Is Mission an Attribute of God?
Robert E. Speer said in his Duff Lectures of 1910,
“The Last command of Christ (the Great Commission) is not the deep and final ground of the Church’s missionary duty. That duty is authoritatively stated in the words of the great commission, and it is of infinite consequence to have had it so stated by our Lord Himself. But if these particular words had never been spoken by Him, or if, having been spoken, they had not been preserved, the missionary duty of the Church would not be in the least affected. The supreme arguments for missions are not found in any specific words. It is in the very being and character of God that the deepest ground of the missionary enterprise is to be found. We cannot think of God except in terms which necessitate the missionary idea.“
In the Lausanne Covenant of July, 1974, There was a recommitment to world evangelism in Switzerland by an international gathering of evangelicals “moved to penitence by our failures and challenged by the unfinished task of evangelization.” John Stott’s talk in Loma Linda was a succinct statement of that credo which he divided into five parts:
The Old Testament God was a Missionary God
The Christ of the Gospels is a Missionary Christ
The Holy Spirit of Acts is a Missionary Spirit
The Church of the Epistles is a Missionary Church
The Vision of Revelation shows a Missionary Climax
In their book, Missional Essentials, Brad Brisco and Lance Ford say, “Mission is the central biblical theme describing God’s activity throughout history to restore and heal creation. While often over-looked, Scripture is full of sending language that speaks to the missionary nature of God.”
Yesterday, I posted on Facebook that while laying out this idea, one objected and said that “mission is not an attribute of God, but a result of His attributes.” I found that to be an interesting counter proposition. You can read the comments on that post here. In missional circles, there just might be a propensity to overstate mission concepts.
Is the idea of God being a missionary God, mission as part of His nature, or mission being one of His attributes, taking missional concepts too far?
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