Indicatives and imperatives – who uses
language like that? Theologians do. It’s what Covenant Theological Seminary president
Bryan Chappel and I found ourselves talking about
briefly when we met last month.
The terms arose during a conversation
about a recently published book. In the course of discussing it Dr. Chappel commented with a wry smile, “It is strong on
imperatives but weak on indicatives.” What did he mean?
Perhaps the simplest way to explain it is
to say that in theological language, the terms refer to types of sentences or
forms of expression. Indicatives are statements of fact, statements describing things that exist or have happened.
Imperatives, on the other hand, are statements of command, things that have to be done. A book that is strong on imperatives,
then, is a book that contains a lot of instructions. Even if it doesn’t list
them as a series of “one, two three…” things you have to do, its overall tone
is one stressing our responsibility to act.
In and of itself that is not necessarily
bad – the Bible after all contains many imperatives. But there is a danger of
stressing them so much that we give the impression that the Christian life is
fundamentally up to us – it’s a matter about us “doing things.” While it is
true that faithful followers of Christ are called to do things, our actions are
inevitably meant to flow out of what Jesus has already done (the indicatives).
The indicatives and the imperatives are meant to inseparably linked, and the
indicatives are always to come first – they are the basis and ground for the
actions contained in the imperatives.
The Christian gospel doesn’t immediately confront
us a list of instructions about things we have to do. That’s often the way
Christianity is perceived, but it is mistaken. Rather, it comes to us with the
glorious news of what God has already done for us in his son Jesus. It tells us
that he has made his Son an offering for sin, that he has raised him from the
dead and made him King and Head of the Church, that through him he has poured
the Holy Spirit into the hearts of true disciples, and that through the Spirit,
Christ is now at work in his people to continue his mission in the world. It
calls us away from self-righteousness and self-effort to a life that centres in Jesus; to a life that is “by faith in the Son of
God” who has loved us and gave himself for us (Gal. 2:20).
The imperatives, then, are logically introduced
by a “therefore.” Because this is true in Christ, and true of me in Christ, therefore I must do that. The apostle
Paul illustrates this classically in Romans 6:1-14 and Colossians 3:1-4. In
both cases he first reminds his readers of what is true of them in Christ – in
the one instance, the fact they have died together with Christ, and the other,
they have been raised together with him. He then proceeds to say that on
account of that, they are to live in a particular way. There is a great
“therefore” either stated or implied in what he writes. The imperatives are to
be the natural and spontaneous outflow of what has already been done for them
in Christ.
But even there the message of grace
doesn’t end. It goes further and says that Christ has not only “done” things in
the past, but that he is the One who enables us to “do” things now. It’s not just a matter of saying, “Christ has
done this, so now I must do that.” Rather, we have to say, “Because Christ has done this, I can now do this – through his grace that
continues to work in me as I live by faith in him.”
In other words, the whole of the
Christian life is to be anchored in and derived from Jesus Christ. It is all of
Christ, and all of grace. As Paul put it in Colossians, he is “our life” (Col.
3:4).
That’s why there is always a danger when
we unhitch the imperatives (the commands) from the indicatives (the statements
of gospel truth). To do so is to imply that the Christian life is “up to us.”
It’s a matter of trying harder to do better. Do things we must. The imperatives
are both necessary and appropriate! But they must always be so couched in terms
of Christ – his accomplishment and his grace – that
they instinctively cause us to look to him to enable us to do what is required.
Anything less than that is to yoke us to a burden of duty that in the end is
sub-Christian.