Gospel

The Gospel and Wisdom: Learning to Apply the Gospel to All of Life

/ davidsschrock

This evening, our church will look at the Book of Proverbs in our ongoing study of the Bible.  In preparation this morning, I came across this helpful reminder by noted Biblical Theologian, Graeme Goldsworthy, that the gospel of Jesus Christ necessarily includes the conversion of the mind and the application of the gospel to all areas of our thought life (cf. Rom 12:1-2;  2 Cor 10:3-6).

Listen to what Goldsworthy has to say,

The Christian mind-set comes about through the gospel, and so we must come to think of Christian wisdom as a conforming of the mind to the gospel.  If, then, we understand the gospel only in its basic terms of Jesus dying for us, we will probably wonder how this can affect the way we think totally.  We need to remind ourselves that the simple gospel is also profound.  The truth, ‘Jesus died for me,’ actually implies everything that God has revealed in the Bible about his relationship to humanity and to the created order. Growing as a Christian really means learning to apply the fact of the gospel to every aspect of our thinking and doing (Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel and Wisdom in The Goldsworthy Trilogy [Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster, 2000], 341).

May we as Christians continue to turn from the pernicious patterns of this world to the mind-renewing truth of the gospel that informs every aspect of creation, wisdom, and life.  For in Christ all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden (Col 2:3).

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Beware of “Do-It-Yourself Christianity”

/ davidsschrock

Yesterday I preached on Galatians 2:17-21, and in my sermon I emphasized  the dangers of “Do-It-Yourself Christianity.”  I described it as the kind of Christianity that arises from a debtor’s ethic, one where someone  saved by grace tries to ‘repay’ God for his grace.  Paul adamantly opposed to this grace-nullifying kind of Christianity (Gal 2:21) and warned the Galatians and us to beware of working out in the flesh what God gives only by faith and the power of the Spirit.

Wonder if you suffer from Do-It-Yourself Christianity?  Here are ten symptoms which might indicate an emphasis on living the Christian life in the power of the flesh.

  1. If you ever pray, “God help me to be the best Christian I can be.”
  2. If you take pride that you are not like those other people.
  3. If you believe Christ died and rose again, but you do not know how those events impact your daily life.
  4. If “What Would Jesus Do?” summarizes your understanding of the Bible and Christianity.
  5. If you base your Christian faith on the “decision” you made and/or the “aisle you walked,” instead of the death Jesus died and the life he gives you by faith in him.
  6. If prayerlessness marks your daily life.
  7. If, in the words of Robert Fulghum, you learned all you needed to know about God, the Bible, and Jesus in VBS and Sunday School.
  8. If putting to death the deeds of the flesh means simply continuing to maintain the manmade barriers–no smoking, no drinking, no cussing, no long hair, etc.– instead of learning to walk by faith and love the unloveable (among other things) in the power of the Spirit.
  9. If confessing sin sounds something like this, “God forgive me for the things I have done, whatever they are.”  When the Spirit convicts, He pinpoints specific areas of sin and disobedience.
  10. If fear of doing wrong moves you to separate from ‘sinners’ and establish greater barriers to protect you from sin, instead of walking in the Spirit, praying for the lost and asking God to make you a Spirit-filled vessel whom God can use to shine light into the darkness (cf Gal 5:16).

Bottom line, do-it-yourself Christianity is trusting in yourself to continue what Christ has begun.  When you compare that mindset to that of the Apostle Paul and Jesus Christ, you will soon realize that such thinking is bankrupt of the gospel.  Gospel living is a life marked by daily repentance and fresh faith in the living and active word of God.  Salvation is not marked by checking a box, but is marked out by Spirit-produced fruit (cf Gal 5:22-23).  Sadly, American Christianity is rife with do-it-yourself Christianity.  It is a kind of religion that confesses Jesus, but denies his power.

May we repent of our self-reliance and learn to walk by faith in Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

In need of the gospel more today than yesterday, dss

The Self-Sacrificial Mission of the Law

/ davidsschrock

We know that Christ was sent to earth to die for sinners.  The Bible is clear on that matter: For God so loved the world that he gave his only son (John 3:16)… But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under Law, so that he might redeem those who were under the Law (Gal 4:4-5)…In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that Godsent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him (1 John 4:9).

However, have you ever stopped to think about this fact: Long before Christ came and died on the cross, the law was sent with a similar terminal mission.  The law which points to Christ (John 5:39; Luke 24:27), was fulfilled by Christ (Matt 5:17), and which was in some sense terminated with Christ (Rom 10:4; Gal 2:18-20), had a similar self-sacrificial purpose.

Granted, the law is impersonal, but it is God’s very word–holy, true, and inspired.  For centuries, it was God’s abiding revelation among his covenant people.  The people of Israel prized it, protected it (most of the time), and passed it down from one generation to the next, because of its centrality in knowing and worshiping YHWH.

The Law, in and of itself, was never designed to save.  It does offer life upon the condition of perfect obedience (Lev 18:5), but as the prophets, and even the law itself indicates, perfection for Adam’s race and Abraham’s offspring is impossible.  Nevertheless, within the confines of redemptive history, it serves a necessary role to prepare the way for Jesus.  But from the beginning this role was restricted and designed to be temporary.  The law was sent to die!

Hear Richard Longenecker’s fourfold explanation of the laws ‘temporal’ function as he comments on Galatians 2:20:

(1) [I]t was the law’s purpose to bring about its own demise in legislating the lives of God’s people; (2) that such a jurisdictional demise was necessary in order that believers in Christ might live more fully in relationship with God; (3) that freedom from the law’s jurisdiction is demanded by the death of Christ on the cross; and (4) that by identification with Christ we experience the freedom from the law that [Christ] accomplished (Galatians in The Word Biblical Commentary [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1990], 92).

It is amazing that in his sublime wisdom, God’s eternal word has a pre-engineered expiration date on the law.  An expiration date that does not make the law go bad like spoiled milk, but one that renders its function as covenantally inoperable.  Why?  Because Jesus Christ has fulfilled all the law and issued a new law–a law of faith and love (Rom 3:27 and Gal 5:4)– according to a superior covenant (Heb 8:6).   There is so much more to be said and savored on this matter, but let us with Paul offer praise to God for his inscrutible wisdom that upholds the law, all the while offering a better set of promises through the gospel of Christ.

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
“For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Amen, dss

What is a Christian?

/ davidsschrock

In his Commentary on Galatians, Martin Luther has a number of choice statements about the gospel, faith, and conversion.  Commenting on Galatians 2:16, hear how this Reformer defines a ‘genuine Christian’:

(For those not familiar with King James English, please forgive the hath’s and saith’s)

We therefore make this definition of a Christian: a Christian is not he who hath no sin, but he to whom God imputeth not his sin, through faith in Christ.  That is why we so often repeat and beat into your minds, the forgiveness of sins and imputation of righteousness for Christ’s sake.  Therefore when the law accuseth him and sin terrifieth him, he looketh up to Christ, and when he hath apprehended Him by faith, he hath present with him the conqueror of the law, sin, death, and the devil: and Christ reigneth and ruleth over them, so that they cannot hurt the Christian.  So that he hath indeed a great and inestimable treasure, or as St. Paul saith: ‘the unspeakable gift’ (2 Cor 6:15), which cannot be magnified enough, for it maketh us the children and heirs of God.  This gift may be said to be greater than heaven and earth, because Christ, who is this greater gift, is greater (Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians, trans. Erasmus Middleton [Reprint: Grand Rapids: Kregel Classics, 1979], 72).

It bears repeating, “a Christian is not one who has no sin,” but one who has advocate with God the Father, Jesus Christ our mediator.  In him do erring sinners find pardon and relief when they come to him in faith.

Since our natural tendency is to work for our salvation and to trust our own religious accomplishments, we must, as Luther says, “often repeat and beat into [our] minds, the forgiveness of sins and imputation of righteousness” comes from faith in Jesus Christ alone and not through our own works.

Hallelujah!  What a Savior!

dss

Gospel Reflections

/ davidsschrock

Preaching through Galatians and attending Together for the Gospel have caused me to think a lot about the gospel lately–what it is, what it is not, how to preach it to those who “know the gospel,” how to speak of it gravity and glory to those who don’t know it.

I have put down a couple thoughts on our church’s website: www.cbcseymour.org.  I pray these meditations might encourage you and more than that the gospel itself would be the source of your greatest encouragement.

Together For the Gospel: 7000 Who Have Not Bowed The Knee

God FOR Us: The Power of a Preposition

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

A Better Way to do Church Missions

/ davidsschrock

David Prince and Jeremy Haskins, pastors at Ashland Avenue Baptist Church in Lexington, KY, were recently interviewed in The Towers at Southern Seminary.  They were asked to describe their leadership philosophies and how they have led change at their church.  Their interview is steeped with wisdom, but one section concerning corporate, Gospel-centered ministry stood out.

“A lot of people do ministry in a way that self-consciously segments the entire congregation,” Prince said. “What we try to do is never allow that. If these things matter to the congregation as a whole for the sake of the Gospel then we are all committed to them.

“For example, when we send a mission team out, we don’t say that we are sending a certain group of people out on a mission trip. We say, ‘Ashland Avenue Baptist Church is involved in this mission trip. Some people have involvement here and some have involvement there; the people there are our eyes, hands and mouths for the Gospel.’”

Well said!  May our churches adopt such a “together for the gospel” mindset.  Moreover, may we have a united missional drive that sees whole churches involved in Christ’s mission, so that ‘missions’ is what everyone does, not just those who are leaving American soil.

Until All Hear, dss

What is the Gospel?

/ davidsschrock

On the The Gospel Coalition website is a short explanation of the gospel by D.A. Carson.  In his concise chapter on “The Biblical Gospel” from For Such a Time as This: Perspectives on Evangelicalism, Past, Present and Future (p. 75-85), Carson defines the gospel by its connection to the entire corpus of the biblical narrative.  He writes,

Thus the gospel is integrally tied to the Bible’s story-line. Indeed, [the gospel] is incomprehensible without understanding that story-line. God is the sovereign, transcendent and personal God who has made the universe, including us, his image-bearers. Our misery lies in our rebellion, our alienation from God, which, despite his forbearance, attracts his implacable wrath. But God, precisely because love is of the very essence of his character, takes the initiative and prepared for the coming of his own Son by raising up a people who, by covenantal stipulations, temple worship, systems of sacrifice and of priesthood, by kings and by prophets, are taught something of what God is planning and what he expects. In the fullness of time his Son comes and takes on human nature. He comes not, in the first instance, to judge but to save: he dies the death of his people, rises from the grave and, in returning to his heavenly Father, bequeaths the Holy Spirit as the down payment and guarantee of the ultimate gift he has secured for them—an eternity of bliss in the presence of God himself, in a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. The only alternative is to be shut out from the presence of this God forever, in the torments of hell.6 What men and women must do, before it is too late, is repent and trust Christ; the alternative is to disobey the gospel (Romans 10:16; 2 Thessalonians 1:8; 1 Peter 4:17).

As usual, Carson hits the nail on the head, and helps us see that the “simple gospel” can only be understood and proclaimed against the backdrop of the whole counsel of Scripture. This has import for personal evangelism, preaching, counseling, and everyday decision-making.

In his chapter, Carson also shows that the gospel not only presents a positive message about Jesus Christ; it also denies any and all pseudo-gospels that plague our churches today (and throughout church history for that matter).  He cites the ‘evangelical’ trend towards psychology as one of the greatest causes for distorting the gospel.

A litany of devices designed to make us more spiritual or mature or productive or emotionally whole threatens to relegate the gospel to irrelevance, or at least to the realm of the boring and the primitive. The gospel may introduce you to the church, as it were, but from that point on assorted counseling techniques and therapy sessions will change your life and make you happy and fruitful. The gospel may help you make some sort of decision for God, but ‘rebirthing’ techniques—in which in silent meditation you imagine Jesus catching you as you are born from your mother’s womb, imagine him hugging you and holding you—will generate a wonderful cathartic experience that will make you feel whole again, especially if you have been abused in the past. The gospel may enable you to be right with God, but if you really want to pursue spirituality you must find a spiritual director, or practise asceticism, or discipline yourself with journalling, or spend two weeks in silence in a Trappist monastery.

Tomorrow I will preach on Galatians 1:6-9: What the gospel is and what the gospel is not.  Carson’s short essay, like Paul’s excited admonition to the Galatians, reminds me that the gospel is something that is easily distorted and too often assumed.  Consequently, there are dozens of half-gospels that are tempting us to turn from the pure gospel of Jesus Christ.  So, I am praying that for our church and for myself, that we will trade in our own personal narratives for the gospel-narrative of Jesus Christ and that we will eschew any vision of Jesus that makes him less than the eternal Son of God, sent to earth to be the bleeding sacrifice, who takes away the sin of the world, and delivers all those who trust in him from this evil age.

I am praying that we will know what the gospel is and what the gospel is not!

(For more on this subject see Greg Gilbert’s new book: What is the Gospel?)

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Gospel Saturation: The Third Mark of a Healthy Church Member

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

What does it mean to be Gospel-Saturated? 

That is what we considered on Sunday night — this post is a few days late — when we took another look at Thabiti Anyabwile’s book What is a Healthy Church Member?  His third mark of a healthy church member is to be filled to overflowing with the gospel of Jesus Christ–that is, Gospel-Saturated. 

Ephesians 5:18 says, “Do not get drunk with wine which leads to debauchery [or dissipation] but be filled with the Holy Spirit.”  If I had to take a guess at what gospel-saturation looked like, I would say that just as someone is under the influence of alcohol, gospel-saturation would look like someone who is visibly manifesting the fruit of the Spirit and boldly proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ–after all, to be most “Spiritual” is to be most Christ-centered (cf John 16:13-14).  Consider the apostles on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2).  

In thinking about growing in gospel-saturation, here are five suggestions to help you grow in your understanding and application of the gospel. 

1. Memorize the Gospel.   Obviously, your confidence in the gospel is only as good as your knowledge of it.  The best way to do this of course is to read the Bible, because from Genesis 3:15 to Revelation, the whole Bible is a testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Yet, for a new Christian or one who has not spent a lot of time in the Bible, one of the best things you can do is memorize the turning points of the gospel– things like that God is the holy creator who made us for his glory, that all mankind is sinful and desrving punishment, that the sovereign plan of salvation has been in effect since the fall, and that Jesus Christ’s law-fulfilling life, substitionary death, and justifying resurrection and victorious ascension have secured salvation for all those who repent from sin and believe on Him.  This would be a start.

Here are a few other resources to help you memorize the key turning points of the gospel.  Select one and memorize it–and more importantly memorize the Scriptures contained in each–so that you can better know the gospel and share it with others.

2. Learn to summarize the Gospel in 30 Seconds.  Call this the Elevator Gospel.  If you were in an elevator, on the 95th floor of Sears Tower and the cable snapped, could you share the gospel in the 30 seconds you had before impending death?  Or for those twitteratis out there, could you tweet the gospel in 140 characters or less?  These guys did. 

Now hear me: THE POINT IS NOT TO SHRINK THE GOSPEL!!!  Or to think that the gospel can be distilled into less than the full canon of Scripture.  But, THE POINT IS to so imbibe and embrace the gospel that you are able to communicate it at any time, anywhere, to anyone.  The goal is to arm ourselves with the gospel so that we can preach to ourselves or witness to another, which leads us to our next two points.

3. Preach the Gospel to yourself.  The gospel does little good for others, when it is not first changing your life.  Because we sin repeatedly every moment of every day, we need to learn how to apply the gospel to ourselves.  To paraphrase Martyn LLoyd-Jones, we need to spend less time listening to ourselves, and more time preaching to ourselves.  This is the model of David in Psalm 103:1, where he commands his soul to bless the Lord (cf Psalm 42-43).  Yet, to do this we must fill our minds with heart-stirring gospel truths.  As you seek to preach the gospel to yourself, consider just a few verses to begin with: Psalm 103:1-5; Lamentations 3:21-26; Romans 5:1; 8:1; Galatians 2:16-21; Hebrews 4:14-16; 1 John 1:9-2:2.  For more gospel-saturating verse suggestions, see Desiring God’s Fighter Verses.

4. Think about the Gospel.  This sounds simplistic and obvious, but really, how much time do you think about the gospel?  For you own sanctification, gospel meditation is necessary.  As you encounter sin, you must take time to see how the Cross of Jesus Christ is the singular, God-given means of forgiving your sin, cleansing your righteousness, and building up your faith.  See C.J. Mahaney’s book, The Cross-Centered Life, for more here.  At the same time, gospel-rumination prepares you for creatively sharing the gospel with others. 

What do I mean?  Well, I can remember the time that walking on the boardwalk in Virginia Beach, coming back from a Campus Crusade evangelistic outreach, I was approached by a jewelry salesman offering som “mighty fine watches and rings.”   Like a dunce, I said no thanks and moved on.  I thought later, what if I had replied, “No, I am not interested in any of your jewelry, because I already have the pearl of greatest price!  Can I tell you about him?”  Now that would have been quite an evangelistic conversation starter, but because I wasn’t thinking that way I missed that opportunity.  So, we must learn to think (creatively) about the gospel, so that as we fill our minds with Scripture and meditate on the gospel, we will be more equipped for the next traveling salesman.

5. Order your life around the Gospel.  In What is a Healthy Church Member? (p. 43), Thabiti suggests that Christians should order their daily and weekly routines in such a way that they are constantly on the look out for gospel-sharing opportunities.  Whether at the grocery, Starbucks, the gym, the neighborhood park, or the local newstand–if those still exist– we should look for people with whom we can build relationships and share the good news of Jesus Christ.  In doing this, we are fulfilling the Great Commission and letting the Holy Spirit work in us to confirm the gospel we believe. 

Now, with these five suggestions in place, I can already hear some detractor saying that I have shrunk the gospel by advocating a 30 second, memorized list of verses.  Maybe.  But that is not my aim, so much as I am trying to think how we, as finite witnesses, can better know and make know the gospel.   In sum, I am simply trying to think through ways of practically applying the gospel to daily life.  I would love to hear how you do it, and how we can better become gospel-saturated Christians.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Oscar Cullman on Irenaeus and Redemptive History

/ davidsschrock

Here is a great quote from Oscar Cullmann that shows the centrality and importance that redemptive history had for Irenaeus and should have for us.  He rightly understood that Christian preaching divorced from the fullness of redemptive history, had no vitality.  May our preaching be filled with biblical theology and its Christ-centered, gospel witness.  Here is the quote found in Aloys Grillmeier’s Christ in Christian Tradition:

Down to the theologians of the ‘redemptive history’ school in the nineteenth century…there has scarcely been another theologian who had recognized so clearly as did Irenaeus that the Christian proclamation stands or falls with the redemptive history, that this historical work of Jesus Christ as Redeemer forms the mid-point of a line which leads from the Old Testament to the return of Christ (Cullmann, Christ and Time, London 1962, 56-7).

May we exhaust ourselves defending and declaring, exegeting and extolling the glories of Christ unveiled in the history of redemption.  The power and the purity of the gospel depends on it.

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

The Mystery of Marriage: A Quasi-Ordinance

/ davidsschrock / 3 Comments

[This is a follow-up post from The Mystery of Marriage: A Parable of Christ and Church  which reflected on George Knight’s article on Ephesians 5 in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem [Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991], 175-76)].

From the foundation of the world, marriage was always designed to picture a greater reality.  Generation after generation of God’s covenant people knew of his marital designs and creation, but only in the fullness of time, as Jesus Christ came in the flesh and the Spirit of Christ inspired the apostles to elucidate the gospel of Jesus Christ, did the mystery of husband and wife become known.  Consider Knight’s concluding remarks:

But if this is so, then the order Paul is speaking of here (submission and love [in Ephesians 5:22-33]) is not accidental or temporary or culturally determined: it is part of the essence of marriage, part of God’s original plan for perfect, sinless, harmonious marriage.  This is a powerful argument for the fact that Christlike, loving headship and church-like, willing submission are rooted in creation and in God’s eternal purposes, not just in the passing trends of culture (176).

In our foolish and anti-Christ(ian) world, there are countless marriages that exist in rebellion against the very purpose for which they were designed.  God made marriage for his glory and the expression his covenant love with his bride, redeemed humanity.  Consequently, the establishment of marriage in Genesis 2 was intended to tesify to this reality. 

Today, unbelievers experience the mystery of marriage, but without knowing how to understand it.  They are blind to its salvific and cosmic significance.  Too non-Christian marriages are drenched in bitterness and guile, because unmitigated sin gnaws at their covenantal bond.  But unbelievers are not alone.  Christian marriages war against God’s design for marriage whenever they cast aside God’s intended order for husbands and wives (cf. 1 Cor. 11:7; Eph. 5:22-33; 1 Pet. 3:1-7).  This can be done by deliberate egalitarianism or by immature believers in need of marital sanctification.  Either way, in failing to recognize God’s wise design for husbands to lead and wives to follow, for men to love like Christ and women to submit like the church, they are dishonoring the Word of God, disobeying the Lord who bought them, and distorting God’s picture of salvation captured in the parable of marriage. 

God’s illustrative purposes for marriage is what makes it a mystery.  Just as the heavens testify to the glory of God, so marriage captures something of his grandeur–something that is seen in the best of marriages, to be sure.  Likewise, as baptism and the Lord’s supper resemble the salvation of Christ’s disciples, so marriage images something about Christ and the church.  In this way, marriage is a kind of quasi-ordinance.  It is not restricted to the church; it is rather for all people.  Yet, in its global enjoyment it testifies to heavenly realities and God’s cosmic plan of redemption in Christ.  In this way, marriage is perhaps one of the largest and potentially broadest means of sharing the gospel, as marriage itself can be called upon to witness to Christ and the church.  The impact of marriage biblically arranged and gloriously incarnated has great evangelistic potential.  Soberly, couples that disregard God’s word concerning marriage, cannot have such effect. 

God’s designs are not new, they are from before the foundation of the world.  Neither is Satan’s attack on marriage.  He attacked Eve in the Garden and he is still advancing towards marriages today.  May we who love the gospel and the biblical vision for marriage, fight to protect our homes from the corrosive effects of an anti-marriage culture, and may we by the power of the Spirit embrace and embody God’s glorious designs for marriage.  So that perhaps, the world around us might come to know Christ by the testimony of our marriages which point to the message we proclaim–Jesus Christ is Lord!

Sola Deo Gloria, dss