The Misperception of Christ

In light of my recent post describing the power of Satan as delusion and misperception, I pulled some posts together from a series I did a few years ago about the cross as a "epistemological crisis." That single, integrated post is what follows.

Apocalyptic scholars of Paul describe how he experienced the gospel as an "epistemological crisis." By epistemology we mean our way of knowing. The cross, in this view, interrupts our previous way of knowing the world and replaces it with a radically different one. The cross changes how we see the world. 

The simplest example of this is Paul’s claim in 2 Corinthians 5:16: 

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.

One way of knowing Christ—from “a human point of view”—has been replaced with a radically different way of knowing. An epistemological change has occurred. 

Because of the cross, we now see the world differently. From this new perspective, different valuations follow. We have radically new metrics. From “a human point of view,” something might be shamed and despised. But from our new epistemological perspective, these shameful things are actually honored and valued. The same goes for the honorable and glorious things of the world. What once appeared wise, powerful, or noble now appears foolish, weak, and lowly. You see this revaluation of values in 1 Corinthians 1: 

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God… Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?… God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world… so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

The preaching of “Christ crucified” creates an epistemological crisis that leads to different modes of valuation. What the world deems wise, strong, and glorious, the cross exposes as foolish, weak, and empty. Conversely, what the world scorns as foolish, weak, and shameful, the cross reveals as the wisdom and power of God. The cross flips our way of seeing the world on its head. In light of the crucified Christ, our way of seeing and valuing the world has undergone a seismic inversion. We no longer regard anything or anyone from a merely human point of view. To be a Christian, therefore, is to come to see the world in this radically different way.

The epistemological and perceptual language in 1 Corinthians runs deep. One of the best treatments of these themes is Alexandra Brown’s The Cross and Human Transformation: Paul’s Apocalyptic Word in 1 Corinthians. As Brown observes:

[Paul's] battleground is the realm of human perception; wielding the Word of the Cross, he invades the perceptual landscape of his hearers, cutting across their accustomed (and, he believes, false) ways of knowing with the sharp expression of a new reality. The effectiveness of this strike, Paul's letter suggests, rests in the power of the Word he preaches to liberate both minds and bodies from the grasp of the false word to which he elsewhere refers as "the present evil age"...

[1 Corinthians] reveals both that the transformation in view is a perceptual one—it concerns the way one sees the world—and that it is governed by the cross...Paul's aim in preaching the cross is to alter his hearers' perception of the world in such a way as to alter their experience in the world...

Brown has a rich footnote that catalogs the dense perceptual vocabulary in 1 Corinthians 1–2: see, know, discern, unveil, reveal, hide, search, examine, judge, compare, unite, comprehend, seek. It’s a vast semantic field orbiting around perception, knowledge, and discernment. I find this list illuminating because it maps the epistemological nature of the gospel. We so often moralize the gospel. Christian life is reduced to moral living, and it is that, but seeing comes before doing, knowing before acting. Sight precedes morality. For how can you take proper action in the world if you are blind, lost, deluded, ignorant, or confused? As Jesus said, the blind lead the blind, and all fall into the pit. Vision is required for navigation. 

So when we look at the moral failures of the church, we should ask: are these moral failures—failures to do the right thing—or are they epistemological failures, failures to see rightly? When churches and denominations drift from the gospel, are we witnessing disobedience or delusion? 

I suspect that many of the church’s moral failures are really perceptual ones. The problem is less a failure to live up to Christ than a misperception of Christ. And when Christ is misperceived, everything else follows. The cross is not only a word of forgiveness but a word of revelation, an apocalypse that opens our eyes, restores our sight, and transforms our entire way of knowing the world.