In his book According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible, Graeme Goldsworthy makes a point concerning the image of God in Adam that carries significance for missiological conversations concerning the nature of the church’s mission. He contends,
“Although God commits himself to the whole of his creation for its good order and preservation, humanity is the special focus of this care. Creation is there for our benefit. Humanity is the representative of the whole creation so that God deals with creation on the basis of how he deals with humans. Only man is addressed as one who knows God and who is created to live purposefully for God. When man falls because of sin the creation is made to fall with him. In order to restore the whole creation, God works through his Son who becomes a man to restore man. The whole creation waits eagerly for the redeemed people of God to be finally revealed as God’s perfected children, because at that point the creation will be released from its own bondage (Rom 8:19–23). This overview of man as the object of God’s covenant love and redemption confirms the central significance given to man in Genesis 1–2.”[i]
Goldsworthy is not necessarily making a missiological claim here—at least not in relation to the question we are considering concerning the church’s mission; however, this claim carries a significant missiological implication.
If, as Goldsworthy argues, the redemption of creation depends on the redemption of humanity, then the redemption of humanity should assume a priority of importance in the church’s missionary activity. This point undermines the view that the church’s mission includes all efforts to transform the created world and its cultures—whether through business or charity.
In other words, the way to redeem creation—a popular emphasis in missiology today—runs not through social programming or commercial development, but through a focused and intentional effort to reconcile human beings with the God who created them. That mission of reconciliation requires a commitment to evangelism, discipleship, and church planting—activities to which the New Testament continually directs God’s people. Apart from those activities, all other efforts undertaken in the name of “mission” ultimately fall flat.
While there are many activities to which God’s people should rightly be committed, not all of those activities constitute the task of missions. And if the redemption of the created order depends on the redemption of lost humanity, then the church would do well to prioritize the work of reconciling alienated men and women to the God who eagerly longs for their return. That is the work of missions.
[i] Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2002), 96.
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