Joel's Day of Wrath & The Gospel

by Johanna Sawyer

An animated French couple advance on a tourist attraction on a beautiful day in Chicago. The two are non-practicing Catholics and environmentalists, with the man wearing a "Green Party" t-shirt. Meandering toward the center of activity, they are approached by a woman they don't know.  She asks if they have strong opinions on the bigger realities of life and whether God exists. They beg off from the interruption, feeling the urgency to move on to the next leg of their sightseeing. But the woman hands the couple a flyer, which is promptly stuffed into the man's messenger bag. Two nights later, the man finds and carefully reads the printed flyer on his Air France flight out of JFK...

The Great Dystopia
CONSIDERING THE (OFFENDED) ARCHITECT OF OUR HABITAT

Originating in the near east, Christianity has constantly been in flux in its language and culture. Instead of being based on ethnicity (or culture) it is based on a text. And its text is urgently concerned with a future time of great ecosystem damage. This period of global disorder will be sent by God. But He would rather not (or is extremely hesitant to) send it. Because of the immense loss of life that will result, and because of His hesitancy regarding the loss of life, God’s period of great hardship has been delayed. The God of the Christian text is a 3-person God. This means that He is the most relational God possible or conceivable, and also the most personal God possible or conceivable. Because He is compassionate, He has sent (message-like) evidence to scientifically-informed humanity. This evidence shows that God is both creative and protective. It is the great mass of evidence that an invisible, cosmic Architect finely-tuned the vast universe and the Earth’s ecosystem as a complexly-responsive habitat for mankind. However, a time of loss is approaching our habitat. God will make our habitat dramatically less habitable. Lasting for less than a decade, the period of ecosystem degradation will be God’s subjective, personal response to (and judgment of) various human sins: corrupt political leadership in the world, greed in the international economic system, deceptive rhetoric, religious violence and genocide, the current genocide of Christians, wars based on ethnic hatreds, the sex abuse of children in media and in schools and families. But God will also judge a universal sin, which is the resolute refusal of humanity to be grateful to Him (our habitat’s Architect) and give thanks to Him and worship Him. Therefore, the unappreciated Creator will begin to un-create and dismantle our habitat. Our highly passionate Creator will judge the Earth’s ecosystems with fierce destruction, so that at one point a third of the Earth’s residents (perhaps 2 Billion) will perish. Earth’s political rulers will respond to the devastation with genocide on Christians. But our Christian text teaches something else. It is that God’s fierce anger has already been expressed in space and time. Earth’s 3-person God has already expressed wrath—onto God’s Son. On the Cross of Christ, God the Son both “expiated” and “propitiated” human sin, meaning He fully purged (by paying for) sin—and fully satisfied God (and God’s justice) regarding the punishment of sin. In purging sin, the Son suffered immense pain, but did so because He looked forward to refreshing peace, intimacy with, and emancipation of, those He loved. But humanity has rejected the Son and His love. Even though He proved Himself the righteous master of our fragile habitat by rising from the dead, humanity has refused to be thankful for the Son and to worship Him, esteeming only Nature and themselves. Nations refuse to repent from corruption and refuse to worship the Son. Individuals refuse to admit sins from their past and to repent from sins in their current lives. If humanity would repent, God would bring healing—and the period of ecologic dismantling would again be delayed. No one except God Himself knows when the destruction of our habitat will ultimately come—but you (and your friends and family) will not perish, or enter Hell, if you believe in the Son, who generously gives eternal life to whoever believes in Him and His faithfulness. When you believe in Him, eternal life and future resurrection is secured to you through the presence of God’s Holy Spirit. That is, because of His compassion for the world, God sent His Son—so that whoever believes in His Son would not perish, but have eternal life. All of this is what the Christian text, the word of God, teaches. Carefully considering this message is in our self-interest. After the end of Earth’s judgments, after the genocide of those who love Him, after His enemies are judged, the Son will bring peace and healing to the Earth. He will rule the nations with love, purity and justice in our newly-healed habitat, planet Earth.

Is This So What?

To: UOG readers

From: the blogger Johanna Sawyer (formerly HK Flynn; from back in the day when some of us kept our personal information off the internet.)

Here’s my premise: 

The tribulation judgments are far more central to the Gospel & evangelism in the NT, than to the Gospel in today's churches. 

Eschatology is now thought of as a very separate topic from the Gospel message. But this means there is a sharp difference between NT evangelism and our own evangelism. The tribulation/day of the Lord judgments have gone missing from our Gospel.

Is this a big, So What??

No, it really isn't, in my not so humble opinion.

It’s not a small shift. 

Because of it, we distort the Gospel. 

Objection #1 might be, Isn't the day of the Lord a vague expression with several meanings? 

I agree that it and similar expressions, that day, the day of wrath, the day of Christ, have a range of meanings. Bob Wilkin has shown that the day of Christ is a term pointing to the Bema seat judgment where believer’s deeds will be judged by their Savior. And the day of the Lord can mean the tribulation judgments (Daniel’s [final] week), but also the final war that apparently takes place at the end of the Millennial Kingdom.

Objection #2 might be, Isn't all of eschatology an absolute distraction from the discipleship issues we desperately need to focus on? 

I agree that discipleship issues are urgent and central, but see NT eschatology as key to filtering discipleship through a thoroughly biblical perspective that has the potential to add turbo-ness to all of our pathetically lame efforts.  (I'm an expert I'm afraid in that latter department.) And I would have to agree that eschatology is often weirdly severed from a devotional perspective.

But even if a pastor decides he does not want the coming judgments as part of evangelism in his church, there is still a reason for close study of this Gospel shift out, where we shift out the topic of the day of the lord judgments, and shift in the topic of Hell. 

The Apostles clearly taught Hell.  

But they usually preached Joel’s day of wrath in their Gospel preaching.  This can be seen in the Acts sermons of Peter (in Acts Ch 2) and Paul (Ch 16), in Romans, and in John the Baptist’s preaching.

 

For the Apostles, the day of wrath prophesies of Joel were solidly linked with the coming of the Holy Spirit and the Gospel in general.    

But again, many will ask, So what?

This is what. We risk falsifying the Gospel whenever we fully conflate ideas the NT writers did not. 

What two ideas do we conflate? 

When we conflate Hell with the judgments of the Earth, we pull in repentance to a place the NT writers never brooked.

Don't get me wrong. The urgent message of repentance is necessary to prepare for the Kingdom.  Repentance gets regenerate individuals ready for being presented with all the church as the bride.  Repentance gets nations to give thanks to the One true Creator and worship Him, and this worship gives God an opportunity to continue to delay His judgments. But... when we say that turning from sin is part of the free offer of eternal life, we have gotten creative with the stern and authoritative promise Jesus makes to the readers of John’s Gospel. And that is not okay. Repentance (as turning from sin) and belief are two things not one.

Jesus sternly offers life freely.

By first conflating Hell with the day of wrath we end up conflating repentance with belief.

Offer of life Illustration: A (Catholic) Christian missionary lives in the Philippines. She works and lives in poverty in order to bring the love of Christ to the poor. But if that missionary is stopped on the sidewalk and encouraged to receive eternal life by faith alone, or to be justified by faith alone, she may be less than Christian in her verbal response. She might be totally outraged by the idea of not relying partly on the sacraments and partly on good works—both as gritty expressions of her deep faith in Christ and His atoning grace for her. She'd likely be insulted.

Regarding Hell, Free Grace believers put all their eggs in one basket.  We cling to Jesus and His offer of life because of the finality of His work on the Cross.

Regarding the day of wrath, we teach repentance.  Repentance is most desperately needed in many situations, personal, relational, local, regional, cultural, and (yes, even) political.  We need to realize that if we keep clarifying and re-clarifying grace and leave repentance as a minor point to be slipped into our evangelism near the end, we are not teaching the whole Gospel that Jesus left us with.

In my next post I hope to give an example of how the day of wrath might connect powerfully in modern evangelism.

What about the Unevangelized? Part 5

by Matthew


It is such a long time since I posted here. I thought it might be an idea to finish off the series I began back in 2009.

To summarise where we got to, in the first part we concluded that it is logical to expect that God has made some provision for those who have not heard the offer of eternal life by human means. We followed this by considering different views offered by evangelicals regarding the likelihood of the salvation of some of the unevangelized. The view Universal Premortem Opportunism was explained and identified as the view this blogger would defend.

Universal Premortem Opportunism holds that God has offered the opportunity to all persons to accept or reject the offer of eternal life. In the event of a person never encountering a human evangelist, she would receive sufficient revelation before her death to enable her to believe. In part 3 we looked at a number of possible Scriptural arguments for this position.

In part 4 we addressed the verse Romans 10:14, which is often used to assert that nobody can be saved without encountering an human preacher or evangelist. It was argued to the contrary, that Paul was making a rhetorical point to establish that Israel's condemnation was just.

This post will address the big objection that a lot of evangelicals will have to the theory of Universal Opportunism. This is that it takes away the motivation for evangelism? Surely the need to save sinners from a lost eternity is the chief motive for evangelism. If there is a possibility that God will save sinners independently of our gospel missions, are not our efforts redundant?

We have all heard a missionary speaker come to our churches and give a stark motivational talk. He speaks of the spiritual darkness of the land in which he ministers, he speaks of the ignorance of the natives of that land. He warns of how men and women are dying in that country and others daily and are going to an eternity of darkness and torment.

Such talks have motivated many blessed brothers and sisters to answer the call of Christ to go out into the world and labour for Him. I do not want to in any way diminish the value of having an healthy concern for those who are in spiritual darkness and having a consciousness of the reality of condemnation for those who do not believe. Nevertheless, I do not see anything exactly resembling this kind of motivational talk in the New Testament. We have Ezekiel 3:18-19, but this was a warning about God's temporal judgment on Israel and they were a people who already had the law. Nowhere does Paul, Peter, or John warn their readers about the millions who are perishing daily and motivate them on that basis. Romans 10:14 has been used that way, but as I argued in part 4, this is a misreading of Paul's argument.

I do worry that this style of motivational talk can be unhealthy. It can come across as emotional blackmail and lead to a negative view of missionaries. It could also lead to unhelpful guilt in those who are not on the mission field but who give generously and contribute to the work of Christ in many valuable ways. It may also prevent rational and wise contemplation over what kind of work Christians take up.

I think many will agree with me that too many Christians have an unbalanced view of conversion and evangelism. In a lot of American churches, they talk a lot about 'soul-winning' (without much awareness of the diversity of the way the word 'soul' is used in Scripture), but not very much about making disciples. There is a tendency to think of salvation as simply being saved from eternal condemnation, and not entrance into a whole new sphere of life. God's purpose is not simply to save people from the Lake of Fire, but to gather together a people who will live in a way that is conformed to the pattern of divinized humanity in Christ. Salvation is not just about plucking sinners from the fire, but about shaping and transforming lives and building communities devoted to Christ. I believe God can give eternal life to the unevangelised before it's too late, but He cannot make them into faithful and devoted disciples without our getting involved.

If it is true that only those who have encountered a human missionary have any hope of eternal life, then it might be seen that making disciples is a waste. Why should a missionary spend time discipling his converts and planting churches? Would it not be more sensible to travel to the next village and save them from a lost eternity? The emphasis of missionary work on simply rescuing 'souls' might actually lead to an unbalanced approach to missiology.

What about those who have not heard? Part 1

by Matthew

I want to tackel the thorny subject of those who have not heard the Gospel message during their lifetimes. There are a number of views held amongst Evangelicals as to their fate. Some Christians have hold to a strict Restrictivist position that holds that such people have no opportunity to receive eternal life. To show this is problematic, I will use a deductive argument.

(1) God loves all individuals.
(2) If God loves an individual He desires for her the greatest possible good.
(3) Eternal punishment is contrary to the greatest possible good.
(4) Therefore God wants all individuals to avoid eternal punishment.
(5) If God wants all individuals to avoid eternal punishment, He will desire to use some means to enable them to avoid eternal punishment.
(6) Therefore we can expect that God has provided some means for all individuals to avoid eternal punishment.

All Christians except some Calvinists agree with (1). I find it difficult to see how one could argue that (2) does not result from (1). Of course, God may have some other desire that means He is unable to make possible the greatest possible good for an individual, but He must at least desire the greatest possible good for all.

I think this argument is pretty sound. In the next post on this subject, I intend to consider the different approaches to the question of the unevangelized.

Watchman Nee on Rewards

by Watchman Nee

Let not any reader think that it is enough to be saved and not seek the reward as well. To every truly born-again person, the Lord is calling that one to pursue after spiritual excellence—to win the reward. And it should be a natural thing for him to pursue and win. Yet not for his personal benefit, but to gain the Lord’s heart and pleasure. For whoever is rewarded by the Lord has delighted His heart. Just as a sinner should be saved, so a believer should be rewarded also. Reward to a believer is as important as salvation to a sinner. If a saint fails to achieve the reward, it does not mean that he has sacrificed his profit, it only indicates that his life is not holy and his labor is not faithful and that he has not manifested the Lord Jesus Christ during his pilgrim days.

Recent teachings have swung towards two extremes. Some reckon salvation to be so difficult that it demands people to do a great deal. Thus they nullify the substitutionary death and the work of redemption of our Lord Jesus. Such teaching puts the entire responsibility on man and overlooks what the Bible says about our being saved by grace through faith. Some others think that since all is of grace, then all who believe in the Lord Jesus will not only be saved but also be rewarded with glory and rule in the future with the Lord Jesus. And hence, they lay the entire responsibility on God and neglect what is observed in the Scriptures that some believers—though they be saved—will suffer loss, yet as through fire (1 Cor. 3.15).

Yet there is a most balanced teaching here. Before a sinner believes, the Lord bears His responsibility; after the sinner believes, he must bear the responsibility himself. The work of salvation is totally done by the Lord for him, so it is enough just to believe. But this matter of reward depends wholly on the believer’s works, and therefore to believe alone is not adequate. As a sinner cannot be saved by good works, so a saint cannot be rewarded by only believing. Salvation is based on faith; reward is judged by works. Without faith, there is no salvation; without works, there is no reward. If we carefully study the New Testament, we shall perceive how clearly God separates salvation and reward. Salvation is for sinners, but reward is for saints. Both are divinely ordered: sinners should be saved and saints should be rewarded. Overlooking either of them will incur great loss. Let us therefore not mix salvation and reward together.

What is salvation? It is to not perish but to have eternal life. This is what we all know. Yet this does not decide our positions in glory since those are in fact determined by rewards. What is reward? From the Scriptures we can see that reward is to reign with Christ during the millennial kingdom. Every believer has eternal life; but not every believer will be rewarded by being given the right to reign with Christ. The kingdom of the heavens in the Gospel according to Matthew points to the heavenly part of the millennial kingdom—that is to say, it points to our reigning with Christ. Every careful reader of the Gospel can see the difference between eternal life and the kingdom of the heavens. To have eternal life requires only faith, but to gain the kingdom of the heavens demands violence to oneself (see Matt. 11.12). So that to be saved is to have eternal life, while to be rewarded is to enter into the kingdom of the heavens.

Once saved, always saved is at the very heart of Christianity

by Matthew

The doctrine of eternal security is at the very heart of the Christian faith. Once you take away the doctrine of Once saved, always saved, you cease to believe in Christianity and you believe something else.

The doctrine of eternal security has its foundations in those doctrines that are central to the Christian faith:

The Incarnation

In Christ, humanity and deity are joined together in perfect union. Those who are in Christ are united to the Godhead. Humanity is joined to deity and men and women can live the divine life, eternal life, enjoying the eternal existence of God.

The Substitutionary death of our Lord

The death of Christ frees the believer from death. Eternal redemption has been secured through the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Resurrection of our Lord

The believer is justified in the risen Christ. She is dead and risen with Him. Just as Christ can never die again, the believer can never perish.

The Ascension of our Lord

The Lord Jesus has ascended into heaven where He is our representative. Through their union with Him, the believers' place and privilege is in heaven. That is where the believer eternally belongs.

The New Birth

The believer is beome a child of God. Just as a child can never cease to be the son or daughter of her parents, the believer can never cease to be a child of God.

The Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

The believer is indwellt with the Holy Spirit. The Scriptures say nothing about the Holy Spirit ceasing to indwell a Christian.

The Church

The believer is brough into the church which is the body of Christ. That body is an indivisible union, not a voluntary association.

The discipline and judgment of the believer

Though it be a fearful thing, the Father's discipline and chastening of believers reveals His fatherly care and ownership of the child of God.

The Resurrection and Glorification of the Elect

Those who are called and justified are to be raised from the dead and glorified. "We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed." "So shall we ever be with the Lord."

The New Heavens and the New Earth

The regeneration of the believer is a type and foretaste of the renewal of the cosmos. Just as the restoration of creation is a certain fact, so is the believer;s eternal security.

A Sermon on Jude

by Matthew

I preached this sermon today:

Jude
5 ¶ I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.

6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

7 Even as Sodom and Gomor'rah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

8 ¶ Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.

The epistle of Jude is such a short book of the New Testament that it often tends to get forgotten.

It is about false teachers and about how these men are going to get their comeuppance.

I am going to focus on verse 6:

“And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgement of the great day.”

This must be a very important verse. Does anybody know why I say this must be an important verse?





Because Peter wrote an almost identical statement in an almost identical passage in his second epistle. Scholars fail to agree about whether Jude copied Peter or Peter copied Jude. It is not very important, as we know the Holy Spirit inspired both passages.

A few weeks ago, the United Nations criticised Britain. For some reason the UN likes to criticise our country all the time. They complained about how celebrities like Peter Doherty and Amy Winehouse get away with using drugs. They argued that these are dangerous role models for young people.

Just imagine if we read in the newspaper that Amy Winehouse had been convicted of possessing drugs. And she was going to be sentenced to prison.














You can just imagine what the Daily Mail would say. They would praise the courts. They would say this is an excellent move. It sends the message that nobody, no matter how rich or famous can get away with taking drugs.

Now, it may well be that it would not make any difference. Perhaps young people would take drugs anyway. But you can imagine the delight with which many people would greet such a conviction.

We see a similar thing here. The angels that kept not their first estate were condemned for their sin and bound up in chains. If God does not spare these angels, how much will He not spare those who teach falsehoods and heresies in His name?

There is the question of who these angels are. Some hold that they are Satan’s angels. Indeed, many angels rebelled with Satan.












However, this cannot be. For those angels are free. We read in Ephesians that we are at war against principalities and powers in heavenly places, against the rulers of darkness. Satan’s angels are not in hell, but in heaven, where they make war on God’s kingdom. The angels that kept not their estate are helpless. They are defeated.

In the next verse we read of the sexual immorality of Sodom. This gives strong support to the view that the angels here are those Sons of God that are referred to in Genesis 6. They did not keep their estate in heaven, but came to earth and committed sexual immorality with human women. From them the race of giants came. You are welcome to disagree with me about this and debate it with me afterwards, but it seems to me that there is good reason for making a connection between Jude and Genesis 6.

I would also suggest that these angels are the ‘Spirits in prison’ referred to in 1 Peter. Peter tells us that Christ preached unto the ‘Spirits in prison’ which were disobedient in the days of Noah. This would have taken place in between His death and resurrection.

Clearly, the angels in prison were not being given a second chance. The message our Lord preached to them was a message of victory and triumph.

Indeed, Christ’s triumph has been declared to the angelic world. All thrones and dominions in heaven were created for Him. And He is exalted over all of them. We read in Colossians that Christ has made a show of principalities and powers. They have been humiliated before Him. I think that would seem to be in view in Peter’s comment about the spirits in prison.

It is easy to forget that beyond this world, there is a vast world of angelic beings, thousands and thousands of them. They are witnesses of God’s dealings with man. Christ is exalted above them all and He is made ruler over them. Those who are in Christ, who have placed their trust in Him can share that position of rulership over the angelic world. The Christian is called to judge angels and to be lord over them.

This passage is a reminder of the awful reality of hell. Hell is real. There are many churches where there is never any preaching on hell. There are some theologians who deny the reality of hell.

If we believe what the Bible says, we cannot deny the reality of everlasting punishment. And we cannot hide it. Brethren, we must preach it and we must preach the good news that Jesus Christ has delivered us from this place.

The angels are special to God. He created them first. He gave them a place of privilege and glory. Yet these angels who sinned against Him were cast into hell.

If God sent angels to hell, how much more is He prepared to condemn forever those who reject Him and His way of salvation?











If you are here today and you are not a Christian I have a warning for you. If you continue to reject Jesus Christ and the salvation He offers, you will go to hell. There is everlasting torment for those who reject Christ. I don't like having to say that, but it is the truth. Yet if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you can be delivered from hell and receive everlasting life. You can know everlasting joy and everlasting peace.

The failure of these angels is an important warning about apostasy. These angels were great in power and glory, yet they fell into sin and rebellion. They fell from a great height.

Likewise much of Christianity has been removed from its original standing. Through the Church, the Gospel has been made known. The power of the Holy Spirit has been manifested in the Church. The New Testament has been entrusted to Christians.

Yet how far has Christianity fallen!

I need not remind you of the gross errors of the Roman Catholic church; of the idolatry of the mass, the worship of Mary and Saints, of the supposed infallibility of the Pope.

But we must not let Protestants get off lightly.

A Roman Catholic priest was once told by a Protestant that the Roman Church was the Whore of Babylon spoken of in Revelation chapter 17. He replied “Ah, but who are her daughters?”

We have seen bishops who deny the virgin birth and even the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you ask the average minister in any denomination whether he believes the Bible, you are unlikely to get a straight answer.

I need not remind you of the scandal of television evangelists who squander huge amounts of money. Or the tragedy of the thousands of Protestant denominations divided against each other.

Christianity is in a sorry state.

Yet God will judge apostate Christianity. The book of Revelation prophesies God’s judgement upon Mystery Babylon, which many commentators take to be a corrupted form of false Christianity, just like the false teachers that Jude speaks of. Judgment begins with the house of God.

However, all over the earth, the Holy Spirit is moving. Men and women are still being born-again and coming to new life in Christ.

We must also recognise the possibility of the failure of individual believers. The child of God can fail in His service. The believer can fall into sin and error.

David, that great man of the Old Testament, chosen to be king of Israel, committed adultery and murder. In the New Testament, Peter denied the Lord three times and later compromised the Gospel by his inconsistent conduct towards the Gentiles.

Yet praise be to the Lord, we are saved by grace. Our salvation does not depend upon our worthiness, but upon God’s grace.

The apostle Paul spoke about those who had made shipwreck their faith. The author of Hebrews gives us many warnings against falling away.

You might then ask: "Is it possible for a born again believer to go to hell?" The Lord forbid! No, the Christian has received everlasting life. Once you have drunk of the water of life, you shall never thirst again. Those who are in Christ shall be with Him forever. They belong to Him.

However, there are consequences for failure in the Christian life. We read in 1 Corinthians about believers who were sinning suffering from sickness as God’s judgment. That is not to say that all sickness is because of sin, but the Lord does use physical suffering as a means of disciplining His children.











If we continue in sin, there is the possibility that the Lord may take us home. You have read about Ananias and Saphirah in Acts. They lied to the Holy Ghost and were cut down dead. No doubt, they went to heaven, but what a tragedy that their lives were wasted. They lost the opportunity to spend their lives serving their saviour. We see no mention of their children, so perhaps they were a young couple, in which case their story is even more tragic.

There are consequences after death too. Paul wrote in Corinthians about the judgment seat of Christ. If any man's work is burned up he shall suffer loss. Not loss of salvation, of course, but loss of rewards. Sometimes you hear Christians say "I'm not worried about rewards, I just want to get to heaven." I tell you this is foolishness. Our Lord commanded us to seek treasures in heaven. You may not worry about rewards now, but you will be disappointed when you get to heaven and you missed out on them.

Paul speaks about reigning with Christ. "If we suffer with Him, we shall reign with Him." What a tragedy it would be to miss out on reigning with Christ. Let us labour for that inheritance in heaven.

Yet we must not be discouraged. If we are in Christ, we are a new creation. We are indwellt with the Holy Spirit. We have the power to overcome. Were we to depend on our own strength in the Christian life we should surely fail. But we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

At the end of this epistle, Jude reminds us that the Lord is able to keep us from falling. The Lord is able to keep us strong in the Christian walk if we keep our faith in Him, if we keep looking to Him.

Brethren, look to Christ day by day, moment by moment. Think on Him. That way you will be reminded of His power to keep you from falling. If we overcome this world we shall receive a glorious inheritance in the kingdom. We shall reign with Christ and become lords over the angels and all of creation. That is one great incentive for carrying on and never giving up in our Christian walk.

Pleasently Surprised in the Pounds

by Matthew

Readers may be aware that I attend a church that is Calvinistic and Lordship Salvation in orientation.

Today, the junior pastor was preaching on the Parable of the Pounds in Luke 19. I was waiting to hear him tell us that the third and wicked servant was an hypocritical professor and to metapmorphose the passage into a gospel (?) appeal based on this warning. However, I was very pleasently surpised when he declared that the wicked servant was in fact truly regenerate. He then declared that it was possible for a true believer not do any works.

Naturally, I agree with him about this, but I am at quite a loss to know how he would reconcile this surprise assertion with his views on James chapter 2, his recent preaching on the epistles of John and his tendency to confuse faith and discipleship.

After the service, I told him how pleasently surpised I was. He explained that he did not think the Parable of the Pounds was the same as the Parable of the Talents. I did not deal with this point, as it would have meant getting into an interesting conversation about the Outer Darkness. Anyway, I felt very good after hearing this sermon.

NT themes

by HK Flynn

Jeremy Myers, of GES fame but who has a great new blog, wrote an article for the last Journal called The Gospel is More Than “Faith Alone in Christ Alone,” where he states something very intriguing,

“[i]t can easily be proved from Scripture that the gospel is more than faith alone in Christ alone. Much more.

…It includes everything from the ‘eschatological expectation, the proclamation of the kingdom of God, … the introduction of the gentiles into salvation history, the rejection of the ordinary religion of cult and Law.’”

(The quote he uses here is from an article called “euangelion” by Freidrich, from Kittel.)

Jeremy's article has a lot of helpful detail. He shows that there are either multiple gospel messages (about future reign and present empowerment for instance) or better, that there is one broad NT gospel which covers a lot of territory. Very helpfully, he includes a chart that demonstrates 50 truths, with some overlap, that the NT includes in the definition of the gospel: Jesus born in Bethlehem (Luke 2:10), Mary’s virgin conception (Luke 1:19), the coming baptism of the Holy Spirit (Luke 3:18) Entering God’s Rest (Hebrews 4:2) Sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 1:10), etc. The article and the chart are worth reading through.

For a while now I’ve been mulling over what the relationship is between the gospel, and the offer of eternal life, and the call to discipleship, and the New Covenant, with the hope of getting a more crisp definition of each element. So in that spirit, the following definitions are tentative and I’ve included scripture more as examples than evidence…

(1) The New Covenant is the eternal promise made by God to Israel that enables and empowers the kingdom.

Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance (Hebrews 9)

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. (Hebrews 13)

(2) The Offer of Eternal Life is how the kingdom is populated. (Basically a rephrase of what Hodges says)

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." John 3

(3) The Gospel is the announcement of the arrival and future arrival of the kingdom or some aspect of it.

In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.'" (Matthew 3)

(4) The Call to Discipleship is how to live in it.

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. (Luke 6)

(5) The Call to Repentance is how to launch or reenter a kingdom-ready lifestyle.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel." (Mark 1)