Have I told you about my conversation with my friend Dan? I said to him, if ‘not yet’ is the last thing we say, and people always remember the last thing, isn’t that discouraging, that it’s always ‘not yet’? Why don’t we say ‘still already’ at the end? But Dan said, why not ‘still already but nevertheless not yet’? I know that’s life. I think the best I can do is to encourage us all to always say ‘already’ at least by sundown. 

I think of my friend Roger. As I arrived at Wheaton College, he was already looking for me. His pastor Trev had been my pastor, so we shared our stories of finding Jesus. Roger was a lot more socially skilled and helped me fit in. We worked through philosophy and later theology together and made it real and personal. He wrote for the school magazine the all-time funniest piece I’ve ever read, on Little Sir Urinal (confiscated by the administration). He started that term paper in late evening, finishing a Western before, and then woke me at 7a.m. to go turn it in, riddled with footnotes. But our ways parted, partly because his health needed a drier climate.

For over 40-some years we didn’t see each other. There had been a few hours in a small town in Missouri, then finally two days with him in East Lansing. He wife had died and I was just plain moved at my heart when he showed me the magnificent flower garden he’d made for her. Then a couple years later he was dead.

I wished we’d been closer and that I’d kept in touch but I hadn’t. Roger was dead, and I wished I’d kept closer.  That’s my story but it’s also a parable. I always remembered things about Roger but lost track of him. The parable is: Is it the same with me and Jesus? I know so much about what he did for me, about what I knew 60 years ago. But am I really in touch with him, in an ongoing way?

I’ve known for decades about all that I have because of what Jesus did: justification, sanctification, adoption etc. They are all special, but they can feel like a list of my good things, without their bringing me any closer to him. My cold heart is in play, but I can blame some on theology. I know Melancthon said that to know Christ is to know his benefits, and I know that beats a rarified mystical experience. Those benefits put feet on knowing him, but how and why can they seem free-standing, good things with or without Jesus?

Negatively, William Evans’s Imputation and Impartation opens my eyes. All those good things have been packaged by theologians in a theological list, the ordo salutis. By now we’re coming to see none of them are out there by themselves, but all grow from our union with Christ. Why did the theologians make that so hard to understand? What mistakes did we all make? That’s where Evans helps, read his discussion of Berkhof.

Sometimes there has been confusion over what our election really is about. Because it was at the top of the list, and union with Christ at the bottom, we tried to do our election without him, the dumbest theology ever. It pushed us to try to find worthiness in ourselves, the exact opposite of truth and reality. When we see it now in Romans 7-8, it’s really about our assurance and motivation to stay with Jesus, no matter how hard it is. Then 9-11 does the Jewish experience, is there still hope after all their rejection? Of course there is and for us too! (How casual we’ve been about our list of blessings, and how wonderful it is when we finally start to get it right!)

Much more positively, how can we get back to knowing Jesus together with his gifts? Rethinking eschatology, helped outstandingly by Vos and Gaffin, is a good start. It isn’t way off in the distant future, when we’ll finally stand before the Judge of all the earth. No, it’s where we are right now at the end of the ages. The cross and resurrection of our Lord Jesus is what we claim and lean on as we confess our sins every day right now, why wait? Union with Christ isn’t just another item on the list, He’s already right there as he gives us everything else, and we’re so united with Him that we realize that!

That ‘already/not yet’ is more than seminary jargon, it’s the reality of our lives. It shows us how to work with that eschatological ‘already.’ Have I told you about my conversation with my friend Dan? I said to him, if ‘not yet’ is the last thing we say, and people always remember the last thing, isn’t that discouraging, that it’s always ‘not yet’? Why don’t we say ‘still already’ at the end? But Dan said, why not ‘still already but nevertheless not yet’? I know that’s life. I think the best I can do is to encourage us all to always say ‘already’ at least by sundown.

That other ‘biblical theology’ insight, that the Bible is one big developing story—well, that is enormous too. Maybe it’s the developing ‘already’ that’s so big? I’m swept away by that Hosea 11, ‘how shall I give you up?’ That comes after reason after reason why the Lord should be through with us, and we know in our hearts how right that is. But after a long recital of the people of God’s miserable track record, there comes that blessed be God’s ‘how shall I?’ Stop trying to be worthy, take the Lord’s love as he gives it!

But in my life this is even bigger. Pastor and friend Jack Miller delighted in preaching Paul through Luke (or was it the other way around, I forget). Luke gives us that personal responsiveness of the Lord to all those different people, and underneath that we know from Paul what the life of Jesus was all about. Luke gives us how Jesus deals with you and me individually and personally, and Paul the realities under his friendship with us. That seems so obvious in hindsight—but with the threat of that ‘list of things’ always there, it’s literally life-changing.

I hope that’s not too much history of theology. It could come off that way. What I’m trying to say is just, in the middle of our collapsing Christian culture the Lord has been giving us new insights and wisdom. Unexpected totally, I’d say, certainly undeserved. We have more gospel assets than we’ve had for centuries. Read the downside in Evans and the upside in Gaffin and you’ll see that and be amazed.

So now what? Jesus is always nearer and dearer to us than we imagined, all the time. So, keep in touch. Remember my sad Roger story. We keep in touch in prayer, don’t we? How shall we do that now? I’m starting Tim Keller’s book on prayer, and have learned this so far. Meditate and pray through the Psalms, all of them, many times, including the complaining lament ones. Really? Of course, Jesus loves you and me and we should complain to his face, not behind his back. There is our blessed way ahead, not despising what he has done for us, but through all that coming to know Jesus himself, better and better, closer and closer.

Remember that oldie, “More about Jesus would I know, more, more about Jesus”? That was a good start, but why ‘about’? Why not ‘of’? ‘Getting to know him’ is better, isn’t it?

Dr. D. Clair Davis, lives in Philadelphia, Penn., is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America, and is a Professor Emeritus of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.