A couple of weeks ago the Desiring God National Conference took place over in the US. This being his 500th birthday year, John Calvin was the subject. It was a little too far away for me to go to unfortunately, but all the audio and video has already been made available on the interweb. Go HERE to find it all. I’ve already been enjoying the panel discussion and Wilson’s address.

3. Paul’s gospel was rooted in the Old Testament

Continuing some reflections on Paul’s summary of the gospel in Romans 1:1-7 following my sermon.

In v2 of Romans 1 Paul says that the gospel of God was ‘promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures.’ Paul views both testaments as having the same message – the gospel. It was to be found in promise form in the Old, and as a promise kept (or as an announcement now come-of-age) in the New.

Where I suspect this is most challenging to us contemporary UK evangelicals is in the area of our attitude to the Old Testament. For some Christians it will be a surprise to learn that the OT can be considered ‘gospel’ at all. Others however will have benefited from biblical theology being taught in their churches and may be very familiar with thinking of promise-fulfilment as the relationship between the testaments. And yet I suspect that even for many such Christians the OT is, functionally speaking, largely a closed book.

Taking Paul’s words seriously means more than acknowledging that we need a mere working knowledge of the OT in order to get what we ‘really’ need which is found in the NT. Our grasp (and therefore our appreciation, and worship) of the Lord Jesus Christ will be directly tied to our grasp of the OT. How can we expect to see what it is that Christ is, and has done, if we don’t understand the promises it is he is fulfilling?

Herein, perhaps, lies the root of many distorted and confused gospels. The gap left by lack of knowledge of what promises Christ actually came to fulfil is filled in with a Jesus who is primarily a miracle worker and healer, or who is primarily concerned with personal relationship with me as an individual, or a Jesus who rules over only a certain (‘spiritual’) aspect of my life, or who has come to fulfil my felt personal and social needs. In this sense perhaps the fundamentalist’s Jesus who has come to whisk me away from this sinking ship of a planet shares a similar origin with the Liberal’s non-judgmental Jesus of humanistic optimism. Certainly both are rendered false by reading the NT in the context of the OT promises. For sure, it takes a distorted view of the NT also to consistently believe in these confused and/ or false gospels, but much good could be done were far more attention paid to the bigger of scriptures two ‘halves.’

No doubt Paul would struggle to recognise his gospel in many such distortions. For the apostle, the gospel was something rooted in the prophecy and promises of the entire OT scriptures.

See HERE for a discussion about (but not a fight about) the millenium and other ‘end-times’ matters, with open bibles, open hearts, in a spirit of Christian brotherly love. The conversation is between Sam Storms (an A-millenialist), Douglas Wilson (a Post-millenialist) and Jim Hamilton (a Pre-millenialist), all chaired by Jon Piper. You can view it HERE or listen to the audio HERE.

2. Paul’s gospel was inherently political

In my sermon on Romans 1:1-7 I put it like this:

Which [i.e. Jesus’ resurrection as the ruler of the world] makes the gospel deeply controversial.
It certainly was in Paul’s day.
The kind of stuff Paul is saying here was a direct challenge to Rome and to Caesar.
In fact, some of the language Paul uses here connects with language used by the Roman state.
‘Gospel’ in the roman empire was a royal announcement, often of the arrival of a new Caesar.
And all the way throughout the 1st century people were periodically required to worship Caesar as a divine being, or as a son of the gods, and certainly as a supreme ruler.
The gospel is a direct challenge to any power or authority in the world that wants to set itself up in the position of Lord.
Whatever government.
Whatever system of belief.
Whatever individual.

Please note, the gospel is a challenge to all godless authority. This means the gospel is a challenge to the political powers for exactly the same reasons it is a challenge to you and I in our sin.

Jesus Christ is Lord. And we can either ignore that fact or we can add our ‘amen’ to it in what Paul calls ‘the obedience of faith’ in v5. But the same thing
has to go for the political powers too. Caesar, so long as he claimed supreme authority and demanded that he be worshipped, was setting himself up as a rival to Jesus Christ. The gospel contradicted him in this and called on him to repent and bow the knee, not just in some private sphere of life, but also in his role as Caesar. This is necessarily the case because it was precisely in his role as Caesar that he was taking the stance of a rival to Jesus Christ. Becoming one of those with obedient faith would therefore impact Caesar most visibly in that very area where his prior rebellion was also most visible.

So, we can’t have a gospel that addresses us personally and individually as those who are rebels against the Lord Jesus Christ without also having one that is inherently political. Which means the church always has truth to speak to those in power, and that is always basically the same thing it speaks to everyone else. ‘Jesus Christ is Lord.’

This is post no. 100 for my blog, and how better to celebrate than to talk about the gospel? More specifically, these thoughts are coming from the way Paul speaks of the gospel in Romans 1:1-7, and follow the sermon I preached on these verses yesterday.

1. How Paul’s gospel summary challenges our typical presentations of the gospel

The first time I really engaged with Paul’s summary of the gospel in his opening words to the Romans my mind was blown. My previous understanding of the gospel was changed forever. But changed in such a way that, I trust, I lost none of what was good about my prior understanding, but rather learned to place those things which before I’d thought of as the sum total of the gospel, in a much fuller and more biblical picture of what the gospel is in essence.

I was trying to get at something like this in my sermon yesterday when I said the following:

And what’s surprising for those of who think we know what the gospel is, is that Paul doesn’t start where maybe we’d start.

‘God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life’
or
‘You can know God personally’
or even
‘You can have your sins forgiven and gain eternal life’

God’s good news announcement he says, is all about a person, his Son.
Or as he puts it there at the end of v4 – Jesus Christ our Lord, which is really a summary of what vv3-4 say.

So the first thing worth noticing is that Paul doesn’t start his gospel summary with us. He doesn’t start with our felt needs, but he also doesn’t even start with our spiritual needs. The gospel, according to Paul, is not first and foremost an account of how I can be right with God. It is first and foremost God’s announcement concerning his Son, that he is Christ (descended from David v3.) and Lord (Son of God in power v4.). The star of the gospel, the main figure in God’s announcement of the gospel is the Lord Jesus Christ and not us. Paul does not directly mention here justification by faith, or the penal nature of Christ’s death, or the eternal life that we receive from Christ, even though of course, those things are intimately and inseparably bound up with the announcement that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Now, this needs not to be misunderstood. We should note that Paul would have nothing to do with a certain way of overstating things. Paul would not, in other words, deny that the gospel does tell me how in Christ my spiritual needs are met. Quite the opposite. The verses we’re considering here are at the beginning of Romans after all, in which Paul takes several chapters to talk about how the gospel is the power of God for the salvation of Jews and Gentiles who have faith in Christ, and how it does so through God’s righteous imputing of righteousness to us. That is also Paul’s gospel. But the fact that, when he summarises this gospel at the very beginning of the letter, the thing at the front of his mind is not even those very things he will spend chapter after chapter on, tells us something about how Paul understood the relationships of the various elements of the gospel.

He would not, I repeat, would not, have anything to do with any suggestion that the gospel is not about salvation, personal and corporate, for God’s people. In fact, for Paul the gospel is about those things precisely and only because those things are at the heart of what it means for Jesus to be Christ and Lord – as are a whole bunch of other things that Paul can say are wrapped up with his gospel, including judgment day (Romans 2:16). But the gospel is still, therefore, best understood as ‘Jesus Christ is Lord.’

He would not have a problem with us preaching ‘you can be saved’ as the gospel. But he would, I suggest, have a problem with us not relating this to the central announcement of the gospel, that Jesus Christ is Lord.

I’ve just had my attention drawn (thanks Ros) to this interesting interview with Dr Garry Williams, conducted as he began working for the John Owen Centre. I had the privilege of being taught by Garry during his time at Oak Hill. Here’s a quote about UK evangelicalism that tells you why you should go read the whole interview:

‘I think that as a ‘movement’ (for want of a better word) we are very seriously disconnected from the riches of our past, and this means that we are often stumbling around trying to work out things that were worked out long ago under the Lord’s providence.’

Garry answers questions on the Puritans, on what Non-conformists and Anglicans can learn from one another, on his new role, on penal substitutionary atonement and on much more.

I don’t know James Cary in the flesh, but from my ‘cyber-knowledge’ of him I can tell you he’s a rare breed. He’s a conservative evangelical who works in the Media and Arts world to begin with. Which is not all that common. And his blog is really worth reading. Which is also not all that common. Anyway, this means it gives me enormous pleasure to plug here among my handful of readers this forum that James’ church is hosting for all Christians involved in the Media world. More information can be found here

And look, they’ve even got a funky logo, so it must be good:

It’s long overdue that I try to resurrect this weekly contribution from Geneva’s finest. Other entries can be found by clicking on the ‘Calvin 500‘ category.

Calvin’s commentaries are always worth a look, and I usually try to read what he says on any passage I’m preaching on. This sunday it’s John 14:8-14. This is Calvin’s comment on vs 9, where Christ rebukes Philip for having been witness to Jesus’ ministry and life amongst the disciples and yet having not yet grasped that he is the Son perfectly revealing the Father.

Christ justly reproves Philip for not having the eyes of his faith pure. He had God present in Christ, and yet he did not behold him. What prevented him but his own ingratitude? Thus, in the present day, they who, in consequence of not being satisfied with Christ alone, are hurried into foolish speculations, in order to seek God in them, make little progress in the Gospel. This foolish desire springs from the meanness of Christ’s low condition; and this is very unreasonable, for by that humiliation he exhibits the infinite goodness of God. [John, vol. 2, see here]

Firstly, I just like the way Calvin puts things here. God is present in Christ, and yet those who are dissatisfied with that rush off after God in foolish speculation. Secondly, he points out the irony of the fact that this springs from Christ’s low condition, since that very lowliness is itself the most marvelous revelation of God in his infinite goodness. Calvin sees in these verses of John a thoroughly Christocentric and cruciform theology of revelation.

I’ve just received news of this conference on the Song of Songs. Ros Clarke and I crossed over for a couple of years at Oak Hill, where she wrote her Masters Thesis on the Song of songs. David Field taught at Oak Hill during my time there and was always stimulating, fresh, and biblical in his teaching. More information can be found here.

‘There is a proportional relationship (and a necessary one) between what a government can do for you, and what a government can do to you. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.’

‘Our particular liberal democracy needs to recognize that humanistic idolatry has us by the throat. We need to return to basic Christian worldview thinking in politics. Losing our faith in mere men is the first step.’

Pastor Douglas Wilson (see the context here).

This is for a US audience, but it might as well be about the UK. (Thanks to Tim)

Pastoral problems have liturgical solutions.

The Psalms are often cited as the source-book for pastoral care, as the Pastor’s best resource for ministering to those in need due to bereavement, loss, depression, spiritual dryness, guilt, persecution, illness etc.

Which makes it interesting that the psalms themselves are primarily given to be sung, and that in a corporate setting, with the gathered people of God. For situations of need, doubt, and distress, the Psalms don’t just give us private prayers (though of course that is one great use for them), they give us songs for worshiping with the rest of the church.

So, pastoral problems have liturgical solutions.

Is it fair to say that the psalms were put in scripture more with a view to our praying them than with a view to our studying them?

Of course, we’d have to be talking about degrees, and about ordering of purpose, rather than an absolute antithesis. In order to pray them we have to study them, in a sense. And part of what the psalms ‘do’ is that, as we engage with praying them ourselves, they challenge us to adopt their thought world, their doctrine, their way of looking at the world, at ourselves, at God. The psalms put words in our mouths, and in doing so instruct our minds and our hearts.

But still, the primary (chief?) end in mind is that we pray them, right? [And we pray them best by singing them]

‘Pastor Dad’ is a new book by Mark Driscoll on being a Father. It’s available for free as a PDF here.

I’m preaching on Psalm 129 this weekend and I’ve found this essay on the ‘people as plants’ metaphor in the Psalter pretty stimulating (thanks Ros). Writing about the way that kind of metaphor is employed in Psalm 144:12, Ros says

Read in the context of the psalter, this becomes much more than a prayer for sons who will reach an age of maturity. It is a prayer for a renewed Israel under the leadership of a divine, torah-obedient, blessed king. It is a prayer for a people who will themselves be obedient to their God and who will worship him in his temple. It is a prayer for a people who will resist wicked ways and walk in wisdom. It is a prayer for the people to be blessed by their gardener-God, to be planted by him and nurtured that they may set down deep roots in the land, and to be protected by him from their enemies. Reading from the beginning allows us to see that this image cannot easily be easily substituted by a literal statement. The simple point of comparison we began with in terms of maturity or longevity barely begins to scratch the surface of the image in terms of its interpretive value.

If correct, this really fleshes out the imprecation in 129:6-7.

6 Let them be like the grass on the housetops,
which withers before it grows up,
7 with which the reaper does not fill his hand
nor the binder of sheaves his arms,

The Psalmist is not just praying that they’ll wither away and die, but that they’ll be eschatologically meaningless. In the great harvest they’ll amount to nothing, exluded from the fruitful people of God (as outlined in 126-8) and from God’s blessing (v8).