Behold, They Stand at the Door and Knock: Conclusion

Though the scope of this series permits us to examine only a small sample of texts (Titus 2:13, Hebrews 1:8, and John 1:1-3), the conclusions drawn even from those texts alone clearly demonstrate that the Jehovah's Witnesses do not hold to a Biblical Christology. Instead, their view of the Person of Jesus Christ is radically opposed to the testimony of Scripture. As Metzger says,

Today, as of old, a proper response to the primary question, “What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he?” (Matt. 22:42), constitutes a veritable touchstone of historic Christianity. Certain other aberrations in Biblical understanding may doubtless be tolerated if one is, so to speak, turned in the right direction with regard to Christology. But if a sect’s basic orientation toward Jesus Christ be erroneous, it must be seriously doubted whether the name “Christian” can rightly be applied to such a system.[1]

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have answered this question in such a way that any honest interpreter of Scripture must conclude that there is nothing Christian about such a system.

Such an unbiblical Christology leaves them with a defective view of the atonement, and thus a different gospel (cf. Gal 1:8-9). They declare, “We cannot earn salvation; it is possible only on the basis of faith in the value of the sacrifice of Jesus’ human life” (Reasoning from the Scriptures, 216). Yet if Jesus’ sacrifice was merely a “human life,” we have no hope, for the mediator needed to be man and God to propitiate the just wrath of the Father, to be a faithful high priest in things pertaining to God (Heb 2:17-18; Isa 53:6, 10-12), and to provide a perfect righteousness for His people.

Now, I don’t say these things to create controversy or to draw lines in the sand and alienate people. I say that those who hold to the doctrine of the Jehovah’s Witnesses are not Christians because they need to be saved. We who believe in the Christ revealed in Scripture must take every opportunity we are given to evangelize these precious people. We must present to them the Christ who is, and not the Christ of the Watchtower Society.

So when that knock on the door comes on Saturday morning, it should not be our practice to coldly and unlovingly slam the door in their faces. Following the example of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, we, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God (1 Cor 4:1), must gently and patiently engage them with Scripture. When we do discuss these matters, we must not deal in mere platitudes and cultural-Christian catch-phrases, but rather must intelligently bring to bear what Scripture actually teaches on what they actually believe.

We must therefore be educated, committing ourselves to studying the Scriptures in order to have a firm grasp on such matters as presented throughout this series. Then we would also be Christlike, having compassion on those who are in bondage to false teaching, laying down our lives in love to be effectively equipped for snatching such as these out of the fire (Jude 1:21).

I hope this series has equipped us to do that.

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.
- John Calvin -

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[1]Bruce Metzger, “The Jehovah’s Witnesses and Jesus Christ: A Biblical and Theological Appraisal,” Theology Today 10 (April 1953), 69–70.

Behold, They Stand at the Door and Knock, Part 5

God the Creator: John 1:1–3

Perhaps the clearest testimony of the deity of Christ in the entire canon of Scripture comes from the opening verses of John’s Gospel. John declares three things about the Word, whom he later identifies as Jesus (John 1:14).

1. The Word is eternal: "In the beginning was the Word."
2. The Word is distinct from God the Father: "The Word was with God."
3. The Word is Himself God: "The Word was God."

The NWT undermines the clear teaching of this text by translating the final phrase: “the Word was a god.” They support this translation by appealing to the fact that unlike the first occurrence of theos (“God”) in the verse, this occurrence lacks the definite article. (The grammatical term for lacking the article is anarthrous.) Since, in Greek, there is no word that acts as an indefinite article (i.e., “a” or “an”), when a noun doesn’t have the definite article (i.e., “the”), the word can be indefinite. So they argue that the final occurrence of theos in 1:1 should be translated as indefinite, and thus that “the Word” should not be identified as Jehovah. Instead, they say that the text is teaching that “the Word was godlike, divine, a god” (Reasoning from the Scriptures, 212).

Colwell's Rule

Once again, however, such an understanding violates yet another principle of Greek grammar. This one is called Colwell's Rule. Now, I know that this gets a little technical, but remember, dedication to the text of Scripture at this level is precisely what is needed to "give an answer" (1Pet 3:15) to the objections of those who would undermine its clear testimony. So stay with me.

Scholars observed that in sentences with this identical structure -- i.e., where a predicate noun occurs before the verb and without a definite article[1] -- the predicate noun (in this case, "God") is not necessarily indefinite; that is, it should not automatically be translated "a god." In fact, such nouns should rarely be translated this way.[2] And more than that, when the author is trying to convey a definite predicate noun (i.e., "God," and not "a god"), he uses this very kind of construction that is used in John 1:1[3].

But it's fair to ask why John would write this the way he did. It's true that it's not the most straightforward Greek sentence. While the Jehovah's Witnesses argue that he did so to emphasize that Jesus was merely "godlike," they fail to take into account that John could have used the word theios to communicate just that. That's the word for "godlike." But John didn't choose that word.

Rather, John's wording carefully communicates two amazing Christological truths: (1) he was emphasizing the word "God" by bringing it forward in the sentence, as if to say, "and the word was God!"[4] And (2) he was distinguishing the Son from the Father. Get this, because it's really cool. If John had used the article in the way the Jehovah's Witnesses demand, the Greek construction would have communicated that the Word was the Father. Of course, John wants to avoid saying that, because that's the Christological heresy of modalism. Instead, he "stresses that, although the person person of Christ is not the person of the Father, their essence is identical. ... [This] was the most concise way he could have stated that the Word was God and yet was distinct from the Father."[5] And so the peculiar grammar in John 1:1-3 yields precisely the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.

If a Jehovah's Witness were to persist on this point, one might ask him why the NWT doesn't consistently translate theos without the article as "a god." R. H. Countess noted that of the 282 occurrences of the anarthrous theos in the New Testament, the NWT translates it "a god," "god(s)," or "godly" only 16 times. That means that the NWT held to the same standard that they demand in John 1:1 only six percent of the time.[6] In fact, you don't even have to leave John's prologue to find these inconsistencies, because the anarthrous theos occurs five other times in John 1:1-18. But you'll never see any one of those occurrences translated as "a god" by the NWT. That inconsistency speaks volumes.

And so, the unadulterated testimony of the original language wholly supports an orthodox Christology.

Even if You Don't Know Greek

Yet here again you could make a case for Christ's deity even without the use of the Greek. If we were to understand John 1:1 as teaching that Jesus was merely a god among gods (which itself is polytheism), how could we understand Isaiah 44:24? That passage reads: "I, the LORD, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself And spreading out the earth all alone" (NAU).

Here we have testimony that Yahweh is the only one who participated in creation. He did it "by Myself" and "all alone." But then we have the testimony of John 1:1-3 and Colossians 1:16, which say that Jesus participated in creation. Thus if (a) Yahweh is the only one who participated in creation, and (b) Jesus participated in creation, then we must conclude that Jesus is Yahweh.

But even if you didn't want to go to Isaiah 44, you could make the case for Christ's deity without even leaving these opening verses of John's Gospel! Take note of the seemingly redundant phrase in 1:3 "All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made" (ESV). This seems like a strange way to speak, but it is perfectly suited to disprove the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Christology. They contend that Christ was the first of created beings who then was the instrument of the rest of creation. The “all things” that were made through Him did not include Himself.[7]

Yet John’s redundancy will not allow this. The final three words of John 1:3 make it absolutely clear that Jesus does not belong to this category of created things, for nothing that was made was made without Him. He made everything in the category of “made.” And because it is absurd to assert that one could take part in creating himself, Jesus was not in that category of "made." Jesus was not created, but is the uncreated Creator.

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[1] The Greek phrase is: kai theos ēn ho logos; literally, “and God was the Word.” Even though “the Word” (ho logos) comes after the verb (ēn), it is the subject; and even though “God” (theos) comes before the verb, it is the predicate. Cf. Wallace, Greek Grammar, 40–48.

[2] Wallace, Greek Grammar, 262: “An anarthrous pre-verbal PN is…only rarely indefinite.”

[3] Ibid., 257, 260: “A definite PN that precedes the verb is usually anarthrous.”

[4] D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, PNTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s Publishing, 1991), 117.

[5] Wallace, Greek Grammar, 269, emphases in original.

[6] R. H. Countess, The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ New Testament: A Critical Analysis of the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1982), 54–55.

[7] Let God Be True (Brooklyn, NY: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1952), 33. Compare this with the unwarranted insertions of the word “other” in the NWT of Colossians 1:16.

Behold, They Stand at the Door and Knock, Part 4

After surveying the history and theology of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and comparing their Christology with that of the Bible, the most recent post in our series on engaging and evangelizing Jehovah’s Witnesses dealt with a particular text: Titus 2:13. There, we learned that Paul calls Jesus “our great God and Savior.”

I mentioned in that post that because the Bible so clearly proclaims Jesus as God, it is a little surprising to find out that someone who claims to believe the Bible denies the deity of Christ. To do that, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have to play around with some very clear texts. And if we are going to be able to engage them in helpful ways, we need to be equipped to examine their understandings of some key Christological texts and contrast such understandings with a consistently Biblical interpretation.

Hebrews 1:8: The Everlasting God

Another clear text that supports the deity of Christ is Hebrews 1:8: “But of the Son [God] says, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever…’” (NAU).

In this text, the writer of Hebrews declares that God Himself testifies that the Son, Jesus, is God. However, the NWT translates this text, “God is your throne forever and ever.” The modern translations treat it as the Father addressing the Son as God, while the NWT translates “God” as the subject of the sentence, because they’re trying to avoid identifying “the Son” as “God.” And so they argue that the text is teaching that “God is the ‘throne,’ or Source and Upholder of Christ’s kingship” (Reasoning from the Scriptures, 422).

Nominative and Vocative

Technically, both renderings are grammatically possible, because in Greek the form of direct address—known as the vocative case, which gives us the reading: “O God”—is sometimes identical to the form of the subject of the sentence—known as the nominative case, which gives us the reading: “God is your throne.” This is one of those instances where they’re the same. And so on the surface it seems that either interpretation is valid.

But what helps us here is that this particular sentence wasn’t originally written in Greek. The writer of Hebrews is quoting a Greek translation of Psalm 45:6. Three verses earlier in the same psalm, the person being talked about is addressed as dunate (“O Mighty One”), which is in the distinctive form of the vocative case. Unlike the text in Hebrews 1:8 and Psalm 45:6, there is no ambiguity in Psalm 45:3. The writer is directly addressing the recipient.

And so if the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ interpretation of Hebrews 1:8 is correct, we would have to say that Psalm 45:6 contains a nominative (the case for the subject) and not the vocative (the case for direct address). But if that was so, that means that we would have a vocative in Psalm 45:3 and a nominative in Psalm 45:6. That kind of switch ignores the context and militates against the guidelines of parallelism in Hebrew poetry. If Psalm 45:3 reads, “O Mighty One,” it is inconsistent to translate verse 6 (and thus its quotation in Hebrews 1:8) as anything other than, “O God.”

Even if You Don’t Know Greek

Once again, though, while it’s important for Christians to be equipped with such tools as we engage Jehovah’s Witnesses, you don’t need to know Greek to demonstrate the validity of the orthodox translation and interpretation of Hebrews 1:8.

Proper biblical interpretation is founded upon what the original author was intending to communicate to the original audience, and what his purpose was in doing so. In Hebrews 1, the author was clearly trying to demonstrate Christ’s distinct superiority and supremacy over all things. The Witnesses’ argument that Hebrews 1:8 simply teaches that God is the source of Jesus’ authority fails to demonstrate that superiority, because the angels, the prophets, and Moses also derived their authority from God. If that’s what the author of Hebrews was trying to say, then he was not contributing anything to his original argument.

But of course that was not what the author of Hebrews was trying to say, because it’s foreign to the context to say something about Jesus that is also true of the angels to whom He is superior, and from whom He demands worship (Heb 1:6).

Here again the Christian must challenge the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ understanding on both textual and contextual grounds. Use the Greek. It’s there for you to understand and instruct others. But recognize that even the English is clear enough to show that the Witnesses’ interpretation of Hebrews 1:8 is foreign to the context.

Behold, They Stand at the Door and Knock, Part 3

So we started this little series on how Christians can better engage and evangelize Jehovah's Witnesses by outlining a bit of their history and some basic theological beliefs. Then, to see the distinction between what the Witnesses believe and what the Bible teaches (as well as preparation for Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday), we took a look at a summary of the Bible's Christology.

To be properly prepared, though, we have to be familiar with some basic textual and translational issues in key passages in the New Testament, And so in light of the clear and consistent evidence that the New Testament presents Jesus Christ to the world as God Himself, one might wonder what leg the Jehovah’s Witnesses have to stand on. After all that, how could they deny that Jesus is God?

To understand this, we have to examine the Witnesses' understandings of some key Christological texts and contrast such understandings with a consistently Biblical interpretation. Because much of their defense is to question the accuracy of modern translations of the Bible and to distort the New Testament text, it will be necessary at times for us to get somewhat technical in our evaluation and critique. But stay with me. Don’t let that discourage you or scare you off. This is precisely the work that the contemporary Church—laden with laziness and anti-intellectualism—must be roused to undertake. It’s in this way that we’ll be equipped to demonstrate that the teachings of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the New World Translation, and the Watchtower Society fail to stand Biblical scrutiny and fall short of a Biblical Christology.

God the Savior: Titus 2:13

The first significant text that we’ll look at is Titus 2:13.

One of the strongest arguments in favor of the deity of Jesus is the explicit identification that He is God. In Titus 2:13, Paul writes that believers anticipate “the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus” (NAU), and thus identifies “Christ Jesus” as “our great God.” However, the NWT renders the text: the “glorious manifestation of the great God and of [the] Savior of us, Christ Jesus…”

Did you catch that? They supply the word “the,” as is indicated by the brackets. And in so doing they interpret the phrase as referring to two different persons: (1) Jehovah, “the great God,” and (2) Jesus, “[the] Savior of us.”

But there is simply no warrant for adding that extra article—i.e., the extra “the.” The Greek text simply reads, “the great God and Savior of us.” To support their biased translation, Jehovah’s Witnesses appeal to Titus 1:4 as a lens through which to interpret 2:13. They argue that this text “clearly differentiates between [the Father] and Christ Jesus, the one through whom God provides salvation” (Reasoning from the Scriptures, 421).

Sharp’s Rule

Now, they may not know this, but that understanding of Titus 2:13 violates a standard principle of Greek grammar, called Sharp’s rule. Scholars looked at sentences that have this identical structure (i.e., article-noun-kai-noun; “the God and Savior”), And they observed that when both nouns meet three criteria, they always refer to the same person. Those criteria are:

1. Both nouns are personal, meaning they refer to a person as opposed to an inanimate object or animal.
2. Both nouns are singular.
3. Both nouns are not proper. A noun is considered non-proper if it is unable to be pluralized (see Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 272 n.42). So, for example, “God” is not a proper name, because it can be made plural: “gods.” On the other hand, “Timothy,” for example, can’t legitimately be made plural, so it is a proper name.
   

So, in a construction with this structure (article-noun-kai-noun), when both nouns are personal, singular, and non-proper, they refer to the same person (see Wallace, Greek Grammar, 270ff). Since the phrase, “the great God and Savior” is governed by a single article (not two articles, as the NWT reads), the nouns must be understood to have a single referent: Jesus Christ.

In fact, if Paul had wanted to show a distinction between “God” and “Christ Jesus,” he could have done so easily and unambiguously by inserting another article (as the NWT has done) before “Savior.” But, of course, he did no such thing, because it was his intention to identify the Lord Jesus our Savior as our great God. (Another Sharp’s construction that identifies Jesus as God is found in 2 Peter 1:1, literally: “…the God and Savior [TSKS] of us, Jesus Christ.”)

So in an interaction with a Jehovah’s Witness, you should prepare yourself to defend the deity of Christ on the basis of the original text. It might seem daunting if you don’t know much Greek. But if we are to effectively engage the Witnesses, we have to avail ourselves of all the evidence, and certainly the clearest and most compelling evidence.

Even if You Don’t Know Greek

But even if you didn’t know any Greek at all, you could still demonstrate that Titus 2:13 refers to Jesus as God. You’d simply have to appeal to the teaching of the Old Testament. Even in the NWT, Isaiah 43:11 declares “I—I am Jehovah, and besides me there is no savior.”

So, if there is no savior besides Jehovah, then Paul’s identification of Christ as “our Savior” in Titus 2:13 requires that Jesus is Jehovah, God Himself. The only other conclusion would be to say that Jesus is a savior besides Jehovah, and that flatly contradicts Isaiah 43:11.

Further, you could also appeal to the fact that Paul uses “God our Savior” and “Jesus Christ our Savior” interchangeably throughout his letter to Titus:

• Titus 2:10 – …showing all good faith so that they will adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect. This is likely referring to the Father.
• Titus 2:13 – ...looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus… As demonstrated above, this is unmistakably referring to Jesus.
• Titus 3:4 – But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared… This is likely referring to the Father.
• Titus 3:6 – …whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. Again, this is unmistakably referring to Jesus Christ.
  

And so the case for orthodoxy is only strengthened.

The conclusion for this key text, then, is that we as Christians should lovingly yet confidently challenge the Witness to engage both the textual (i.e., Sharp’s rule) and contextual evidence in Titus 2:13. We shouldn’t shy away from the technical aspects of the Greek text that only clarify the historic Evangelical position of the deity of Christ. But we should also make use of the arguments available even from the English.

The important point is: don’t be thrown off by their arguments. The sufficient Scriptures are on your side. Make use of them!

Behold, They Stand at the Door and Knock, Part 2

A Summary of Biblical Christology

We mentioned last time that the Christology of the Jehovah’s Witnesses falls woefully short of the Christology revealed in the pages of Scripture. In fact, one would need to study diligently to find a more well-attested Biblical doctrine than the deity of Jesus Christ. Robert Bowman and ed Komoszewski provide a helpful mnemonic for assimilating the weight of Biblical evidence for Christ’s deity: Jesus shares the HANDS of God—His honors, attributes, names, deeds, and seat.[1] Soak in these truths, such that they become part of your arsenal of defense against those who would assault the glory of Jesus Christ by robbing Him of His deity. (And be sure to mouse over the references and read the passages, otherwise this post just doesn’t make any sense.)

The New Testament presents Jesus as the recipient of honors reserved exclusively for God. He is lauded as the Creator and Sustainer of the world (Col 1:16–17), honored in doxologies (2 Pet 3:18), and is the object of the saints’ worship (Rev 5:9–10). The Son is to be honored just as one honors the Father (John 5:23), and God Himself commands all the angels to worship Him (Heb 1:6). Such a command would be unseemly if Jesus were a mere angel. Indeed, the angels rightly refuse such worship (Rev 19:10; 22:8–9), while Jesus Himself accepts it without reproof (Matt 14:33; John 20:28).

Jesus also shares the attributes of God, for “in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Col 2:9); He is “the radiance of [the Father’s] glory and the exact representation of His nature” (Heb 1:3). He is the Holy One of God (John 6:69), is called Faithful and True (Rev 19:10), is righteous in all He says and does (2Tim 4:8), and is the embodiment of love (1Jn 3:16). He is eternal (John 1:1), omnipresent (Matt 28:20), omniscient (John 21:17), immutable (Heb 13:8), and sovereign (Phil 3:20–21).

A study of the names applied to Jesus also reveals His deity. He is not infrequently called God (John 1:1; Tit 2:13; Heb 1:8), even the true God (1Jn 5:20)! As mentioned earlier, He is the Holy One (Acts 3:14; 13:35). He is the Son of God (Matt 16:16), a title for which the Jews sought to stone Him for blasphemy (John 5:18; 10:33; 19:7). On multiple occasions He identified Himself as the “I AM” (John 8:24, 28, 58; 18:5) and thus equated Himself with the covenant God of Israel as revealed in the Old Testament (Exod 3:14), which the Jews recognized as outrageous (John 8:59; 18:6). And of course, He is most frequently hailed as Lord (Lk 2:11; Acts 10:36; Phil 2:11), which is translated from the Greek word kurios. This word is used over 6,000 times in the Greek translation of the Old Testament to translate the divine name.

Further, Jesus shares the deeds of the Father. As mentioned above, He has both created the world (John 1:1–3; Col 1:16) and does now sustain it by the word of His power (Heb 1:3; Col 1:17). Most significantly, Jesus both declares and demonstrates His authority to forgive sins, something that even His opponents understood to be the work of God alone (Lk 5:20–21). Correspondingly, He gives eternal life to His sheep (John 10:28) and gives the Holy Spirit (John 20:22) and His gifts (Eph 4:8–11) to the Church. He also controls the forces of nature (Matt 8:23–27), raises the dead (John 11:25–26), and judges the world (Acts 10:42).

Finally, Jesus shares the seat of the Father, the very position and place of God Himself. He has been seated “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named” (Eph 1:21; cf. Phil 2:9–11). The very throne of God is called “the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Rev 22:1, 3).

In light of the clear and consistent evidence that the New Testament presents Jesus Christ to the world as God Himself, one might wonder what leg the Jehovah's Witnesses have to stand on. After all that, how could they deny that Jesus is God? In upcoming posts, we'll examine the Jehovah's Wintesses' understandings of some key Christological texts and contrast such understandings with a consistently Biblical interpretation.

For unless you believe that I am He,
you will die in your sins.
- John 8:24 -

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[1] This post was greatly influenced both by the Bowman and Komoszewski book (Robert M. Bowman, Jr. and J. Ed Komoszewski, Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ [Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2007] ) as well as the Theology II class notes and discussion provided by Dr. Andrew Snider at The Master’s Seminary.

Behold, They Stand at the Door and Knock, Part 1

It may not be an exaggeration to suppose that nearly every Christian family has experienced that sudden sense of panic when a well-dressed pair of zealous visitors knocks at their door early on a Saturday morning. The fear that results from not knowing how to effectively defend one’s position from Scripture, as well as from knowing even less about one’s opponent’s position, renders most Christians either coldly unloving or woefully outmatched against the prepared answers and clever arguments of these bold proselytizers.

Yet in each iteration of this all-too-common scene precious opportunities for the preaching of the Gospel are lost, and damnable teaching goes undisputed. For the sake of the propagation of sound doctrine and the purity of the Gospel, it is necessary that Christians be equipped to effectively engage and evangelize Jehovah’s Witnesses. I hope that a short series of blog posts will contribute to the education of fellow believers regarding the heretical doctrines of the Watchtower Society and will equip true followers of Christ to defend an orthodox Christology from the text of Scripture.

A Synopsis of their History and Beliefs

The sect known as the Jehovah’s Witnesses began in 1872 as their founder, Charles Taze Russell, gathered a group of people for Bible study in western Pennsylvania. Over the next 35 years the organization grew to official and even international status before suffering a split and change of leadership in the early 20^th century.

Though the formation of the Watchtower Society was seemingly gradual, Witnesses acknowledge its establishment in 1914, as they believe that it was then that a “spiritual ‘second coming’ of Christ occurred” (Rhodes, Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, 72). At this time, God “personally set up the Watchtower Society as His visible representative on earth” (Rhodes, 23), and thus the only viable arbiter and interpreter of spiritual truth. Thus, the Watchtower Society is to Jehovah’s Witnesses what the Magisterium is to Roman Catholics. “At this time Christ began to gather to himself a faithful remnant and commissioned them to be Witnesses of Jehovah and his Kingdom” (Metzger, "The Jehovah’s Witnesses and Jesus Christ," 69.

Throughout history, such witnesses will not exceed 144,000, for they believe—based on a faulty interpretation of Rev 7:1ff—that those finally saved will not exceed this number. They establish such aberrant interpretations with the aid of a specious translation of the Scriptures, the New World Translation, which reputable scholars have condemned as “radically biased,” “reprehensible,” and “intellectually dishonest.”[1] The NWT is uniquely prejudiced to maintain the theological predilections of the Witnesses.

Among the many doctrines of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, their Christology is what chiefly distinguishes their teaching from historic Christian orthodoxy. Witnesses teach that Jesus Christ is not God incarnate, but rather the first created being through whom the true God, Jehovah, made the world. They argue that He is begotten, not self-existent (John 3:16), the beginning and firstborn of the creation, not eternal (Rev 3:14; Col 1:15), and the instrument of creation (Col 1:16), but not the Creator Himself (Aid to Bible Understanding, 391).

Therefore, they teach that Jesus is inferior to Jehovah. They support such teaching by citing passages of Scripture which speak of Christ’s functional subordination to the Father. Jesus Himself said, “the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). Paul told the Corinthians that “God is the head of Christ” (1 Cor 11:3), and later said the Son will be subjected to the Father (1 Cor 15:27-28; see their Reasoning from the Scriptures, 410). And so they conclude that Christ is not equal in essence with Jehovah God. They seem unable to allow an essential equality yet functional subordination between the Father and the Son. Yet that very distinction is established between husband and wife (1Cor 11:3, 7–12); they are inherently equal, but have differing and complementary roles. Surely one may see this distinction in regards to marriage. Why not, then, within the members of the Trinity?

They do, however, stipulate that Christ existed before His incarnation, yet not as God, but as Michael the Archangel (The Watchtower [May 1969], 307). They draw upon similarities such as the fact that 1 Thessalonians 4:16 says that Jesus will return at the voice of the archangel, who is identified in Jude 1:9 as Michael. Further, Revelation 12:7–12 says that Michael will do battle with Satan, yet Revelation 19:11–16 speaks about Christ leading the armies of heaven against the nations of the world. Thus Michael and Christ must be the same person.

Consequently, the Jehovah’s Witnesses deny the physical, bodily resurrection of Christ. In His appearances after His death and burial, He was not a glorified human being, but was recreated as Michael the Archangel (Rhodes, 71). His appearance to Thomas and the others with the evidence of His crucifixion was only His using “a body with wound holes.”[2] Such a spiritual resurrection harmonizes with the “spiritual second coming” mentioned above.

What to Make of All This

The Christology of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, however, falls woefully short of the Christology revealed in the pages of Scripture. In fact, one would need to study diligently to find a more well-attested Biblical doctrine than the deity of Jesus Christ. In the next couple of posts I hope to clearly lay out the Biblical evidence regarding the person of Jesus Christ, to the end that the saints be better equipped to engage and refute the doctrines of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. That way, when you hear the knock on your door on Saturday morning, it won’t be chills you feel running up your spine, but the steel that strengthens you in Christ to love your neighbor as yourself, having mercy on those who are deceived, and compassionately snatching them as brands from the burning.

But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts,
always being ready to make a defense
to everyone who asks you to give an account
for the hope that is in you,
yet with gentleness and reverence;
and keep a good conscience
so that in the thing in which you are slandered,
those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.
- 1 Peter 3:15-16 -

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[1] As cited in Rhodes, Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, 96. Cited are Dr. Robert Countess, Dr. Bruce Metzger, and Dr. William Barclay, respectively.

[2] You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth (Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1982), 143.

Arrogance is the New Humility

The context for the below video is set in the current controversy over Rob Bell, his heretical universalism, and "evangelicalism's" utter disbelief that anyone would ever call him out on it. That's not what this blog post is about. Rather, in answering this question, Doug Wilson makes some phenomenal points about the nature of Christian ministry that I was hoping to echo in this series, and particularly in this post.

I absolutely love what he says about being a herald. Pay close attention to that around 3:00.

Rob Bell and the nature of Arrogance from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

This must characterize our ministry. We are not to preach ourselves. We are not orators who have the luxury of altering our message or our method in order to win the favor of our audience. We are heralds -- men under assignment who must preach the message with which they've been commissioned and let the chips fall where they may.

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

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.

We Do Not Preach Ourselves

If, as we have seen in the previous post, that the world’s problem is that they do not see the glory of Christ, the Church’s mission is to preach a message which, by the power of God, overcomes that blindness. And so that is the third principle for faithfulness in Gospel ministry: to know the proclamation. Paul says in 2Cor 4:5, “For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.”

What does it mean to “not preach ourselves?” It means that we don’t put ourselves forward as the appeal to unbelievers. We don’t make our methodology or our style the draw, or that which attracts and compels others’ participation. Instead, we get ourselves out of the way so as to be merely incidental—merely the finger that points to what counts: namely, the content of the message: that Jesus Christ is Lord.

1 Corinthians 2:1-5 really sheds light on what it means for Paul that he not be preaching himself. He says, “And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.”

What's amazing about that is superiority of speech, human wisdom, and persuasive words were exactly what you needed if you were going to get your message heard in first-century Corinth! Remember, eloquence and oratory were the prerequisites of cultural engagement and credibility in that society. And Paul says, “I determined—I resolved—to be just the opposite. They were seeking wisdom, and all I knew was Christ and Him crucified. They were looking for rhetorical skills and eloquence and I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling. They wanted someone skilled in the art of persuasion, and my message and preaching had no persuasive words.”

Why, Paul?!

“Because if I did that, I’d be preaching myself! And then your faith would rest on the wisdom of men, and not on the power of God!”

So we don’t preach ourselves. In fact, he says in 1 Corinthians 3:5, “What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Slaves through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.” And back in 2 Corinthians 4:7, Paul says, “Listen, we’re just earthen vessels, just clay pots. We don’t do anything to make much of ourselves because we want 'the surpassing greatness of the power [to] be of God and not from ourselves.'”

And so Paul says: We don’t preach ourselves, because we’re not trying to simply gain converts, fill seats, and get rich. The problem we’re trying to solve by our preaching is the world’s blindness to the glory of Christ. And so we don’t preach ourselves, because no matter how slick or clever our presentation is, that’s not what saves people. That’s not what opens their eyes to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.

An Epidemic

And dear friends, if there is anything that plagues the contemporary Church today it is an epidemic of preaching ourselves. The Church today seems like it’s trying to solve every problem in the world except the one it’s been commissioned to solve. And it preaches itself to do it. One of the greatest marks of the unhealthiness of today’s Church is that rather than manifesting the glory of Jesus and the offensiveness and foolishness of His cross, the culture-exegetes of today attempt to show the world how much alike we are. In so doing, the Church presents themselves to the world and asks the world to accept them, and go from there.

Unbelievers don’t like hour-long sermons and big Bible words, so church growth strategy says we ought to shorten sermons to 20-minute pep-talks on fixing your emotional problems and personal relationships. On the other hand, the Emerging church reminds us that we’re living in a post-Christian era, and before the 18 to 30 year-olds of this generation darken the door of a church, we’ve got to "contextualize the gospel" and be "missional." If your "target audience" likes exotic coffees, put a coffee shop in your church. If they’re into punk rock music and body piercing, buy a couple of albums and think about a tongue ring. If they’re into Ultimate Fighting, go with them to the bar after work and watch a match on the big screen over some imported beer. You see, once we can show them that Christians are like them—that we’re human just like them and can like the same things that they like—well then they’ll be interested in “trying Jesus.”

As I write that, the passage that screams out in my mind is James 4:4: “Adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

Here’s an actual example from a church’s “About Us” page on their website: “If you’re looking for a place to have some real fun, make some real friends, and explore and experience a relationship with the real God, FCF is the place for you! We believe that church ought to be the most exciting and meaningful experience of a person’s week! That’s why we—”

Now, I agree that church ought to be the most exciting and meaningful experience of a person's week. But how you finish that last sentence speaks volumes about what you believe about Jesus Christ and His Gospel. Right there I want to insert: “That’s why we faithfully exposit the Scriptures week by week, in order to present an exalted view of God, so that our members see and savor His glory that is revealed in Christ, and as a result be so satisfied with the sweetness of Christ that they willingly lay down their lives during the week to love their neighbor as themselves.”

But no, they believe church ought to be the most exciting and meaningful experience of a person’s week. “That’s why we use theatrical lighting, sound, and video. That’s why we have cutting-edge music along with creative and relevant messages that speak to real-life challenges. That’s why we designed and built a kid’s theater and village complete with a real fire truck in the wall, and more!” And it goes on.

Do you see how this is preaching themselves? They offer their church, and its various programs and multimedia presentations as the selling point, rather than the gospel of Christ crucified, risen, and reigning as Lord, which can alone open blind minds to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. Paul calls this kind of thing peddling the word of God in 2Cor 2:17. And in 2Cor4:2 he calls it adulterating the word of God. And so Paul declares that we as Christians do not preach ourselves, because that will never solve the world’s problem. Rather we preach—that’s our method—Christ Jesus as Lord—that’s our message.

Will Metzger in his classic book on evangelism entitled Tell the Truth, writes, “The model for our witness is not to be a smooth-talking public relations agent”—and I’d add, nor an uber-cool, cultural hipster—“but an ambassador with a proclamation from a King” (36), which is exactly what Paul says a chapter later (2Cor 5:20).

Update: See Paul Washer offer his commentary on what it means for pastors and churches to preach themselves.

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

The World's Problem is that They Are Blind to Glory

As a sort of a New Year's resolution type of thing, I've been endeavoring to go back to the basics regarding the nature of the Gospel and of Gospel ministry. We're looking at four principles for faithful Gospel ministry in 2011 from 2 Corinthians 4:3-6. We've already seen that we must know the purpose of our ministry; namely, that we're calling Christ's sheep, not the goats, into His fold. We learned that an implication of that principle is that success in ministry is not measured by numbers, or visible "results," but by faithfulness to the message we've received.

The next principle that we must understand in order to be faithful ministers of the Gospel is to recognize the desperate situation that the world is in. That is, we must know the problem we’ve been commissioned to solve. And Paul states it in verse 4. He says, “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.”

Now, what does it mean that their minds have been blinded? Well, a few verses earlier, Paul used this same language to describe the Israelites in Moses’ day, and even the Jews up to this present day. In 2Cor 3:12-16 he says, “[We] are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was fading away. But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.” Note the parallel between hardened minds and a veiled heart. Both are communicating the same reality as verse 4: the essence of spiritual death is spiritual blindness. What it means for someone to be dead in their trespasses and sins (Eph 2:4), is that the eyes of their heart have been blinded so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.

Now, if that connection isn’t immediately clear, I want to draw your attention to how frequently Scripture speaks of light being analogous to spiritual life, and darkness being analogous to spiritual death and unbelief. So look for that connection in these passages.

• John 12:46 - I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.
• 1 Peter 2:9 - God saved you so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
• Ephesians 5:8 - You were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord.
• Acts 26:18 - I am sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.

So we see that there is this consistent parallel between light and life and between darkness and death. But it doesn’t stop there. The Scripture also presents the spiritual sight of Christ as analogous to the spiritual life of knowing Him. It goes beyond light and life into sight and life. See that connection:

• 1 John 3:6 - No one who practices sin has seen Him or knows Him.
• John 6:40 - For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.
• In fact, faith itself is spiritual sight. Hebrews 11:1 says that faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. That word “conviction” is elengchos in the Greek, and it comes from a verb that means “to bring to light, to expose.” Faith is the spiritual sight by which things that are unseen are exposed and brought to light.
• Which is why it says in Hebrews 11:27: “By faith [Moses] left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is unseen.”

And so when Paul says that the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, he is saying that those who do not believe are spiritually dead.

But I want you to notice what the nature of this spiritual death is. It is that they cannot see the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. This is the world’s problem: they are blind to glory.

Picture with me this most miserable tragedy! Everybody in the world—whether they know it or not—stands guilty before a holy God. All have sinned and thus fall short of the perfection of His glorious standard of righteousness. And so they are incapable of doing the very thing for which they were created: namely, enjoying a relationship with and communion with their glorious Creator. They are doomed to waste their lives.

But in magnificent love, God sends Christ to live the perfect life that they should have lived, but could never live; and to die the horrifying, eternal death that they should have died, so that the penalty they owed would be paid by a substitute; such that if they simply abandon any claim of self-righteousness and trust entirely in Christ alone for their righteousness before God, they can have the restored relationship with their glorious Creator that He designed them to have—that He designed to be the most satisfying, enjoyable, thrilling endeavor in which we ever engaged!

And so you go and you tell these people this most awesome news in the world—the greatest news that anyone could ever conceive of!—and they go, “Ehh. I mean, that's really awesome for you. I mean it! It's great for you. It's just not for me.”

Oh, dear friends, this is the miserable nature of spiritual death: People can look directly at the glory of Christ—whether they be rulers of the Jews in the Ancient Near East witnessing miracles, or 21^st century Americans reading their Bibles—and they can be entirely unaffected. Jesus looks foolish. Or He looks like a mythical, psychological crutch made up for weak people. Or He’s just boring. Because unless we’re born again—unless God shines in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ (as we’ll see in verse 6)—our minds remain blind, and we can’t see Christ for who He is.

Brothers and sisters, this is the world’s problem! This is what the Church has been left on earth to solve! The world’s problem is not that they have bad marriages. It’s not that they don’t have high enough self-esteem and need to feel loved! It’s not, as one megachurch pastor said in his 3-D Christmas service this year, that they need to add depth to their lives! It’s not that they have broken personal relationships. It’s not that they don’t feel comfortable and relaxed in church! It’s not that Christians don’t like the same music they listen to, don’t dress the same way, or don’t use the same language! It's not even that they don't have enough evidence of the truthfulness of the claims of Christianity! And it’s certainly not that they're not living their best life now and don’t have a 7-bedroom house with a 3-car garage!

The world’s problem is that they don’t see glory!

And so that means, that whatever we do as the Church, we better be doing it to solve that problem. Paul gets into how we do that in verse 5. That's for next time.


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