Christ Is Enough, period

In his review of Phillip Cary’s book Good News for Anxious Christians in Christianity Today (December 2010), Christopher Benson writes: “How do we follow the commandment to not be anxious about anything” (Phil. 4:6)? The gospel, Cary argues, gives us permission to ignore anxiety-producing techniques because Christ is enough, period. Finding ourselves in Christ, as opposed to finding Christ in ourselves, means we’re equipped–through the flesh of Christ, the Word of God, and the life of the church–to persevere in ‘the trial by existence,’ invoking the title of Robert Frost’s poem. Instead of ‘bearing it crushed and mystified,’ as the poet says in the final line, we can bear any vicissitude with the love, obedience, wisdom, virtue, and beauty of our Savior.”

To quote Phillip Cary from the book: “The bottom line here is that God speaks to us as a person. And you can’t listen to another person just by hearing what’s in your heart. Other persons live outside your heart, and that’s where you have to listen for them. That’s even how they get into your heart. So Scripture says Christ dwells in our hearts by faith (Eph. 3:17) but directs our attention outside our hearts to find what we should put our faith in: ‘Faith comes by hearing,’ says Paul, ‘and hearing comes by the word of Christ’ (Rom. 10:17). The word of Christ that he’s talking about is not a voice in our hearts but the preaching of the gospel in external words that we can hear with our ears, announcing the good news of Jesus Christ (Rom. 10:15). So Christ gets into our hearts precisely as we put our faith in the word of Christ that we hear preached to us. He is a person who is inside us because we find him outside us. That’s how it always goes with persons. This way of finding Christ through the word of God used to be obvious to all evangelical Christians, but not anymore.”