Bavinck on Jesus and the Nature and Sphere of the Gospel

In the excellent new volume of previously unpublished essays by Herman Bavinck, Essays on Religion, Science and Society, the Dutch theologian offers an analysis of the various views of Christ and Society in the Netherlands in the latter part of the 19th Century–an analysis that is just as relevant today as it was over a century ago. In his essay “Christian Principles and Social Relationships” Bavinck sets down what he believes to be several inadequate expressions of relations between Jesus and society:

Christianity, they say, is born from the social needs of the time, just as later Calvinism’s doctrine of predestination issued from an uncertainty about economic conditions at the beginning of the sixteenth century. After all, [they say] all spiritual ideas and powers in state and church, religion and society, science and art are caused ultimately and fundamentally by social conditions in the manner in which material goods are produced and distributed. Social conditions in the days in which Jesus was born were very distressing. They aroused in His soul a deep concern and a great measure of compassion. The gospel that he came to bring was therefore a Gospel for the poor. In those days, sin and misery, just like today, were the result of the way in which society was organized. It is the law that makes sinners. Mammon creates thieves. Marriage causes adultery. Persuaded of this, Jesus wanted to return to nature, away from artificial society. Instead of justice and law, government and force, humans need love and liberty. Jesus was the first socialist and anarchist.

Or, if this proposition seems exaggerated, Jesus was nevertheless a man of the people and for the people. He always spoke in defense of the poor and against the wealthy. He always derided the rich and mighty yet looked with compassion on all who were wretched. The battle of His life was against the patricians, the profiteers, the priests; and in the battle He perished.

This is not the only perversion of Christianity that Bavinck points out as being a threat in the Netherlands. The form of Christianity that says Jesus has no influence over culture was thriving at the same time. He writes:

Over against these proponents of a social and socialistic Christianity are others who believe the very opposite: that the Christian religion has nothing to do with society and the state , and that it has no message for either. Jesus was a religious genius, to be sure, and answered to a high moral ideal, but the interests of society did not concern Him in the least, nor did He have anything to do with the state, just as He was totally indifferent to all of culture. Religion and morality are on the one side, and society, state and culture are on the other; each live in their own lives and follow their own course. Religion’s place is in the heart, the inner chamber, the church; but politics and the economy go their own way and, as such, have nothing to do with religion.

After considering a Scriptural and redemptive-historical perspective on these issues Bavinck concludes:

So that everything may revive and may become again what it ought to be and can be, the Gospel tests all things–all circumstances and relationships–against the will of God, just as in the days of Moses and the prophets, of Christ and the apostles. It considers everything from a moral point of view, from the angle in which all those circumstances and relationships are connected with moral principles that God has instituted for all of life. Precisely because the Gospel only opposes sin, it opposes it only and everywhere in the heart and in the head, in the eye and in the hand, in family and in society, in science and art, in government and subjects, in rich and poor, for all sin is unrighteousness, trespassing of God’s law, and corruption of nature. But by liberating all social circumstances and relationships from sin, the Gospel tries to restore them all according to the will of God and make them fulfill their own nature.