DJ Chuang has written an excellent post about looking to great preachers like Tim Keller to provide us with the “spiritual breakthrough” for which, it seems to me, Christians are too often desperate. The danger is, I believe, that we unintentionally exchange Tim Keller’s preaching of the gospel (or whoever’s) for the gospel itself, that is, we unwittingly exchange the insightful, penetrating preaching of Keller for the actual historical achievement of God in Jesus. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who appreciates Tim Keller’s preaching more than I do, but we’re not justified, sanctified, or glorified by the preaching of Keller or any other man no matter how insightful it may be. It’s not the preaching of Piper or Keller or whoever that is the power of God unto salvation. It’s the gospel alone that is the power of God to justify, sanctify, and glorify us. Now I realize that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ (Romans 10:17). So I’m not trying to minimize the importance of preaching at all. The preaching of the gospel is essential, but it’s not the preachingthat saves us. It’s the preaching of the gospel.

One of the dangers of hearing preachers of great giftedness is that we are tempted to equate the experience of being intellectually stimilated by their sermons with spiritual transformation itself. It’s really just a different strain of the problem Paul addresses in the first several verses of 1 Corinthians 13 (”If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love…”), namely, equating spiritual giftedness with true spirituality.

Anyway, let me encourage to read Chuang’s post (as well as Keller’s response in the comment section). It really connected with me because I’m tempted to do the same thing with preachers, like Keller and Piper, whom I really admire.

Here’s the post: Even Keller can’t break through

“Christians who are no longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their present spiritual achievements, are subconsciously radically insecure persons-much less secure than non-Christians, because they have too much light to rest easily under the constant bulletins they receive from their Christian environment about the holiness of God and the righteousness they are supposed to have. Their insecurity shows itself in pride, a fierce defensive assertion of their own righteousness and defensive criticism of others. They come naturally to hate other cultural styles and other races in order to bolster their own security and discharge their suppressed anger. They cling desperately to legal, pharisaical righteousness, but envy, jealousy and other branches on the tree of sin grow out of their fundamental insecurity…it is often necessary to convince sinners (even sinful Christians) of the grace and love of God toward them, before we can get them to look at their problems. Then the vision of grace and the sense of God’s forgiving acceptance may actually cure most of the problems. This may account for Paul’s frequent fusing of justification and sanctification” (Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life).

I am spending a considerable amount of time this summer preparing to teach a class this fall on the book of Hebrews. I found myself reading a little of Leo Tolstoy in connection with my meditation upon Hebrews 2:14-18. If you want to set yourself up to see some of the gospel-beauty of Hebrews 2:14-18, first read the following lengthy quotation from Tolstoy and then read Hebrews 2…

“All this was happening to me at a time when I was surrounded on all sides by what is considered complete happiness: I was not yet fifty, I had a kind, loving and beloved wife, lovely children, and a large estate that was growing and expanding with no effort on my part. I was respected by relatives and friends far more than ever before. I was praised by strangers and could consider myself a celebrity without deceiving myself. Moreover I was not unhealthy in mind or body, but on the contrary enjoyed a strength of mind and body such as I had rarely witnessed in my contemporaries. Physically I could keep up with peasants tilling the fields; mentally I could work for eight or ten hours at a stretch without suffering any ill effects from the effort. And in these circumstances I found myself at the point where I could no longer go on living and, since I feared death, I had to deceive myself in order to refrain from suicide.

“This spiritual condition presented itself to me in the following manner: my life is some kind of stupid and evil joke that someone is playing on me. Despite the fact that I did not acknowledge any such ‘someone’, who might have created me, this concept of there being someone playing a stupid and evil joke on me by bringing me into the world came to me as the most natural way of expressing my condition.

“I could not help feeling that out there somewhere somebody was amusing himself by looking at me and the way I had lived for thirty or forty years, studying, developing, maturing in mind and body. And how no, with a fully matured intellect, having reached the precipice from which life reveals itself, I stood there like an utter fool, believing so firmly that there is nothing in life, that there never has been, nor ever will be. ‘And he laughs…’

“But whether or not this someone laughing at me really existed did not make it any easier for me. I could not attribute any rational meaning to a single act, let alone to my whole life. I simply felt astonished that I had failed to realize this from the beginning. It has all been common knowledge for such a long time. Today or tomorrow sickness and death will come (and they had already arrived) to those dear to me, and to myself, and nothing will remain other than the stench and the worms. Sooner or later my deeds, whatever they may have been, will be forgotten and will no longer exist. What is all the fuss about then? How can a person carry on living and fail to perceive this? That is what is so astonishing! It is only possible to go on living while you are intoxicated with life; once sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere trick, and a stupid trick! That is exactly what it is: there is nothing either witty or amusing, it is only cruel and stupid.

“The delusion of the joys of life that had formerly stifled my fear of the dragon no longer deceive me. No matter how many times I am told: you cannot understand the meaning of life, do not think about it but live, I cannot do so because I have already done it for too long. Now I cannot help seeing day and night chasing me and leading to my death. This is all I can see because it is the only truth. All the rest is a lie” (Leo Tolstoy, A Confession and Other Religious Writings, 30-32).

Mark Lauterbach of Gospel Driven Life has an excellent post on hypocrisy and the gospel. As someone who struggles with hypocrisy, I found his comments very insightful and helpful. He writes:

Jesus spoke severely against hypocrisy. I think there is one reason—we cannot be committed to creating a false impression of our goodness with others and simultaneously admit we are sinners before God. The Gospel destroys hypocrisy and frees us from the burden of being phony.

Jesus said we cannot have it both ways—if we live to win the respect and good opinion of others, then we have our reward—but God will pay us no heed. We cannot serve to masters. Whose approval do I seek? Whom do I wish to impress?

Why are we tempted to play the hypocrisy game? When it comes down to it, it is not because we do not want to bother other people with our own mess. It’s because we don’t want people to see us as we actually are, namely, as people who struggle—sometimes intensely—with lust, anger, pride, worry, etc. When we give into hypocrisy we can be sure that we are finding our identity in how we want people to perceive us in what we do or don’t do rather than finding it in the gospel, that is, in God’s saving action toward us in the Messiah. Mark continues:

If I am afraid to let others see the reality of sin in my life, my marriage, my children—it is because I am a slave to the god of “the esteem of man” and that god is a cruel tyrant. I have watched sin gain strength in my life and in the lives of others because they were too committed to their good image. Marriage conflicts became roots of bitterness—resistant children became hard hearted rebels—occasional lust became “addiction” to pornography—all because they are more committed to their image than to the truth about their sin in the presence of the Savior and his people.

What frees us from being a slave to hypocrisy? You know what I’m going to say don’t you? The Gospel. Only the gospel tells us both what we don’t want to hear, namely, that we are more idolatrous and sinful than we’ve ever thought, and also what we desperately want to hear, namely, that we are loved with an everlasting love, at the same time. If, on the one hand, I’m only confronted with my sinfulness, I will play the cover-up game of hypocrisy. Why? Because not only will I not be able to handle seeing myself as I really am, I won’t be able to handle others seeing me as I really am. If, on the other hand, I’m constantly assured of God’s love for me without also being confronted with the depth of my sinfulness, I will play the same cover-up game. Why? Because an awareness of my sin will make my sense of God’s love for me evaporate in an instant.

Only when we are confronted with the depth of our sinfulness and the magnitude of God’s love for us at the same time will we be able to step away from the hypocrisy game. The gospel alone is the one thing that faces us with those two truths simultaneously. Only in the gospel are we freed to let people get an accurate picture of what’s going on in the inside. So what must we do? Continually preach the gospel to ourselves and surround ourselves with people who will daily preach the gospel to us. Hypocrisy cannot survive in a gospel-centered community.

**See Mark’s entire post here.

I’m sure you’ve heard a speaker say something like this before: “The [eighteen] inches that exist between your head and your heart is what is keeping you from being a truly sold out Christian.” Les Newsome of Common Grounds Online writes about the danger that accompanies this kind of head/heart dichotomy. I appreciate his application of gospel-centered thinking to this issue. Les writes:

“There’s nothing wrong with you spiritually right now that can’t be cured with 18 inches,” the dynamic youth communicator dramatically said. “The [eighteen] inches that exists between your head and your heart is what is keeping you from being a truly sold out Christian.”

Am I the only one who absolutely hated hearing this on just about every youth retreat I attended as a teenager? And since I’m feeling uppity today, I want to entertain the possibility that my irritation was not entirely ill-founded. This head/heart dichotomy is sub-Christian…

Go here to read the rest of his short article. The last two paragraphs are well worth the time it takes to read his post.

Here are a couple of my stated beliefs:

1. God in Christ alone is my salvation.
2. God has made Christ to be my righteousness, my worth, and my significance.

These are beliefs that I am quick to state and explain if provided an opportunity. I am quick to affirm verbally that there is no salvation for me apart from that which God has accomplished in the Messiah. He alone is my righteousness, worth, and significance. It is only in the Messiah that I am accepted in God’s sight. Only in him is true humanity progressively restored in me.

I could go on and on with statements like these, but I have learned that stated beliefs are often just that—stated. Those beliefs listed above are too often not functional in my life, that is, too often my thinking, desiring, and living do not flow out of them. So, I am learning to ask myself questions like these:

1. Where am I actually seeking my salvation in any given moment?
2. Where am I actually locating my righteousness, my worth, or my significance right now as I teach this class or lead my community group?
3. What am I thinking I must have right now in order to feel truly human?

Questions like these force me to move beyond thinking merely in terms of beliefs that I affirm intellectually. They aide me in discerning what my heart is currently functionally believing regarding where my salvation, righteousness, and worth are found. Too often I find myself seeking salvation in how people think of me or in how successful I am at this or that. Though my stated belief is that Christ is my significance, I often catch myself locating my significance in my performance as a husband or father or as a professor.

Fortunately (understatement), the gospel frees me to admit this and face it head on. Jesus once said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick…I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12-13). Seeking my salvation, righteousness, worth, or significance in anything other than God are symptoms of the sickness of which Jesus speaks, that is, they are symptoms of a profoundly fractured and corrupted humanity. My default mode as a fallen human being is to seek my salvation in something other than in God’s Son, to seek my worth and significance in my vocational performance rather than in Jesus. But this means that Jesus came to seek someone like me, to call someone like me. He came to restore in me that which was lost at the fall, namely, a humanity that is joyfully centered upon God.

So, because of who Jesus is and what he accomplished in his life, death, and resurrection, I am free to confess my sin of wayward seeking and locating and rejoice afresh in what God has made the Messiah to be for me. Amazingly, the good news of God’s accomplishment in Jesus is His power to progressively make my stated beliefs functional in my living.

These are posts that I personally wrote this past year (except for one). I gave myself about 5 minutes to rank them. It may be that you would rank them differently. In any case, here is my personal Top Ten list for 2005 posts.

#1 – NT Survey Lecture Summary – If you want to know what doctrine has had the greatest impact on me over the last 8 years and only have time to read one of my Top Ten Posts, this is the one to read. The truth of the Messiah’s vicarious humanity has been a life-giving fountain for me.

#2 – Real Men and Women are Gospel-Driven – I really do not like the title, but I do really love the content of the post. It represents my thinking on biblical interpretation and living… I’m currently revising these notes in preparation for presenting it at a pastors’ fraternal on January 24th.

#3 – Moralism Versus Christ-centered Exposition by Tim Keller – I ranked this post third because it fits very nicely with post two. Most significant (and why it makes the top ten lists for posts that I have written) are the comments that follow Keller’s thoughts. It generated some great discussion. Also, I must include Functional Gospel-Centeredness at #3 because it is an article that was heavily influenced by Tim Keller’s exposition of Galatians 2 in his article entitled The Centrality of the Gospel.

#4 – Spiritual Blessings that Value the Physical Creation: A Gospel-centered View of the World – This post will tell you what most occupies my thoughts as of late. I will never read Ephesians or Colossians in the same way again.

#5 – Orphans, Adoption, and Fuling, China: James 1:27 – This one is about adoption. Need I say more? It’s really a short biblical theology of adoption.

#6 – Leadership in the Home: Morals-driven or Gospel-driven – Guess what one of my New Year’s resolutions is…

#7 – Sanctification: Becoming More Than a Mere Outline of a Human Being – If you want to know a little about how I view sanctification, curl up with this post with a cup of hot chocolate.

#8 – Preaching Matthew 18:15-20 from a Gospel-centered Perspective – What thinkest thou?

#9 – The Gospel of Deliverance – Deliverance is an absolutely wonderful thing! If you feel the need for it, Psalm 3 is a great place to go.

#10 – The Wonder of Bobble Heads – This post is last but it’s not least. It generated more hits than any other post this past year. Go figure…

Which of my Top Ten is your top choice?

Matthew 7:21 Not every one that says to me, “Lord, Lord”, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

This is one of the scariest verses in all of scripture – especially when it is interpreted with no special regard for the whole of scripture. These words were spoken to the multitudes (including the disciples) by Jesus in His “sermon on the mount.” Warnings about false prophets precede this verse and of course, Christ frequently had biting words for the scribes and Pharisees. So these sorts of people tend to be the ones we think of when we read this verse. But let’s look at how those closest to Jesus interpreted these chilling words.

In Luke 22:21 Jesus and the disciples are gathered at the last supper and He says, “the hand of him that will betray me is with me on the table.” In other words, “One of you who has been calling me Lord, Lord for the last three years is going to betray Me tonight.” Their reaction deserves some reflection, “.. they began to enquire among themselves, which of them it was that should do this thing.” Now that’s not so hard to believe in itself, though we might expect that they would more readily tend to suspect someone outside their group. But Mark records that they even began to look to themselves as suspects. “And they began to be sorrowful, and to say unto him one by one, Is it I? and another said, Is it I?” ( Mark 14:19). This is remarkable in at least two respects:

First, it’s remarkable that the disciples apparently recognized within themselves the capacity for betrayal. Though they still had over-inflated opinions of there own importance (Luke 22:24, Which of us will be greatest in your kingdom?), there was sufficient awareness of their own hearts’ condition that they would look within and see the capacity for such appalling self-deceit. While we may loathe Judas and any who take up his mantle, how honest are we in our self-assessment? We believe we have studied to show ourselves approved and done all these good works in His Name, yet when Jesus quietly, piercingly tells us that there are betrayers in our midst, do we honestly look within and tremble as we acknowledge that potential? Is our first response to flee to Jesus and plead His blood or, like the Pharisees, do we broaden our phylacteries and widen our hems and thank God that we are not like the publicans and sinners, who obviously are the betrayers?

What is more remarkable to me is that the disciples didn’t instantly suspect Judas. The name “Judas” has become synonymous with betrayal and deceit and corruption and greediness and carnality. No one (that I know of) names their child Judas. Maybe a pet cat or weasel, but not a child! From what little we now know on this side of history, we presume that Judas was the quintessential, self-serving used-car salesman and as easy to pick out of a crowd as they are in their plaid suit coats and loud ties. But the reaction of the disciples tells a different story – each of them considered themselves as capable of such treachery as Judas. There is no evidence anywhere in scripture that Judas was singled out by the disciples as the culprit. He was just another disciple – learning, growing, impetuous, trying, failing, fumbling, fickle, weak… just like all the rest. It can reasonably be assumed from Matthew 17 that all the disciples must have been given power to do miracles. If Judas had been excluded, doubts and questions would have flooded the minds of the remaining disciples, especially Peter. I can just hear him asking, “Lord, what’s the deal with Judas? Why can’t he do any of this miracle stuff? Is there maybe something fishy going on with him?” Isn’t it amazing that those who walked with Jesus and would later comprise the foundation of the Church (Eph. 2:20) were unable to differentiate between the true worshippers of God and those who were wolves in sheep’s clothing?

How quick are we to identify what we perceive to be the Judases in our circles? When betrayal and deceit are the sermon topics, do we bow in humble acknowledgement of the Jeremiah 17:9ness of our own hearts or do we immediately begin pointing and asking, “Is it him? Is it her? Is it them? Where are they Lord, I’ll take care of ‘em for you!”

For those who have been predestined from before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4) to be conformed to the image of His Son (Rom. 8:29), who have been called and justified (Rom. 8:30), who have been given the down payment of their inheritance (Eph.1:13-14) in the Spirit to empower them and the Word to equip them, who have heard the sayings of Jesus and done them (Matt. 7:24), who have experienced the transforming promise that He who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6), to these awaits the warm welcome of Him who became sin (though he Himself never sinned) for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (II Cor. 5:21). He says, Welcome! I have always known you and I set my affection on you (Eph. 1:4-6). I have pursued you (Hosea) and drawn you to myself and made you alive so you could respond (Eph. 2:1-2). While the weakness of your flesh made you groan along with the rest of the sin-cursed creation (Rom. 8:22-23), my love eventually won you over. Now you are eternally set free from the curse, both your spirit and your body (Rev. 21:4, 22:3). Now enter into my joy, full and overflowing (I Pet. 1:7-9).
I know you!

*Rudy is a pilot and was an elder where I was formally a pastoral staff member (he’s also a good friend).
Check out his wife’s calligraphy here.

FIRST-PERSON: Reflections from a younger leader
By Ed Stetzer
Nov 9, 2005

ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)–Lots of people have been thinking, speaking and blogging about the whole “young leader thing.” I’ve done my fair share — although speaking for young leaders is probably not a wise long-term strategy for a guy just 10 months away from turning 40.

Some have advocated convention change in how we affirm diverse and biblically sound strategies and how we do missional ministry together. Many have rightfully said that it is time for Southern Baptists to accept the fact that many of our best and brightest don’t wear suits, don’t use a hymnal, and have different methodologies than most of our existing churches. But the Lord also has spoken to my heart about how I, as a contemporary church pastor, need to change and learn as well.

In the foreword to my recent book (”Perimeters of Light: Biblical Boundaries for the Emerging Church” with Elmer Towns), Paige Patterson calls me a “son of the contemporary church.” He’s right. I’ve never planted or served as pastor of a church that was not contemporary, and God continues to place me in settings where that is our chosen ministry approach.

But, in all this talk about change, it is important to have some discernment as many young (and not so young) SBC leaders plant or transition to contemporary models. I am not talking about preaching against innovation or “smarmy” comments about worship bands. That is hurting our convention and squelching the conversation. But, I have learned along the way that:

– Theology matters and can’t be assumed.

Unlike most SBC pastors, I wasn’t raised or redeemed in a Baptist church. I was raised nominally Catholic and came to Christ in a denomination that drifted away from the Gospel. All this talk about “broadening the tent” does not appeal to me. Been there, done that, seen the compromise that follows. If young leaders are not serious about theology, preaching and cooperation, then this denomination is not the place for them. As I wrote in SBC Life (Feb. 2003), doctrine matters to missions — and it matters when we seek to be “missional” as well. I’ve learned that we need to constantly talk, think and learn better theology.

– Preaching is more than retelling biblical principles.

I’ve preached a lot of sermons that were more about my opinions than God’s Word. Sure, they were based on biblical principles (“love your wife,” “don’t worry,” “work hard”) but not grounded in the biblical story of redemption. Then, Donna (my wife) told me, that after all our years together, she felt that she did not know the Bible well. As her pastor, I had taught her how to be a godly person, but not how to understand our God revealed in the Bible.

The need for biblical preaching has never been more urgent. Biblical preaching is more than common sense truth with biblical proofs taken out of context. Instead, it is letting the agenda and shape of Scripture determine the agenda and shape of the message. I’ve learned that I have not taken it seriously enough — and I think I am not alone.

– Making your church relevant does not mean making it easy.

No question — most of our churches need to be more relevant to their communities and their cultures. According to a recent Leavell Center/New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary study, 89 percent of our churches are not experiencing healthy evangelistic growth. Part of the reason is that they have become marginalized from their communities.

Yet, in a noble desire to reach more people, too many innovative leaders (like me) tried too hard to make things relevant. We tried too hard to give them what they wanted. Missiologist/urban pastor Tim Keller rightly cautions, “Contexualization is not ‘giving people what they want’ but rather it is giving God’s answers (which people may not want!) to questions they are asking and in forms that they can comprehend.” I’ve learned that I need to remember that relevance only matters if it reveals the one true Christ and His Gospel.

– Most of us are too thin-skinned for real discussion.

I can’t say I have really mastered this one, but a robust theological discussion takes a thick skin. Denominations that care about doctrine must also care about practice. Theology determines methodology and if we want to change practice, it is important to have a theological basis to do so. That requires being willing to critique yourself honestly and to listen to others and their critiques. I’ve learned that sometimes I confused healthy theological correction with arguments over preferences … and took the concerns more personally than I should. I think a lot of disconnected SBC young leaders might have done the same.

The denomination where I came to faith doesn’t worry about practice, but they don’t worry much about theology or morals anymore, either. I’m glad these things matter — and I am glad we are having the conversation. I’ll take the Southern Baptist Convention any day — and work through the conversation with more traditional leaders to figure out what a biblically faithful church looks like in emerging culture.

Ed Stetzer serves as director of research at the North American Mission Board. A missiologist, he is the author of several articles and books on missional ministry.

Recently I’ve wondered if there is a correlation between a superficial understanding of worldliness and an incomplete understanding of the significance and applicability of the gospel. In other words, I have wondered if the view that thinks of worldliness primarily in external terms (i.e. where you go; what you do; etc) is due, in some measure, to a failure to understand the breadth and depth of the gospel. It seems to me that there is a very strong correlation between the two, but before we consider the precise nature of it let’s briefly consider the biblical presentation of worldliness. Read the rest of this entry »

What hope is there for a world that is filled with so much tyranny and oppression if there is not an ultimate judge?

What hope is there for a world that is filled with so much tyranny and oppression if there is an ultimate judge?

Our hope is found in the Righteous Judge who was judged in our place (Romans 3:23-26; Galatians 3:10-14; 2 Corinthians 5:21).

Below is a very thought-provoking section from T.F. Torrance’s The Mediation of Christ. It led me to marvel at the great wisdom and love of God. Enjoy! It’s well worth the necessary time it takes to read it.

“The covenant between God and Israel was not a covenant between God and a holy people, but precisely the reverse. It was a covenant established out of pure grace between God and Israel in its sinful, rebellious and estranged existence. Hence, no matter how rebellious or sinful Israel was, it could not escape from the covenant love and faithfulness of God… Read the rest of this entry »

What is a Gospel-centered church? Is it a church that believes that God has made Christ to be its wisdom, even its righteousness, sanctification, and glorification (1 Corinthians 1:30)? In other words, is what constitutes a Gospel-centered church the cherished belief and conviction that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, that no one comes to the Father except through him (John 14:6)? Or is there more to a Gospel-centered church than just what it believes and preaches concerning Jesus? On what criteria can we consider our churches to be or not to be Gospel-centered? That is the question. Read the rest of this entry »

Comment from yesterday’s post: How would Torrance understand the commands of personal responsibility to ‘believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved’? Or ‘repent…everyone of you…for the forgiveness of sins’?

The following statements find no biblical basis, to be sure: “this is what Jesus Christ has done for you, but you will not be saved unless you make your own personal decision for Christ as your Savior. Or: Jesus Christ loved you and gave his life for you on the Cross, but you will be saved only if you give your heart to him.”

But how, if at all, does Torrance verbalize man’s personal responsibility toward the message of the gospel and person of Christ?

Better yet, what gospel-centered personal responsibility toward the message and Man of the gospel look like and how is it to be exercised?

My answer: I’m not sure how Torrance understands the commands of personal responsibility to repent and believe. He does not specifically address that issue in The Mediation of Christ. But here are my brief thoughts on the subject. (1) Graeme Goldsworthy makes some helpful comments: “According to Mark 1:14-15, Jesus began His ministry preaching the gospel of God, a message summed up as ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.’ The response demanded by this gospel is ‘Repent, and believe the gospel.’ It hardly needs to be said that this indicates a distinction between the gospel and the appropriate response to it. If we take the imperative to repent and believe as part of the gospel we end up with faith in faith. The distinction between the message and the demand to believe it is vital. It means preaching the gospel must involve more than simply calling on people to make a decision” (Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, p. 82). So I think it’s helpful to keep the distinction between the Gospel and its demands for faith and repentance in mind. Goldsworthy continues, “Only the message that another true and obedient human being has come on our behalf, that He has lived for us the kind of life we should live but can’t, that He has paid fully the penalty we deserve for the life we do live but shouldn’t—only this message can give assurance that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (ibid., pp. 83-84). I think a truly evangelical presentation of the gospel puts the stress primarily not upon what the hearer must do, namely, repent and believe, but on what Christ has already done in His vicarious life and death (if you want to read more about the vicarious life of Christ, go to http://www.eucatastrophe.com/blog/archives/2005/01/24/). If our stress is primarily upon the hearers’ responsibility, we are encouraging them to look primarily within, that is, at the quality and sincerity of their own faith/repentance, rather than to look primarily without, that is, at the saving life and death of Christ. So I think that we stray from Gospel-centered evangelism when our presentation leads them to think mainly upon what they must do rather than mainly upon what Christ has done.

(2) Also, I think it is important to remember that what the Gospel demands from us it also provides for us. In other words, the Gospel itself is the power of God unto believing and repenting. Romans 1:16-17 is key for me on this point. Paul says that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation precisely because it reveals the righteousness of God. This revealing does not merely refer to our mental apprehension of this righteousness which God provides through faith in Christ. Paul is speaking of a revealing that happens with saving effect. In other words, Paul is teaching that this righteousness of God is dynamically revealed unto our salvation. It is an operative revealing, a saving revealing, and this saving righteousness is revealed in the preaching of the Gospel, that is, in the message “that another true and obedient human being has come on our behalf, that He has lived for us the kind of life we should live but can’t, that He has paid fully the penalty we deserve for the life we do live but shouldn’t.” Therefore, in our calling on people to repent and believe the Gospel, we need to keep in mind that their repentance and faith will not be self-produced, but rather Gospel produced by the righteous that is revealed with saving effect. With those brief comments said, below is more of Torrance’s thoughts on the Gospel and evangelism.

Torrance continues: “How, then, is the Gospel to be preached in a genuinely evangelical way? Surely in such a way that full and central place is given to the vicarious humanity of Jesus as the all sufficient human response to the saving love of God which He has freely and unconditionally provided for us. We preach and teach the Gospel evangelically, then, in such a way as this: God loves you so utterly and completely that He has given Himself for you in Jesus Christ His beloved Son, and has thereby pledged His very Being as God for your salvation…From beginning to end what Jesus Christ has done for you He has done not only as God but as man. He has acted in your place in the whole range of your human life and activity, including your personal decisions, and your responses to God’s love, and even your acts of faith. He has believed for you, fulfilled your human response to God, even made your personal decision for you, so that He acknowledges you before God as one who has already responded to God in Him, who has already believed in God through Him, and whose personal decision is already implicated in Christ’s self-offering to the Father, in all of which He has been fully and completely accepted by the Father, so that in Jesus Christ you are already accepted by Him. Therefore, renounce yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

“To preach the Gospel of the unconditional grace of God in that unconditional way is to set before people the astonishingly good news of what God has freely provided for us in the vicarious humanity of Jesus. To repent and believe in Jesus Christ and commit myself to Him on that basis means that I do not need to look over my shoulder all the time to see…whether my faith is at all adequate, for in faith it is not upon my faith, my believing or my personal commitment that I rely, but solely upon what Jesus Christ has done for me, in my place and on my behalf, and what He is and always will be as He stands in for me before the face of the Father. That means that I am completely liberated from all ulterior motives in believing or following Jesus Christ, for on the ground of His vicarious human response for me, I am free for spontaneous joyful response and worship and service as I could not otherwise be” (T. F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, pp. 94-95).

“Our receiving of the Spirit is objectively grounded in and derives from Christ who as the incarnate Son was anointed by the Spirit in his humanity and endowed with the Spirit without measure, not for his own sake (for he was eternally one in being with the Spirit in God) but for our sakes, and who then mediates the Spirit to us through himself. As one of us and one with us he sanctified himself in the Spirit that we might be sanctified in him and thus be sanctified in the truth. Our receiving of the Spirit, therefore, is not independent of or different from the vicarious receiving of the Spirit by Christ himself but is a sharing in it. Since he received the Spirit in the humanity he took from us, we on our part receive the Spirit through union with him and through him with the Father” (T.F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, p. 148).

I added the following Torrance quotation to my blog post on January 24th (entitled NT Survey lecture summary):

“In Jesus God Himself descended to the very bottom of our human existence where we are alienated and antagonistic, into the very hell of our godlessness and despair, laying fast hold of us and taking our cursed condition upon himself, in order to embrace us for ever in His reconciling love…The Gospel tells us that at His Baptism Jesus was baptized ‘into repentance’, for as the Lamb of God come to bear our sins He fulfilled that mission…in a way in which He bore our sin and guilt upon His very soul which He made an offering for sin. That is to say, the Baptism with which he was baptized was a Baptism of vicarious repentance for us which He brought to its completion on the Cross where He was stricken and smitten of God for our sakes, by whose stripes we are healed. He had laid hold of us even in the depths of our human soul and mind where we are alienated from God and are at enmity with him, and altered them from within and from below in radical and complete repentance…Sin has been so ingrained into our minds that we are unable to repent and have to repent even of the kind of repentance we bring to God. But Jesus Christ laid hold of us even there in our sinful repentance and turned everything round through His holy vicarious repentance” (Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ).

“To know this God, who both condescends to share all that we are and makes us share in all that He is in Jesus Christ, is to be lifted up in His Spirit to share in God’s own self-knowing and self-loving until we are enabled to apprehend Him in some real measure in Himself beyond anything that we are capable of in ourselves. It is to be lifted out of ourselves, as it were, into God, until we know Him and love Him and enjoy Him in His eternal Reality as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in such a way that the Trinity enters into the fundamental fabric of our thinking of Him and constitutes the basic grammar of our worship and knowledge of the One God” (Thomas F. Torrance, The Ground and Grammar of Theology, p. 155).

“After I finished my lecture Professor Jurgen Moltmann stood up and asked one of his typical questions, both concrete and penetrating, ‘But can you embrace a cetnik?’ It was the winter of 1993. For months now the notorious Serbian fighters called ‘cetnik’ had been sowing desolation in my native country, herding people into concentration camps, raping women, burning down churches, and destroying cities. I had just argued that we must embrace our enemies as God has embraced us in Christ. Can I embrace a cetnik—the ultimate other, so to speak, the evil other? What would justify the embrace? Where would I draw the strength for it? What would it do to my identity as a human being and as a Croat? It took me a while to answer, though I immediately knew what I wanted to say. ‘No, I cannot—but as a follower of Christ I think I should be able to.’

“…My thought was pulled in two different directions by the blood of the innocent crying out to God and by the blood of God’s Lamb offered for the guilty. How does one remain loyal both to the demand of the oppressed for justice and to the gift of forgiveness that the Crucified offered to the perpetrators? I felt caught between two betrayals—the betrayal of the suffering, exploited, and excluded, and the betrayal of the very core of my faith. In a sense even more disturbingly, I felt that my very faith was at odds with itself, divided between the God who delivers the needy and the God who abandons the Crucified, between the demand to bring about justice for the victims and the call to embrace the perpetrator. I knew, of course, of easy ways to resolve this powerful tension. But I also knew that they were easy precisely because they were false. Goaded by the suffering of those caught in vicious cycles of conflict, not only in my native Croatia but around the globe, I went on a journey, whose report I present in this book” (Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation by Volf Miroslav, preface).

I don’t know about you, but I think I am going to purchase and read this book.

On January 6th I posted a quotation that I was planning on using in my January 12th sermon. BBC’s president, Jim Jeffrey, gave me the opportunity to introduce a 3-part series (each message by a different Bible faculty member) on personal holiness this first week of school. The title of my January 6th post was “a mere outline of a human being.” The title of my sermon was “Personal Holiness: More than a Mere Outline of a Human Being.” If you are interested, you can listen to it by downloading the link below (right-c lick and then c lick on “save as” to download).

http://www.bbc.edu/chapel/20050112_dancruver.mp3

I found this insightful quotation in preparation for a sermon I am preaching in chapel on January 12th. It is a powerful reminder of my profound need of the gospel.

“All idolatry is not only treacherous but also futile. Human desire, deep and restless and seemingly unfulfillable, keeps stuffing itself with finite goods, but these cannot satisfy. If we try to fill our hearts with anything besides the God of the universe, we find that we are overfed but undernourished, and we find that day by day, week by week, year after year, we are thinning down to a mere outline of a human being” (Cornelius Plantinga, Not the Way It’s Suposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin, pp. 122-123).

It reminds me of the words of Bilbo: “I feel thin–sort of stretched like butter scraped over too much bread. I need a holiday, a very long holiday, and I don’t expect I shall return. In fact, I mean not to!” I would just change one thing in Bilbo’s statement of need: “I need the Gospel, all of it, and I don’t mean to stop feeding upon it!”