Out of the Boat

“Lifemessage” July 19 2004 by David Orton from Melbourne [Out of the Boat: Jesus and the Contemporary Church] recounts the story at the end of Mark’s gospel chapter 6.  After a hectic day with the disciples and the crowds, the disciples get into a boat to row to Bethsaida on the shore of Lake Galilee and Jesus goes up onto the mountainside to pray.  As night wore on, the disciples were having real trouble against the wind and not making progress.  They were beginning to worry.  In the early hours of the morning, seeing them in difficulty, Jesus goes to them walking on the water.  The disciples are terrified thinking they have seen a ghost and begin crying out – what, we are not told.  It appeared to them that this ‘apparition’ was walking right past them.  I think I’d be terrified too.

Mark records that Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘It’s me; don’t be afraid’.  They recognised his voice and no doubt the terror left them and gave way to utter relief.  Jesus climbed into the boat, and as he did, the wind and the waves ceased and it became calm.  It seems they were very confused about what was going on: a few hours ago they had seen Jesus multiply a boy’s picnic lunch and feed thousands of people with it; now he was walking on water like a ghost; and just as he climbed into the boat, the bad weather ceased.  I think if I were there, I would just have been happy to row to the safety of shore and discuss things later.  Perhaps that is just what they did; they anchored at Gennesaret and still the crowds pursued them.

But Matthew’s account of the same incident adds a bit extra.  When Jesus spoke and said, ‘It’s me; don’t be afraid’, Peter replied, ‘If it really is you, tell me to come to you on the water.’  According to Matthew, Jesus said, ‘Come’, so Peter got out of the boat and started walking to Jesus on the water.  Part way there, he began to panic (no surprises there!), took his eyes off Jesus and began to sink.  Jesus reached out and caught him and said to him, ‘You of little faith – why did you doubt?’

Matthew’s account then re-joins Mark’s and the story goes on.

“Out of the boat”.  Orton sees this event as “A picture of the Western Evangelical / Pentecostal church” in the 21^st century, in the following terms:

“With the winds of a post-modern world blowing against her she is ‘straining’ on the oars. Despite their ability as seasoned fishermen, accomplished in boatmanship and experienced in storms, the winds are too strong. Like the disciples the contemporary church is exerting all her strength, training, and skill to fulfil the commission given her. But with all the resources available she cannot move forward. Over recent times the church in Australia (measured by Sunday attendance) has shrunk by 12% and in the UK by 26%.  North America is not faring much better.  By any measure, the contemporary western church is in ‘distress’.

“And so, Jesus is coming to her in the fourth watch (between 3-6 AM) – in the darkest hour before dawn (see Mk 6:48).  The night has been spent in a toilsome and futile labour.  Exhausted, the disciples are at their wits end. But it is the watch when Jesus comes, the watch before the dawn, before the new day.

“My question is twofold – from where does He come, and how does He come?

“The answer is that He comes from ‘outside the boat’ through a ‘new thing’.

“This is, for the church, the worst of times, and yet the best of times.  An hour of great testing and darkness on one hand, but on the other, one of great visitation and new beginnings.

“In her darkest hour Jesus is coming to her in a new manifestation of divine power and purpose.  But she is constrained by her own strength and structures.  She is self-reliant and secure in her man-made systems.  She is so mired in these and so focussed on the storm, on her own effort – on physical and sensate things, that she is caught by total surprise.  Jesus appears walking on the water.  This is so outside their frame-of-reference they immediately conclude that it is a ghost!  How could this be of God?  It is outside of their ‘boat’ – their man-made vessel – outside the design, engineering, and structures of man!

“Not only that, it is a completely ‘new thing’ – Jesus healing the sick they knew, feeding the five thousand was OK, but what was this?  It was unfamiliar and impossible, defying all the natural laws on which they were depending for their survival. Boats were designed to float on water and that’s where they were staying!  And so, they concluded that it was a ‘phantom’ – a ‘ghost’ (Gr ‘phantasma’). This manifestation was not only not of God, it had no ‘substance’ – it was not real – it was either a figment of the imagination, or from the ethereal world of the spirit.

“Not only do they misconstrue this new visitation of God as having no substance; their response was one of fear.  In a moment of time these self-assured sea-salts are reduced to abject terror shrieking for fear! (see Mk 6:49, 50).

“The parallels are obvious. There is a new visitation coming to us from ‘outside the boat’.  A sudden and surprising manifestation of Christ is coming toward us.  And it is coming from the storm-tossed seas of people – from the tumult of the nations...”

I have no problem with Orton in this matter.  He begins this article by noting that it is “A Prophetic Teaching”.  And if you read through the new testament book of Acts, you will see that such a thing is not outside the gamut of the life and experience of the disciples of Jesus post-Pentecost AD 30.  I myself have been in this stream of ‘prophetic teaching’ since the early 1990s and I concur with the parallels he draws.  My personal journey for over twenty years has been one of “outside the boat”.

My question, though, is different from Orton’s double question.  My focus is on the boat.  What is the boat?  What happens when Jesus gets into the boat?  What is the nature of their life and their journey after this ‘boat’ incident?  And for twenty years or more this has been my interest, since Jesus called me to get out of the boat (metaphorically speaking) and come to him, leaving behind all the support structures of the boat, what it represented and what it was connected to.

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Now hold that thought for a moment while we visit a later time and a different part of the new testament record.  Researchers and professors are uncertain of the exact authorship of the new testament book of Hebrews.  Some say it was the apostle Paul; some say it may have been Barnabas; some say it might have been a sermon Paul gave transcribed by Luke.  Many options have been suggested.

And who was it written to or for?  Its title appears clear, but in the original, there is no salutation or greeting.  The phrase “To the Hebrews” was a later addition.  However, the content makes it quite clear that it was, at least in part, intended for an audience of Hebrew (Jewish) believers.  It also seems quite clear that the fall of Jerusalem (AD 70) had not yet transpired.

Most probably, it was a letter or a ‘sermon’ written by an eyewitness to the events surrounding Jesus and immediately following his death and resurrection as a kind of treatise for Jewish people but with an eye to Gentiles who converted to Jesus but not to Judaism.  The central theme of the writing is the superiority in every way of Jesus over Abraham, Moses and David; of the new covenant over the old covenant; of grace and the Spirit over the law and the book and the letter of the law.

Now against that background, read Hebrews 13:7-14.  You can see traces of this ‘comparison’ and the superiority of the way of Jesus in this short extract.

Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.  Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, through which those who were so occupied were not benefited.  We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat.  For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside the camp.  Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate.  So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.  For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.

“Outside the Gate” or “Outside the Camp” is the emphasis here.  Just like the animals sacrificed for the temple offerings and religious rites, Jesus was sacrificed (read murdered) outside the city walls as a criminal the authorities were glad to get rid of.  And his blood was spilled on the ground, not collected and taken into the city for the temple rites as was the animal blood.

The early disciples of Jesus were instructed in the profound significance of this.  Their ‘city’, their spirituality, their future, lay not inside the walls and gates of the city of man, but outside the gate; outside the camp; out where all that is not holy belongs.  How could this possibly be the place for them?  How could outside the walls and gates of Jerusalem possibly be the true city of God?  Because that’s where Jesus was; and that’s where the ‘common people’ who ‘heard him gladly’ lived and moved and had their being.  Jesus made it perfectly clear he did not come for the righteous but for the unrighteous.

Inside the walls and gates they are righteous in their own eyes; out here, now, with Jesus, the unrighteous are granted righteousness before God on His terms; they are Christ-righteous; they are righteous in Christ.

That is why the writer to the Hebrews says clearly, “So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.  For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.”  The City of God is “outside the gates”; “outside the camp”.  But those inside continue on blissfully ignorant, thinking they are in the city of God.

To me, the parallels here are also obvious – at least as obvious as the parallels around the ‘out of the boat’ story.  So, my strategy is to join the two sets of parallels together.  In my left eye, I have the ‘out of the boat’ story; in my right eye I have the ‘outside the camp’ story.  And like our natural vision is best when we have both eyes, to me our spiritual vision is best when we have both stories – when we see through both lenses.

¤

The boat and the walled, gated city-camp are analogies for the same thing.  And I believe there has been a long continuous line of “prophetic teaching” reaching all the way back to Jesus and the first apostles – and possibly back much further too, linking Joshua and Caleb, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Nathan, Micaiah and many others to the first century AD ecclesia and to present-day apostles, prophets and teachers who are the foundation of ecclesia in every generation.

The boat and the walled, gated city-camp are where religion lives; they are the home and the spawning ground of Pharisees – in every generation.  They are safety, security, normalcy to all who want to preserve the past and make sure everything they believe in is maintained and perpetuated into the future.  They represent that mood and habit that actually changes nothing but adopts and co-opts the language of what they want but want on their own terms in their own forms with their own prescriptions and decrees.

The boat and the walled, gated city-camp are ‘church’, ‘Christianity’, ‘Christendom’, and ‘Christian City’ as Robert Burnell put it in Escape From Christendom (Bethany House Publishers, 1980) [http://awildernessvoice.com/Escape.html]; while ‘out of the boat’ and ‘outside the camp’ represent ecclesia, The Way and ‘The City of God’ in Burnell’s analogy.

The boat and the walled, gated city-camp have “the gospel” (their own preferred story of God); while ‘out of the boat’ and ‘outside the camp’ have “the good news of the Kingdom of God in Jesus Christ.”

Inside is the old covenant; outside is the new covenant.  Inside is what Orton describes in the quote at the top of this piece; outside is his “new visitation”.

But the really important thing is this: ‘the church’ is not ‘the ecclesia’ now (presently) sick and that sickness healed by this “new visitation”.  The church has never been the ecclesia and never will be; the ecclesia has never been the church and never will be.  They have always been, are now and ever will be two distinct things.

In Jesus’ day, for a Pharisee to be joined to ecclesia, he had to follow the direction of the letter to the Hebrews (Pharisees were usually Hebrews): “Let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.  For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.”

In Matthew’s record, when Jesus finished his damning discourse with the Pharisees and Scribes, this is what he said: “Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, so that upon you may fall [the guilt of] all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. ‘Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.’” (Matthew 23:34-36)

Dr Luke the new testament historian says pretty much the same thing – Luke 11:45-52.  This is very damning and not at all pretty.

This puts me in mind of the old testament account in Ezekiel 34.  While addressing the ‘shepherds of Israel’ in similar condemnatory tones, God (through his prophet Ezekiel) declares that He will appoint new shepherds over His people who have a heart after His own heart.  And the people whom He will personally shepherd are out in the mountains away from those who injure, insult and harass them – ‘outside the camp’.

In reality, the outsiders are the insiders to God, as the insiders are the outsiders to Him.  ‘Inside’; the boat; the walled, gated city-camp – these are not God’s intention plan or future.  And the “New Jerusalem” coming down out of heaven in John’s revelation is not the old Jerusalem made new, restored or healed but a new creation in Christ Jesus – made up of foreigners, strangers, aliens: “outsiders”.

And if ‘insiders’ want to be joined with these ‘outsiders’, they have to “go to him outside the camp bearing his reproach”.  Likewise, those “forsaking assembling” (à la Hebrews 10:25) and not the outsiders who refuse to come inside but the insiders who refuse to go outside to meet in twos and threes where Jesus now lives and moves and has his being by the Holy Spirit.

I concur with Orton – there is a “new visitation” coming; and, yes, it is “out of the boat”.  But it is also outside the gate; outside the camp.  There is no redeeming what is inside and making it a holy place; holiness, righteousness, salvation are in getting out of the boat – going outside the camp; leaving ‘Christian City’ – to meet with the redeemer, the saviour, our righteousness and be joined together as one body with the outsiders in the ‘the city of God’, the New Jerusalem, the ecclesia, God’s new Zion.

Whoever wrote Hebrews noted that, when you “go out” to Jesus...

“...you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them.  For they could not bear the command, “IF EVEN A BEAST TOUCHES THE MOUNTAIN, IT WILL BE STONED.”  And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, “I AM FULL OF FEAR and trembling.”  But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.”

By Jesus’ definition, true ‘Mount Zion’ is not inside the walls; indeed, he IS Mt Zion – all that Mount Zion was to old Israel and so much more Jesus is to God’s new covenant people.  Just as Jesus did not come to start a new religion or form a new sect within Judaism, his visitation is not to redeem or ‘heal’ the church but to help us see that ‘the church’ is nothing more nor less than a false ecclesia.  Too many of us have been looking at the old Mount Zion instead of being with Jesus outside the camp and thus being perpetually AT and IN the true Mount Zion.

Orton’s article then goes on:

“At first, those in the boat will claim this visitation has no substance – that it is a ‘phantom’ – a passing fad, of no consequence. By comparison, their boat with its human design and construction is far more substantial than this mere apparition. They can, feel it, see it, and even row it! They even believe they can control it – despite the overwhelming force of the elements!

“They will also respond with fear. Any fear of the storm will be completely overtaken by their fear of the unknown and particularly by their fear of the supernatural. It will drive them to reject this move of God.  Even, many of those who are currently networking new movements of mission, of pastoral unity, and even many so-called ‘apostolic’ networks will react in fear and cling to the boat – to the structures and patterns that offer a more tangible security.

“But some like Peter will be stirred in their hearts. And at the word of the Lord they will step out of the boat to come to Him (see Matt 14:28, 29). They will be irresistibly drawn from the securities of familiar patterns and structures to Him. And thus stepping out of them enter a new realm of freedom – of the miraculous. A realm of walking on water where they are no longer governed by sense-knowledge and natural reasoning!  They will distinguish themselves from the rest of the disciples by their fearless hunger to be with Him – to come to Him ‘outside the boat’, and thus step into the ‘new thing’. They are willing to “suffer with Him outside the city gates, bearing the reproach outside the camp” (Heb 13:12, 13). A study of revival history and of the coming of Christ Himself eloquently teaches us that the visitation of God comes most often through the least expected avenues and usually through those of no account in the religious system.”

Well – this very thing has been going on for at least the last twenty years.  Prophets spoke in the first half of the 1990s not only about this ‘visitation’ but also about what Orton explains in these three paragraphs.  I know because I was a part of it.  I have documented what was happening and the prophetic teaching of the time.

Those ‘in the boat’ have already done what Orton describes here – and done it for twenty years or more: claim that it is a phantom, a passing fad, of no consequence.  Their human ‘boats’ have continued uninterrupted their course of buildings and programs and they all tout that their ‘success’ is the blessing of God.  Sounds just like the Pharisees in Jerusalem compared with the dishevelled disciples out on the lake with Jesus.

They have, for twenty years or more, responded with fear and sought to fortify themselves and shore up their fiefdoms against the bulwark of Jesus’ woes.

And, for the past twenty years or more, there have been Peters, stirred in their hearts, stepping out onto the water to go meet with Jesus bereft of all attachments and securities – sometimes even to begin to sink.  But beginning to sink is not a measure of wrongness or failure.  Quite the opposite: it is that beautiful moment when we realise we have nothing left but Jesus – and we need nothing more than Jesus, with his hand reaching out to lift and stabilise us.

These ones are, as Orton puts it, “no longer governed by sense-knowledge and natural reasoning!  They will distinguish themselves from the rest of the disciples by their fearless hunger to be with Him – to come to Him ‘outside the boat’, and thus step into the ‘new thing’. They are willing to ‘suffer with Him outside the city gates, bearing the reproach outside the camp’ (Heb 13:12, 13).”

But I disagree with Orton when he says, “And so, through this visitation the church will be purged of human control.”  That’s a pipe-dream.  I believe the reality is that ‘the church’ is a human organisation that has only ever been under human control and without human control will simply die; whereas ‘ecclesia’ is a divine, living eternal organism that has never been under human control and never will be.  What is, in character and mood, “inside” cannot become, in character and mood, “outside” and vice versa.  Consistent with Paul’s teaching, the old does not become new; rather, the old is shed and replaced with the new.  You ‘put off’ the old and you ‘put on’ the new and you don’t put new wine in old wineskins.

In like manner, the church’s ‘gospel’ says that, in Jesus, old ways are transformed and become new ways (like pruning a tree or simply changing behaviour); whereas the good news of the Kingdom of God in Jesus Christ is that, in Christ, the old is put to death (crucified) and the new springs up out of the new life of the Spirit of God implanted within (the old tree is ring-barked and an entirely new tree is planted).  In this latter scenario, the old tree is withering away to death; the new tree is taking root towards abundant eternal life.

Why do I make such a distinction and such a point?  Well...  Who says who is “in” the church and who is “out”?  As far back as you trace its history, man has been determining that.  Furthermore, some groups and individuals that are “in” today were “out” at some time in the past.  All denominations started as rebellions that gave way to splits and later to accommodation and tolerance if not outright acceptance.  At one stage, the so-called ‘house-church movement’ was “out’; now it’s “in” for some and still “out” for others – all based on our own individual personal interpretations and preferences.

Does it matter, in the end, whom the church thinks is “in” and who is “out” – well, no; not really; not if Jesus really is the Head.  But, since the word ‘church’ does not appear in the original language of our bibles, how are we supposed to deal with this?  Personally, I think God cares about as much for it as Jesus did about whose inscription was on the money of the day.  Render to Caesar that which belongs to Caesar and to God that which belongs to God.  Church belongs to man and it will be rendered to man and it will die with man.  Ecclesia belongs to God and will be rendered to God and it will share eternity with God.  What we do with church is about as important to God as what we do with our sports clubs and community associations.  What we do with ecclesia we are accountable to Him for since we are all – let me stress all; not some – responsible for our part and place in it.

You join church by selection and human will; you are joined to ecclesia by an act of divine will and promise.  You can leave church by human will and resignation; only God can separate you from your divinely grafted place in His family tree.  Your church can change its constitution or rules and leave you “out” where once you were “in”; ecclesia’s only ‘rule’ is “IN CHRIST” and that is fixed for all time and eternity for all humans.

Church and ecclesia cannot possibly be the same thing.  And the language confirms it.  The church lied from the beginning when it claimed that ecclesia equals ‘church’: it does not.  William Tyndale was murdered by the church for this truth; we love to claim lineage to Tyndale yet we practise the very thing he died fighting against.  The church has forsaken assembling with millions of “outsiders” yet turns this around and blames them for its own sin.  As usual, Jesus stands outside the door and knocks while inside we play our games of charades and pretend that he’s inside with us by quoting Jesus’ own words from our overly-precious bibles.  Go figure!

I believe that Jesus never intended us to treasure a written relic of him over his own dynamic personal presence in the person of the Holy Spirit; yet that is what we have done, and then gone on to institutionalise and sacralise it all.  The scriptures were intended to draw and deliver us to Jesus, not to replace him, so we can then boast about how clever we are because we have tamed Jesus to our particular liking.

And I believe the “new visitation” begins right here: in is out; and out is in.

Amen.