If Galatians was Published in Christianity Today

To wrap up my little mini-series on the wimpiness of evangelicals when it comes to "tone," and the place polemics has in intramural debate and discussion, I thought I'd repost this classic piece from Sacred Sandwich, entitled, "If Paul's Epistle to the Galatians was Published in Christianity Today." Now, before anybody gets upset, that has very little to do with the work Christianity Today is doing (though of course we could talk about that), and everything to do with the over-sensitivity of contemporary evangelicals.

All I can say is that this is spot-on. It goes to show how effective satire can be. Without further ado, here are the letters to the editor that would come after CT published the book of Galatians.

Letters to the Editor

Dear Christianity Today:

In response to Paul D. Apostle’s article about the Galatian church in your January issue, I have to say how appalled I am by the unchristian tone of this hit piece. Why the negativity? Has he been to the Galatian church recently? I happen to know some of the people at that church, and they are the most loving, caring people I’ve ever met.

Phyllis Snodgrass; Ann Arbor, MI

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Dear Editor:

How arrogant of Mr. Apostle to think he has the right to judge these people and label them accursed. Isn’t that God’s job? Regardless of this circumcision issue, these Galatians believe in Jesus just as much as he does, and it is very Pharisaical to condemn them just because they differ on such a secondary issue. Personally, I don’t want a sharp instrument anywhere near my zipper, but that doesn’t give me the right to judge how someone else follows Christ. Can’t we just focus on our common commitment to Christ and furthering His kingdom, instead of tearing down fellow believers over petty doctrinal matters?

Ed Bilgeway; Tonganoxie, KS

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Dear CT:

I’ve seen other dubious articles by Paul Apostle in the past, and frankly I’m surprised you felt that his recurrent criticisms of the Church deserved to be printed in your magazine. Mr. Apostle for many years now has had a penchant for thinking he has a right to “mark” certain Christian teachers who don’t agree with his biblical position. Certainly I commend him for desiring to stay faithful to God’s word, but I think he errs in being so dogmatic about his views to the point where he feels free to openly attack his brethren. His attitude makes it difficult to fully unify the Church, and gives credence to the opposition’s view that Christians are judgmental, arrogant people who never show God’s love.

Ken Groener; San Diego, CA

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To the Editors:

Paul Apostle says that he hopes the Galatian teachers will cut off their own privates? What kind of Christian attitude is that? Shame on him!

Martha Bobbitt; Boulder, CO

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Dear Christianity Today:

The fact that Paul Apostle brags about his public run-in with Peter Cephas, a well-respected leader and brother in Christ, exposes Mr. Apostle for the divisive figure that he has become in the Church today. His diatribe against the Galatian church is just more of the same misguided focus on an antiquated reliance on doctrine instead of love and tolerance. Just look how his hypercritical attitude has cast aspersions on homosexual believers and women elders! The real problem within the Church today is not the lack of doctrinal devotion, as Apostle seems to believe, but in our inability to be transformed by our individual journeys in the Spirit. Evidently, Apostle has failed to detach himself from his legalistic background as a Pharisee, and is unable to let go and experience the genuine love for Christ that is coming from the Galatians who strive to worship God in their own special way.

William Zenby; Richmond, VA

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Kind Editors:

I happen to be a member of First Christian Church of Galatia, and I take issue with Mr. Apostle’s article. How can he criticize a ministry that has been so blessed by God? Our church has baptized many new members and has made huge in-roads in the Jewish community with our pragmatic view on circumcision. Such a “seeker-sensitive” approach has given the Jews the respect they deserve for being God’s chosen people for thousands of years. In addition, every Gentile in our midst has felt honored to engage in the many edifying rituals of the Hebrew heritage, including circumcision, without losing their passion for Jesus. My advice to Mr. Apostle is to stick to spreading the gospel message of Christ’s unconditional love, and quit criticizing what God is clearly blessing in other churches.

Miriam “Betty” Ben-Hur; Galatia, Turkey

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Christianity Today apologizes for our rash decision in publishing Paul Apostle’s exposé of the Galatian church. Had we known the extent in which our readership and advertisers would withdraw their financial support, we never would have printed such unpopular biblical truth. We regret any damage we may have caused in propagating the doctrines of Christ.

In Defense of Polemics: Reposted

The previous post on tone, and the squishiness and squeamishness that provoked it, reminded me of something I posted near the beginning of For Our Benefit. The post is called "In Defense of Polemics," and gives some Biblical justification for my standing complaint with the Tone Police. I've slightly modified it here where appropriate.

If you read my comments on other blogs, you might notice that I'm not afraid to engage in polemical discussions. That is, I'm willing to engage error masquerading as truth and to call a spade a spade. But if you read For Our Benefit, you'll notice that that's not been my modus operandi on this blog so much. Remembering my commitment to be a benefit, that may have something to do with the fact that I think there's more benefit to be given and to be enjoyed in ways other than polemical argumentation. However, I think that polemics can certainly be in the service of benefiting people by presenting Christ to them.

Not everyone agrees with me there. If you lurk around the Christian blogosphere long enough and read widely enough, you'll find that some people find any manner of disagreement utterly distasteful, and they chide you for being "divisive," "unloving," disobedient to John 13:35 (which is laughable, given the content discussed in my recent post on that passage), too worried about doctrine, Pharisaical, or -- the postmodern favorite -- "uncharitable." [Not much has changed in the year and a half since I originally wrote that, huh? Except that now it's not just the out-and-out postmodernists that are complaining about it. This area of postmodernism has crept into the heart of conservative evangelicalism and the YRR/New Calvinism.]

And if you do manage to find a group of folks who don't mind differing viewpoints, you better make sure you don't disagree with someone too severely, and that you preface your disagreement with about 150 things you like about your opponent, or about what your opponent just said, or a slew of qualifiers about how the issue you're disagreeing over is not an essential Christian doctrine, and how you're sure they're a fine person in real life. You get the idea.

But again, I disagree with these people. I think that strong disagreement and polemical argumentation can be very beneficial to the body of Christ. Why do I think that?

Well, throughout the New Testament we find statements from the Apostles exhorting the Church to speak truth each one with his neighbor (Eph 4:25). As demonstrated in my previous post, the way that the body builds itself up in love is by exposing each other to the glory of Christ by speaking truth to each other. When error is presented as truth, harm comes to the body, just as it would if someone served poison instead of food at a meal.

And we have commands exhorting the Church to "expose error" (Eph 5:11). Continuing with the same illustration, if it was common knowledge that someone was masquerading poison as healthy food, those who cared anything about the people to whom it was being served would do what they could to find out what's real, nourishing food and what's not.

Also, the very nature of divine revelation requires that it be the standard of measure of all our thinking. We are told not to believe every spirit, but to test the spirits because many false profits have gone out into the world (1John 4:1). Reproof and correction are also said to be things for which Scripture is profitable (or beneficial, 2Tim 3:16). And as he approaches the end of his life, Paul's solemn charge to Timothy is to "preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction" (2Tim 4:2).

And one of the clearest Scriptural examples that I can find of polemical argumentation being for the benefit to the Church is in Acts 18:27-28:

And when [Apollos] had arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.

Apollos greatly helped the believers. How? "For," the Scripture says, "he powerfully refuted the Jews in public." A strong, public refutation of error was of great help to the body.

And these strong, even public, rebukes were not limited to unbelievers. In Galatians 2, Paul confronts Peter. Listen to the strength of his language.

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, “If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

Even Peter was subject to this kind of rebuke. And as his error had far-reaching effects, his error found a far-reaching rebuke. His actions were presenting some idea about the Gospel that was false -- hypocritical, even. And his actions were causing Jewish believers and even Barnabas to be "carried away by their hypocrisy." And so Paul lets Peter and everyone affected by his error know that such thinking is wrong, contrary to grace, and is a blight on the pure Gospel of God.

Now, in today's "evangelicalism," Paul would be labeled a Pharisee (how ironic, right?), unloving, arrogant, full of himself, and uncharitable. He'd be told at least 27 times that his tone was unchristian, that he had a log in his own eye, and "Physician, heal thyself!" He'd be accused of being un-Christlike, because Christ said they'd know us by our love for each other. And a million other things.

But guys, don't you see how he was loving Peter?! Don't you see that such confrontation was for Peter's great benefit?! If not, here's a little wisdom from J. Gresham Machen, that great defender of the faith against early 20th-century liberalism:

Men tell us that our preaching should be positive and not negative, that we can preach the truth without attacking error. But if we follow that advice we shall have to close our Bible and desert its teachings. The New Testament is a polemic book almost from beginning to end.

Some years ago I was in a company of teachers of the Bible in the colleges and other educational institutions of America. One of the most eminent theological professors in the country made an address. In it he admitted that there are unfortunate controversies about doctrine in the Epistles of Paul; but, he said in effect, the real essence of Paul’s teaching is found in the hymn to Christian love in the thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians; and we can avoid controversy today, if we will only devote the chief attention to that inspiring hymn.

In reply, I am bound to say that the example was singularly ill-chosen. That hymn to Christian love is in the midst of a great polemic passage; it would never have been written if Paul had been opposed to controversy with error in the Church. It was because his soul was stirred within him by a wrong use of the spiritual gifts that he was able to write that glorious hymn. So it is always in the Church. Every really great Christian utterance, it may almost be said, is born in controversy. It is when men have felt compelled to take a stand against error that they have risen to the really great heights in the celebration of truth. (“Christian Scholarship and the Defense of the New Testament,” in: What is Christianity?, pp. 132-133. See, on this same point, What is Faith?, pp. 41-42; Christianity and Liberalism, p. 17.)

Also, hear John Calvin writing to the heretic Socinus (for more on Socinianism, check this out):

Were I, under the pretence of indulgence, to encourage you in a fault which I judge so ruinous, I should certainly act toward you a treacherous and cruel part. Wherefore I am willing, that you should now for a little be offended by my seeming asperity, rather than that you should not be reclaimed from those curious and alluring speculations, by which you have been already captivated. The time will come, I hope, when you shall rejoice, that you have been awakened even in this violent manner, from your pleasing, but fatal dream. (The Panoplist, Or, the Christian's Armory, p. 76; see here; emphases mine)

You see? Confronting error benefits even those in error by showing them the truth. They are benefited by seeing Christ more clearly than they had been seeing Him, and with greater precision and contour than they had been seeing Him. To gaze into a blurry image of what is perfectly beautiful is infinitely less delightful, satisfying, and beneficial than to gaze into an accurate, clear, precise image of it. Laboring to present that accurate, clear, and precise image of Christ is indeed loving, as it seeks to present to the object his greatest benefit. (See also Hebrews 12:10, 14; Colossians 1:28-2:3.)

And so, contrary to the... squishiness... of our age, we ought to be ready and able (that's a big prerequisite) to speak truth, expose error, rebuke, reprove, admonish, and thereby benefit the body of Christ. Polemical argumentation and theological debate can indeed be abused in such a way that renders it profitless. But as we have seen, there is a place for it. Even a place for it in service of love for our neighbor as ourselves.

A Sanctified Rant about "Tone"

I've not devoted much of my time here at For Our Benefit to "ranting," sanctified or otherwise. Indeed, ranting on a regular basis is not for anyone's benefit. But every once and a while, it can indeed serve unto edification (1Cor 14:26). I hope that's the case here, as it regards something that's been on my mind the last couple of weeks.

One of the hallmarks of the postmodernism that has crept into the contemporary evangelical church flies under the banner of what people are calling "charitableness." Unlike true Christian charity (which comes from the KJV rendering of agape, most notably in 1 Corinthians 13), charitableness, as Phil Johnson has wonderfully put it, "is a broad-minded, insouciantly tolerant, unrelenting goodwill toward practically every conceivable opinion." The bottom line, as Phil goes on, is that "nothing we believe is ultimately anything more than a personal opinion."

A while ago, when Phil wrote that, charitableness was being championed by neo-liberals aligning themselves with the Emergent church, especially as it regarded tolerating out and out heretical views. However, though no one has been calling themselves "Emergent" or "Emerging" for a little while, the postmodernism that was the foundation of both movements has infiltrated and made its mark on what is now called conservative evangelicalism -- especially within the New Calvinist, Young-Restless-Reformed movement. The difference is, because we're conservatives, that we're not anemically tolerant of heresy. Rather, we are tenaciously intolerant of anyone within a particular theological and philosophical "camp" voicing any serious concerns about someone else who fits broadly within that camp.

Basically, if you disagree strongly with anyone who agrees with you about a bunch of other things, you will be branded "uncharitable" before you know what hit you. It won't be long before the Tone Police™ drop by a comment thread to uncharitably level the accusation of uncharitableness against you and to voice their disappointment in the "tone" of your comments. I know it's early, but I've heard enough about "charitableness" and being "uncharitable" from these people to last me for 2011. Evangelicalism is going to have to file for bankruptcy after paying the Tone Police time-and-a-half for all the overtime they've been putting in over the past couple of weeks.

I'm not sure if our brothers know this, but Christian charity doesn't require a man to check his backbone at the door and limp-wristedly offer suggestions and conjectures, complete with a slew of qualifications, to make sure no one gets offended by any particular point he's making. Can we not disagree, even disagree strongly, with what someone believes without being branded a big fat meanie?

As I alluded to before, the irony in this whole thing is that these same people who are so distraught over this horrible, needless, uncharitable infighting, are themselves willing to engage in some uncharitable infighting -- not over anything substantive, like one's philosophy of ministry or how one understands the relationship between justification and sanctification -- but over their tone. It really does astound me how many different people will actually get so anxiously, hand-wringingly bent out of shape because of people's tone. What people are saying doesn't seem to matter half as much as how people are saying it. This most certainly is evidence of our weakness as the Church.

I hear (and read) this a lot. Two or more people find that they disagree over a particular area of theology or about philosophy of ministry. So they begin to discuss it and make their points back and forth. Eventually they get to the point where they realize neither is going to convince the other, and so they just say something like, "Well, I guess we just have different opinions on this issue. But even though we disagree, it was nice to discuss it in such an irenic manner!" And then they pat themselves on the back and go away feeling unified. Now, this sounds good on the surface, and depending on the seriousness of the issue being discussed it may be appropriate. But often it signifies nothing more than a prideful fear of man, a satisfaction with superficial, false unity, and an indifference to truth.

Phil Johnson, in a different message (at around 16:25), adds the following, and is spot on:

There is such a paranoia about being too militant -- maybe it's an excessive fear that we may be falling into the fighting fundamentalist spirit -- that it shocks us nowadays when anyone does rise up in defense of some truth. One of the favorite truths of our age is, 'Let's just agree to disagree.' And then everybody is supposed to put whatever point of truth is under discussion aside, and set it aside so that it's deemed trivial and unnecessary. And that mentality...has done horrific damage to our churches and to the evangelical movement.

'Let's just agree to disagree.' Well, no. How about we agree to argue until one of us actually refutes the other and we come to a common understanding of the Scriptures? ... Truth has too often been set aside in the name of charity and unity. But throwing truth under the bus is not charitable and it doesn't produce unity. ... Authentic unity is when we all agree and say the same thing.

Within the Camp

Most of our brothers on the conservative side will agree with these principles as it applies to those who are clearly outside the faith (e.g., Roman Catholics, Liberal Protestants, etc.), and even those who are within the bounds of orthodoxy but are committed to serious error (e.g., Arminians, egalitarians, etc.). But what really burns them up is when two guys in the same theological "camp" call each other out.

The headline issues in this regard have, over the past month, had to do with (a) John MacArthur critiquing a philosophy of ministry presented in Darrin Patrick's book, Church Planter, and (b) Frank Turk's critique of Michael Horton and R. Scott Clark. All the angst and lamentations are about this notion of "friendly fire." The argument goes, "Since these guys have so much in common, especially on the essentials about the nature of the Gospel" (i.e., all parties involved hold to a Reformed soteriology), and since there's so much to fight against from those who are outside the camp, why pick on each other?"

Like it's just unconscionable that two guys who agree on the 5 points could have any justifiable reason for disagreeing strongly with one another about something else.

But there is a justifiable reason for strong disagreement even among close friends. I found the following quotes to be extremely helpful in giving that justification. The first is from Iranaeus in Against Heresies (1.2):

Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as by its outward form to make it appear to the inexperienced...more true than truth itself.

This sounds very much like Paul's warning to be on our guard about being deceived by "fine sounding arguments" (Col 2:4), arguments which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom, but are of no value in the war against error (Col 2:23). The next quote is from John Broadus (On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, p. 66):

And since errors held and taught by good men are only the more likely to be hurtful to others, we are surely not less bound to refute them in such cases than when advocated by bad men.

If Iranaeus and Broadus are right, and I think they are, that means we ought to be more ready to refute the error of our closest friends than we are our distant enemies, because the potential for harm is that much greater -- because people are more likely to accept error from men who preach truth in so many other areas. And if you think about it, that's the only way true unity is ever achieved. Agreeing to disagree does not make two people unified; it simply masks the existing disunity and treats it as unimportant.

Iron sharpens iron (Prov 27:17). An extremely durable and extremely sharp piece of metal is swiftly and repeatedly striking another. That's the picture we have of one brother sharpening another brother. With all this mollified squeamishness about tone and high-pitched whimpering about uncharitableness, I'm unsure how the Tone Police can understand this passage. Let us indeed love each other, fervently and from the heart. But let's stop whining and licking the wounds on our thin skin long enough to realize that loving each other sometimes means some straight talk.

I know, I know. Uncharitable.

Horton on the Gospel

Came across this video, and really liked it.

Some notable quotes:

A definition of the Gospel: "From Genesis to Revelation, the Gospel is God's promise of a Son who will crush the serpent's head, forgive the sins of His people, raise them from the dead, and give them everlasting life solely on the basis of His grace for the sake of Christ."

The Gospel is founded upon God's grace: "The Gospel never tells us something to do. The Gospel tells us about something that's been done."

Confronting popular catch-phrases that betray false conceptions about the nature of the Gospel: "We hear people say today, 'We need to live the Gospel. We need to do the Gospel.' But actually, we need to do the Law. You can't do the Gospel. That's a category mistake. It's the most fundamental, basic theological mistake you could make: to confuse the Law with the Gospel. ... If we confuse those two things, we'll make ourselves partly our own saviors."

Confronting popular catch-phrases that betray false conceptions about the nature of mission and Gospel ministry: "We do not extend Christ's incarnation. We do not contribute to His redeeming and reconciling work in the world. We are the ones who are redeemed and are telling everyone else about it. We are witnesses to His redeeming work, not extensions of it."

Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law
through the body of Christ,
so that you might be joined to another,
to Him who was raised from the dead,
in order that we might bear fruit for God.
- Romans 7:4 -

Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,
and He said to them, "Thus it is written,
that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day,
and that repentance for forgiveness of sins
would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things.
- Luke 24:45-48 -

That Bible Found Me

The Self-Authenticating Witness of the Word of God to the Soul of G. Campbell Morgan

From: Jill Morgan, A Man of the Word: Life of G. Campbell Morgan (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978), 39-40.

For three years this young man, seriously contemplating a future of teaching and ultimately of preaching, felt the troubled waters of the stream of religious controversy carrying him beyond his depth. He read the new books which debated such questions as, "Is God Knowable?" and found that the authors' concerted decision was, "He is not knowable." He became confused and perplexed. No longer was he sure of that which his father proclaimed in public, and had taught him in the home.

Other books appeared, seeking to defend the Bible from the attacks which were being made upon it. The more he read, the more unanswerable became the questions which filled his mind. One who has never suffered it cannot appreciate the anguish of spirit young Campbell Morgan endured during this crucial period of his life. Through all the after years it gave him the greatest sympathy with young people passing through similar experiences at college -- experiences which he likened to "passing through a trackless desert."

At last the crisis came when he admitted to himself his total lack of assurance that the Bible was the authoritative Word of God to man. He immediately cancelled all preaching engagements. Then, taking all his books, both those attacking and those defending the Bible, he put them all in a corner cupboard. Relating this afterwards, as he did many times in preaching, he told of turning the key in the lock of the door. "I can hear the click of that lock now," he used to say. He went out of the house, and down the street to a bookshop. He bought a new Bible and, returning to his room with it, he said to himself: "I am no longer sure that this is what my father claims it to be -- the Word of God. But of this I am sure. If it be the Word of God, and if I come to it with an unprejudiced and open mind, it will bring assurance to my soul of itself."

"That Bible found me," he said, "I began to read and study it then, in 1883. I have been a student ever since, and I still am (in 1938)."

At the end of two years Campbell Morgan emerged from that eclipse of faith absolutely sure that the Bible was, in very deed and truth, none other than the Word of the living God. Quoting again from his account of the incident: "...This experience is what, at last, took me back into the work of preaching, and into the work of the ministry. I soon found foothold enough to begin to preach, and from that time I went on."

With this crisis behind him and this new certainty thrilling his soul, there came a compelling conviction. This Book, being what it was, merited all that a man could give to its study, not merely for the sake of the personal joy of delving deeply into the heart and mind and will of God, but also in order that those truths discovered by such searching of the Scriptures should be made known to a world of men groping for light, and perishing in the darkness with no clear knowledge of that Will.

The gospel of the blessed God does not go abroad a begging for its evidence,
so much as some think:
it has its highest and most proper evidence in itself.
- Jonathan Edwards -

For the word of God is living and active
and sharper than any two-edged sword,
and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow,
and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
- Hebrews 4:12 -

Faithfulness in Gospel Ministry in 2011: A Postscript

As we close this series on principles for faithful Gospel ministry -- principles which center on seeing the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ (2Cor 4:6) -- the question to you is: Do you see Him? Is He glorious? Can you find your joy in the exaltation of another? Do you gladly and eagerly say with John the Baptist, “He must increase, and I must decrease”?

If not, I bid you to look and see the glory of Christ revealed in the Gospel that we’ve meditated on here for the past month. See the beauty and the preciousness of the miraculous birth, sinless life, substitutionary death, and undeniable resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, sent to ransom a remnant of worshipers who would proclaim the glory of His grace forever! And pray that God would shine in your heart—pray that He would grant you the eyes to see this Jesus for who He is. The Bible promises that this faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. You have heard much. Now ask God for the heart to believe it.

And for those of you who answer, “Yes,” to those questions, be diligent to heed these principles from the Apostle Paul as you seek to faithfully minister the Gospel in 2011. Remember your purpose is to call the sheep, not entertain the goats; and so you must measure your success by faithfulness to the message. Remember that the problem you’ve been commissioned to solve is that the world is blind to glory. And therefore remember that your proclamation must not be yourselves, but Christ as Lord. And remember that God provides the prescription, overcoming the problem of spiritual blindness with the light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Christ.

And so preach the Gospel in accordance with the reality that God’s own glory is the great and ultimate end in His love for sinners; and in accordance with the reality that what makes the Good News good news is that rebels’ blind eyes are finally opened to enjoy the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, for which they were created.

Series Outline

1. Principles for Faithfulness in Gospel Ministry: Introduction
2. We Are Not to Amuse the Goats but to Call the Sheep
3. The World's Problem is that They Are Blind to Glory
4. We Do Not Preach Ourselves
5. God's Remedy: The Shining of the Light of Life
6. The Gospel of the Glory: What Makes the Good News Good News
7. Postscript
   

Update: If you'd like to hear this series as preached in one sermon, click here.

The Gospel of the Glory: What Makes the Good News Good News

Last time we delved into God's prescription for the blindness in which the world finds itself. We observed that in 2Cor 4:4 and 4:6 that three levels of God's redemptive work are outlined. And as we progress through each level, we come to greater depth and greater ultimacy in God's work of salvation. We already looked at levels one and two. Now we come to the third.

Notice again the way the Apostle Paul speaks of spiritual life. Above he spoke of spiritual death as blindness to glory. Here he speaks of spiritual life and faith in the Gospel as seeing glory. And that is level three: God has shone in our hearts to give the Light (that’s level 1) of the knowledge, or of the gospel (that’s level 2), of the glory of God in the face of Christ (that’s level 3). This is the deepest level of the redemptive work of God. This is what salvation is about!

In A God-Entranced Vision of All Things, John Piper writes, “The way anybody gets converted…is that God sovereignly causes the darkened soul to see the beauty of Christ in the gospel. Just as He once said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light, so now he says, ‘Let the glory of Christ shine as an irresistible beauty,’ and it does” (263).

The nature of our spiritual death was that were blind to Christ’s glory. But in the miracle of regeneration, you were spiritually awakened so that you could finally see. And because you finally see Him, He is so sweet to you. You love Him! You can’t resist Him! And you forsake the rotting garbage of sin and you embrace Him with the glad, open arms of faith, and you are saved.

Do you see it? Paul calls the Gospel “the gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” What the Good News consists in—what the Gospel is about—is the glory of God in Christ. Seeing and enjoying the glory of God in the face of Christ is what makes the Good News good news!

This is the way the whole of Scripture speaks of salvation. Consider these passages

• Hebrews 2:10 describes Jesus’ ministry of salvation as “bringing many sons to glory.”
• 1 Peter 3:18 says that Christ suffered once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, so that He might bring us to God. To God! Not to a hall of mirrors where we can admire how valuable we are, but to an eternal worship service, where we can admire how valuable He is!
• 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 is just wonderful. The way Paul speaks about salvation here is amazing. He says, starting in the middle of verse 13: “God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Do you see this? The Gospel is the means by which you will gain the glory of Christ! It is the gospel of the glory! So when we preach the Gospel, we must do it in such a way that acknowledges that what makes the Good News good news is that we can finally see and enjoy the glory of God revealed in the face of Christ.

And I’ve gotta tell you, so many people stop at level two! So many Christians preach the Gospel as if we were the ultimate goal in salvation. But we’re not! Ultimately, the ultimate reason for why God saves any sinner is to manifest His own glory! Listen to what Scripture says about God’s motivation, His goal, in saving sinners:

• Isaiah 43:25 says it as plain as day (God is speaking): “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake.”
• Ezekiel 36:22 says the same thing more emphatically, “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went.”
• In the New Testament, Paul tells us in Titus 2:14 that Christ “gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession.”
• And in the opening section in Ephesians 1, Paul says three times that salvation is designed for the praise of God’s glory (Eph 1:6, 12, 14).

This is why the Gospel is not “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”! So many people preach the Gospel by telling people that Jesus died for them, and then they stop there. As if the Good News is that God just loved [wuvved?] us so much that He couldn’t live without us and so He died to be with us. But for crying out loud, do you hear how me-centered that is? Do you hear how much of us that makes? But that is not what God’s love does. God’s love does not give us a reason to look at the Cross and see our worth!

See, a lot of people are happy to confess that we should be God-centered, but that may be because they secretly think that God is man-centered. Then their God-centeredness is really man-centeredness. They say their joy is in God, but really their joy is in themselves. They're happy to worship God, just as long as God worships them.

But listen: if what you want out of the Gospel, or out of Christianity, is a god who makes you feel good about yourself, you need to repent of your idolatry and come to the God of the Bible through Christ. And if what you offer people in the name of Christ’s Gospel and in the name of Christianity, is a god who will make them feel good about themselves, and will work for their self-esteem, you’re not preaching the Gospel.

The love of God displayed in the Gospel is not that He makes much of us! The love of God displayed in the Gospel is He shines Light that cures our blindness to glory, and thus frees us from our love affair with sin so that—rather than only being able to be satisfied by being made much of—we can be entirely satisfied in the depths of our souls by making much of Him forever!

Yes, God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. But finish the sentence! He did that for a purpose! So that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life! And what is eternal life? John 17:3: Jesus says, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, Father, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” God’s goal in sending Christ was not to show humanity how valuable we were; His goal was to give us the eyes to see how valuable He is! He shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

But because so many people have imbibed our culture’s distorted definition of love as being made much of, many people—maybe some of you reading this—have a hard time feeling loved when they hear that God loves them for His own sake. But loving someone is not making them feel good about themselves—especially, like in our case, when there’s so little to feel good about! Loving someone is doing what is best for them. And what is best for me, and best for you—what will most satisfy our souls and give us true and abiding joy—is to see the glory of God for which we were made.

And there is a wealth of satisfaction in feeling loved that way. I feel so safe, so protected, so loved by the fact that I am not uppermost in God’s affections, but that He is. In fact, we will never understand the sweet fullness of what it means to be loved by God—we will never know the breadth and length and height and depth of this love that surpasses knowledge (Eph 3:18-19)—until we understand that God’s love to us is not first to us, but to Himself.

And so John Piper writes, “God loves His glory more than He loves us and...this is the foundation of His love for us” (Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, 7). Because it is in loving Himself, in magnifying Himself, in displaying Himself, that you and I are able to see and enjoy the only thing that can truly satisfy our heart: the glory of God in the face of Christ.

In summary, then, the Good News is not merely that Jesus died for us! The Good News is that Jesus died for us in order to bring us to God (1Pet 3:18)! The Good News is not merely that God gave His Son for us. The Good News is that God gave His Son for us to bring us to an eternity of seeing and knowing and loving and worshiping Him. The loving, atoning work of Christ in the Gospel is a means to a greater end: that the people God has created would finally glorify Him by enjoying and being satisfied by His glory, for which they were created (Isa 43:7).

As we proclaim this Gospel, let us never forget that it is the gospel of Christ’s glory.


Series Outline

1. Principles for Faithfulness in Gospel Ministry: Introduction
2. We Are Not to Amuse the Goats but to Call the Sheep
3. The World's Problem is that They Are Blind to Glory
4. We Do Not Preach Ourselves
5. God's Remedy: The Shining of the Light of Life
6. The Gospel of the Glory: What Makes the Good News Good News
7. Postscript

God's Remedy: The Shining of the Light of Life

So far we have gleaned three principles that inform our understanding of the Gospel and shape our ministry in order that we might be faithful witnesses of Christ in 2011. We’ve seen from 2Cor 4:3 that our purpose is not to amuse the goats, but call in the sheep, and so we measure our success by faithfulness and not numbers. We’ve seen from 2Cor4:4 that the world’s most fundamental problem is that they cannot see the glory of Christ, and so that is to be the focus of the Church’s mission. Because that’s the case we saw in 2Cor 4:5 that our proclamation must not be anything about ourselves, but must be the Gospel of Christ’s Lordship. And after two brief implication/application-type comments on ways contemporary churches preach themselves (one, two), we finally come to the fourth point: we must know the prescription.

Remember humanity’s predicament. All have sinned and fall short of God’s standard of righteousness, and are thus incapable of enjoying a relationship with their Creator. And because they can do nothing to save themselves, God sends Christ to live and die on their behalf, so that if they believe in Him He pays for their sin and imputes His righteousness to their account. Being declared righteous before God, man can enjoy a restored relationship with his glorious Creator for which he was made. And yet the tragedy is, their minds have been blinded so that when they hear that wonderful news, they can’t see it for what it is. They see no glory in it. It’s simply foolishness, and so they continue to disbelieve and resist it.

But now, Paul says, in magnificent love, God Himself—the same God who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness”—shines in the hearts of His elect to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. God overcomes our resistance to the Gospel by giving us the light needed to see things as they actually are. The prescription, or the remedy, for man’s spiritual blindness is God’s sovereign work of regeneration.

Now, there is a parallelism going on between verses 4 and 6, and comparing them sheds light on some precious realities.

In verse 4 we have: The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

And in verse 6: The Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

The first thing to notice is that the glory of Christ who is the image of God and the glory of God in the face of Christ are entirely parallel. What’s awesome about this is that Paul is very clearly teaching that the glory of the Father and the glory of the Son are not competing glories. They are the same! The Father is God and is glorious! And Jesus the Son is God and is glorious!

The second thing to notice is that Paul outlines three levels of God’s redemptive work, and as we progress through each level we penetrate to further depth and ultimacy. Examining these three levels of increasing depth of God’s redemptive work and understanding their implications will help us understand the fullness of the Good News, and will keep us from preaching a truncated Gospel.

Level 1: Light

The first level is the one that I just briefly mentioned: the level of “light.” This is the miracle of regeneration whereby God sovereignly imparts spiritual light to the blinded mind, or, to use the other metaphor, whereby He sovereignly imparts spiritual life to the dead heart. Paul compares this act of God to the creation of the world. He says, “the God who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’” is the One who has shone in our hearts. In the beginning, God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. This means (1) that just as God created the world out of nothing, so He created spiritual life in us out of nothing (cf. Rom 4:17); and (2) it means that the new birth is just as much a sovereign act of God as was the original creation of the universe. And if there’s any doubt, let me ask you: How active or cooperative was the creation in its creation?

It wasn’t. It didn’t exist, and then it did. That’s why the metaphor of being born again is so apt: just as a baby contributes nothing to his first birth, so also those who are born again from above are born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:13).

Level 2: Knowledge of the Gospel

And so the first level of God’s redemptive work is regeneration. God shines Light where there was once darkness. But notice the second level: God shines the light of the knowledge, or, as verse 4 says, the light of the gospel.

Again, these are parallel. We can understand the second level as the knowledge of the Gospel. What this means is that it is the Light of regeneration that causes the sinner—who once was blind and saw no glory and no beauty in the gospel—to look upon the message of what Christ has done in history to provide salvation for guilty sinners, and to see it as the greatest news they could ever imagine.

Before this light shines, the story of the angelic announcements, the virgin birth, the perfect life, the miracles, the betrayal, the unjust trial, the horrific crucifixion and death, and the resurrection of Jesus— all of it is just a story, like a fairy tale. But now the light has shone, and the eyes of their hearts are opened, and they look upon the old, old story, and It. Is. beautiful!

Level two is the knowledge of the Gospel.

But you know, this is where many Christians -- even many orthodox, conservative evangelicals -- just stop. They don't go beyond this. But there is a third level that we will delve into next time. Don't miss that.

Series Outline

1. Principles for Faithfulness in Gospel Ministry: Introduction
2. We Are Not to Amuse the Goats but to Call the Sheep
3. The World's Problem is that They Are Blind to Glory
4. We Do Not Preach Ourselves
5. God's Remedy: The Shining of the Light of Life
6. The Gospel of the Glory: What Makes the Good News Good News
7. Postscript

A Call to Be Truly Biblical

As I'm still marinating on the concept of what it means to "preach ourselves," as Paul repudiates in 2 Corinthians 4:5, I thought a few comments were in order which address a post I ran into recently in my travels through the blogosphere.

Recently, the folks over at Desiring God posted an excerpt of a chapter on missions from the new book, "Don't Call it a Comeback: The Old Faith for a New Day," edited by Kevin DeYoung. This particular chapter was written by David Mathis, who currently serves as the executive pastoral assistant to John Piper. The post at Desiring God also got picked up and excerpted even further by Justin Taylor over at Between Two Worlds. The blog post was entitled: A Call to Be Truly Missional.

I haven't spoken much about the issues surrounding being "missional" on this blog before now (here's one exception), not because I don't think it's an important issue but because I'm still formulating my thoughts on the topic itself and how to best address it. I suppose I plan to address it more directly in the future. But for now I feel comfortable saying that I don't feel comfortable with the missional idea and the ecclesiology and philosophy of ministry that it seems to identify. In that vein, I offered a comment on that original post, and I thought it would be helpful to post it over here as well.

That original post begins by saying, "Many of you reading this are living alongside us in a post-Christian Western culture. One where the term evangelism is a bit outdated and to be missional is in vogue." He continues to give a diagnosis of Europe and North America: they have "become more and more like a mission field—but a post-Christian, rather than pre-Christian field." Because of this, the ministerial prognosis is: "We now need a more missions-like engagement even on battleground here on the home front." Now, I actually don't think that that conclusion is true. I think one of the major failures of the "missional" philosophy of ministry is a conflation between a Christian missionary and a Christian witness and, correspondingly, between a culture and a subculture. But that's not the point of this current post.

What really jumped out at me and was extremely puzzling was the concession that the word "evangelism" is outdated. That seems like an outrageous statement, especially in light of the fact that it is falling out of favor and the word "missional" is taking its place. Evangelizing — gospellizing — is a Biblical word (euaggelizomai), which in and of itself should guarantee its rightful endurance, no matter how "outdated" it might seem. (I still get a confused look on my face even as I write that. Evangelism? Outdated? ... What???) Heaven and earth will pass away, but Jesus' words will never pass away (Mt 24:35; cf. Mt 11:5; Lk 4:43). Beyond the fact that it's a Biblical word, there's no question that it’s also a Biblical concept; that is, evangelizing is speaking and proclaiming the evangel, the Good News (Lk 4:18; Ac 8:4; 13:32; 14:15; Rom 1:15; 1Cor 1:17; 2Cor 10:16; 1Pet 1:12).

“Missional,” on the other hand, is not a Biblical word. And to the degree that it is a Biblical concept, the part of that concept that is Biblical is in fact expressed by the term "evangelism." The original post at Desiring God itself bears this out. Consider this:

[A church] is not fully missional in the biblical sense if it is not both pursuing mission at home among native reached people and being an engaged sender in support of missionaries to the unreached.

Well, first: What does it mean to "pursue mission"? (Even here we are getting away from Biblical language for poor, vague substitutes.) Biblically, pursuing mission cannot mean anything else but to fulfill the commission we’ve been given: to make disciples of all nations (Mt 28:19-20). And how do we go about that? We evangelize: We preach the Gospel. Why? Because nothing else contributes to the new birth, which is the first step in discipleship. Consider these texts:

• James 1:18 - In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.
• 1 Peter 1:23, 25 - ...for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. ... And this is the word which was preached to you.
• Romans 10:17 - So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

Being “fully missional in the biblical sense,” then, seems, according to the original writer, to mean simply being concerned with evangelizing the lost. Again, he says, “We can’t be truly missional without preserving a place for, and giving priority to, the pursuit of the unreached.” The pursuit of the unreached is evangelism. It’s preaching the Gospel. And so if that’s the heart of the missional idea, why do we need the new language? Because “evangelism” is “outdated”? Sorry, but no sale.

Why the new language then? Well, I fear that a real reason for ditching “evangelism” and “evangelistic” for “missional,” whether it’s intentional or not, is that we desire to safely import into evangelicalism some of the nonbiblical ideas and worldliness that fall under the umbrella of being “missional.” If it was only about preaching the Gospel, being evangelistic and doing evangelism, the term evangelism would work just fine. But unfortunately, it seems that that's not all that being missional is about. In a nutshell, it seems like it's about getting Christians to be as much like the world as they can, trying to show unbelievers how much Christians are like them, and hoping that they can see that because we're like them, they can be Christians too. It's seeker-sensitive, attractional, market-driven, church growth strategy -- just on the individual level rather than the church level.

Getting back to why it's a bad idea to use the term, when you consider that there are indeed nonbiblical, worldly ideas being proclaimed under the banner of being missional, – whether you personally stop short of espousing those things yourself or not – it makes even less sense to trash “evangelism” for “missional.” Now you're using a term that means more than you want to say, in place of a term that says exactly what you want to say.

Listen, I definitely agree with David Mathis's call to suffer in the path of fulfilling the Great Commission, and to be as concerned with world missions and unreached people groups as we are with evangelism at home. I disagree, though, that we need to rubber stamp “missional” and the aberrant theologies and philosophies of ministry that find refuge under that banner in order to do it.

Am I simply wrangling about words (2Tim 2:14)? Well, to that accusation, I'd respond by noting, as John Frame says, that words are the theologian’s tools. And if we are to be workmen not needing to be ashamed, cutting a straight course in the word of truth (which Paul says in the very next verse, 2Tim 2:15), and if in the very same letter he commands us to retain the pattern of sound words (2Tim 1:13, ESV) and in doing so we guard the Gospel (2Tim 1:14), well then we’d better be using the right tools. In my opinion, “missional” falls short, and “evangelism” cuts just fine.

Rather than a call to be truly missional, let us sound and heed the call to be truly Biblical.