Richard Hays on guarding the Gospel

Richard Hays: “The Christian community as a community of love is not infinitely inclusive: those who reject Jesus are not and cannot be part of it. There is great danger to the church, in Paul’s view, when some people represent themselves as Christians while rejecting the apostolically proclaimed gospel.”

Richard Hays, First Corinthians (Interp; Louisville, KY: John Knox, 1997), 291-92.

Vincent Smiles on the gospel in Galatians

Vincent Smiles writes:

In Galatians the gospel is the invasive and invincible power of God, which is presently at work in the world to complete God's plan of salvation. It is God's "call" (Gal 1:6, 15; 5:7), to which Paul and every human authority or sacred tradition are subject. The gospel is for the whole world, and its subject all humans to itself on the same terms. That is why the negative judgment on law, as on all human wisdom and philosophy (cf. 1 Cor 1:20-25), also lies at the heart of the gospel, particularly in the context of Galatians. This negative edge to the gospel is an aspect of the gospel as grace, for it is only when humanity is revealed in its utter nakedness before God that God's grace can truly be known as grace. The gospel, so to speak, clears the ground for itself; it sheds the light that simultaneously exposes and dispels the darkness of the human condition. It is the gospel, which is simultaneously judgment and grace, that enables Paul so freely to interpret the law and so radically set it aside.

Vincent M. Smiles, The Gospel and the Law in Galatia: Paul's Response to Jewish-Christian Separatism and the Threat of Galatian Apostasy (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1998), 28.

Steve Mason on Josephus, Jews, and Gospel

I've enjoyed and benefitted from several of Steve Mason's works on Josephus in the past few years (evident in my forthcoming Crossing Over Sea and Land) and below I'd like to do a quick book notice on his latest publication Josephus, Judea, and Christian Origins: Methods and Categories (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2009 [Available from Alban Books in the UK]) and briefly interact with his thought provoking article in Bible and Interpretation on "Methods and Categories: Judaism and the Gospel" which is adapted from the forementioned book.

Mason's study on Ioudaismos is highly informative and I don't contest most of what he says esp. the relation of Ioudaismos to Ioudaizein. What I do find objectionable is his view that Ioudaismos only became a "system" in the minds of later Christian interpreters. I doubt that because: (1) Paul's remarks in Galatians 1 about advancing in Judaism beyond most of his contemporaries assumes his advancement in beliefs and behaviours charactistic of the Judeans. In Mason's analysis Ioudaismos becomes equivalant to zelous which I doubt. (2) Philo and others can refer to the Israelite religion as a form of national philosophy which is a system of belief, indeed, they arguably reduce it to a set of philosophical tenets with some nationalistic trimmings. (3) The existence of sects like Pharisees and Essenes requires elements of an ideological profile that differentiates them from one another (i.e. sectarianism) and but also features that they share as well (i.e. Judaism). (4) The other problem of linking Ioudaismos to Ioudaizein is that, strictly speaking, Jews don't judaize! To "judaize" is something that only a non-Jew can do. For example, in Gal 2 Paul accuses Peter of forcing Gentiles to "judaize". Usage in Josephus confirms this since in Jewish War there is the story of the Roman commander Mitellius who offered to judaize to the point of circumcision. The Gentile inhabitants of the city of Antioch had to be wary of the "judaizers" who they feared would support the Jews during inter-racial tensions in the city. (5) Similarly, I would dispute Masons' claim that the category of "religion" did not exist, because it certainly did as the words threskeia and pietas denotes one's relgious behaviour. Where Mason's point is valid is that religion was not ordinarily divorced from territorial deities or regional loyalties. In counter-point, I would maintain the appropriateness of the term Judaism for signifying ethnicity and shared custom (John Barclay's definition!).

On "gospel", Mason's lexical study is again illuminating, esp. his translation of euangelion as "announcement" which I suspect (though I need to think more on this) does work. Once more, however, I contest his findings in one particular area. He writes: "I propose, to euangelion appears to be a term characteristic of Paul’s mission. It was something that he connected only with his own work, often in strikingly proprietary terms. He was eager to associate his own converts and followers with to euangelion as a shared treasure, but he became notably reticent to associate Christ-followers of other persuasions with it—not because they were unworthy, necessarily, but simply because they were different and not part of his mission, which was called to euangelion." But Paul did not connect "gospel" exclusively to his own work since he tells the Galatians that he and the Jerusalem church agreed on the "gospel" for the circumcised and uncircumcised (Gal 2:8-9) and he told the Corinthians that they could have heard the same gospel from Peter or from the other Apostles (1 Cor 15:11). Indeed, primitive gospel summaries found in Rom 1:3-4 and 1 Cor 15:3-5 look distinctively pre-Pauline. Luke also has a redactional habit of substituting euangelion for the verbal form euangelizomai. Luke is certainly a Pauline fan, but he is also an independent thinker and using non-Pauline sources as well. Even Mark who is a Pauline disciple seems to have Petrine sympathies as well according to the content of his Gospel and in later Christian tradition. Gerd Theissen suggests that Mark's use of "gospel" is "coloured" by usage of the word in the late 60s in association with Vespasian's rise to power. In the Synoptic Gospels Jesus does proclaim a gospel which many have taken to be a wild anachronism esp. if it is freighted with Pauline connotations. Even so, Jesus never proclaims the gospel of his death and resurrection which marks a fundamental discontinuity between the Synoptic Jesus and Paul. Jesus' statement about the "gospel of God" (e.g. Mk 1:15) seem clearly at home in a Palestinian context with analagous language found in Qumran (e.g 4Q521 col. 2). Paul was undoubtedly the main distributor of term "gospel" and he popularized a particular form of the expression in the early church, but I doubt that he was the progenator of the expression or even the single conduit through which it entered the grammar of the early church.

The Origin of Paul's Gospel

I have always wondered how to reconcile Gal 1.11-12 ("I did not receive [parelabon] the gospel from humans, neither was I taught it, but through a revelation of Jesus Christ") and 1 Cor 15.3 ("I received [parelabon] as the gospel that Christ died for our sins ..."). In Beginning from Jerusalem(p. 354), Jimmy Dunn offers his own resolution which I find interesting:

"Paul assuredly did not think of his gospel as a different gospel from that agreed upon by Peter, James and John (Gal. 2.2-9); the gospel of 1 Cor. 15.3-4/5 was the gospel which they all preached (1 Cor. 15.11). What was different about Paul's gospel was his conviction that it was open also to Gentiles, that the gospel he received in the tradition handed down to him at the time of his conversion (1 Cor. 15.3) was the message regarding God's Son which he had been commissioned to deliver to the Gentiles (Gal. 1.16). That was why Paul was such an uncomfortable bed fellow with his fellow apostles: he saw himself as first and foremost 'apostle to the Gentiles'; and as far as Paul himself wasa concerned, that had been the case from his commissioning itself."

Fleeting thoughts on Romans 1:1-4

After a curry, a few glasses of wine, three journal articles, and with my buddy BW8, this is what I've come up with on Romans 1:1-4.

"The Apostolic vocation which Paul carries out has as its centrepiece the gospel. Paul was called to be an apostle and set apart for the sake of the “gospel of God”. When Paul mentions the gospel it is most often in association with Jesus Christ as its foci (see 1 Cor 9:12; 15:1-5; 2 Cor 2:12; 4:4; 9:13; 10:14; Phil 1:17; 1 Thess 3:2; 2 Thess 1:8; 2 Tim 2:8). In fact, Paul will very quickly go on to relate the “gospel of God” to the gospel “concerning his son” in 1:3 and the “gospel of his Son” in 1:9 (see Rom 2:16; 16:25). Yet here it is the “gospel of God” (see Rom 15:16; 2 Cor 11:7; 1 Thess 2:8-9; 1 Tim 1:11). The sense is deliberately open as it might mean a gospel from God or a gospel about God. Most likely, both senses are intended. The gospel is both a revelation from God (Gal 1:12) and is about what God himself has done in the faithfulness, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. To tell the gospel of God is to tell the story of Jesus. And yet the story of Jesus is entirely inexplicable apart from the story of God. Paul is the quintessential Jesus-freak, but he is not a mono-Jesus adherent. That is because God, Son, and Spirit all figure prominently in his opening narration of the gospel story in Rom 1:1-4. In fact, Romans is the most theocentric letter of the Pauline corpus with the word theos occurring 153 times! John Webster rightly states: “The matter to which Christian theology is commanded to attend, and by which it is directed in all its operations, is the presence of the perfect God as it is announced in the gospel”. As the Apostle sent and set apart by God, Paul sets out before the Roman Christians the story of how God’s plan to repossess the world for himself have now been executed in his own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ."

Calvin on Gospel

Tullian Tchividjian reprints a beautiful portion of John Calvin's preface to Pierre Robert Olivétan’s French translation of the New Testament (1534).

Without the gospel

everything is useless and vain;

without the gospel

we are not Christians;

without the gospel

all riches is poverty,
all wisdom folly before God;
strength is weakness,
and all the justice of man is under the condemnation of God.

But by the knowledge of the gospel we are made

children of God,
brothers of Jesus Christ,
fellow townsmen with the saints,
citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven,
heirs of God with Jesus Christ, by whom

the poor are made rich,
the weak strong,
the fools wise,
the sinner justified,
the desolate comforted,
the doubting sure,
and slaves free.

Read the rest at Between Two Worlds.

Is Baptism a Gospel Issue - John Davies

Over at the PTC Blog, John Davies has a good post on Is Baptism a Gospel Issue? He concludes at the end: "When we abandon baptism, we substitute other more individualistic and subjective forms of recognition and exclusion. We undermine the unity on which the NT places such a high value. We subvert the gospel."

More on Gospel from John Davies

Over at the PTC blog, John Davies has some follow-up thoughts (from the last post) on defining the gospel.

1 Corinthians 15:3-8 and the Definition of the Gospel

In many discussions of the “Gospel” when reference is made to 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 the actual context is nearly overlooked and often ignored. This ignorance is most evident in that the text quoted is usually cut off at verse 4:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures . . .

Given the context and point of the chapter, it seems to me that this is a significant error since it is in these latter verses 5-8 that Paul speaks of the resurrection appearances:

. . . and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

 

Here then Paul is not attempting to define the Gospel in all its complexity, but to assert the reality of the resurrection. His brief summary statement of the Gospel’s content (vv. 3-4) is in service to his primary argument. To claim that this passage is Paul’s “statement” of the Gospel’s full content is inappropriate at best. 

Mark Dever on "What is the Gospel?"

See this short-clip with Mark Dever over at Between Two Worlds. Pretty good exposition: narrative setting, emphasis on new creation, atonement, faith-repentance, and resurrection too.

Jesus' Life and the Proclamation of the Gospel

What role does narrating the life of Jesus have in gospel proclamation? I ask this for two reasons: (1) I cannot help but notice that in Acts (esp. the Petrine speeches) that the life of Jesus figures prominently in apostolic proclamation of the gospel; (2) I've also been reading a bit of Ajith Fernando's Acts commentary in the NIVAC series where he makes the same point. In fact, in his own native Sri Lanka, Buddhists find sacrificial language repugnant (because they view killing animals wrong) and are more likely to convert from reading the Gospels than from reading Paul. That is interesting. I think we have to stop viewing the gospel as a series of linear propositions, i.e. (a) God is Holy, (b) Man is sinfulful, (c) Therefore . . . you get the drift! If we articulate the gospel as a narrative reaching back to creation, through to the history of Israel, encompassing the life of Jesus, the passion of Jesus, and the out-pouring of the Spirit, then we're going to be closer to the apostolic message than with reducing the gospel to the logic behind penal substitution. In fact, I wonder if a lot of evangelical preaching is actually quite Bultmannesque in being ahistorical and dislocating the work of Jesus Christ from the history of Jesus and the history of Israel.

How Public is the Gospel?

Another article at CT by Colin Hansen asks How Public is the Gospel? This article enters into the debate abut the nature of the gospel based on the dissimilarities between Mark Dever and N.T. Wright.

I should also point out (with the help of Jim Hamilton) a short post by Greg Gilbert that argues that the gospel is broader than Jesus' substitutionary death for our sins. As Gilbert points out, such a definition doesn't work in Romans 2:16, Galatians 3:8, Colossians 1:5, 2 Timothy 1:10, and Revelation 14:6 (I would add Isa. 52.7 and Lk. 4.18-21; Lk. 7.22-23/Mt. 11.4-6). I disagree with Gilbert in so far that justification by faith is not the gospel. Justification by faith is Paul's application of the gospel to those who wanted to force his Gentile churches to take on Torah observance. There is no such thing as the "gospel of justification" any more than there is the gospel of redemption, the gospel of reconciliation, or the gospel of saving sacrifice. Justification is not any more or any less important than redemption or the cosmic victory which are achieved by Christ's death and resurrection. The righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel, it is not the gospel itself!

Mark Dever on "Gospel"

I'm listening to (and enjoying) Mark Dever's T4G sermon on "Improving the Gospel: Exercises in Unbiblical Theology" which I found thought provoking. I like the way that he actually "gets" some of the challenges to the gospel in the NT. It is good to hear a Reformed guy say that the problem in Galatia was that by adding law observance to the gospel the influencers were implying that one had to become a Jew in order to become a Christian! Since I'm keen on anything to do with "gospel" I'll survey Dever's sermon and add some comments. Dever lists five "cries" which he regards as threats to the gospel and to the sufficiency of Christ:

1. Make the gospel public. Dever critiques N.T. Wright's desire to see the church shape human society and culture including its laws and structures. I concur that the effect of the gospel cannot be confused with its contents, though I have to ask, does Wright actually state that Christian cultural influence is what the gospel is about or even the central mission of the church (no references come to my mind)? Wright is big on social justice and debt relief for Africa, but I'm not sure if he frames it in the terms that Dever alleges. Yet Dever makes a good point by referring to Jer. 29.7, "seek the welfare of the city" that Christians can make a difference in the world in terms of schooling, poverty, and sex trafficking, etc. But then again I wasn't sure on his, "dont' ask me about politics and constitutional law, because I'm just a pastor who is into the cross of Christ". That's the kind of bifurcations that Wright is rightly warning of. I think Dever should have engaged Abraham Kuyper instead of N.T. Wright on the subject of the Christian, the gospel, and the state and the dialogue might have gone in a different direction. To be fair, Dever believes in both compassion and evangelism, but maintains that they are not both part of the gospel. I know what he's getting at, but I have to ask, what do you do with those statements in Gospels (like Lk. 4.18-21, 7.22-23) where Jesus says that "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach good news to the poor"? In my mind this clearly mixes compassion and evangelism together. When Dever says, "don't make the gospel public" I can relate to that in so far as not making the gospel a bunch of public social policies, but the gospel is the public announcement that the crucified and risen Jesus is Lord and Saviour, and his lordship has immense consequences for all human institutions and structures.

2. Make the gospel larger. Is salvation only about souls being saved? Again Dever's point is about the danger of confusing the implication of the gospel with its contents. He is right that the gospel is transformative and is not merely a compilation of moral positions and the unity of Jews and Gentiles in one body is a chief result of the gospel (e.g. Eph. 3.6 - this is great stuff by Dever!), but again, Lk. 4.18-21 is a good example as you can get of doing the gospel which does take on elements of socio-economic liberation (I'll side with Colson over Dever on his exegesis of that text). Did the pro-segregationalist Christians understand the gospel correctly but merely got its implications wrong? Dever says "yes," but I'm not so sure. Maybe the reason they messed up the implications of the gospel is because they had an erronneous conception of the gospel to begin with (although perhaps the matter was alot more complex than all of this in any case and it was alot more than "gospel" that lead to pro-segregationist views).

3. Make the gospel relevant. I like Dever's critique of the homogenous church principle. I concur and I think that it is not biblical and has had horrendous consequences in Africa leading to Christians vs. Christians violence. All the same, I've seen the sociology behind conversions at work in a positive way where some persons belong to a community and then come to believe with the community in Jesus as Lord and Saviour, which runs in the face of some evangelistic models. Importantly, Dever is not anti-contextualization, he only he wants to make sure that the process of conceptual transference does not to tinker with the message in order to make it more digestible. He wants to retain the offence of the gospel across cultural boundaries even if it is articulated in slightly different terms.

4. Make the gospel personal. Here Dever is at his best. The true test of gospel conversion is becoming a disciple and participating in a community of believers. Gifts are given by God for service in the local church and disciples should be active in a community of believers. His best point is that a low view of the church can lead to a low view of the gospel.

5. Make the gospel kinder. Dever is right on the money in that God is not a utilitarian in trying to do the greatest good for the greatest number. Dever regards this as the root of the other four problems: a man centred gospel. God's purpose is not to save the most sinners possible, but to bring glory to himself. Evangelism then should be motivated by the quest to bring glory to God.

I found myself enjoying and benefitting from this sermon, several minor points I'd tinker with myself, but his main point is worth pondering: how do we differentiate the gospel from its implications. Also the relationship between a biblical meta-narrative running from Fall to New Creation and the gospel declaration of Jesus' death and resurrection is another good topic of discussion. Food for thought!

If you haven't read it, then can I urge you all to read F.F. Bruce's little book, The Defense of the Gospel in the New Testament which covers some similar terrain.

Scot McKnight on the Robust Gospel

Over at CT, Scot McKnight has an excellent article on the The 8 Marks of a Robust Gospel which is well worth a read. In fact, I strenuously urge all of my students to read this article.

In particular I liked point # 2:

The robust gospel places transactions in the context of persons. When the gospel is reduced to a legal transaction shifting our guilt to Christ and Christ's righteousness to us, the gospel focuses too narrowly on a transaction and becomes too impersonal. We dare not deny transaction or what's called double imputation, but the gospel is more than the transactions of imputation. The robust gospel of the Bible is personal—it is about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. It is about you and me as persons encountering that personal, three-personed God.

The Place of the Gospel in Biblical and Systematic Theology

Over at BeginningwithMoses.org, Dave Gibson and his cohort of biblical-theological-bloggers have put together another find series of articles on biblical theology. It includes a piece by myself entitled: A Theology of the Gospel: The Gospel as the Starting-Point and Integrating-Point for Biblical and Systematic Theology. One of my rare forays into systematic theology.

Really Together in the Gospel

Registration is open for Together for the Gospel 2008 (T4G). Last year I had some impassioned things to say about T4G in a previous post (let's just say I discovered my anger). My gripe was that women who had registered for the conference were asked to give up their places so that more pastors could attend. My issue was, why were women the only one's asked to give up their places? Anyone who was not a pastor should have been asked to give up their spot. I think it led to the situation where some pew-sitting-couching potato guy could attend the conference, but a woman actually involved in ministry (university ministry, youth, women-t0-women, missions, etc) could not attend. I don't think this was done maliciously but it was an administrative decision that did not bode well for regarding women as partners in the gospels. While I stand by the validity of my original protest, I am very glad to say that my concerns have now been assuaged. The registration for T4G reads: "If you are a pastor, church leader, or an individual heading towards the ministry, please join us - and, brothers, bring your Timothy's! Women in ministry and wives are also welcome, yet keep in mind that each will focus on pastoral ministry". While being clear that the conference is orientated towards pastors, there is also a willingness to allow women to attend and to benefit from the teaching and fellowship of T4G. This is a good thing. That is what "Together" in the gospel should really be about. It allows the conference to remain committed to training pastors, to retain its complementarian ethos, but does not exclude any particular group. T4G gets the Bird-man stam of approval!

Over at the T4G Blog there is an interesting series of posts about exactly how "together" the conveners of T4G are (Al Mohler, C.J. Maheney, Al Mohler, Lig Duncan, Mark Dever). They obviously have different points of view about baptism. What is more, Mohler and Dever (as Southern Baptists) would not give communion to Lig Duncan if he came to their church since he's a Presbyterian. On baptism, I'm siding with Piper and first-edition-Grudem, because, even as a Baptist, I think that non-Baptist's can be members (what I would call "associate members") of a local Baptist church if they have a real and authentic faith. On communion, Lig Duncan is welcomed to have communion in my church any time, in fact, if he did come I would probably insist that he leads the communion service (but if we went out for lunch afterwards we'd probably have a very free and frank exchange of ideas about N.T. Wright and Reformed Orthodoxy). This is not because I am "soft" on Baptist distinctives, rather, it is because I am "tough" on the theological implications of the gospel. If we really believe that the gospel is theological and not just a ticket to heaven, then the gospel has got to affect our ecclesiology (or doctrine of the church). The "church" consists fundamentally of the gospelized, viz., of those who believe, confess, and profess the good news of Jesus Christ. We baptize those who are gospelized. But being gospelized (converted and commissioned) takes precedent over baptism which is a symbol of the gospel itself. Similarly, for the Lord's Supper, that meal is an effective sign of gospel fellowship, and all those who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour are welcomed to attend. This meal foreshadows who will be at the wedding supper of the Lamb. Jesus has already sent out his invitations and how can I withold communion from someone that the Lord has invited to the eschatological banquet? What gives the sacraments/ordinances (delete as preferred) their power is the gospel. These symbols of the gospel were meant to facilitate fellowship rather than to hinder it. This isn't going for the lowest common theological denominator (gosh darn it, "household" means slaves and retainers not children), but we must not allow the emblems of the gospels to interfere with the ends for which the gospel was given.

Gotta Love Gospel

As I often say, what makes someone an evangelical is how they articulate, proclaim, and live out the evangel. I love hearing good expositions of what the gospel is, what it means, and how we "live a life worthy of the gospel" as Paul says in Philippians. As such, I'm glad to say that my friend Denny Burke has a great sermon about "The Gospel as the Power for Perseverance" which can be listend to online and it focuses on 1 Corinthians 15. In my opinion, discipleship is the process of gospelizing, whereby we begin to reflect the power and goodness of the gospel in our lives and in our relationships with other Christians and with the world at large.

Oh, that reminds me, did you know that Jesus was black? Think about it. He loved gospel. He called everyone brother. And he couldn't get a fair trial (I say that tongue in cheek).

Scottish Northern Convention, 22-27 September 2007

At this years Scottish Northern Convention I will be preaching at the Saturday night youth special on "The Gospel according to Star Wars" on 22nd September, 7:30 - 9.00 p.m. at Castle Street Church of Scotland. There there or be elsewhere!