Posted on 10/18/2009 3:22:12 AM PDT by Gamecock
What does it mean when we say that the gospel is historical?
Dr. Tim Keller explains:
The gospel is historical . . . The word “gospel” shows up twice [1 Peter 1:1-12, 1:22-2:12]. Gospel actually means “good news.” You see it spelled out a little bit when it says “he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”. Why do we say that the gospel is good news? Some years ago, I heard a tape series I am sure was never put into print by Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. It was an evening sermon series on 1 Corinthians 15. He clarified how the Gospel is based on historical events in how the religion got its start. He said there was a big difference between advice and news. The Gospel, he would say, is good news, but not good advice. Here’s what he said about that: “Advice is counsel about something that hasn’t happened yet, but you can do something about it. News is a report about something that has happened which you can’t do anything about because it has been done for you and all you can do is to respond to it.”
So he says think this out: here’s a king, and he goes into a battle against an invading army to defend his land. If the king defeats the invading army, he sends back to the capital city messengers, envoys, very happy envoys. He sends back good newsers. And what they come back with is a report. They come back and they say: It’s been defeated and it’s been all done. Therefore respond with joy and now go about your lives in this peace which has been achieved for you. But if he doesn’t defeat the invading army, and the invading army breaks through, the king sends back military advisers and says . . . “Marksmen over here and the horseman over there, and we will have to fight for our lives.” Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones says that every other religion sends military advisers to people. Every other religion says that if you want to achieve salvation, you will have to fight for your life. Every other religion is sending advice saying “here are the rites, here are the rituals, here’s the transformation of the consciousness and here are the laws and the regulations. Marksmen over here and horsemen over there and we are going to fight for our lives.” We send heralds; we send messengers and not military advisers. Isn’t that clarifying? It’s just incredibly clarifying. And it’s not like there’s nothing to do about it, my goodness. Both the messenger and the military adviser get an enormous response. One is a response of joy and the other one is a response of fear. All other religions give advice and they drive everything you do with fear . . . as you know, when you hear the gospel, when you hear the message that it’s all been done for you, it’s a historical event that has happened, your salvation is accomplished for you, what do you want to do? You want obey the Ten Commandments, you want to pray, and you want to please the one that did this for you.
If, on the other hand, military advisers say you have to live a really good life if you want to get into heaven, what do you do? You want to pray and you want to obey the Ten Commandments. It looks the same, doesn’t it? But for two radically different reasons: One is joy and the other one is fear. In the short run, they look alike. But in the long run, over here we have burn out and self-righteousness and guilt and all sorts of problems. And that’s fascinating. But having said that, what’s the ministry implication? The ministry implication is this: the significance of preaching, of proclamation, of declarative preaching, is irreplaceably central in Gospel ministry. Declarative preaching is irreplaceably central.Why? If basically we are sending people “how to”, if we are saying here’s the “how to” to live the right way, if that’s the primary message, I am not sure words are necessarily the best thing to send. You want to send a model. If I was to teach an advanced seminar on preaching (and I never have) I would make everybody read CS Lewis’ Studies in Words. It’s amazing because we are wordsmiths and he shows you how important it is to craft your words properly. The last chapter is called “At the Fringe of Language” and he says language can’t do everything. He says that one of the things language cannot do is describe complex operations. On the other hand, when it comes to describing how, to explain to somebody that Joshua Chamberlain, without any ammunition, charged down Little Round Top in an incredible, risky adventure at the height of the Battle of Gettysburg, and as a result changed the course of history. You don’t show people that, you tell them that. It’s something that happened, you describe it. You tell them that. If you are going to give them how-tos, very often what you want is modeling and dialogue, action and reflection and so forth.
Therefore, if you believe the gospel is good news, declarative preaching (verbal proclaiming) will always be irreplaceably central to what we do. However, if you subscribe to the assertion that the gospel is simply good advice on how to live a life that changes people and connects to God . . . dialogue would be alright. Stories and modeling and reflection would be more important. In other words, you would believe what some people would quip: “proclaim the gospel, use words if necessary”. You’ve probably heard that. That shows, I think, that they don’t quite understand what the gospel is all about.
1. The most common is that man earns his way into Paradise. There may be a facilitator, but man's efforts still are the deciding factor.
2. Christ did all the work. We contribute nothing.
Which do you place your faith?
Excellent!!!The following comes to mind:
“He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. (John 1:11-12)
“For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved.” (John 3:17)
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)
“That if thou shall confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10)
“For whoever shall call upon the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13)
“For He (God) hath made Him (Jesus)to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
“But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law. To redeem them that wer under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” (Galatians 4: 4-7)
“Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD, Praise ye the LORD.” (Psalm 150:6)
Unfortunately, I think most Christians fall into the category that Christ did a lot, but you still have work to do to make the cut.
“This may seem to you to be of little consequence, but it really is a matter of life and death. I would plead with every Christian—think it over, my dear brother. When some of us preach Calvinism, and some Arminianism, we cannot both be right; it is of not use trying to think we can be—’Yes,’ and ‘no,’ cannot both be true.Truth does not vacillate like the pendulum which shakes backwards and forwards....One must be right; the other wrong.” - CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON
SOLI DEO GLORIA!
Talk to a some Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists. You might change your mind.
There are two types of people in the world:
Those who oversimplify things and those who don't.
“Talk to a some Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists. You might change your mind.”
Oversimplistically:
Do not Jews, Bhuddists, Hindus, and Taoists basically believe they have to do things in order to achieve their version of heaven?
Well, oversimplistically then, there appears to be two religions: Christianity, where Christ does the work, and everything else, which is a false religion.
It may be simple. But, it’s true.
Hoss
Bravo
Thanks for your post Hoss.
That was my exact point.
All to God’s glory!
Hoss
Those of the decent and the indecent.
Amen, brother.
“Look here sir! There are hundreds of religions in this country, and the followers of some think theirs is the only right one. How can poor, plain men like us find out what really is the truth?”
We generally reply something like this. “Hundreds of religions you say? That is strange; I’ve heard of only two.”
“Oh, but surely you know there are more than that?”
“Not at all, sir, I find, I admit, many shades of differences in the opinions of those compromising the two great schools; but after all there are but two. The one covers all who expect salvation by DOING; the other, all who have been saved BY SOMETHING DONE. So you see the question is very simple. Can you save yourself, or must you be saved by another? If you can be your own saviour, you do not need to listen. If you cannot, you may well want to learn about Jesus Christ and the message of the cross.
-Modified from H.A. Ironside
What is "the Good News?"...
Grammatically, gospel requires a genitive. If I say to you, "I have good news," you'll ask me, "About what?" Popularly, people believe the good news is different things - Jesus dying for sin, grace, justification, adoption, reconciliation, and peace with God. One responds to this news by "receiving Jesus into his heart" or "accepting Christ as his personal Savior." (Though I have used these expressions in the past, I honestly cannot find any warrant for them in Scripture.) But biblically, the good news is the good news of the kingdom of God/heaven. The things mentioned above are implications of the coming of the kingdom. Biblically, the response is to repent and believe the good news that the kingdom has come in Christ. Luke wrote, "The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached" (Luke 16:16). In Acts, often cited as a more pure model for evangelism and church life, the kingdom of God is the content of the apostolic preaching (Acts 8:12; 14:22; 19:8; 20:25; 28:23, 31). Every other description of the gospel in the New Testament is a consequence of the kingdom of God being inaugurated in the ministry of Jesus. (Contrary to classical Dispensationalism, the New Testament teaches that Christ brought in the kingdom by his death, burial, and resurrection - not that it was delayed by his rejection. See, e.g., Luke 11:20.) ......Gospel means "good news." But good news of what?
A point concerning the Bible and, especially, the New Testament. Remember that it was put together 300 years after Jesus died from scores of competing accounts and versions, many clearly edited and added to over the years, of his life and relevance. They represented many different theological interpretations.
The Ebionites, for example, thought Jesus was the foretold Jewish Messiah, not god but a man into which god put his spirit. That’s why on the cross Jesus is supposed to have asked, “Father, why hath thou forsaken me?” To be a Christian you had to follow all Jewish laws (including circumcision, a real turn-off to most non-Jews), expect making sacrifices of a lamb since Jesus was that substitute sacrifice.
Another sect believed there was a pleroma, the “totality” or “completeness,” a kind of uberheaven inhabited by emanations of god, beings called aeons. One of these decided to create its own child, who was the god of the Old Testament, an evil demon. Christ was an aeon sent to undo the evil of the Old Testament demon god.
The Gnostics believed Jesus was not human at all but a kind of avatar or illusion who brought secret knowledge to release us from the evils of this world.
The New Testament gospels, picked from many competing writings, show many of these competing perspectives. Advocates of what became known as the orthodox Trinity view, that Jesus was fully identical to god the Father and Holy Ghost, won the political/theological battle and thus assembled the writing that comprise that book.
So when you get into quoting verses back and forth, remember that you’re not making a rational argument for some particular position but, rather, cherry-picking appeal-to-authority quotes from a collection of already cherry picked texts. And that’s why you shouldn’t take any of them seriously.
From “Sola Ecclesia:The Lost Reformation Doctrine”
“”the visible church ... is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation” (Westminster Confession of Faith, XXV.2).”
The term ekkiesia is never used with reference to the kingdom. In no instance in the New Testament is it equated with the kingdom. The basic idea of an ekklesia was that of an autonomous physical assembly of the citizens of the local community that met to transact business of common concern on democratic principles. The word ekklesia in New Testament times would bring to mind a conception not only not identical with, but also in every particular the antithesis of, that suggested by the word basileia (kingdom).
There is nothing in either the teachings of Christ or of the apostles identifying the church invisible when it becomes the church triumphant with the kingdom when consummated. Instead they teach that the church invisible is to be ultimately glorified with Christ its Head in his kingdom, and is then to be the glory of his kingdom; but the kingdom itself is to encompass all of his mediatorial realm.
The ekklesia will never be merged into the basileia in any such sense as to lose its identity. In Hebrews 12:23 several distinct groups are specified as distinct inhabitants of the New Jerusalem. Chief among these is the church from which the city receives its dominant characteristic as the Lamb’s wife (Rev 21:9). The city is to be inhabited by God, by the church, by the redeemed of all ages, together with the unfallen angels.
Identifying the church with the kingdom has its basic foundation in the teachings of Augustine. He viewed the kingdom as a present reality and identified it with the Church. Although for him he identified it with a community of believers; he carelessly used some expressions which seem to indicate that he also saw it embodied in the episcopally organized Church. This idea was adopted by the Roman Catholic Church, which made the boundaries of the kingdom conterminous with those of their visible ecclesiastical system and their hierarchical institution. Their functions are identical; they have the same earthly administration. In both the pope is the vice-regent of Christ. The theology of the Roman Church is based very much on the identity of the two.
During the Reformation the Reformers returned to Augustine’s view that the kingdom is “in this dispensation identical with the invisible church.” However, the Reformers only limited or modified the Roman conception.
Tha't like saying you shouldn't except real currency because there are a lot of counterfeits in circulation.
The issues of canonicity and authorship of the N.T. writings are related but different. The historical fact is that for the great majority of the books that comprise the N.T. there was never any doubt; from the very beginning these books were recognized as the Word of God by the end of the first century, by virtue of their Apostolic authority, not 300 years after Jesus died:
"Now the question of the canon of the New Testament is usually discussed at far greater length. You can find some little books and articles on the canon of the OT; you can find however great big multi-volume treatises on the canon of the NT. That is largely because there is so much more data to consider. We know that most of the 27 books that make up our New Testament were regarded as the Word of God immediately and were never questioned by anyone. This is due largely to the role of the apostles – eyewitnesses of the Lord’s ministry and resurrection and appointed by Jesus Christ himself to convey the truth about him to the world; I say, the immediate recognition of most NT books was due to the role of those men with that office and that calling and that authority – in the production of the books of the NT. For them, for those men to write about Christ and the meaning of faith in him was, by Christ’s own teaching, virtually for him to write those books himself. He promised that he would give them the Holy Spirit so they could remember all he taught them. They are, as the New Testament both teaches and illustrates, the foundation of the new epoch of the life of the church (Eph. 2:20). The Apostles handed down from Christ himself the truth upon which the church is built forever. In this way the New Testament books, like the Old Testament books, did not have authority added to them later, but had a once-for-all authority inherent in them from the beginning. The apostles were the foundation of the church not only because they first took the gospel to the world and established the first churches outside of Judea, but because they were commissioned by Christ to make a full and authoritative revelation of his religion. In this respect, for example, the Gospel of Mark, as the testimony of Peter – as it was immediately understood in the church to be – or a letter of Paul, is just like the law of Moses. It was known immediately to be the written witness of someone who was the personal representative of Jesus himself."
http://www.faithtacoma.org/content/2008-05-04-pm.aspx
Cordially,
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind." -- Matthew 13:47
"Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this." -- Isaiah 9:7
Like the link you referenced said, I really believe that...
"The Church, however, as the community of Christ’s Kingdom, can show the world an ethical integrity it must respect. When Peter describes (in I Peter 2:12) the impact of Christian righteous deeds in a pagan world, he is not thinking of isolated saints, but of the people of God, called out of darkness into God’s light. Christian witness that is limited to private religious experience cannot challenge secularism." -- Edmund Clowney
So to simply view Christ's church on earth as "autonomous physical assembl(ies) of the citizens of the local community that met to transact business of common concern" seems to weaken Christ's instructions to work together to defeat Satan in whatever form he takes.
And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel" -- Mark 1:14-15"Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.