Today, at Southern Seminary I have the chance to teach the nature of the atonement in 90 minutes. Should be fun. Here are some of my notes on the subject from a few years ago.
The Atonement: Prophet, Priest, King
The Atonement: Its Necessity and Nature
Soli Deo Gloria, dss
Yesterday I preached a pair of messages on the “gospel preached beforehand.” In Galatians 3:8, Paul writes, “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”
I have thought much about what the contents of that ‘gospel message’ would have been, and yesterday I sought to explain from Genesis 12, 15, 17, and 22, how the Lord proclaimed the good news to the patriarch Abraham. In short order, I argued that the content of the gospel can be witnessed in God’s promise of grace (Gen 12), justification by faith that results in a covenant relationship (Gen 15), circumcised citizenship in the kingdom of God (Gen 17), and the necessity of the Lord’s sacrifice, substitution, and resurrection (Gen 22).
Only when all of these elements are included do you have the full gospel message. Maybe I saw too much Christ in the Old Testament, maybe not enough. Tell me what you think.
Here is the sermon audio. The first message begins in Luke 24 and turns to look at Genesis 12, 15, and 17; the second message covers Genesis 22 with an introductory excursus asking this question: ‘Since we have the full gospel (Heb 1:1-4), why should we spend much time on the gospel preached beforehand?”
Soli Deo Gloria, dss
In his little book, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism, Southern Baptist pastor Mark Dever defines the gospel as follows:
The gospel is the good news is that the one and only God, who is holy, made us in his image to know him. But we sinned and cut ourselves off from him. In his great love, God became a man in Jesus, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross, thus fulfilling the law himself and taking on himself the punishment for the sins of all those who would ever turn and trust in him. He rose again from the dead, showing that God accepted Christ’s sacrifice and that God’s wrath against us had been exhausted. He now calls us to repent of our sins and to trust in Christ alone for our forgiveness. If we repent of our sins and trust in Christ, we are born again into a new life, and eternal life with God. (43)
This is the simple and saving message of Jesus Christ. For more than twenty centuries, it has been proclaimed to kings and criminals, housemaid and headhunters (cannibals, that is; not corporate matchmakers). This message is God’s power unto salvation (Rom 1:16), but because it comes in verbal form, it also has been misunderstood, distorted, and caricatured. While upheld by God himself; the gospel, as a message carried by humans, is an endangered species. Continue reading
It has been four days since the Supreme Court struck down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). This landmark decision will have implications for decades to come, and consequently, there has been no end to the legal analysis, cultural commentary, and prophetic predictions since Wednesday’s decision. This dialogue is exhausting, but also necessary.
Christians (pastors and parishioners) need to be informed and equipped to handle this judicial decision and the implication it will have on state laws and America’s public perception of those defending traditional marriage. One of the most alarming aspects of the court’s decision was Justice Kennedy’s language that essentially described opponents of same sex marriage as “enemies of the human race” (language used by Justice Scalia in his dissenting remarks).
Due to the centrality of marriage for gospel witness, not to mention societal stability, this fight for marriage is going to continue for sometime. It should.
In this heated conversation, its worth asking, “Who is a helpful voice? A voice advocating biblical wisdom, not just partisan politics?” Since, not every voice is equally helpful, it might be helpful to know the names of a few defenders of traditional marriage that you can continue to listen to. Maybe you already have your luminaries, but if not, let me commend a few to you. Continue reading
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
(Romans 1:16)
The gospel.
It is a word made impotent by its vague familiarity. Like ‘love’—which sells hamburgers, promotes athletics, and expresses marital bliss—‘gospel’ has become a filler word. It is often used, but little understood. Don’t believe me? Just ask a Christian what the word is, and wait for the stammering to begin—uh . . . well . . . hmmm . . . you know . . . it’s the gospel.
The gospel is often assumed. Rarely defined. Abstract, not concrete. It is a good word to use in church, but it is a word more quickly said than studied.
Such gospel assumption—or it is amnesia?—impairs our witness and our worship. Therefore, we need to ask some questions about the gospel: Who needs the gospel? Christians or non-Christians? What do we do with the gospel? Is it a message to be believed and preached? Or is it a way of life to be lived? Are there variations of the gospel? Or is the message singular? How do you define the gospel? Continue reading
Whenever the line between Creator and creature is blurred, error and idolatry result. Harold Netland makes this reality plain in his book Encountering Religious Pluralism. Consider his words,
Eve was tempted by the suggestion that she, a mere creature, could become like God (Gen 3:4-5). The tendency to blur the distinction between God and humankind–either to bring God down to our level or to deify human beings–is a common feature of religion and can be found in the polytheistic religions of the ancient world as well as in many modern-day traditions (Harold Netland, Encountering Religious Pluralism, 336).
From the start, mankind was tempted to reduce the distance to the Creator. It is an utter impossibility, like squaring a circle or taking the weight of the infinite, invisible God. But yet, Adam and Eve tried to become like God, and the result was disastrous. Ethically (or better: covenantally), the problem was that they broke God’s law, but metaphysically, they failed to understand that God is sui generis (that is a fancy word meaning ‘one of a kind’). He is not by a matter of degrees; he is in a class by himself. In this way, Satan’s invitation to be like God was not even possible—in truth, they were already “like” God, as creatures made in his image. Continue reading
My wife is an excellent maker of cakes. My favorite is the homemade chocolate cake she makes. What makes it so good? Well, the sweet, moist cake is a good starting place, but it moves from good to great when she adds the frosting, and it goes from great to ‘out of this world,’ when she makes a double-layered cake with a large portion of frosting in the middle.
Makes you hungry, doesn’t it?
Well, the richness of a double-layered, chocolate is not unlike the word of God, which the Psalmist described as sweeter than honey (Ps 19:10). If he had chocolate in his vocabulary, I bet he would have made that comparison, as well.
“And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”
“God speaks, and it is done. The centrality of the word of God in the acts of creation anticipates the deeper truth given in John 1:1, that the second person of the Trinity is the Word” (“History of Salvation in the Old Testament: Preparing the Way for Christ,” in the ESV Study Bible, p. 2635).
Word and wisdom; Logos and logic. Imbedded in creation is the capacity for (in)finite communication. That God’s relationship with man comes through the medium of words reveals the necessity of speech and the essence of who God is. He is the speaking God. Creation happened when God spoke, because as it is revealed later in Scripture, the God who created the world with his word, is “the Word” himself (John 1:1). Continue reading
Yesterday I continued my summer series on the gospel, going to the very last place in the Bible where the word gospel is used: Revelation 14:6.
I think there is good reason to start a series on the gospel with this passage—actually, I began with Romans 1:16-17—but in terms of doing a ‘biblical theology’ of the gospel, Revelation 14:6 makes an interesting and important contribution because it affirms the unchanging yet unfolding nature of the gospel; it reiterates the universal scope of the gospel; and it sets the diamond of grace and mercy in the prongs of God’s holy wrath.
Give it a listen. Let me know what you think.
[audio https://davidschrock.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/001_a_003_calvary-bc_the-eternal-gospel_2013_07_24.mp3]Soli Deo Gloria, dss
Here is the intro to an blog post I wrote for CBMW.
How long does it take to lose a proper view of biblical masculinity?
Assuming that someone has been exposed to a true vision of manhood, the amount of time depends. For those who have gleaned from Scripture that God made men and women different, it would take some time and convincing. But tragically, in a (church) culture devoid of strong biblical literacy, a biblical view of manhood could be stolen in sixty seconds or less.
To find out how television commercials reinforce wrong-headed views of biblical masculinity, see my post at CBMW’s website : Gone in Sixty Seconds.
Soli Deo Gloria, dss
Via Emmaus 