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Published on 11 Comments on It’s not about rules it’s about Working Hard at My Relationship With God…

It's happened three times in the last three weeks, so let me give you a composite account of the conversations...

-- [Embarrassed biting of lip] Umm... I know I should know the answer to this... And I feel really silly for bringing it up.  I realise it's, like, really basic... but it's been bugging me for ages now:  How do I Have A Relationship With God?

-- What do you mean?

-- Well I know it's not about rules.  I keep hearing that Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship.  Well, ok.  But how do I Have A Relationship With God?  It sounds so stupid that I should ask that.  I know this is Christianity 101.  It makes me wonder whether I'm even a Christian.  But when people talk about "having a relationship with God", I kinda know what they mean.  But I'm not sure I have what they're talking about.  What are they talking about?

-- To be honest, I don't really know what they're talking about.  And I wonder if they know what they're talking about.

Yes, that's really how I've been answering this question.  Really.

Which will make you wonder whether I'm even a Christian.  I mean honestly, who could possibly be against having a relationship with God??

Well I'm not against enjoying the gift of relationship with God.  But I'm dead set against definitions of Christianity that throw the spotlight on me and my relationship with God.  That might sound like a trivial difference.  Actually it's all the difference in the world.

Don't get me wrong, I know the living God - a personal God - I hear Him in His word, I speak to Him in prayer.  I enjoy fellowship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Honest, I do.  It's great.  All a wonderful gift that's mine in Jesus.  Fantastic.

But if I have to "have a relationship with God" then I'm stuffed.  Seriously.  I'm hell-fodder if 'relationship with God' is up to me.

Let's put the exact same truth in slightly different terms and you'll see what I mean:  I love the law. It describes the good life of loving God and loving neighbour.  Brilliant.  And I have performed good works which the Father has prepared in advance for me to walk in (Ephesians 2:10).  And that's been a lot of fun.  Yay law.  Yay works.  Yay.  But if I ever start talking about 'the heart of Christianity' as 'me obeying the law' then let me be accursed!  If I ever say "People get the wrong idea about Christianity, it's not about ancient rituals, it's actually all about legal obedience" - you'll instantly realize my error.  Well, it's just the same when you say "It's not about being religious, it's about Having A Relationship With God."

And you'll say - No, Glen, you've got it backwards.  Religion is about rules - yuck.  But Christianity is a totally different thing.  It's all about relationship.  It's not the same thing at all!

To which I'll say - Really?

Really??

I understand that the essence of Christianity is not my outward works (so far, so good) - but then I'm commonly told that it's about the quality of my inner devotional life towards God.  Do you see what's happened?  We've come to a different swamp, but we're still sunk.  We're still lost in 'works righteousness', it's just there's a different flavour to the 'works'.  Before it was all about outward, ritualistic hoops.  Now I'm being told it's all about inward, pietistic hoops.

Well Hallelujah!  Don't you feel the chains just falling off you?  Rejoice, you don't have to perform physical acts, only mental and spiritual ones! Is that the freedom the gospel brings?

No, it's just a different kind of slavery.  And in some ways, it's an even deeper slavery.  That's why Christians, furtively, secretly, wonder to themselves (and sometimes they wonder it aloud to visiting Christian speakers) What is this Relationship With God I keep being told to manufacture?  And why is it spoken of as liberating when all I feel is condemned by it??

Because, seriously, who on earth can have "a relationship with God"?  Where would you even begin?

Look at the person in that photo at the top. Are you like them? Can you do what they're doing?

And if you could manage it, what, precisely, would be the point of Jesus?  Do we really need "the One Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus"?  Is He actually crucial to our Christianity?  Or perhaps He just gets us in the door and then leaves us to get on with the main work of Christianity: having a relationship with God?  Is that it?

No! The priesthood of Jesus is absolutely vital to understand. And this is what I've told my questioners when they've asked. The good news is this: We, by nature, are sunk in self and sin and have no chance of a relationship with God. But Christ is our Mediator who became Man for us, who lived our life for us, died our death for us and rose again to the Father's right hand for us. He now lives to intercede for us, carrying us on His heart the way Aaron carried the sons of Israel on his (Exodus 28:29).

Jesus is the true David - the true Man after God's own heart. Now, by the Spirit, I am swept up into Him - carried on His heart while He enjoys the ultimate heart-to-heart. I am included in the true God-Man relationship - not because of any devotional aptitude or inclination on my part. It is a sheer gift of grace given freely in Jesus.

I have a relationship with God. The good news is that it's not my own relationship, which would be as fickle as my feelings. No the relationship I have with God is Christ's relationship with God.

Some don't like this way of speaking.  They think it diminishes a warm and personal walk with God. The opposite is the case. To know that I have Christ's relationship with the Father is where my personal walk begins. Secure in Jesus I can enjoy my status as a child of God. I can even join in with the Spirit's constant prayer: "Abba, Father." But none of this is a relationship I must manufacture. It's the grace in which - FACT - I now stand through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 5:1-2).

So this is what I said to my questioners. Don't look within, trying to find a relationship with God. You won't find it in you. Look to Christ - your Mediator, Advocate, Intercessor and Priest. He is your relationship with God. To the degree that you know you're on His heart, you'll feel Him in yours.

Published on Leave a comment on Pause for Thought: We are the champions

Recently I entered a Radio 2 competition to present Pause for Thought.  Unfortunately I didn't win, but what a consolation prize: meeting Vanessa Feltz at the final!

Here's my round one entry: We Are The Champions...

AUDIO

We Are The Champions

It’s official, the Olympomania Geiger counter has gone nuclear.  As an Australian who’s lived half his life in the UK I’ve undergone a bit of a conversion experience, I’ve been caught up in Team GB hysteria.  For the last fortnight I’ve been, in the words of Dylan Moran, ‘roaring advice at the best athletes in the world.’ And when you catch yourself screaming at the planet’s greatest sportsmen: “NOT LIKE THAT!” you realize you’ve been gripped by something bigger than yourself. There is a deep connection between us and the athletes – they are our champions.

Just this Friday, the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, published a poem about the Olympics with the line: “We are Mo Farah lifting the 10 000m gold”.  And on one level that’s just ridiculous.  I’m not Mo Farah, I’m part-man, part-sofa. Brushing my teeth is about as aerobic as I like to get.  But there’s something deeper going on.  Our champions belong to us and their victory is our victory though we haven’t expended a calorie of effort.

And here is the very heart of Christian faith.  You see I’m probably like you – I’m an arm-chair critic when it comes to life.  I talk a good game, but my own performance is laughable by comparison.  Step forward our Champion, Jesus.  He comes at Christmas as our representative, wearing the colours of Team Earth.  He lives our life for us, He dies our death for us, faces off against our biggest enemy – the grave – and beats it hands down.  Now His victory is our victory – though we have not expended a calorie of effort.

Put it like this:  If Usain Bolt is my competitor, I have no chance.  If he’s my Champion, I can’t lose.

If you think God just sets you standards, then of course you’re going to fall short. But Christianity says there’s a Champion.  And if He’s your Champion, you can rejoice like an Olympomanic long after the Games have gone.  Because His victory is your victory.

 

 

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Published on 3 Comments on What Jimmy Savile, Jeremy Forrest and Lance Armstrong teach us…

Three prominent stories in the news reveal the same human condition.

Jimmy Savile's molestation of minors was even recorded in his autobiography.  It's not even disguised, it's right there on the page.  He remembers an incident in the early '60s when he managed a dance hall in Leeds. Police asked him to keep a lookout for an attractive 16 year old girl who was missing.  He told the female PC if he found her, he would keep her for one night as his reward.  She did indeed turn up at his club that night and, as he writes, it was ‘agreed that I hand her over if she could stay at the dance, come home with me, and that I would promise to see her when they let her out’.

This is precisely what happened and he 'handed her over' to the police at 11:30 the next morning.  Jimmy adds, she ‘was dissuaded from bringing charges against me by her colleagues, for it was well-known that were I to go I would probably take half the station with me’.

Scores more stories like these are emerging a year after Savile's death.  People knew.  People were told.  Savile even told us.  But somehow we couldn't quite allow the truth to confront us in all its stark horror.

Today is the day Jeremy Forrest appears in Eastbourne Magistrate's Court.  The 30 year old maths teacher, who's been married for a year, ran off with a 15 year old student.  They ended up in France before the authorities caught up with them. Back in May he wrote a blog post entitled "You hit me just like heroin."  After speaking of the difficulty of an unnamed moral decisions he concludes: “At the end of the day I was satisfied that if you can look at yourself in the mirror and know that, under all the front, that you are a good person, that should have faith in your own judgment.”

As the relationship with his student grew, you can imagine the secrecy and the insanity ratcheting up in equal measure.  With no-one to break in from the outside and say "This is nuts!", they end up fleeing to France.  And then what!!?  That should have been one of a thousand questions bringing them up short.  But no.  He 'looked in the mirror', was content with what he saw and acted accordingly.

The third story is about Lance Armstrong.  The US Anti-Doping Agency has released "staggeringly voluminous supporting documents" for the decision to strip Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles.  ESPN journalist, Bonnie Ford, writes "After today, anyone who remains unconvinced simply doesn't want to know."

But what's fascinating is the admission by Ford that there would indeed be many who don't want to know.  She concludes her article saying:

Armstrong will always find a place to race and people who want to race with him, or at least come to watch. He is stubborn enough to be capable of existing indefinitely in a sort of parallel universe where he is still who he purported to be -- a purveyor of hope on wheels. And there will always be people who loved those three-week travelogues every July and don't want to give up on their longtime protagonist, either.

Sunflowers and lavender and Alpine switchbacks are far more appealing images than syringes and blood bags and a cult of personality channeled into coercion. Armstrong's legacy lies now not only in the eye of the beholder but in the willingness of that beholder to take off the blinders and see.

Here's the common thread... no-one wants to take off the blinders and see.  With Savile, for Forrest and for Armstrong's fans, we just don't want to know.  As the saying goes, there's none so blind as those who will not see.

But that's all of us, according to the bible.  "All men are liars" said Paul in Romans 3.  Calvin said this should be the first principle of Christian philosophy!  And Thomas Cranmer's anthropology was well summarized thus:

"What the heart loves, the will chooses and the mind justifies." (Ashley Null)

Our minds are brilliant at justifying what we already love.  We don't see because we don't want to see.  This is part and parcel of our human condition.

When people pretend to a dispassionate appraisal of "the cold hard facts" and pledge to follow them "wherever they lead", we can admire them.  But we also have permission to smile and shake our heads.  It's just not how we tick.

So is there an answer to our universal flight towards fantasy?

Well Paul and Calvin and Cranmer would say Yes.  The answer comes in the Word.

We need to be confronted with Truth from beyond.  We need a Voice that contradicts us - that judges us and frees us.  If it only judges us, we'll flee it indefinitely.  But in Jesus, we have a verdict that condemns us as sinners, but then raises us as justified.  It tells us - Yes, Savile really could be this evil, but still there's a way to confront it and deal with it.  No, Forrest cannot look in the mirror and see a good person, but still there is a way back from this madness.  No, Armstrong is not a hero but we don't have to divide between truth-deniers and Armstrong-haters.   

This is a problem that besets us all.  We are all, continually, involved in justification.  Either justification of ourselves or justification of our heroes and principles.  Christ alone can free us.  He brings truth and grace.  Truth to judge our lies.  And grace to raise us again on His footing.  The only answer to self-justification is Christ's.

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Published on 2 Comments on Jonah 3 sermon

The Ninevites hear this prophet back from the dead.

They acknowledge that God is right to judge.

They bury themselves in the dust.

And they trust Jonah's God to bring them through to resurrection.

 

We too hear a word of judgement from God's Resurrected Prophet (Acts 17:30).

We too are buried in Him (Romans 6:3-5).

And we are brought out beyond condemnation (Romans 8:1).

Christians note: God does many miraculous things in the book of Jonah.  At just the right time he appoints storms and fish and plants.  It's almost magical.  But there's one thing he refuses to do: He refuses to save Nineveh without a messenger.  Faith comes by hearing (Romans 10:17).

It doesn't matter if you're a bad messenger (Jonah's sermon left much to be desired).  It doesn't matter if you struggle with motivation (Jonah struggled with motivation).  As those brought through judgement, we have a message that can save - no matter how rubbish we messengers are!

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Audio 

 

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Published on 3 Comments on Acceptable Offerings

Here are stories of two saints approaching God with their offerings.

The first is narrated by a preacher, but I haven't been able to get an original source on the story.

When E. Stanley Jones was a teenager, he got into his Methodist Church midweek and wrote a list of all the things he would do for Jesus.  He took the list and laid it on the communion table as though it were an altar.  "This, my Lord Jesus, is what I will do for you."  He bowed before it.  Yet he felt no release, no sense of acceptance.  So he took the paper back and he wrote more things "I will give all my money to the poor, I will do this, I will do that for you Lord Jesus."  But, again, he felt a pregnant silence from heaven.  Then he burst into tears, took the list, screwed it up and threw it away.  He took a blank sheet of paper, laid it on the table and he said with knees knocking: "You write and I will do anything.  Whatever you write, I will do this for you."

That's one offering.

Here's another story of offering that starts out similar, yet the conclusion is very different.  It's from Horatius Bonar's Peace with God.

"I knew an awakened soul who, in the bitterness of his spirit, thus set himself to work and pray in order to get peace. He doubled the amount of his devotions, saying to himself, Surely God will give me peace. But the peace did not come. He set up family worship, saying, Surely God will give me peace. But the peace came not. At last he bethought himself of having a prayer-meeting in his house as a certain remedy. He fixed the night; called his neighbours; and prepared himself for conducting the meeting, by writing a prayer and learning it by heart. As he finished the operation of learning it, preparatory to the meeting, he threw it down on the table, saying, "Surely that will do, God will give me peace now." In that moment, a still small voice seemed to speak in his ear, saying, "No, that will not do; but Christ will do." Straightway the scales fell from his eyes, and the burden from his shoulders. Peace poured in like a river. "Christ will do," was his watchword for life."

Taste the difference.

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Published on 22 Comments on The law is holy, righteous and good

Grace-motivated, love-based Christian living.  Ahh, just listen to those phrases again: ... grace-motivated... love-based...

We all want to talk about a walk that's inspired by gratitude and which touches the heart.

And it is a beautiful, beautiful thing.  But just realise: it's law.  Pure unadulterated law.

The ten commandments begin with the LORD saying "You are my people, I saved you from slavery, now here's a life lived in response to my salvation."  The Israelites are God's son (Exodus 4:22).  He loves his son and so saves him out of darkness.  He then brings Israel to himself apart from any good merit on their part.  And he teaches them some house rules.  Think of the law as "family manners."  It outlines the life of the saved people.  It's a life lived out of gratitude for a gracious salvation.  And it's a life of love.  That's how Moses summarized it.  It's how Jesus summarized it (not to mention the Apostles also).  The law is grace-motivated, love-based living.

"But wait a minute," I hear you say.  "I thought the law was all about duty-driven externalism and now we are immersed in the fresh waters of the gospel.  I thought the new way was about gratitude and heart-felt devotion? Isn't that what makes it different?  Surely the old is about the will and duty and the new is about the heart and gratitude?"

Nope!

The old was about the heart and gratitude too.  The law has always been grace-motivated and heart-felt.

Oh!

So... what's the difference?

The difference is not "external versus internal."  The difference is "me versus HIM."

So then.  Dear Preacher, when you speak of the glories of our life as saved people do not imagine you have escaped legalism because now you're talking about a grace-motivated, heart-felt Christian walk.  Describing that life is quite simply "the law."  Now the law is holy, righteous and good!  It's wonderful.  Our hearts should thrill to hear of this outwardly focussed, joy-filled love of God and neighbour.  Yes, that is the good life.

But it's not my life.  It's the life of THE Son of God.  And I need Him given to me from the outside.  Given to me because I can't live out the law.  No matter how grateful I'm told to be or how heart-felt I'm supposed to feel.  I am a sinner and I need Jesus.

So, preacher, tell me of this wonderful life.  But then, when I'm despairing because I know it's not mine, tell me of Jesus.  Who lived it for me and who put my old failures to death.  Tell me He is given to me.  And leave me with gospel hope.

That is the job of the preacher

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Published on 2 Comments on Creation and Salvation: Irenaeus and Athanasius

Famously Adolf Von Harnack asserted in the History of Dogma that much of Christian theology betrayed the “work of the Greek spirit on the soil of the gospel.”  Now to be fair, the old liberal didn't have much gospel himself but the observation has something to it.

On the one hand we have the Scriptures beginning with a very good creation, full of promises of land and seed and a Saviour taking flesh to renew heaven and earth.  On the other we have a Hellenizing spirit which pits body and soul, earth and heaven, time and eternity against each other.   When this spirit meets this gospel - and Harnack was right, this is a perennial danger - it always yields bad fruit.

But in this series I want to look at two towering exceptions in the history of theology - Irenaeus and Athanasius.  In their day they resisted ‘the Greek spirit’ and called the church back to the fertile soil of the gospel.  There they found the Fountainhead of those unities which escaped the philosophers of this age.  In Jesus Christ they saw creation and salvation held together as one work performed by one Word.  And from there flowed a unified account of all reality.

In our own day we would do well to hear their voices.  Because we too find it completely obvious to fall for the old dualisms.

In the realm of the body, we see self-harm and eating disorders, promiscuity and confusion over sexual identity, compulsive dieting and body-building, cosmetic surgery and gender re-assignment.  These are problems commonly found in the world but also in our churches.  We seem deeply uncomfortable with our bodily existence.

In the realm of the environment, we see the extremes of those who simply consume the earth and those who worship it.

In worship there are the ritualists who consider their sacramental practice to work ex opere operato and there are the low church minimalists running scared from anything physical.

And theologically, as we consider the relationship of creation and redemption, some mistake political harmony, social justice or economic liberation for salvation.  In reaction, some cut loose creation from salvation with an anti-physical gospel and an escapist eschatology.  And some will dissolve any final distinction between creation and redemption and opt for universalism.

In view of this, the proper co-ordination of creation and redemption (and its attendant co-ordinations of body and soul, time and eternity, etc, etc) is a vital task for us all.

Irenaeus and Athanasius are going to help us massively.  And they will help because they put Jesus Christ at the centre of their thinking.

This is a repost.  The subsequent posts are here: part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7.

And here is Mike Reeves introducing Irenaeus and Athanasius - well worth a listen!

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Published on 2 Comments on Christ: Our Substitute and Representative

Here's a reboot of an older post...

Mike Reeves talks about Adam and Christ in these great audios on sin and evil.  Once we frame creation and salvation as the story of two men we see things much clearer.

For one thing we're able to honour Christ not only as Substitute but also as Representative.  And we need both.

You see Christ drinks the cup so that - in one sense - we don't have to (Mark 10:38).  But in another sense we do drink the cup He drinks and are baptised with the baptism with which He is baptised (Mark 10:39).  He does die for us so that we do not face that same judging fire - this is His substitution.  But we also die in Him, hidden in our Head and taken through the flames - this is His representation.

We tend to be good at 'substitution' talk but not so good at 'representation' talk.

I can think of a very prominent preacher who I greatly admire. Ordinarily he's excellent at preaching Paul.  But I've noticed that every time Paul speaks of "us being crucified with Christ", this preacher translates it as "Christ pays off our sins for us so completely, it's as if we ourselves died on the cross."

Do you hear what's happened?  Paul uses representation language, the preacher translates it into substitution language. Paul says "We died in him", the preacher doesn't seem to have a category for that, so he simply re-iterates the substitution motif: "He died for us."

Those two things are not the same.  And our lack of a category for "representation" thinking is a great loss.

Consider this fairly common way of conceiving salvation and judgement...

salvation-judgement1

Here the key players are the saved and the damned.  Christ is not in the picture.  But of course once we've set things up like this, Christ becomes extremely necessary.  Yet He's necessary in that the cross becomes the accounting tool required to balance the justice books.  Without the cross the system doesn't work.  So in that sense Christ is central.  But in effect, He's a peripheral figure only required because other factors are calling the shots.

When things are viewed like this, Christ is very much thought of as 'substitute' but not really 'representative'.  And, when the details are pressed, even His substitution will start to look very unlike the biblical portrait.

We need a better formulation.  We'll think of 1 Peter 4 and then tie this back to Adam and Christ.

In 1 Peter 4:17 it says that judgement begins with the house of God.  It doesn't say 'Judgement avoids the house of God.'  It begins there.  It begins with Christ, the true Temple of God.  It continues with the church, the temple of God in another sense.  But then it flows out to the world - God's house in yet another sense.

salvation-judgement2

Here humanity is judged.  And this is where Adam and Christ will be so helpful for us.

The LORD pronounces His curse on Adam.  And all humanity is in him.  "Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned." (Rom 5:12)  It is a universal judgement.  No exceptions.  The only path to salvation is the path through judgement.

But Adam is a type of the One to come (Rom 5:14).  He was only ever setting the scene for Christ to take centre stage.  And He does so, assuming the very humanity of Adam as substitute and representative.

salvation-judgement31

Here centre stage is not occupied by the two groups of people (the damned and the saved).  What's driving everything is the two humanities (Adam and Christ).  The former is expressly a type of the Latter.  And the Latter expressly assumes the fate of the former.  So that in all things Christ will have the preeminence! (Col 1:18)

These diagrams were originally used in a blog post on judgement and salvation in Isaiah and for a sermon on Isaiah 2:6-22 (listen here).

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Below I've listed 10 verses on union with Christ in His death.  Meditate on these verses - and reckon yourself dead to Adam, to the flesh, to sin, to wrath, to the law, the principalities and powers and to the world.  For the living, those powers exact a terrible penalty.  But you know what a corpse owes these things?  Absolutely jack squat.

#EnjoyYourDay:

All of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  (Romans 6:3-4)

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin... (Romans 6:11)

Our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with.  (Romans 6:6)

You died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to Another.  (Romans 7:4)

I was crucified with Christ and I no longer live.  (Galatians 2:20)

I belong to Christ and thus my flesh has been crucified.  (Galatians 5:24)

The world has been crucified to me and I to the world.  (Galatians 6:14)

 In Christ you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism.  (Colossians 2:11-12)

You died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world (Colossians 2:20)

You died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3)

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Published on 9 Comments on The importance of “union with Christ” in evangelism

I've been thinking about blind-spots in typical evangelistic presentations.

First I considered the dangers of overlooking Trinity in evangelism.  Then I discussed the evangelistic importance of original sin (the doctrine, not the term).

Finally, let's explore "union with Christ" (again, the doctrine, not necessarily the phrase).  Here's why it's crucial for union with Christ to be a major category of thinking as we evangelise...

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We offer a Person not a Package

The Gospel is God's offer of Christ.  Whatever blessings God might have for the world, they are all to be had "in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3ff).  Fundamentally God's gift is not a thing but a Him.  And what He desires from us is not stuff (we have no stuff worth offering anyway).  For some strange reason, God wants us. 

So the point of the gospel is not a transaction.  It's not like getting a mobile phone contract... you know the deal...  God offers a decent package, some nice extras and an easy payment plan.  We reach into our pocket and dredge up what's required.... no it's not that.

Yet so often I hear the gospel offered in terms of its fringe benefits - eternal fire-insurance, freedom from guilt feelings, a sense of Purpose in life... all for the low, low price of "repentance and faith."

In such presentations God's love is portrayed in contractual not covenant terms.  Which means God's love is not really portrayed.

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We can avoid licence and legalism

People are always saying “If you offer salvation freely it’s too dangerous, because people will just take salvation and then go off and sin all the time!”  I want to say, Wait, which salvation are you talking about?

So often people think of salvation a little bit like those old films set in the middle ages.  Imagine some Lord snootily throwing his bag of silver to a servant girl as payment for a job.  The servant grabs the money and runs off out of the palace to enjoy life with the silver – and without the Lord.

Now if that’s what salvation is, then of course its free offer will mean licence.  They'll take the heavenly blessings and run away from Jesus to enjoy themselves.

But what's the response?  Well the legalist feels they must rein in their gospel offers.  They refuse to offer a "blank cheque" willy nilly.  No, no, they only offer salvation to those who really, really are committed to turning their lives around and submitting everything to God. And probably they should mean it too.  Like, really mean it.

You can understand this approach.  It doesn't sound very much like Jesus' whole approach to gospelling, but you can understand it.  If you think that the gospel offer is stuff, then putting a price on it seems the natural thing to do.  But salvation is not a stuff!

Salvation is far more like the Lord who loves his miserable servant and marries her.  He gives her himself.  And now they are one forever.  That is a very free salvation isn’t it?  It’s a much more gracious salvation than the licentious have  dreamt of!  Immeasurably more is offered in this salvation.  And it’s offered completely freely.  The girl isn’t expected to pay a penny for the privilege.  But she’s not given some blessings which she can go and enjoy elsewhere.  She is given the Lord himself.

Does such an offer make the hearer more likely to sin?  Rubbish. It’s the only power to save someone from sin.  Give them Jesus.  And offer Him freely, because that’s the only kind of salvation He offers.

When we do, we'll avoid both legalism and licence.  Because the offer is not a package but a person.  Therefore the response is, unmistakably, the receiving of a Lord and Saviour.

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"Repentance and faith" are considered properly

As believers in "faith alone", do we have a place for "repentance"?

Is it some kind of pre-requisite for faith?  Or is it an obedience that we add to faith??  Do we call non-Christians to jump two hurdles, one called "repentance" and another called "faith"? That would be an odd position to adopt if we're "faith alone" people.

We've already said that "repentance and faith" are not our payment for gospel stuff.   Well then, what is "repentance and faith."

Well think of union with Christ.  He offers Himself to us like a Bridegroom to a bride.  He says "Be one with me."  If anyone receives Him, what have they done?  They've repented and believed.  Because they've received the LORD Jesus Christ as their Head in bonds of self-abandoning love.  There simply could not be a more all-embracing "repentance".

If the preacher makes clear that salvation is belonging to Jesus (and He to us), then many errors are avoided.  Our hearers won't be tempted to offer their repentance to Jesus as payment for salvation.  Nor should they despair that "they don't have it in them to repent."  They don't have it in them to repent.  New life does not lie in their resolve.  It's in Jesus.  And He's offered to them, even in all their helplessness.  Yet clearly, to receive Jesus is to receive a new life.

 

We do not offer repentance to God as a condition of our salvation.  We are summoned to repentance in the gospel because this is the very nature of life "in Christ".

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We have a gospel that applies to Christians as well as non-Christians

Think of the “Get out of hell free” gospel.  Imagine that you've been evangelised by this and coughed up the requisite response (walking down an aisle and resolving to believe in substitutionary atonement, or whatever).  That gospel is not particularly helpful to me day to day, is it?  At one point, it helped me to get off the judgement hook, but now, I’m basically left to myself until heaven.  Which means "the gospel" and day-to-day living have no real relationship.

I need the gospel to get saved, but I need wisdom and hard work to get by, day to day.

Maybe a little "gospel-law" preacher will come and remind me not to take the mick and to try and be godly.  But their exhortations don't really arise from the gospel, do they?

Once I've trusted such a gospel, it has served its purpose.  It's not for me any more.  It's for unbelievers.

But if "union with Christ" is in view, that's like saying "the wedding ceremony" was everything, I don't need marriage day-to-day.  Bonkers.

The real gospel is Christ graciously given to me in the nitty gritty of my life, for better and for worse.  Which means it bears on everything.  

Which is good because the world rarely asks the question “What must I do to be saved?”  But our friends and family are constantly asking “How do I raise my kids?  How do I handle my anger?  What do I do about these panic attacks?  How could I possibly forgive that person?  Why is marriage so difficult?  What’s the way forward in this family breakdown?  How do I handle this bullying boss?  How can I cope when my dreams are shattered?  Why does food enslave me?  How can I be free of these addiction?  What’s wrong with me?”

The world is asking all of these questions all of the time.  These are the problems of a world that’s condemned already (see previous post).  This is part of the hell on earth that Jesus spoke about.  But Jesus also has a salvation for here and now.  The gospel also brings light and freedom into these pastoral situations.

Which means we can gospel people through pastoral problems and we can bring pastoral healing through the gospel.  The more we grasp this, the more effective we’ll be in gospelling.  Which brings us finally to...

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Ordinary Christians might just realise that they too can evangelise.

If the gospel is a package deal, then it needs sales people.  And, to be honest, the package that most evangelistic presentations offer is so unappealing it really would take a special class of Christian communicator to make it attractive.  You’ve got to have a very good patter in order to sell a package of heavenly blessings.  (Especially if that package is basically: Bow to the Big Guy or burn forever).

But what if, what if, what if.... we offer a Person.  Jesus.

This is what’s helped me most in my own evangelism:  realising I’m not selling some gospel benefits, I’m offering a Person.  Jesus sells Himself.  I don’t need a hundred illustrations and some cracking mother-in-law gags and the gift of the gab.  I just have to talk about Jesus and let His magnetism do the job.

We’re offering a Person, not a mechanism of salvation.  We’re saying – “This is Jesus, let me paint Him in biblical colours for you, let me tell you that I love Him and why, let me tell you what He has done for me, let me tell you my favourite things about Him.  This is Jesus – do you want Him?  He’s yours, have Him.  Receive Him, He’s offered Himself to you, take Him now.’  That’s evangelism.  In a deep sense, that all of what evangelism is.  Just. Talk. About. Jesus.

And if the words don't come then guess what, it's not because "you're not a professional evangelist".  Words often fail me too.  You know why?  Cos I'm weak.  Cos nothing good lives in my flesh.  Cos I'm a sinner.  And if I haven't been receiving from Jesus, the Fountain of Living Waters, then of course the words will dry up.  Because I'm dry.

So then, return to the Source.  Get filled.  Receive again from Jesus, our Heavenly Husband, who loves us in spite of ourselves.  And then the words will come.  Feebly and falteringly.  But genuinely.  Because from the overflow of the heart the mouth will speak. (Matthew 12:34).

And as everyday people lift Him up in everyday circumstances, He will draw all people to Himself.  But it begins by realising this: the gospel's not a package, He's a Person.

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Those are some reasons why "union with Christ" is a vital component of our gospel explanations...

So there you have it.  Three blind-spots in modern evangelism: the trinity, original sin and union with Christ.  If only we had a gospel explanation that gave them proper attention... perhaps one that was easy to memorise and share with friends... And maybe there could be a snazzy video presentation.  And a website with further explanations.  Maybe some tracts.  Heck, why not a book?  A cheap and cheery paperback - a give-away for friends.  One that laid it all out simply... that'd be nice.

i f   o n l y  .   .   .     i   f      o    n    l     y    .        .          .

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