Every now and then we need to sit back and catch our breath and consider why we’re doing what we’re doing.  Nowhere is this more important than in our spiritual walk. Beyond teachings, strategies and purposes should be something deeper that is often eclipsed by them.  Frank Viola, who has been used powerfully to inspire the house church movement, gives us perspective with “God’s Ultimate Passion.”    As we glimpse God’s revealed motivations, we walk away changed.  The old arguments and goals don’t seem to matter very much for His ways are far beyond our ways.  Recently OpenHeaven.com asked Viola about his newest book.

How did you become aware of the passion of God?

In 1992, I caught an earth-shattering glimpse into what Paul called “the eternal purpose.” That glimpse blew me away and changed the course of my entire Christian life. From that point on, I began to understand something of what makes the heart of God tick. I touched something of His passion. And in touching His passion, I found my own purpose and passion in life.

Many Christians (if not most) don’t understand what God’s eternal purpose is. Many think it’s the salvation of souls. Others think it’s turning the countries of this world into “Christian nations.” But the heart of God beats for something beyond these things. Consequently, one of the reasons that provoked me to write the book was to throw a spotlight on God’s eternal purpose and progressively unfold it from the Scriptures.

The fact that Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life has sold millions of copies is sturdy evidence that most people, including Christians, have no idea what their purpose in life is. Ironically, Warren’s book never discusses God’s eternal purpose. My book is a stab at that very thing.

For those reading this interview, ponder this question: When was the last time you heard a sermon or read a book on God’s eternal purpose? Yet that purpose is the grand narrative of the entire Bible. And it lies at the center of the beating heart of God.

In what sense do you believe the church originated as part of Christ before the first Christian walked the earth?

Paul tells us in Ephesians that God chose the church in Christ before the constraints of created time. Jesus Christ existed before creation. And there was a mystery hid inside of Him. Each section of my book seeks to unlock that great mystery. For this reason, the subtitle is “Unveiling the Purpose Behind Everything.”

So many Christians I have met over the years struggle with a sense of guilt and condemnation. George Barna’s research has found that Christians, by and large, have difficulty understanding their own identity. Understanding “the mystery that was hid in God before ages,” to quote Paul in Colossians and Ephesians, utterly solves our identity crisis. It, along with a proper understanding of the blood of Christ, also removes the sense of guilt and shame.

Not a few of my readers have expressed how God has liberated them after reading the book and coming to grips with its message.

Could you clarify your explanation about the salvation of Mary Magdalene?  A modern Pharisaic Christian, as you mention, would point out there is no record of Mary asking Jesus to forgive her or of her announcing her repentance, yet Jesus pronounces her forgiven.  The story of Mary anointing Jesus with perfume and kissing his feet occurs before Jesus’ death on the cross, yet we see similar incidents after the cross where something less detailed than the sinner’s prayer apparently suffices.  What is your understanding?

The book’s focus on Mary is to show the incredible love that the Lord had for this woman and her boldness to love Him despite her fallen condition. There are few stories that are so beautiful. Mary was in a far worst condition than most of us are in. And yet, Jesus allowed her to love Him in the most extravagant of ways. What she did and how she did it was a scandal to judgmental Pharisees. Yet our Lord commended her for it.

Many Christians have the idea that they need to improve their lives before they are worthy to love Christ. But this is flawed thinking. If we can lay hold of Christ’s love and passion for us, despite our condition, it will provoke us to reach our hands toward the hem of His garment. I think the story of Mary gives us particular insight into Christ’s heart and how much He loves being loved by His own. Even when they aren’t worthy of it.  

Should the church currently consider herself the fiancée or the wife of Christ?

The church is the Bride of Jesus Christ. Not in religious rhetoric, but in living reality. One day, however, she will become His wife. And that is the ultimate purpose of our God. The implications of this are staggering to the human mind. It’s important to understand that none of us as individuals are the Lord’s fiancée. It’s the ekklesia, the church of the living God, that has won that honor.

In the book, I do my best to unfold what that means. For many of us, the phrase “Bride of Christ” is simply a nice metaphor. But if we could get a hold of what the Holy Spirit has in mind with this term, it will blow us away and change our lives forever.

You talk about how the Tabernacle of David illustrates the kind of intimacy the church is supposed to have with Christ, and you contrast it with the sterile worship of the Tabernacle of Moses.  One thing puzzles me.  Why did God replace the Tabernacle of David with a physical building?  It seems like a backward step.

The tabernacle of David is an incredible moment in Israel’s history where we get a peek into what God is really after. David, as my book points out, is unique in all the Bible. He is a NT figure of Christ stuck back in the OT, so to speak.

Solomon’s temple also teaches us much about the House of God, which I explain in the book. And so does the temple that Ezekiel saw in his mind-boggling vision. There is a progressive line of the building of God from Genesis to Revelation. The tabernacle of David wasn’t the end of the story. There were still other images that the Spirit wanted to portray to complete the full picture of God’s eternal quest for a home.

You mention three Old Testament journeys – fleeing the city of bondage, leaving the city of religion and exiting the desert of waste.  Many believers probably recognize what the city of bondage represents. Fewer understand the significance of the city of religion.  Fewer still comprehend the desert of waste.  Could you explain?

In the Old Testament, Egypt speaks of the world system. Babylon speaks of organized religion. And the wilderness speaks of spiritual transition among other things. All Christians have been delivered from Egypt. That’s what salvation did for us. But Egypt hasn’t left all Christians.

Many of God’s people are in Babylon. I explain my reasoning for this in the book. I also explore the principle of organized religion, but I leave it to the reader to apply that principle to his or her life. Finally, a great number of God’s people are living in the wilderness. They are in transition. They have a high vision of what God wants for His church, and they long to be a part of it. But they can’t seem to find an expression of it anywhere. So they are isolated and alone. In the book, I discuss one’s options for all three locations.

Your book tells a story you borrowed from a friend about a hypothetical meeting involving Mary, The Holy Spirit and the Bible.  Please tell us about it and what it means for us today.

Yes, a friend of mine in Colorado is the author of a wonderful story. I won’t rehearse it in this interview; I will simply say that the story is a powerful statement showing that a great segment of the Christian family has allowed Mary, or the Holy Spirit, or the Bible to co-opt the central place of the Lord Jesus Christ.

One of the themes that drives my book is the recovery of the centrality of Jesus Christ in the lives of God’s people and in the life of His church. In my observation, the centrality of Christ is a rare commodity in the Christian world today. And it’s in dire need of restoration.

What are the two mysteries that Colossians and Ephesians disclose?

Well, you’ve actually raised the very question that the book seeks to answer. I don’t know how to answer the question in a paragraph or two and do it justice. Doing so requires an entire book. And that’s one of the main reasons why I wrote Ultimate Passion.

I’ve been hearing from several sources that revivalism is a substitute for what God really wants.  Your personal experience as related in the book seems to agree.  How would you explain this and what priority do you put on revivalism?

Revivalism is a fairly new concept. There have been about five revivals in the history of the United States. They were all glorious and many souls were saved during those periods. However, all of them were short lived. Most of them only lasted around four years.

Once the waters of revival began to recede, the state of the Christian faith and the church remained the same. The reason is because no revival has ever changed the Christian mindset about church nor restored God’s ultimate purpose. What we need is not revival. To use George Barna’s language, we need a “Revolution” in how we conceive the Christian life and how we practice the church. My hope is that my book will help to ignite, fuel, and even recenter a Revolution in the Christian faith . . . a Revolution that has already begun to take root in our day.

Let’s get down to the basics.  We all know about prayer and Bible study.  Some of us even play praise music in the background when we have a daily time with God.  How can an individual experience Christ in his private life to such an extent that he has something worth sharing when he gets together with his brothers and sisters?

One of my main tasks in planting first-century styled churches is to teach God’s people how to encounter Christ in new and living ways and to equip them on how to share Him with His people. This takes time. A lot of time actually.

We spend many hours tackling those two things over the course of weekend conferences and retreats over a period of time. The demand for this is so great in our day that I receive more invitations to plant churches and to equip God’s people to know the Lord more deeply than I can handle at the present time. I welcome this problem, for it’s a good one to have. I’m very encouraged by the spiritual hunger among God’s people today. But the need of the hour is for the Lord to raise up more people to carry on this work.

Why do you believe house church is the best opportunity, though not a guarantee, for a group of believers to enjoy intimacy with Christ?

Let me first say that readers should know that God’s Ultimate Passion doesn’t deal with issues of church form or structure at all. That’s what’s unique about this book in comparison to my other books.

“House church” is a clay word. It has been molded to mean so many different things that the word has no clear meaning today. There’s absolutely no spiritual value in meeting in a home. So a “house church,” to me, doesn’t really mean a whole lot. God wants His people to live a shared life together under the Headship of Jesus Christ. That involves a great deal, and it goes far beyond the social location of the church’s gatherings.

God’s Ultimate Passion doesn’t deal at all with church structure or form. I’ve written a number of other books that do. Three books in particular explain what a church that gathers under the Headship of Christ looks like and what it doesn’t look like.

My books Rethinking the Wineskin and The Untold Story of the New Testament Church explain what it looks like. My book Pagan Christianity explains what it doesn’t look like. I’d say that those three books are great follow-ups after reading Ultimate Passion.

The Kingdom of God stretches out further than any local gathering of believers.  How can a house church properly relate to brothers and sisters in a more traditional structure?

Any group of Christians that is gathering in a non-traditional way must resist the temptation to become elitist and sectarian. Elitism and sectarianism are spiritual viruses that tend to afflict Christians who have been given fresh light on the church and who are seeking to pioneer accordingly.

Elitism and sectarianism are like body odor. Those who have it are blissfully unaware of it. But everyone else can smell it from a distance. Furthermore, there is something that I call “being captured by the same spirit you oppose.” Ironically, the most elitist and sectarian groups tend to be the strongest proponents against elitism and sectarianism. That is, they condemn it in rhetoric, but they embrace it in spirit and practice. I’m presently writing a book called The Church After God’s Own Heart which dedicates an entire chapter to exploring this very phenomenon.

Many churches today are beset with legalism.  Equally, if not more alarming, are those churches where anything goes.  Your book explains a third alternative that Paul promoted.  Could you tell us about it?

One of the last chapters of the book is called “The Three Gospels.” In it, I discuss the gospel of legalism (you must try to be good in order to please God). Libertinism (we’re under grace so it doesn’t matter how we live). And the gospel of Paul.

In my experience, most churches preach legalism from the pulpit, but the congregants live lives that better match the gospel of libertinism. Anytime you hear a sermon that’s built on the supposition that you must do xyz to be a better Christian and make God happy, you’re hearing the gospel of legalism. The fruit of this gospel is condemnation, guilt, and a perpetual struggle to always “try” to improve. Self-righteousness is also a fruit that’s produced from this gospel.

The gospel of Paul, which is the gospel of Christ, is something totally different. It’s liberating to the core. That’s why F.F. Bruce called Paul “the apostle of the heart set free.” Unfortunately, this gospel is rarely preached today. My book explains what that gospel is and how it’s different from the gospel of legalism and the gospel of libertinism.

Implementing all the lessons in God’s Ultimate Passion is a major undertaking.  How do we get started?

I believe that we are in short supply today of a revelation of Jesus Christ, an experiential knowledge of His phenomenal riches, and a living experience of His Body, the church, the way that God created it to be.

Consequently, my book is designed to give readers an earth-shattering revelation of the greatness of Christ and of God’s eternal purpose in Him. If that happens, their lives will be changed. Their love for the Lord will increase significantly, they will begin to be free from guilt and condemnation, they will see their brothers and sisters in Christ in a brand new light, they will see themselves in a new light, and they will see the Lord and His church in a new light. If the book does this in the lives of even a handful of people, it was worth writing.

What can we expect next from the pen of Frank Viola?

The book I’m working on at present is called The Church After God’s Own Heart. It’s a personal memoir of why I left the traditional church and what I’ve discovered on the other side.

Anyone who has left the traditional church, anyone who is experimenting with new forms of church, or anyone who is discontented with the way that church is presently practiced will enjoy it. So I predict anyway.