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Tag: gospel

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Published on 4 Comments on Beautiful Stranger

Have you ever read Revelation 19 and wondered what it sounds like to hear "the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, "Hallelujah!""?

Last night I found out at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, Swansea.  At their prayer meeting their singing raised the roof. I've never heard anything like it. It gave a new meaning to the phrase "prayer warriors." So encouraging.

Steve Levy hosted, Paul Blackham was answering questions from the church and I was tagging along for the ride. One issue that really seemed to connect with the folks was that of Jesus, the Good Samaritan. So I thought I'd repost this one from 2008...

Jesus is Good Samaritan

Anyone else sick of the whole 'Christ in the OT' debate?  Man... some people just go on and on.

I'm announcing a new hobby horse - Christ in the NT.  In fact I think this is where you really see a preacher's Christ-centredness.  We've had the rule drummed into us by now - Thou shalt 'bridge to Christ' at the end of an Old Testament sermon.  But does this 'bridge' come from convictions regarding Jesus the Word or is it simply a preaching convention that we slavishly follow?

Well you can probably guess at the answer by listening to a preacher's New Testament sermons.  Now I fail at this all the time but I think the challenge for all of us is this: Is Jesus the Hero of the sermon on the mount or Mark 13 or the gifts passages or James?  And the issue for this mini-series - what about the parables?

Last time I looked at Matthew 13:44-46.  Who the man?  Jesus the Man.  He seeks and finds us and in His joy He purchases us.  All praise to Him.  As Piper likes to say 'the Giver gets the glory' and in this parable (contra Piper's own interpretation of it) Jesus' glory is on show as He gives up all for His treasured possession - the church.

In this post we'll look briefly at the Good Samaritan: Luke 10:25-37

First notice this: the teacher of the law asks 'Who is my neighbour?'  That's what prompts the story.  At the end of the story Jesus asks 'Who was neighbour to the guy left for dead?' (v36).

This is such an important point to grasp.  The lawyer asks "Who is my neighbour?"  Jesus responds: "Who was a neighbour to the fallen man?" Get it?

Who does Jesus ask us, first of all, to identify with?  Not  the priest, the Levite or the Samaritan. First of all we are asked to see ourselves as the fallen man.

Why do I say 'fallen'?  Well the man's fallenness is triply-underlined in v30.  He "goes down" from Jerusalem (this earthly counterpart of the heavenly Zion).  From there he heads towards the outskirts of the land (Jericho) which is due east of this mountain sanctuary (echoes of Eden).  This would involve a physical descent of about a thousand metres in the space of just 23 miles.  If that wasn't bad enough, the man "falls" among robbers.  He's stripped, plagued (literally that's the Greek word), abandoned and half-dead.  That's the man's precidament and Jesus wants us to see it as our predicament.  So what hope do we have?

The priest?  Nope.  The Levite?  No chance.  The religious and the law are no help. What about a 'certain Samaritan' (mirroring the 'certain man' of v30)?  He's not at all like the religious.  In fact the one who 'comes to where the man is' happens to be someone who would have equally been shunned by the priest and the Levite!

Yet this Samaritan 'had compassion' (v33).  In the New Testament this verb, which could be translated 'was moved in his bowels with pity', is used only of Jesus. (Matt. 9:36; 14:14; 15:32; 18:27; 20:34; Mk. 1:41; 6:34; 8:2; 9:22; Lk. 7:13; 10:33; 15:20) In every narrative passage Jesus is the subject of the verb and the three parables in which it's used are the merciful King of Matthew 18 (v27), here and the father in the Two Sons (Lk 15:20).  More about that in the next post: Who's the Daddy?

Well this Good Samaritan comes across the man left for dead and, for emphasis, we are twice told about him 'coming' to the man (v33 and 34).  The Outsider identifies with the spurned and wretched.

Now remember whose shoes we are in as Jesus tells this story.  We are meant to imagine ourselves as this brutalized man.  Now read v34:

He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own beast, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. `Look after him,' he said, `and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'

Now I don't have to tell you what these things mean.  You've got blueletterbible - you can do your own biblical theology of oil (hint: The Spirit) and wine (His blood).  You all know that a denarius is a day's wage (Matthew 20:2) and therefore the Samaritan will be returning on the third day.

And remember you're meant to be putting yourself in the position of this fallen man, left for dead, unaided by religion, healed by a beautiful stranger and awaiting his return.  Are you there?  Have you felt those depths and appreciated those heights?  Well then, now:

You go and do likewise. (v37)

Don't first conjure up the character of the Good Samaritan.  First, be the fallen man.  First experience his compassion and healing.  Then go and do likewise.

Or... leave Jesus out of it.  Spin it as a morality tale and end with: "Who was that masked man? No matter - just go and do likewise."

See how important 'Jesus in the NT' is?

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And check out this preacher as he nails Jesus: the Good Samaritan

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=d5Mr4UUYetw]

I was like a wounded man

Jesus came all the way down.

On a Friday evening, He died on a Roman cross

Early one Sunday morning He got up

How many of you believe – He got up?

Thank You, for being a Good Samaritan

Thank You, You didn’t have to do it

Thank You, for taking my feet out of the miry clay,

Thank You, for setting them on the rock

Thank you, for saving me,

Thank You, for binding up my wounds

Thank You, for healing my wounds

Thank You, for fighting my battles

Did He pick you up?

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Published on 1 Comment on Condemned already [repost]

gavelJohn 3:18 is emphatic - humanity is condemned already for its unbelief in Jesus.  The verdict is already handed down, the sentence is already passed, the human race is already lost.  The gavel has fallen, court is adjourned.  There's no higher Judge, no appeals process, no loopholes, no going back, no ifs, no buts.  Condemned.  Perfectly, completely, irreversibly condemned.

Are you human?  Are you flesh and blood?  Then you are condemned.  Condemned already.

You want a retrial?  Stiff bickies, as they say in Australia.

But let me tell you why it's good news that we're condemned already.

It means I'm not crushed under the weight of determining my eternity!  I don't stand at a crossroads with heaven and hell depending on my wise and moral choices.  Neither am I walking a tightrope - one wrong step and I plunge to my doom.  No, no.  Thank God the pressure's off.  I'm condemned already.

It means that none of my past sins have condemned me to hell and none of my future sins ever can.  That betrayal, that abortion, that infidelity, those years of rebellion will not take me to hell.  My sins and my works just don't have that power.  They don't even come into this equation.  They are only the fruit of a condemned tree, the symptoms of a condemned condition.  Reality is, I'm condemned already.

It means that both the problem and the solution lies in the realm of my being not of my doing.  I'm not expected to summon up the strength for a 5-point plan of salvation.  All that nonsense is irrelevant.  I'm condemned already.

It means I don't need to worry about judgement day as though that will have the decisive word on my destiny.  Judgement day is not about presenting my good works or my right confession of faith (as though we'll be in the queue nervously rehearsing our confession "Please let me in because of the blood of Jesus shed for me").  Nothing hangs in the balance. And no-one hangs in the balance. Judgement day will only confirm what we are and therefore what we have chosen.

It means that hell is God's pronouncement upon those who remain in unbelief: 'have it your way.'

And it means that Jesus is my only hope.  There's nothing in me that's not sunk in perdition.  Therefore my eyes are taken off myself.  I must look to a Saviour completely outside myself because I'm condemned already.

In evangelism it means that we do not address religious consumers with their capacities for choice.  Instead we address condemned criminals with news of a pardon.  We do not treat unbelievers as mighty decision-makers with eternity in their hands.  They are lost.   And we do not preach judgement simply as something hanging over them but as something in which they are already sunk.

Do you think we give enough emphasis to the already-ness of humanity's condemnation?

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Published on 15 Comments on “God’s work and our work”?

division of laboutI was recently asked by a church to speak to the topic "Evangelism: God's work and our work."  They suggested I speak from 2 Corinthians 4.  This combination of title and passage has a great pedigree.  I first encountered it as part of the excellent evangelism training of Christianity Explored.  I think it can trace its roots back through John Chapman to JI Packer - all of these guys are heroes of mine.

I've learnt hugely about evangelism from all these sources.  And I don't know nothing about nothing... but if people are wanting to know foundationally about the evangelistic task, I wouldn't start with "God's work and our work".  And it's not because of the teaching of these men.  Far more it's because of how this idea might be understood and executed in our circles.  Let me explain.

Here's the passage:

Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart.2 Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:1-6)

Here we're told of the spiritual battle involved in gospel preaching.  Satan - the god of this age - has veiled and blinded the world.  That's a fearful fact!  What should we do?  Preach!  How?  It should be persevering, honest, above-board, undistorted, plain, servant-hearted, truth-telling.  All those adjectives are vital and precious.  But I wonder what we think is the "truth" that needs plainly setting forth?

Verse 3 and 4 explicitly name this truth as the gospel.  And verse 5 describes it as preaching "Christ Jesus the LORD" (cf KJV).  It's about proclaiming the good news of the Lord Jesus.  In other words it's doing exactly what Paul says he does in chapter 5, namely: persuade people, proclaim the new creation in Jesus, be Christ's ambassador, make God's appeal, implore unbelievers, minister God's reconciliation.  Paul's whole ministry is to urgently deliver the good news of God's reconciliation.

Paul's idea of truth-telling is to proclaim the good news!  But it seems to me that Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 4 can be taken out of context.  Where Paul urges us to plainly set forth the gospel, an out-of-context look at the passage might leave us with a different take-home message: "Just be plain."

At that point it's easy to imagine that "plain truth-speaking" is about being unpopular yet uncompromising.  This is no-one's fault, it's just the connotations that spring to mind in our day and age.  Truth = cold, hard and uncomfortable.  Those are the associations we bring to the word.  But if we divide the roles of evangelism into 'life-giving' (God's work) and 'non-life-giving' (our work), a preacher might feel justified in not offering "life", mightn't they?  They might see their role as purely laying down bible truths, mightn't they?  Is that a potential danger?  I think it is.

Having taught a division of labour, is it possible that a preacher hears this teaching and then sets about the business of (cold, hard) truth-telling, absolving themselves of the responsibility to offer life?  Is that possible?  I'm not saying that any evangelism trainer wants to give this impression, but might this be what's heard by the trainee?

But Paul is not saying: Preach truth in the abstract.  He's just been writing against that kind of preaching:

God has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant – not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2 Corinthians 3:6)

Paul goes on to attack the ministry of condemnation he sees peddled by the super-apostles (3:7-18).  It's not just that these guys are boasters and getting rich, there's a deeper theological problem with them.  They're basically old covenant preachers, laying down the law.  Paul is very upset about preachers who merely give "truth" in an abstract sense.  The law is truth.  Yet simply preaching law kills your hearers.

So Paul says he's involved in a different kind of ministry: the ministry of justification (v7-18).  And Paul's ministry is life-giving.  He doesn't think he's treading on God's toes, getting into 'the life-giving game'.  No, God has invited him into 'the life-giving game' and so he's devoted to the ministry that God has entrusted to him (5:18).  True apostolic preaching, new covenant preaching, is that by which the Spirit turns people to Christ.  And in Him there is revelation, freedom and life. (3:6-18)

Therefore this is the relentless gospel truth which Paul will preach no matter what (4:1-6).  He's not telling us - "hurl truth at people and God may choose to make it life-giving!"  He's telling us "Preach the gospel of Jesus because that's where the powerful Spirit of God brings life!"  God shines His light (4:6) precisely in and through the preaching of Jesus.  Thus preachers should single-mindedly devote themselves to the plain proclamation of the gospel.

I'm really looking forward to speaking on evangelism at this church.  And I'm really looking forward to doing it from 2 Corinthians.  But I'm not going to use the title "God's work and our work."  Because even if this isn't the intention, I think it teaches an unhelpful division of labour: we do our bit - "be plain".  God does His bit - "shine His light".

This division of labour becomes even more unhelpful when it's thought of in terms of the 'natural' and the 'super-natural' elements of evangelism.  If it's spun like that, we're instantly thinking in Enlightenment categories.  We're down here doing the 'natural' business of speaking truth.  God's up there doing a different job: super-naturally zapping people with life (or not).  The zapping is kind of connected with the 'natural' truth telling: God only zaps when the truth-telling happens.  But apart from that, there's not much connection between 'what we do' and 'what God does.'  Not in our thinking anyway.

Let me be clear: None of the people I've mentioned teach these kinds of implications or want to teach them in a million years.  I'm just wondering aloud about how the concept of a "division of labour" plays out further down stream.  I wonder whether preachers in our tradition thereby feel freed from an obligation to preach gospel truth.  Instead we might feel justified in simply preaching "truth."  Safe in the knowledge that God will zap when and where he chooses, the urgency to preach the gospel fades.  Instead, many might 'lay down the law' and pray that God would save anyway.  That couldn't be further from Paul's intention and yet I wonder whether some look to 2 Corinthians 4 as justification to "be biblical" in some abstract sense. But if we're not careful, 'being biblical' in the abstract becomes "preaching the letter."  At that point we don't just have a division of labour - we're working at cross purposes!  We're killing but praying that God gives life through our death-dealing words.

In Paul's thinking there's a massive connection between our preaching and God's activity.  In fact I don't think Paul teaches a division of labour.  Right here in chapter 4 Paul says that it's the gospel that reveals Christ, the Image of God.  The gospel we preach is doing what God does - ie it reveals Christ.  Even here it would be very hard to draw a line between "God's job" and ours.  And when we turn the page to chapter 5... well our work is simply to be God's workers, and God's work is explicitly entrusted to us.

According to 2 Corinthians 5, God has committed to us His ministry of reconciliation!  We are Christ's ambassadors.  We implore on His behalf!  God actually makes His appeal through us! (The ESV of 2 Cor 5:20 is correct, not the obfuscating NIV translation which inserts "as though").  God is imploring the world through us.  Gospel preaching is the ministry of God's Spirit, spotlighting Christ, bringing life.  To think in Romans 1 terms - the gospel is not sometimes infused with the power of God for salvation. The gospel is the power of God for salvation.  Meditate on that "is" - it will change the way you think about preaching.

We must speak the truth: persistently, honestly, plainly, servant-heartedly, without dilution or distortion.  And this truth is God's radiant, life-giving gospel which reveals His glory in the face of Christ.  To a blinded world, God shines in no other way.  So don't compromise: preach the gospel.

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Published on 39 Comments on What is sin? Falling short? Rebellion? Something else?

know_god_1What is the essence of sin?

In some evangelistic presentations it's all about falling short.  God demands perfection.  We do our best - some more so than others - but none of us reach God's standard.  And that's sin.  Essentially.

Within such a framework it seems that the effort to earn salvation is laudable.  What's sinful is precisely our failure to establish a righteousness of our own.  I hope I don't need to spell out the problem here!

Other presentations try to go a bit deeper and get to the attitude of the heart.  That's certainly preferable to a behaviouristic definition.  So in these presentations sin is the rebellious spirit we display towards God.

It's climbing onto the throne of your life

It's stealing the crown for yourself

It's shaking your puny fist in the face of God

It's saying "Shove off God, I'm in charge, No to your rule"

self throne

Here sin is basically self-rule as opposed to submission to God.

I'm not doubting for a second that these statements of rebellion describe sinful attitudes.  But are they describing the essence of sin?  Is this what sin is at its root?

Before we think about it theologically, just think of it practically.  Don't such definitions of sin strike you as quintessentially western?  Don't they seem particularly aimed at the children of the Enlightenment, rather than the children of Adam more generally?  I mean...

What do you say to the Iranian refugee working his fingers to the bone, sending back every penny to the family, seeking no identity of his own but in constant fear of what his community thinks?

And even in the West...

What do you say to the woman serially abused by the terrible men she invites into her life?

What do you say to the drug addict whose only remaining desire is the hell-bent drive to throw his life away?

What do you say to the down-trodden mother who's completely lost herself in her family?

What do you say to the self-harmer consumed by self-loathing?

All these people are sinners.  But is their sin best captured by a definition of "self-rule"?  Surely not.

If you want to convict people of sin, "rebellion" will speak to a good number of teens and to many confident, middle class go-getters.  But it completely misses the Muslim, the mother and the meth-head.

So practically "self-rule" doesn't work as a definition (unless you want to confine yourself to youth work and ministry among western, middle class professionals.  But no-one wants to limit their ministry so narrowly, right?  Right??)

But besides its practical failures, the position is theologically untenable.

To characterise our sin as basically self-rule is far too flattering a picture of human nature.  Biblically speaking we are dominated subjects in Satan's kingdom (Ephesians 2:1-3).  We are captives in the strong man's house (Mark 3:27).  We are helpless slaves to sin (John 8:34).  We are whores besotted with terrible lovers (Ezekiel 16).  We are sheep following after bad shepherds (Ezekiel 34).  We are thirsty beggars drinking from broken wells (Jeremiah 2:13-14).  We are lost and must be found (Luke 15). We are snake-bitten and need healing (John 3:14f).  We are dead and need raising (John 5:24f).  We are famished and need Bread (John 6).

Our problem is not that we are little kings and queens, ruling our miniature kingdoms!  Our problem is - as Luther has said - we are beasts ridden either by the devil or God.  We don't stand between Christ and Adam, sovereignly choosing who we will emulate.  We stand in Christ and/or in Adam.  Our destiny is determined by their choices not ours.  In other words we have not climbed onto the throne of our lives!  Someone is already on the throne - and it's not us!

It is of course foolish and blasphemous if someone declares themselves the captain of their soul and master of their fate.  But such a "declaration of independence" is not the essence of their sin.  Because in fact no such independence exists.

Our problem, most basically, is not that we are competing sovereigns with Christ.  Our problem is that we are subjects in the wrong kingdom.  Now obviously, some subjects have delusions of grandeur, fine.  But A) let's not agree with their delusions but unmask their true condition and B) let's realise that there are many, many subjects who make no pretence of self-rule.  But they share in the same problem and qualify for the same solution.  We are not rulers, we are ruled.  The only question is, By whom?

Think about the beginning and end of the bible: One powerful perspective on the fall is to see it as man's abdication!  I'm not saying this is my bedrock definition of sin but I can't help thinking that Adam should have ruled more in Genesis 3.  A kingly edict rather than an impotent silence might have saved us a lot of trouble!

And at the end of the bible, we're not looking forward to man getting off the throne.  Precisely the opposite.  Salvation involves being invited onto the throne, to rule with Christ (Revelation 3:21).

The "gospel" of submission ends with the challenge "Get off the throne".  Isn't it pause for thought that the bible finishes with "Get onto the throne"?

What's gone wrong with the "gospel" of submission?  Well it begins with a monadic doctrine of  God (more here).  And it continues with a definition of sin as rebellion against the Almighty.  Such a definition doesn't work practically and it doesn't work theologically.  Certainly we are rebels. But sin as rebellion will capture only some of our hearers and only part of the story.

In John 16, Jesus actually gives us a definition of sin.  He tells us why His Spirit will convict the world of sin.  What is the bottom line for humanity?

They do not believe in me.  (John 16:9)

The world has not received Jesus (believing = receiving cf. John 1:12).  This is the world's great evil, for which it is rightly condemned (John 3:18, 36). Humanity has refused the Fountain of Living Waters and, before it has dug any of its own broken wells, it has first refused to receive from the Giving God (Jeremiah 2:13-14).  For more on Jeremiah 2 see here but note that every instance of idolatry is in fact secondary. Originally we forsake Christ's Gift, then we "look for love in all the wrong places."

Our great treachery and our great tragedy is our disconnection from God.  In Him we live and move and have our being.  And yet we don't know Him!  Not naturally.  How can this be!?  How can we be estranged from Him who is our life?  But we are.  We don't want Him.  We're dying of thirst, drinking from every other poisonous well in the desert, but refusing His life and love.  This is our problem.  And therefore, having defined our problem thus, the solution should be obvious... We have refused Christ, we must receive Him.  This makes sense once we have defined sin properly.

But if sin is fundamentally "self-rule" then Christ becomes sidelined in salvation.  He may be important for taking the punishment which rebels deserve, but the real work of reversing the sin-problem remains in our hands.  If the problem is self-rule then the solution is submission.  And thus, in this kind of evangelism, the "business end" of proceedings is not Christ and His self-emptying but us and ours.

And the irony is this - when self-rule is defined as the problem we are thrust into the centre of the gospel.  Suddenly, we are not lost, enslaved, needy beggars.  We are bold, self-directed rulers who happen to be misusing our powers.  And so the evangelist treats the hearers as free sovereigns who need to rule wisely.  Now they need to choose salvation rather than damnation.  So the evangelist (maybe) speaks of a redemption by Christ, but it can never come across as the central act.  If the sinner is on the throne then Jesus might command, cajole, and "clear the path", but He can't actually do the saving.  It's all down to the sovereign chooser.  And if they decide to submit we can all praise... um... them.  We can praise them for avoiding the punishment due to rebels.  Of course now they no longer are rebels.  They have made themselves subjects and solved the whole self-rule problem.  All through the exercise of their... um... their self-rule.

The whole position is riddled with contradictions.  You'd think that a "gospel" of submission would attack pride wouldn't you?  Actually it fuels pride.  Horrifically.  The power of the sinner, their wisdom in choosing, their piety in submitting - all these things come centre-stage when sin is defined as rebellion.  In other words, such a gospel does not exclude but excites "boasting in the flesh".  And all the while it fails to reach the sinners who know that they are lost - the "sick" for whom the Doctor actually came!

For more on a true definition of sin, see Mike Reeves' two talks

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Published on 3 Comments on Irrevocable but not irredeemable [repost]

Every year Eastbourne hosts a major airshow called Airbourne.  The F-16 fly-pasts rattle your fillings loose and make your bowels shudder. People either love that kind of stuff or hate it.  I think it's beyond awesome.

One time I was down at the seafront watching the show with a friend and the Red Arrows came on - the Royal Air Force's display team.  They were extremely impressive and we were oo-ing and ah-ing until they did their trademark love heart formation.  Over the tannoy they dedicated it to some member of their publicity team.

"Cute" I thought.

"Idiot!" said my friend.

Huh?

"Idiot!!  Oh you idiot, you idiot, you total moron!"

"What's the matter?"

"The dedication!!  I was supposed to ask them whether they'd dedicate the love-heart to my parents!  It's their 40th wedding anniversary.  I was supposed to ask them and I forgot."

"Oh" I said, my keen pastoral insight shining through.

To be honest there was nothing to say.  His father spent his life in the RAF.  It was their ruby wedding anniversary.  They were also at the seafront listening to the same commentary.  His mother had asked him that morning to make the request as a surprise for his dad.

He remembered many things about his parent's anniversary that day.  But this one task slipped his mind.  A simple mistake to make.  But there was no taking it back.  The moment had completely passed - an irrevocable error.

And boy did I feel for him.

Because life is made up of irrevocable errors.  The deadline passes, the door closes, the opportunity vanishes.  The words have left your mouth, the email has been sent, the damage has been done.  And there's no getting it back.

Of course the temptation is then to wallow in regret.  We go over the mistake again and again, turning back the clock in our minds as though we could somehow reverse the mistake through remorse.

But there is no getting the toothpaste back into the tube.  Because God has designed the world in just this way.

He drives Adam and Eve out of paradise and determines that humanity must journey on to the city, not back to the garden.

He calls Abraham out of Ur and never back.

It's one-way traffic through the Red Sea - they are coming out of Egypt, never to return.

It turns out that the curses and blessings of the covenant are discrete phases the people must pass through - first the judgement, then blessings on the other side.

They don't avert judgement by cleaning up their act but bow their head to the coming exile.

Christ doesn't avoid but passes through death to resurrection, calling His people to likewise take up their crosses.

Death then resurrection and no resurrection without death.

The very passage of time marks the relentless forward motion of the God of hope - the Redeemer God who is always moving on.

Through every stage of life - in every moment even - the Lord shuts the door behind us and beckons us forwards.

Of course we don't like moving on.  We'd rather go back over our mistakes and redeem them ourselves.  We'd prefer to recapitulate our fallen humanity rather than allowing Christ to do it.  Our regret is a kind of mental salvation by works. But it's futile and faithless.

Instead we ought to be resurrection people.  Those who know that redemption lies ahead, on the other side of these one-way gateways.  We look to the Lord who will restore to us the years the locust has eaten (Joel 2:25).  But restoration is not in our hands and it's not in the past.  It's in the Lord's hands and we receive it in the future.

Therefore we are prisoners of hope.  We must live by a forward looking faith in the redeeming Lord, leaving restoration in His hands and moving forward through countless points of no return.

Life is full of the irrevocable.  The Lord wants it that way.  So often the irrevocable makes us wallow in regret.  Yet the very opposite should be the case.  The door has been locked behind us and we should stop banging on it.  Instead we are beckoned forwards towards resurrection, knowing that life may consist in the irrevocable but that nothing is irredeemable.  And for those in Christ, all things will be.

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Published on 11 Comments on Why does faith save? [repost]

Why is it that faith saves?  What's so special about faith that it brings such benefits?

Because here's how the whole deal is usually set up:

First we insist that God does not save us by our works.  No sir, we believe in 'justification by faith alone.'  Therefore it's not that God is armed with a clipboard and some binoculars waiting for an external moral act in order to flick the 'justification' switch.  How ridiculous.  No, no.  Instead we imagine God (with clipboard and brain scanner) eagerly seeking for a certain mental act within us.  And then He'll zap righteousness into our account.

Yeah.  That's much more reformed...

But honestly, for many, that is the doctrine of justification by faith alone in a nut-shell.

Yet for the thoughtful who've been reared on such teaching it raises big questions.  Like, why faith?  Is it just that 'faith' keeps us humble and God simply wants to remind everyone who's Boss?  In which case why give us Christ's righteousness at all?  Why not just leave us in a sort of righteousness limbo forever - that'd keep us humble right?  And what's the link between this act of mental assent and that imputation of saving stuff??  It all seems so arbitrary.

And it would be completely arbitrary so long as we keep Christ out of the discussion.  But once Jesus is central - and by that I mean the Person of Jesus (not just the Provider of a Perfect Righteousness) - then things start to fall into place.

Because faith is receiving Jesus Himself (John 1:10-12).  He gives Himself to the world in life and death, He pledges Himself to us (marriage style) in the gospel.  When we hear the gospel rightly we are swept off our feet by such a proposal and find ourselves saying "Yes."   That is faith.  And by faith we are united to Christ.  In that union we have our salvation because salvation is all in Jesus.

So there's nothing at all arbitrary about the connection between faith and salvation.  Because there's nothing arbitrary about the link between a marriage vow and marriage union. Once we are united to Christ by faith, then of course we instantly have His name, His wealth, His family connections.  Of course then instantly we have the righteousness of Christ imputed.  But it's not an impersonal imputation in response to an impersonal faith!

Justification by faith alone does not mean "being zapped simply because of mental assent."  But we'll never get that unless we put union with Christ at the centre.

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6

Published on 6 Comments on 321 and Repentance (part two)

This post is continued from here.

I've been pleased that, in the last month, the 321 video has been shared so widely.  It's meant that I've been able to interact online with a handful of people who have raised questions about the presentation.  I'd say the reservation people have had is this: "Where's repentance?"  In fact it's pretty much the only objection I've heard so far.

I was bracing myself for Trinitarian discussions. I was gearing up to present robust defences of Adam's historicity.  None of that has come up.  Yet.

But a good 8 or 10 times someone has said "This is a deficient gospel because there's no summons to repent."

There are a number of ways to respond to this.  One is simply to say "This is only a 5 minute summary.  You can't say everything."

Another is to say "the word 'repent' is not magic.  John's Gospel, for one, gets along fine without it."

Another is to say: "Repentance is not, properly speaking, a part of the good news.  The good news is the announcement of Jesus - His dying, rising, enthronement and return.  The gospel is not about us, it's about Him.  Repentance is the response to the good news."

Those things are true and they need saying at some point.  But in most cases I've responded with a question of my own.  Roughly speaking I've asked "Since 321 presents humanity as lost in Adam with no spiritual life in ourselves and no ability to produce life... and since the new life is presented as coming entirely from beyond us in Jesus... and since the new life of Jesus is presented as an all-embracing, marriage-like oneness with Jesus... what does the command to "be one with Jesus" lack which using the word "repent" would add?"

I've asked that kind of question many times but I've not yet received an answer.  So let me ask it more generally...

If we proclaim the renunciation of self in Adam and the receiving of new life in Christ, what more do we want in our definition of repentance?

I know that no-one in these discussions wants to question salvation by "faith alone." But I do fear that - in wanting something more - 'faith alone' is exactly what's in jeopardy.

In some evangelistic presentations I see a desire to present salvation as a discrete series of steps.  There tend to be a sling of synonyms made into stages.  The unbeliever is told to confess and profess and turn and surrender and trust and repent and submit and admit and believe and commit and do.  It's not the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church.  It's more stream-lined than that.  And it's about internal, mental hoops to jump through.  But still, so often it's a system we offer to people rather than the simplicity of offering the Son.

Have you ever heard a "close the deal" evangelistic talk in which Jesus Himself is not presented or offered? Perhaps the preacher has simply piled up illustration upon illustration - "There's a line... cross the line.  Jesus has given you a cheque... bank the cheque.  In the Matrix there's a red pill and a blue pill... which pill will you take?" What might begin as a call to "simply trust Jesus" becomes an exhortation to adopt this attitude or that, this resolution or that, and then...  Well the thing is, when repentance is this discrete thing then the sinner who repents is only really left with their discrete repentance.  They've "made the step", or whatever, but they're in great danger of leaving the meeting with a resolution not a redeemer.

All of which is to say - Offer Christ.  The new life is in Him.  And if a non-Christian hears this offer and says "I'm not sure I have it in me to repent", tell them:

"You definitely don’t have it in you. But God has given it to you in Jesus. Have Him!"

9

Published on 9 Comments on 321 and Repentance (part one)

This is part of a series exploring the interaction of 321 and the four events which more commonly organise an evangelistic presentation.  We've had

--  321 and Creation

--  321 and Fall

--  321 and Redemption

Now we'll consider 321 and Repentance.

You'll notice that I'm not considering Creation, Fall, Redemption and Consummation.  More properly those are the four gospel events - all four resting in God's hands.  I'm considering "repentance" rather  than "consummation" simply because the evangelistic presentations with which we're familiar tend to finish with our work not God's.  And perhaps that's significant!  We'll see.

Today we'll examine repentance according to 3, 2 and 1.  Tomorrow we'll draw out some implications...

How does 3 shape our understanding of repentance?

Trinity means that God is Giver (see here).  Therefore the Fall is a failure to receive from the giving God (see here).  What then will repentance involve?  Well it can't involve a summoning up of religious resolve!  It can't be the determination of the sinner to "get serious" and start making up the missed payments.  That kind of self-will is virtually the essence of sin!

No, repentance with the triune God means receiving the gift of the Son.  The Father has given Christ to the world (John 3:16).  The new life is not in us - it's in Jesus (1 John 5:11).  Repentance - the new life we must have - is a gift of the Father, present in the Son, offered by the Spirit (Acts 5:31; Acts 11:18; 2 Timothy 2:25).

How does 2 shape our understanding of repentance?

Adam cannot repent.  Adam can only perish.  This is a vital point to grasp and Edward Fisher in The Marrow of Modern Divinity expressed it well in dialogue form:

-- I conceive that repentance consists in a man's humbling himself before God, and sorrowing and grieving for offending him by his sins, and in turning from them all to the Lord.

-- And would you have a man to do all this truly before he come to Christ by believing?

-- Yea, indeed, I think it is very meet he should.

-- Why, then, I tell you truly, you would have him to do that which is impossible.

According to Paul, the unbeliever is dead in transgressions and sins and bound to Satan (Eph 2:1-3).  No exercise of moral or religious effort can deliver such a person (Phil 3:1-9).  The law, even the law of God, is powerless to save (Rom 3:20; 8:3).  And so the unbeliever is sunk in sin and flesh, bound to Satan, under the law’s condemnation, without hope and without God in the world (Eph 2:12).  There is nothing within the unbeliever that will help them.  Asking Adam to repent is like asking a corpse to 'get fit'.  There needs to be a new life.  But the unbeliever is in no position to summon it.

How does 1 shape our understanding of repentance?

When I married my wife, "single Glen" died.  That old existence was put to death in our covenant union.  In this sense "old Glen" did not contribute to the marriage, "old Glen" was killed by the marriage.  I became new in one-ness with my wife.  And this newness was a radical, all-of-life revolution.  Nothing remained the same.  Every aspect of my life had to be rethought according to my married identity.  But I didn't earn any of this.  It was all a gift that came part-and-parcel with the marriage.

In the same way, sinners are offered covenant union with Christ.  In this oneness they are killed and given a new existence.  Everything is different.  Nothing remains untouched by this unbreakable oneness.  The sinner does not (and cannot) earn it.  But in Jesus there is, suddenly, a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17).

So then, what kind of "repentance" does 321 preach?

Let me break it down into some propositions that I tweeted earlier in the year:

  • Adam cannot repent. Adam can only perish.
  • True repentance must be done to us (as faith is done to us) since the greatest sin is to imagine that we can ‘do penance.’
  • There cannot be impenitent faith (if it’s true faith) or unbelieving repentance (if it’s true repentance).
  • Repentance and faith are not two separate stages of salvation. They are two sides of the same coin. But note – this is a coin God gives to us!
  • Repentance is given to us because Christ is given to us - and that's the direction of travel, from Him to us.
  • We do not offer repentance to God as our part of the bargain. We’re summoned to repentance in the gospel because this is the life of faith.

And as we offer Christ, we tell the unbeliever exactly what a life of one-ness will look like with Jesus.  Just as 'marriage prep' unveils the good and the bad of the union on offer, so we prepare people for the radical, total-life-change which Jesus brings.  But at the end of the day we offer Christ.  And we say as Spurgeon did:

Do not attempt to touch yourself up and make yourself something other than you really are, but come as you are to Him who justifies the ungodly. …The Gospel will receive you into its halls if you come as a sinner, not otherwise. Wait not for reformation, but come at once for salvation. God justifieth the ungodly, and that takes you up where you now are; it meets you in your worst estate. Come in your disorder. I mean, come to your heavenly Father in all your sin and sinfulness. Come to Jesus just as you are: filthy, naked, neither fit to live nor fit to die. Come, you that are the very sweepings of creation; come, though you hardly dare to hope for anything but death. Come, though despair is brooding over you, pressing upon your bosom like a horrible nightmare. Come and ask the Lord to justify another ungodly one. (From “Justification of the Ungodly” by C.H. Spurgeon.  A sermon on Romans 4:5 – found in “All of Grace“)

For more on preaching repentance in evangelism, see this paper I wrote a few years ago.

And stay tuned for part two where we'll tease out some more implications...

3

Published on 3 Comments on 321 and Christ’s Redemption
Click for source: Mormon Website

I've been thinking about the three doctrines of 321 and how they interact with the four events of more traditional gospel outlines.  Previously I've discussed Creation and Fall.  Now we'll look at Christ's work of redemption.

How does 3 shape our understanding of Christ's redemption

I don't think I know any gospel outlines that begin with the Trinity.  (If you know of any, please tell me).  But if a presentation does not have the Son of God "in the beginning" it's going to be awkward to crow-bar him in later.

How will Jesus be introduced as anything greater than a Prophet in a scheme that does not begin with His divine glory.  Instead, the introduction of Jesus into gospel explanations can only befuddle the non-Christian who is prone to ask "Who is this guy?  What's he got to do with this creation and fall business you've been speaking of?"

In so many schemes Jesus comes late to fix a problem he's not been involved with.  This has massive implications for the presentation of his Person - does he really come across as fully God?  And it hugely affects the presentation of his work - he looks for all the world like an innocent third party interposed into the God - man dilemma.

John Stott saw the desperate need for a trinitarian framing of the cross when he wrote:

At the root of every caricature of the cross there lies a distorted Christology…  In particular, it is essential to affirm that the love, the holiness and the will of the Father are identical to the love, the holiness and the will of the Son. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. (The Cross of Christ)

The doctrine of penal substitution - which I both affirm and love - has been attacked in recent years.  But the version of it that has aroused such scorn has often been the non-trinitarian caricature which Stott wrote against.  If we're going to uphold the glory of the cross we must put it in its proper trinitarian context.

How does 2 shape our understanding of Christ's work of redemption?

Why did Christ have to become a man?  Why couldn't the Son have incarnated as a literal Lamb?  Or why couldn't God have "zapped" the wooden cross, rather than his Son?  If redemption is simply about the just justification of sinners in the punishment of the Son - why does Jesus become our Brother?  Couldn't God's wrath have been poured out on a non-incarnate Son?

No, no, no!  The Son takes our flesh because he's entering into our plight and transforming it from the inside.  As many church fathers have put it: He became what we are, so that we might become what he is.  Redemption is not simply the balancing of the punishment books.  It's about our Maker summing up his creation in himself - taking responsibility for it.  His penal substitutionary death is absolutely vital.  On the cross he is "carrying the can" for his handiwork.  But that act is comprehended within a vast work of creation and redemption - moving humanity (and in humanity, the cosmos) through death and curse to life and glory.

Of course the Son had to become Man.  Man rules the world.  Adam - the pattern of the Coming One (Rom 5:14) - stood over creation, ruling and blessing it.  Through the fall, he failed and cursed it.  Christ comes to wrest humanity (and in humanity, the world) back to God.  In his resurrection, he takes us through death and into an immortal physical glory.  This is the cosmic dimension to salvation which will always be missed when we construe the gospel as, simply, the answer to 'my sin'.  'Adam and Christ' vitally connects Jesus' work to this flesh and this world.  Without it, as Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 15, we have no gospel.

How does 1 shape our understanding of Christ's work of redemption?

So 3 assures me that Jesus is God. 2 assures me that Jesus is Man. But you might well think - so what?  I'm still left on the outside of all this.  And at this point two questions become vital to ask and answer:

1) How do I benefit from the Person and work of Jesus?

2) What do I do once I have appropriated Christ's salvation?

In answer to the first question, many gospel presentations put the task firmly into the sinner's hands.  Jesus has "cleared the path" through his death and resurrection, now the sinner must "take the step of faith" and come to God.  The appropriation of Christ's benefits happens through "the sinner's prayer" in which we ask for - and God zaps into our account - forgiveness, righteousness, the Spirit and eternal life.  Jesus does not really mediate these benefits, he only pays for them.  And this leads to a problem in answering that second question: What now?

Now that I've stepped across Jesus - "the bridge" - what is the Christian life?  I've got forgiveness and eternal life, so how will the evangelist tell me to continue?  Probably they'll tell me to go to church, read my bible, pray, try hard not to sin and hold on tight till heaven.  To which I'm liable to say "Why??!  What connection does any of that have to what you've described in your sales pitch?!"

But no.  We benefit from the Person and work of Christ because he is given to us in marriage union.  All that is mine is his - he takes my sin and shame and covers over it.  All that is his is mine - he gives me his status, his inheritance, his family connections.  Best of all he gives me himself.  And this is the Christian life: belonging to Jesus and he to me.

So of course the Christian now belongs to his body, of course they listen to him (in the bible) and speak to him (in prayer).  It's all organically related to Jesus himself.  That's a salvation - and a salvation message - that makes sense.

But without Trinity, Adam and Christ and union with Christ, the very heart of the gospel - Christ and his work - will be radically misunderstood.

 

 

17

Published on 17 Comments on Why it’s vital to preach faith alone – James 2:14-26 [repost]

James 2:14-26

As a teenager I approached a minister, full of doubts and struggles and a thousand misunderstandings.  My question was, Why doesn't God seem to accept me?  I've prayed the prayer a thousand times, why does heaven seem to be silent?

He told me that I shouldn't worry about whether I was accepted, I just needed to get on and really live the Christian life.

So I went off and tried that (or at least what I imagined the Christian life to be).  And I failed even by my own standards.  And, despondently, I slinked off from Christian things for a good few years.

What kind of faith did I have at that time?  I'd have probably articulated the gospel as something like:  God's big.  You're small.  Behave.

I didn't have gospel faith.  I had demon faith (v19).  I believed God was one.  I believed Jesus was God's Son.  But little more.

Now what would James counsel at this point?  Is James chapter 2 the encouragement to add good works to such rudimentary faith?  Is he exhorting those with demon faith to top up their merit levels until they hit salvific proportions?

No.  James is discussing the kind of faith that saves .  In v14 the word "such" (or "that" in ESV) is important.  James is not making a calculation: Demon faith plus good deeds equals salvation!  Instead this is about discerning what kind of faith is true saving faith.

And the answer is - true saving faith is the kind of faith that's always being fulfilled in active service.  In other words, saving faith (Genesis 15 style) always leads to obedience (Genesis 22 style).

So what should that minister have said to me?  I wish he'd said this:

"Glen, I don't think you really know the gospel.  I don't think you could have the slightest understanding of Christ for you while harbouring these doubts.  I don't think the kind of faith you have is really the active, life-giving, always-leading-to-loving-service kind of faith.  So let me tell you the gospel again, and drive it home to you until assured, authentic, vital faith is birthed in you.  Let me preach the gospel of faith alone to you once more, knowing that the faith that saves will never be alone.  Let me overwhelm you with the promise (Genesis 15) and then you'll bear fruit in obedience (Genesis 22)."

I think that's the approach to a dead faith: preach faith alone.  And I think it's completely mandated by James chapter 2.

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