The Gospel without Sin

I couldn't go to sleep last night. So, in flipping through our numerous (read: six) channels, I came across Jonathan Falwell preaching at his church, Thomas Road Baptist Church. He was doing a pretty decent job. His use of scripture was less than desirable in my mind, though. The message title was something along the lines of "Moving in and Moving out", and consisted of many points, each of which were punctuated by a scripture supporting that particular point, but not really relating to each other much at all. It was akin to quoting a well-respected book or author to support each point. My only problem with this is if you use the bible in this manner (you defining something and using the Bible to back you up), then you are teaching your congregation that you can live the same way, determining yourself what must be done and then using scripture to support your decision rather than letting the scripture define you and your life.

But that's not even what scared me the most. When he got to the climax of his message, talking about "moving out" - basically evangelism, he started a nice little list of reasons why we share Christ. It was a nice list, primarily focused on the joy, peace, and comfort found in Christ, climaxing in that Christ has washed us white as snow. But he never once mentioned sin. Not once. I was listening, waiting for it.

Take the book of Romans, not just a single passage, but, say, at least the first five chapters. Paul here is dealing with salvation, and sin is integral to it. Check out Ephesians, specifically the first half of the second chapter where there is this wonderful description of the Gospel hinging on the reality of sin and God's provision for man because of it.

The sad thing is, if you share Christ with someone without ever addressing the sin in their life, their acceptance of him never approaches the fullness of the Gospel. In fact, if they never repent of and turn from their sin, then, biblically speaking, they really aren't saved at all (see the essentiality of understanding, repenting of, and turning from sin to in Romans 6:1-14).

There is no gospel without sin - there's no need for the gospel without sin. If you remove sin from what you are teaching, then how is it really different from the numerous self-help doctrines permeating our society? Let us never lose site of the fact that it was because of our sin that Christ came, it was our sin that put him on that cross, and that because of our sin we can only have a right relationship with God through Christ's sacrifice on the Cross.

My favorite communicator?

I received a questionnaire to fill out from a church I had submitted my resume to. In it they asked who my favorite Christian Communicator was. Very interesting question, especially for me. I've always had a slight aversion to focusing on an individual, especially one with a more 'mainstream' reputation, as a spiritual authority. So the question made me stop and think. I thought about how in the past, when I was in my mid-teens, I had really been influenced by Promise Keepers and Bill McCartney. Then when I was in college I was really interested in John Maxwell and his leadership stuff. But at present I have no mainstream individuals to whom I really look up to and allow to influence me spiritually.

Why? You might ask? Well, let me give you my thoughts on a few of the Christian Communicators that popped to mind when I started to think about my options - and I'll also tell you why I discarded them.

Joel Osteen - Okay, never been a fan of his because he blinks so much when he speaks. I just keep remembering some random thing I heard that some people blink when they're lying. But look at the title of his bestseller: "Your Best Life Now." Definitely not a biblically based philosophy. In fact, the more I think about it, the more it feels almost like heresy...

T.D.Jakes - Here's one I was actually starting to enjoy. Well, that is until I was taught some basics of bible study in seminary and I read a book called "Religious Affections" by Jonathan Edwards. Then all of his teaching began to show a very poor exegetical technique, with very dangerous spiritual philosophies being born out of them. And then my theology teacher pointed out that T.D.Jakes didn't seem to believe in the Trinity. With that in mind, Jakes becomes and even more dangerous "pseudo" christian communicator.

Rick Warren - actually, I kind of like this guy. Though I think some of my reservations have to do more with how he's structured his church (more of a pastoral concern for the unity of the body due to their many different services).

So who did I say where my present favorite communicators? The pastor at my church, Larry Trotter, an elder at my church who is also a professor at my seminary, Mark Leiderbach, and my Theology professor, David Nelson. These men all ground everything they teach in the Word and encourage you to search out the Word yourself, not just to accept it because they say it's in there. And I think I chose them as well because they are individuals whom I can watch live out their faith on a regular basis.

Living in the Light of Death.

I read an interesting short story by Robert Heinlein the other night entitled "Life Line". The basic premise is a scientist develops a machine and method of finding exactly when one's life ends (he can also tell when you were born, but, as he notes, you already know that and it is not quite as exciting!). I don't really want to give away the twists of the story, but it is quite interesting to see where he goes with it. One of my favorite little sub-themes he touches on is a conception that time is as time is, and we can do little to change it. For the main character, in the end, tries to prevent a certain death he percieves - which, in the end, seems to almost come about because of his efforts.

In another book I have, Byzantium, by Stephen R. Lawhead, the main character gets what he thinks is a vision of when he will die. Throughout the book he is haunted by this knowledge. In a conversation with a fellow character, though, a different perspective is presented to the main character. He asks a friend how knowing when he would die would change how he lived, the character responds that that he could live without fear, basically invicible, until that time. Why? Because he would know that nothing could kill him until that time. An agressive, but interesting thought.

Why is death so interesting? Why would everyone want to know their time? I think it is one of life's great "eveners" - it is in death that there is no social or material stratification, no racial or sexual prejudice. You can be the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company or a homeless joe-schmo on the streets, but when death comes you're both dead.

Outside of religion there is no hope after death, it spells an end, and that is all. Which seems to put everything else in a rather hopeless light, in my mind. Whatever legacy, or lack thereof, that you leave behind does not grant you any special place in the land of the dead - for if the atheists are right, and there truly is nothing after death, when you are dead, that is all. A legacy gives you no more life and benefits you not a mite. But, if you are of the religious persuasion, then death proves a gateway to something more.

In my mind, death provides a gateway to an upclose and personal encounter with a perfectly just and righteous God. If this encounter goes unmediated, then you are toast - spiritually and literally, for every man has lived and practiced injustice, selfishness, etc. at some point in his or her life. But, if you can find a mediator, one to help you come before God, one who can be your righteousness, then death can become a gateway to a reality undreamt of in this realm.

So it remains, what is death to you? Is it the end, or is it a gateway to something more? I think how one perceives death impacts how he or she lives life, for it is an end we all must encounter.

The Seeker's Path

But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.

- Deuteronomy 4:29

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

- (God) Jeremiah 29:13

These two verses clearly state what my pastor called the "Seeker's Promise" yesterday, the promise being that if you seek after the Lord with all your heart (with all that you can) you will find him. Sadly enough, many people decide to not make a decision about God. That in itself is a decision against God. There is no limbo, or purgatory in the relationship with God - only known and unknown. Think about it, if there was someone who wanted to be your friend, but you weren't sure about him or her, and you decided to avoid them so that you would not have to make a decision about whether or not you liked him or her and wanted him or her to be your friend, wouldn't that avoidance of the person (and the issue of friendship) be the same as a rejection of that person and that friendship? Though the analogy breaks down eventually, the same logic is at stake here. Most people don't want to take the time to figure out who God is, so they reject him and push him aside because it would be too much trouble to begin to know him.

And the acquisition of any knowledge of God is not easy, that's why God says you must do it with all your heart - he doesn't want less than all of you, and if you commit less than all of you to the task, you might find a god who requires less than all of you - and that would not be the True God.

The quandary of whether or not to pursue God brings to mind the lines from a poem whose title I can't remember, but the author talks about coming to a point in a path were he had two choices of where to go, and states something along the lines of, "...and I took the path less traveled, and that has made all the difference."

Lastly let me note that just because something is hard to acquire or accomplish doesn't make it bad. If all of life were easy, none of us would have need for any decent measure of strength. It is the struggles and battles of life which separate the naivete and weakness of childhood from the maturity and strength of adulthood.

The Honor of Atheists

"For this reason, the atheist who cannot believe for moral reasons does honor, in an elliptical way, to the Christian God, and so must not be ignored. He demands of us not the surrender of our beliefs but a meticulous recollection on our parts of what those beliefs are, and a definition of divine love that has at least the moral rigor of principled unbelief."

- Hart, David Bently. The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005) 25

A very interesting quote. It really stuck out to me, mainly for the reason that many people believe in God without truly taking stock of the god which they claim to believe in. An atheist, on the other hand, has taken stock of a god (arguably not the True God revealed in the Word, but some facsimile thereof) and truly looked at that god and then decided whether or not that god is worthy of their service/worship. The honor that an atheist does Christianity, and ultimately God, is that he/she says, "I cannot serve a god like this, for it is not right," as they perceive/encounter a variant or degraded view of God. Their honor is given by their refusal to settle for and/or accept something which is actually less than God.

But the challenge to us, as Christians, is ever to make sure that the reality of God, in all his Trueness, is being presented to these which refuse to believe in these lesser gods. The goal is so that they can see the moral consistency and supremacy of the True God and the Way* (in it's true and real practice).

This is also the reason, as Hert points out, that we cannot just brush aside atheists (and their arguments against God) because they are actually arguing against a God we do not believe in as well. But rather it is our responsibility to address their misperceptions and to accurately portray God to them.

Therefore the challenge is for us, ourselves, to know God in Truth.

* "the Way" is in reference to the followers of Christ as they were referred to in the book of Acts, before they were known as Christians.