Classic Gospel-Centrism

I was reading David Brainerd’s Life and Diary while waiting for my turn in a medical appointment. The following paragraph caught my eye and my soul was both challenged and refreshed by it. The context was his conversion and this happened after a long period of  struggling with gospel-issues e.g.  trusting in spiritual duties for salvation, lack of faith etc in an otherwise appararently pious life so far.

At this time, the way of salvation opened to me with such infinite wisdom, suitableness, and excellency, that I wondered I shouldever think of any other way of salvation; that I wondered I should ever think of any other way of salvation; was amazed that I had not dropped my own contrivances, and complied with this lovely, blessed and excellent way before. If I could have been saved by my own duties, or any other way that I had formerly contrived, my whole soul would now have refused it. I wondered that all the world did not se and comply with this way of salvation, entirely by the righteousness of Christ. (emphasis mine)

May it bless your heart, as it had mine.

 

Together for the Gospel 2010 – registration open

Sign up for next year’s T4G here.

 

Cross and Kingdom

Greg Gilbert over at 9 Marks writes a good critique of N. T. Wright’s understanding of the gospel. Read it here.

 

God hates the sin but loves the sinner ?

This is something we wrestled with recently.. I think D A Carson wrote about it in a succint, accurate, and well nuanced way in “The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God”. Its good stuff, and worth reproducing (IMHO):

“One evangelical cliché has it that God hates the sin but loves the sinner. There is a small element of truth in these words: God has nothing but hate for the sin but it would be wrong to conclude that God has nothing but hate for the sinner. A difference must be maintained between God’s view of sin and his view of the sinner. Nevertheless the cliché is false on the face of it and should be abandoned. Fourteen times in the first fifty psalms alone, we are told that God hates the sinner, his wrath is on the liar, and so forth. In the Bible, the wrath of God rests both on the sin (Romans 1:18ff) and on the sinner (John 3:36). 

Our problem, in part, is that in human experience wrath and love normally abide in mutually exclusive compartments. Love drives wrath out, or wrath drives love out. We come closets to bringing them together, perhaps, in our responses to a wayward act by one of our children, but normally we do not think that a wrathful person is loving.

 

But this is not the way it is with God. God’s wrath is not an implacable, blind rage. However emotional it may be, it is an entirely reasonable and willed response to the offences against his holiness. But his love, as we saw in the last chapter, wells up amidst his perfections and is not generated by the loveliness of the loved. Thus, there is nothing intrinsically impossible about wrath and love being directed toward the same individual or people at the same time. God in his perfections must be wrathful against his rebel image-bearers, for they have offended him; God in his perfections must be loving toward his rebel image-bearers, for he is that kind of God.

 

(page 79-80, from The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God – D A Carson)“

 

Gospel-centred or Gospel-only ?

A friend of mine wrote this recently:

“There are groups in the US like Together for the Gospel and the Gospel Coalition which calls for the focus of the Christian message to go back to the Gospel. In other words, the call is for a Gospel-centered and Gospel-focused ministry.

It must be said that this is indeed a laudable aim, and definitely the Gospel is to be the center of the Christian message for the simple reason that Christ and His Cross IS the center of the Christian message.

That said, I am concerned over this phenomenon in this aspect: Is the Gospel merely the be all and end all, or does the Christian message includes the entire Scriptures on subjects that, though linked to the Gospel in various ways, are not technically part of the Gospel message? In other words, the Apostle Paul mentions about the ‘whole counsel of God’ which he preached to the Ephesians (Acts 20:27).

Subjects like Epistemology and the topic of the Covenant are definitely important in Christianity, but the link to the Gospel is not that obvious. So therefore, while we should be Gospel-focused and Gospel-centered, we should never be Gospel-only. This is not to insinuate anything about being Gospel-focused, but IMO, things are not as simple as it seems and we must be willing to ask ourselves the hard questions and wrestle with them.”

I guess this is also tied to the discussion on how we define the Gospel biblically..

Thus, could it be that the Gospel is a matter of “first importance..” (1 Cor 15), but not of “only importance” ? Is there a danger that Gospel-centered people could emphasise the Gospel and inadvertantly leave out “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:26) ?

What say you brothers ?

 

The greatest gift of the gospel

Managed to read John Piper’s “God is the Gospel” and Tim Keller’s “Prodigal God” over the Christmas and New Year break. Both were very moving, and impressed on me, that God Himself is the greatest gift of the gospel.

“None of Christ’s gospel deeds and none of our gospel blessings are good news except as means of seeing and savoring the glory of Christ. Forgiveness is good news because it opens the way to the enjoyment of God Himself. Justification is good news because it wins access to the presence and pleasures of God himself. Eternal life is good news because it becomes the everlasting enjoyment of Christ” – God is the Gospel (back cover)

“Jesus’s salvation is a feast, and therefore when we believe in and rest in his work for us, through the Holy Spirit he becomes real to our hearts. His love is like honey, or like wine. Rather than only believing that He is loving, we can come to sense the reality, the beauty, and the power of His love” – Prodigal God (page 108)

John Piper goes as far as to say that “Until the gospel events of Good Friday and Easter and the gospel promises of justification and eternal life lead you to behold and embrace God Himself as your highest joy, you have not embraced the gospel of God” – God is the Gospel (page 38)

What do you guys think ?

 

The Gospel in a 1000 words for those who haven’t heard

I am taking a liberty here, to write my answer for non Christians and it may take more than 60 seconds. But I think that to express it to non Christians may force me to make it simpler and clearer!

The word gospel literally means ‘good news’. We should ask ourselves what is this news and why is it good?

Firstly it is news meaning that it concerns definite events that happened. The fact that it is news means that we have no power to alter or change the news! We can simply believe it or choose to deny it. When we believe the news something mysterious happens in that this news becomes the very power of God to us, transforming us in our hearts and we become alive to God. We find that the separation we have experienced from knowing God is removed and we are brought near to Him, to know Him, love Him and serve Him.

So then what was this event that happened and which we are asked to believe? It is this: In the first century AD, God sent His Son from Heaven to earth to live among us. God’s eternal Son, Jesus was born in Israel to a virgin named Mary. This Son of God lived a perfect and blameless life on earth and then died a bloody and murderous death at the hands of wicked man. Though he was innocent, he was killed. Even the presiding judge Pilate said ‘I find no fault in this man’. However, the prophet Isaiah had foretold these events 900 years earlier. Jesus of Nazareth was crucified between two thieves, and died upon a wooden cross after enduring such a beating that he was no longer recognizable.

After He had been dead for three days, God raised Him up. Death couldn’t hold Him, and he appeared to more than 500 people over the next 40 days that He was on earth. During this time he spoke about the Kingdom of God, and showed his disciples how all the events of His life had been predicted and promised in the Jewish scriptures (the Old Testament).

Now what makes this news so amazing, is that Christians are told to cherish, honor, remember and be grateful for this horrific death that their God suffered and died! How can this be?! How could the Son of God’s brutal death at the hands of wicked men be something that people celebrate?!

This is the where the ‘good’ of the good news comes in. This death is good for Christians because Christ’s death was not unexpected or random. Rather the scriptures tell us that Jesus was delivered according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God! This life, death and resurrection was God’s plan for Christ. Which means that this suffering and death was for a specific purpose! And Isaiah, one of many prophets who foretold of Christ’s life and death years before the time, gives us a clear reason what this suffering was for. “He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all”.

So this Jesus died and was murdered on our behalf! He died the death we should have died, and took our place. The wrath of God was upon Him, when it should have come to us.

The reason God’s wrath should have come to us is because we have all rejected God. In the words of Isaiah ‘we all like sheep have gone astray, we have turned – every one – to his own way’. And God is life. So when we turn our backs on life, we inadvertently walk towards death. Our rejection of God, our decision to follow our own way, our failure to love Him with all our hearts, our willful disobedience of all His commands has left us alienated from God, but not just alienated. We are spiritually dead, and awaiting our physical death as the final outworking of our alienation from the Author of life.

But Jesus died the death we should have died! He suffered and was alienated from God on the cross in our place, for our sins! And not only that, but when we trust in Him and believe this news, His perfect righteous life get’s ‘given’ to us, ‘credited’ into our account, just as our sin got ‘given’ to Him on the cross, and ‘credited’ into his account.

This means that a divine exchange has taken place. Jesus dies the death we should have died, and we get to live in the benefit of the perfect life He lived! The benefits of that life are that we get to know God! And as we know Him we find we love Him, treasure Him, revolve our lives around Him and want to serve Him all our days.

The gospel is good news because in it we hear that the greatest need any of us ever has had, to be reconciled to our Creator, God and loving Father has been made possible because of something which happened in which we were not involved. All we have to do is respond by believing this news, and then watch as God mysteriously transforms us, makes us alive to Himself, and we begin to see our entire lives being turned upside down.

I welcome your comments on the clarity of this post!

Simon

 

Gospel and community

I”m encouraged by all the responses about the gospel. One important implication of the gospel that we have not yet mentioned is its corporate dimension. God, through Jesus Christ, reconciles all things to himself. This is fleshed out in Ephesians 2:11-22. The enmity between Jew and Gentile is eradicated by the gospel. In Christ, Jews and Gentiles are brought together as one new man (v. 15). Since Christ is the second Adam and true Israel, those who are in Christ are a new humanity and the Israel of God–his people and a kingdom of priests. So the gospel is primarily soteriological, but it has profound corporate implications. What does this mean for the local church? Here’s one: By its unity, especially among members who are different from one another, a local church displays the glory of God in the gospel. How does this affect how we think about and “do” church? Thoughts?

 

What is the Gospel? Some thoughts and reflections

Okay. I suppose it is my turn to share my thoughts and reflections on the Gospel, here’s my humble attempt to describe this wonderful good news.

Gospel of Salvation

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” – Romans 1:16-17 (ESV)

The Gospel is the good news of salvation – of how through the person and work of Jesus Christ we can be saved from the penalty and enslavement of sin. I think Mark Dever often use “God, Man, Christ and Response” as an easy handle to describe the Gospel (and many of you have said this as well). In brief, God is holy and He created everything and it was good. Man sinned and the just penalty is judgement. Man has tried many other ways to be reconciled with God but to no avail. Christ as fully man and fully God came to live for us and to die for us while we were still sinners. Christ died on the cross and became the substitute for our sins, and made the payment for us once and for all, turning away God’s anger caused by our sin. Christ work on the cross took on our sins and credits His righteousness to us, so that we can be counted as righteous before God if we but believe into Jesus. Justice and love meets at the cross and this is the Gospel. This is beautifully captured in Romans 3:19-26 (Jerry Bridges calls these verses the “Heart of the Gospel”).

However, the good news is that not only are we made righteous (or justified) by faith through grace; once we are converted, we are new creations – there is a new birth. This transformation allows us to grow in holiness (or sanctification). God’s Spirit initiates and sustains our growth and progression towards becoming like Christ – our role is to act in dependent response. Though on this side of heaven we will not be perfectly like Christ, there is a hope and guarantee that we will become like Christ fully when He comes again (or glorification). All of this is by grace!

Gospel of the Kingdom

“and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” – Mark 1:15 (ESV)

There is also mention in the Gospels of the good news of the Kingdom. When Jesus came, he also declared that the good news that the Kingdom was at hand. I think within the cosmic backdrop of Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration, there is the thread of the Kingdom of God and that Jesus as our Sovereign King. Through Christ and what he has done, salvation for man is made possible (I agree too that the salvation of the individual is key to cosmic restoration), redemption is accomplished, and thus begins the process of restoration of all things. While the Kingdom in a sense is here and not yet here, Jesus is established as our Sovereign King. There is nothing in creation, absolutely nothing, that Jesus doesn’t say it’s His (paraphrasing Abraham Kupyer). This too is good news, that we have a sovereign and good king and all things will be made new again!

Hey brothers, have a blessed Christmas and a joyous holiday!

_____

Grace and Peace

Ollie

 

What is the gospel? – a quick response

I have blogged on this somewhat before. Actually, my own personal belief is that while the gospel can be summarized, it is perhaps difficult to be exhaustively described in 60 seconds. (Hey.. I am not passing the CHBC’s membership interview test )  Quite busy with work now.. so will take a stab at it later. I am thankful that we are beginning with that that is of first importance.

Edward