What's in a Name? A Christmas Reflection

“She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). (Matthews 1:21-24, ESV)

In Western culture the choice of a baby’s name can be affected by all kinds of factors. Family tradition is one that is important within my own family. I was named after my father, who was named after his uncle. My son has my name as his middle name to carry on the tradition. This results in multiple people within the family having the same first name. For other people, the chosen name reflects the parents’ favourite actors, singers or sports stars. Other people try to choose a name that will make their child stand out from the crowd. Some celebrities take this to extremes and seem to come up with names that try to be as outlandish as possible.

By contrast, in the Bible, the names given to children are often full of meaning, somehow seeming to capture something of the character of the recipient, or at least reflecting something about them or the events surrounding their birth. That goes all the way back to Adam himself (‘adam’ in Hebrew means ‘man of earth’ or ‘earthling’ we might say). Think of Abraham (‘father of many nations’), Isaac (‘laughter’ – remember when Sarah laughed at the idea she would conceive a baby?), Moses (‘to draw out’ as he was taken from the Nile), or David (‘beloved’).

No name in the Bible is more rich with meaning than the name the angel told Joseph to name Mary’s baby boy. ‘You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins’ (Matthew 1:23).

The name we read in our bibles as ‘Jesus’ is a Greek form of what was a common name for Hebrew boys at the time, Yeshua or as we normally find it in English, Joshua. It is a meeting with a profound meaning: ‘Yahwah saves’ or ‘Yahweh is salvation.’

Verse 23 explicitly links the reason for his name to his mission to save God’s people. Never was a name more apt. As the angels told the shepherds, ‘For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord’ (Luke 2:11, ESV).

Beyond the fact that Jesus was given his name because he is the Saviour, the name hints at another truth. That he is Yahweh himself—he is God, born in a stable in Bethlehem.

The New Testament as a whole teaches this same truth. Jesus is God and it is only as God become a human being that he can achieve salvation for this people. Another Christmas reading is John 1, where it is made very clear that Jesus (whom John calls ‘the Word’) is God:

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth’ (John 1:1, 14, ESV).

This is why Matthew recognised the prophecy in Isaiah 7 referred to the incarnation as well, that Jesus is ‘Immanuel’ which means ‘God with us.’

God is with his people this Christmas and always. The question for each of us is this: are you one of his people? Are you one of those he came to save? The only answer and assurance the Bible gives is this: ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved’ (Acts 16:31) and as Jesus himself said, ‘Whoever comes to me I will never cast out’ (John 6.37b, ESV).

May the Christ of the manger, the cross, and the empty tomb be yours this Christmas and forever.

The King's Wisdom

Please read Luke 20:1–8
 
The Tuesday of Holy Week is sometimes known as the day of questions because the Gospels record a number of questions that people asked Jesus on that day and the replies Jesus gave.

The questions were mainly hostile on that day. There were questions about who he was, what he was doing and what his authority was for doing them. As ever, Jesus’ answers are striking and supremely wise. When the questioner is trying to trap him he doesn't avoid answering but gives answers that can be interpreted in more than one way. He also turns the tables on the questioners and leaves them looking foolish. That tends to be the way when people come to Christ without faith and with hostility.

The situation is very different if we come with genuine, honest questions. If we come with the attitude of "I believe, help Thou my unbelief" then Christ is very patient and compassionate with us.

Paul wrote that Christ is the very wisdom of God. He gives the answers to life's most fundamental questions about who we are, what we're here for, and where are we going. Christ can answer all the questions in your heart. He asks you only one question in return: "Will you trust and follow me?"

Without Jesus

What are we without Jesus?

By "we" I mean those of us who claim to be Christians, those who believe in him, who try to follow him.

And by "without" I don't mean separate from him in a way connected to salvation. I mean when we try to be Christians without his spirit, without his example, without his teaching and without his grace.

First, we can be moralists. We can become obsessed with doing right (or more often doing wrong) and our faith can quickly become a soul crushing weight of things to do and things to avoid doing. And that's just when we look at ourselves.

When we turn that same attitude on other people. we can be judgemental. The same obsession and fear of anyone doing something we consider wrong can ruin relationships and block opportunities there might have been for genuine gospel conversations.

Taken to an extreme, we can become the religious thought police. The phrase was coined by George Orwell in 1984 but the same attitude is present in many Christians. Whereas moralism and judgementalism often manifest themselves with regard to ethics and behaviour, the Christian thought police are more interested in people's beliefs and doctrines. Rather than appreciating that, on many secondary or fringe issues, there are a range of legitimate viewpoints among Christians, the thought police pursue a narrow path of what they consider orthodox and oppose anyone who disagrees with them on any doctrinal point.

As an evangelical Christian myself, I think it fair to say that these three tendencies are all dangers that evangelical Christians are sometimes drawn towards when they take their eyes off Jesus and how he lived and dealt with others.

But there are also dangers in acting "without Jesus" for our liberal brothers and sisters

We can become amateur social workers or aid workers whose activities while laudable in helping those in need can become indistinguishable from their secular counterparts. Jesus and his good news of personal salvation, social change and cosmic renewal are the only distinct things we have to go people.

In a similar fashion, liberals can become political activists with their eyes totally focused on the political and economic problems in this world and little thought of the spiritual problems that beset us all as human beings or that the only way to really address those issues is by the renewal of the Holy Spirit and faith in Jesus Christ.

At times evangelicals have been guilty of teaching a truncated gospel which is all about the next life with little to say about the current state of the world. But liberals too often, if they teach anything substantive at all, teach an equally truncated gospel with little to say about sin, atonement and salvation—in short a "gospel" without the good news of Jesus Christ and what he has done for us.

Jesus taught the truth, Jesus wanted people to live good lives, Jesus helped people without falling into any of these traps.

All we have is Jesus. And the gospel—the message of who he is and what he has done—is the only distinctive thing we have to give people.

You know the old Oxfam proverb: 'Give a man a fish and you feed him for one day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.'

We need a similar motto as Christians. 'Tell a man how to live, and you alienate him for one day; give a man Jesus and you change him forever.'

Advent

Today is Advent Sunday. The beginning of a new Christian year and the period when many Christians focus their thoughts on the future "coming" of the Lord ("coming" is what "advent" means).

This takes place in a twofold sense. First, of waiting and looking forward to Christmas and perhaps placing our selves in the position of the nation of Israel waiting for the Messiah to come and then celebrating that coming at Christmas. But secondly, of waiting and looking forward to Jesus the Messiah coming again at the end of time, to judge the world, save his people, and usher in the new heavens and the new earth that is the Christian hope - not so much "life after death", but life after life after death as Tom Wright memorably puts it.

It is this hope and expectation that Paul says the whole of creation, not just God's people, is longing for (see Romans 8:18-30).

This advent, I look forward to singing the great advent hymn "O come, O come, Emmanuel" looking back to the preparation for Christmas and waiting for the Messiah's birth, but the words also help us look forward to Christ's second coming in triumph and glory, when he will make all things new and finally "close the path to misery" as the hymn puts it, once and for all.

The Church That Christ Builds (Repost)

The following is the text of a sermon preached on 18 May 2008.

We gather here tonight one week after Pentecost, that wonderful miraculous day when the Holy Spirit was poured out on Christ’s church, and we gather as part of Christ’s church. We also gather knowing that the highest court of our own denomination, the General Assembly is meeting in Edinburgh this week, and that our own minister, Howard, is going to play his part in making the decisions that will affect the church this year and perhaps for many years to come.

And so on a night like this, we look not at this or that Christian writer’s latest book on “How to do Church” nor do we look at reports of this or that General Assembly committee, but we turn instead to some words about the Church that come from higher authority than even the General Assembly. We turn to again at part of what our Lord Jesus Christ, the King and Head of the Church, himself taught about the Church in Matthew 16:18 where we find the words we are going to concentrate on this evening:

“And on this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

There are five things for us to have a look at in these words of Christ tonight.

There is a building: “My Church.”
There is a builder: Jesus Christ says “I will build my Church.”
There is a foundation: “On this rock I will build”
There is opposition and danger: “The gates of hell”
And there is the promise of safety and security: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

So first, there is a building: “My Church.” Before any of the rest of this verse can be properly understood, it is crucial that we understand what this building, the Church is. It is a very special kind of building you see. It is a building not made of bricks or stone or marble or wood. It is a temple, but not one built by human hands, not one we can see standing on the earth. There is no cathedral, no temple, no chapel, no church building that you can see anywhere in the world and point to it or photograph it on holiday and say of it: “You see that place? That is the Church Christ is talking about in this verse.

No, the building being talked about by Jesus here, the building that he calls “my Church” is a great company of men, women and children. It is a spiritual building consisting of everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The word usually translated “Church” in English bibles here is the Greek word Ekklesia. And that’s a very interesting word. Literally it means “A Calling out” in the sense of people being called out to form “a gathering” or “an Assembly”. The Church is a group of people.

When William Tyndale first translated the New Testament he translated this verse as: “And
upon this rock I will build my congregation: and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

The New Jerusalem Bible translates it: "And on this rock I will build my community. And the gates of the underworld can never overpower it."

So this Church that Christ talks about is a congregation or community of people, not a collection of buildings or any human institution calling itself a church. It is not any particular denomination or branch of the church. It is not the Church of Scotland, or the Free Church of Scotland, or the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, or the Episcopal Church, or the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church or any Charismatic Church. And it is not the Russian or Greek Orthodox Churches or the Roman Catholic Church. None of these bodies are the “Church” that Christ referred to. None of them can claim to be definitively "His Church"though any and probably all of have members who are indeed part of the church Christ refers to here.

The Church in this verse consists of all true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. It consists of all of God’s chosen people. It is the body of Christ, the flock of Good Shepherd, the Bride of the Lamb. It is the “one holy, Catholic and Apostolic church” that the Nicene Creed talks about.

It includes everyone who has repented of sin, and turned to Christ in faith. This membership of this Church is made up of all who have been washed in Christ’s blood, all who have been clothed in Christ’s righteousness, all who have been born again and sanctified by Christ’s Spirit.

J. C. Ryle says of it: "The Church of our text is one that makes far less show than any visible church in the eyes of men, but it is of far more importance in the eyes of God."

All the denominations, groups and fellowships we find in the world are visible churches. They are all human institutions to some extent, and they are all imperfect manifestations of Christ’s own church to some extent. But the Church of this verse is invisible, and it is not a human institution. It is an assembly or gathering of people from all over the world and throughout all of human history who form the covenant people of God, the people he chose, the people he saves, the people who have faith in him and follow him as their Lord.

J. C. Ryle gives an illustration of the difference between the various visible churches in the world and the one true, but invisible church made up of God’s chosen people who live by faith in Christ. He says that the visible churches of this world, be they Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Independent, Baptist, Charismatic, Reformed or Methodist are “the scaffolding behind which the great building is carried on.” The denominations are the scaffolding around the true Church of Christ, which is being built in the background.

Think of a mighty cathedral shrouded in scaffolding and plastic sheeting. The scaffolding is what is visible, but it is not itself the building being built. It is merely what can be seen, while within and behind the scaffolding, the real building work is going on. I think that’s a brilliant illustration. All this that we see around us, is merely scaffolding, while the real building work of saving souls and rescuing lives, of drawing men and women into a living covenant relationship with God and with fellow Christians is slowly, silently, relentlessly going on in the background.

The great congregation of the redeemed is the Church Christ talks about in this verse. Outside of this church, the body of Jesus Christ, the faithful congregation of all believers, there is no salvation. By definition this must be so since only believers in Christ can be saved.

Second, there is a builder: Jesus Christ. “I will build my Church…” says Christ. No one else can or will build it for him. He must build it with his own hands.

The prophet Zechariah said of the coming Messiah in Zechariah 6:12-13:

“Thus says the LORD of hosts, "Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: for he shall branch out from his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD. It is he who shall build the temple of the LORD and shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule on his throne. And there shall be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both."

The Messiah will build the temple of the LORD. Not one part of the Church can be built without his work and his blessing.

It is Christ who calls the members of the Church to leave the world’s way and follow him. It is Christ who breathes spiritual life into sinners who were by nature dead in trespasses and sins. It is Christ who washes away their sins. It is Christ who gives them peace. It is Christ who gives them eternal life. It is Christ who grants them the gifts of repentance and faith. It is Christ who enables them to become God’s children.

He is the Alpha and Omega, the Author and Perfecter of faith. He is the life. He is the King and Head. From Him every part of the mystical body of Christians is supplied with all they need. Through Him they are strengthened for duty. By Him they are kept from falling. He preserves them to the end, and presents them faultless before the Father’s throne with exceeding great joy. He is all in all to all believers.

It is true that he does often carry on his work through subordinates, through human beings. He works through the preaching of his word, through the circulation and reading of the Scriptures, through Christian literature, through providential circumstances, through prayer, through church discipline, through fellowship and human friendships, through evangelism and mission. He works through all these things, but it is always Christ who is at work to build his Church.

Preachers preach, theologians write and discuss, but only the Lord Jesus Christ can build his Church. Not TV evangelists, not Popes, not even General Assemblies. Christ alone builds it.

Christ is the builder because of who he is and what he has done for his people. And that leads us to the next part of this verse.

Third, there is a foundation that Christ builds his Church on. “And on this rock I will build my Church.”

This is the most controversial part of this verse. There have been many different views put forward for what this foundation is that Christ will build on. The Roman Catholic Church of course say that the Church is built on the foundation of St Peter, the first pope, and on all the popes who have succeeded him to the office of Bishop of Rome. I don’t think it is too strong to say that such a view is totally without biblical warrant. Even if you interpret the verse to mean that Christ will build his church on the witness and work of the apostles and on Peter as the leading apostle, there is no way this verse can be used to justify the papacy. There’s no way these verses can be wrested to mean that. But actually, I don’t think that Christ was saying he would build his church on Peter at all.

Jesus says, “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church.” Notice that Christ did not say, “You are Peter and on you I will build my church.” And the rest of the New Testament does not give any real support for this either. Although we have two letters written by Peter in the New Testament, much more of the New Testament was written by John and especially by the apostle Paul for example. And far from being the infallible leader that the Church could be built on, though Peter was transformed by Christ and was one of the first leaders of the church, he was not perfect. He got things wrong. In Galatians 2:11, Paul says:

“But when Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him in public, because he was clearly wrong.”

Now of course “Peter” means rock and so that’s why the Catholic Church have used this verse to justify the doctrine of papal supremacy and papal succession. In effect they say that the verse says: “You are rock and on this rock I will build my Church.” But it’s very interesting when you look at the actual Greek words of our verse because two different words are used for “rock” in the sentence. Christ calls Peter “Petros” which is a masculine word referring to a stone or small rock, but when he says that he will build his church on “this rock” he uses the different word “Petra” which is a feminine word, referring to a large mass of rock, like a cliff or a mountain.

Also, it seems to me that Peter cannot be the foundation upon which the Church is built, because of what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:11:

“For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

I believe Christ’s meaning is properly conveyed if we translated the verse as “You are a stone, and on this rock I will build my church.” I believe what he meant was really “You are Peter – a little rock – but on the immovable rock of the truth that you have confessed – I will build my Church.” In other words, I think this verse teaches that Christ builds his Church on the truth of Peter’s confession, on the doctrine that Jesus is God’s Messiah and the Son of the Living God. These two truths lie at the heart of the Christian message, the gospel.

I agree with J C Ryle: “It was not Peter, the erring, unstable man, but the mighty truth which the Father had revealed to Peter. It was the truth concerning Jesus Christ Himself which was the rock. It was Christ’s mediatorship, and Christ’s Messiahship. It was the blessed truth that Jesus was the promised Saviour, the true Surety, the real Intercessor between God and man. This was the rock, and this the foundation, upon which the Church of Christ was to be built.”

When read in this light, we see that the rock solid foundation upon which the Church is built is not any person, not even the apostles personally, but on the truths concerning Jesus Christ that the apostles taught. This ties in much better with the rest of the New Testament and with other parts of Christ’s own teaching. For example in Matthew 7:24:

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”

The gospel message that Christ is God’s chosen King and the Redeemer of his people is, I believe, the rock, upon which Christ builds his church.

Fourth, there is opposition and danger to this Church. Christ says that “the gates of hell” will try to oppose the Church that Christ builds.

In Bible times, cities were surrounded by walls. The gates by which they were entered were the principal places for holding courts, transacting business, and deliberating on public matters. The gates were where people made their plans, drew up their designs, negotiated deals and so on. The “gates of hell” it seems to me, refers to the plans and designs of Satan and his hellish minions against God and his purposes. The “gates of hell” are Satan’s evil plans against the Church.

It seems to me that the expression “the gates of hell” is a way of describing the spiritual forces in the heavenly realms that Paul mentions in Ephesians 6:12:

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

The Puritan commentator Matthew Henry wrote:

“The gates of hell are the powers and policies of the devil's kingdom, the dragon's head and horns, by which he makes war with the Lamb; all that comes out of hell-gates, as being hatched and contrived there. These fight against the church by opposing gospel truths, corrupting gospel ordinances, persecuting good ministers and good Christians; drawing or driving, persuading by craft or forcing by cruelty, to that which is inconsistent with the purity of religion; this is the design of the gates of hell, to root out the name of Christianity.”

History shows that Christ was correct in his view that the gates of hell – the powers of darkness – will always keep on trying to destroy his people. Such has been the case throughout history – both Old and New Testaments, and throughout this present gospel age. And the opposition and Satanic persecution of Christ’s people will go on until the end of the age.

The history of the Church, in all periods of history, is a story of conflict and war. This war between good and evil, between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of this world, has been going on since the beginning when Satan rebelled against God. It is one of the central and recurring threads that runs through the entire Bible. As far back as Genesis 3:15 we get the first glimpse of the war between Christ and Satan and between God’s people and Satan’s followers:

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."

That was true then and it is true now. The Church is always under attack by Satan. He hates Christ’s Church more than anything, except maybe the Holy Trinity. He hates us with an undying and virulent hatred. He is always stirring up opposition and trouble for Christians. The Church is the pillar of the truth and the guardian of the holy gospel that is able to make men wise unto salvation, and so Satan never tires of seeking to prevent the Church from spreading the gospel message and witnessing to Son of the living God to the world.

As J. C. Ryle says:

“Warfare with the powers of hell has been the experience of the whole body of Christ for six thousand years.”

There is no peace treaty between heaven and hell. The Church is always at war, never at peace with the world or the Prince of this world. It is always at war, always militant, always fighting. Its battle never ends. As Martin Luther said:

“Cain will go on murdering Abel as long as the Church is on the earth.”

Satanic opposition can come in hundreds of different ways. There can be direct assaults of course. There can be false teachers, heretics, who are thrown into the church lives wolves among sheep, to confound and confuse God’s saints with false doctrine and wrong teaching on how we should live.

But sometimes Satan’s opposition can be far more subtle. In fact I would say usually Satan’s opposition is far more subtle.

Do you ever get the feeling that when you try to get close to God or decide you’re going to do something for God, that you suddenly start to have problems you never had before? I know I do. It’s no accident that when I’m getting ready to take a service that’s precisely the time I seem to get a cold, or get toothache, or have something happen that distracts me from my purpose. It’s no accident that when a church decides it’s really going to concentrate on mission and outreach that it suddenly finds it’s members under attack from illnesses, bereavements, family problems, trouble in the workplace, falling out with friends. Satan doesn’t fight clean and fair. He fights dirty. And when Christians decide they are really going to live committed lives to their Lord and Saviour, Satan will do anything he can to stop that from happening.

That’s the gates of hell trying to rise up and stop us from being effective, obedient, loyal Christians.

But far from being surprised or scared when such things happen to us, actually we should expect it and rejoice when such opposition or persecution comes our way, for it means we are on the right track in our Christian lives. A church which faces no opposition or Satanic attack should be the one that is scared, not a church which does face the gates of hell rising against it.

Remember Christ’s words when such opposition comes and take heart. This is Matthew 5:10-12, part of the Beatitudes:

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

And then also think about these words in 1 Peter 4:12-14:

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.”

Things happen to us in life. Not everything is plain sailing. We go through hard times of suffering and loss and pain. Or we go through times of being mistrusted, disliked, mocked, and even hated because we have faith in Jesus Christ. The gates of hell are real and I don’t think there’s any Christian who is immune from such attack. It happens to us all.

Fifth, there is Christ’s promise of security and safety for his Church. “I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

Take heart, Christians! Because as well as Christ’s warning about the gates of hell, there is also a promise that Christ makes to us in this verse, a promise all of us need to cling to and remember. Yes, the gates of hell will try to rise up and destroy us, but they cannot and will not succeed. The forces of evil will do battle with the Church, but they will never prevail against it. They will fight, but they cannot win. That is Christ’s promise to each and every Christian believer.

Have you ever thought about the emblem that came to symbolise the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches throughout Europe? It’s still the symbol used on the badge of the Church of Scotland to this day. It’s the burning bush. The first impression might be that this is a very strange symbol to choose. But actually it’s highly appropriate, not only because it symbolises God’s presence with this covenant people, but because that bush is always in the flames, always under fiery attack, but not consumed, never destroyed. “I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

Only Christ’s church receives this promise from its King and Head. Other empires and earthly kingdoms rise and fall in human history. Think of the once mighty empires of the Persians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Vikings. Think of, in more recent times, the great empires of France and Britain. None of these earthly powers has stood the test of time. But Christ’s church stands and grows for ever. “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ” as the Book of Revelation says.

The promise does not apply to all visible churches in this world however. In New Testament times there were churches all over the Middle East and what is now modern day Turkey. Today, few of those churches remain in existence. In Bridgeton there used to be six or more churches in the area now covered by this one parish church. Individual churches can disappear and close. This is especially true of churches that depart from Christ’s teaching, from the faith that was once delivered to the saints. Christ warned the seven churches to whom letters were sent at the start of the Book of Revelation that if they did not pay heed to what the Spirit was saying to the churches, Christ would remove their lampstand from its place – in other words remove his presence and the light of his glory from them – so they would cease to be churches at all. So, although the promise does not apply to every individual church, especially churches that are not faithful to Christ in their teaching and service, the promise does apply to Christ’s own church, to the great congregation of true believers in him. Against them, the gates of hell cannot prevail.

Even if Satan stirs up persecution so that Christians lose their lives, the gates of hell shall not prevail against this Church, because for Christian martyrs, death is only a doorway into Christ’s presence and eternal blessedness in heaven.

No matter what the enemies of the church do, whether they be worldly rulers, enemies within the church, or the cosmic forces of evil that work behind our human enemies, God’s people, God’s church shall never be overthrown. We have Christ’s own promise for that.

As the apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:8-10:

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.”

We can go through the mill in our sufferings. God sometimes puts us right into furnace with its blistering heat and searing pain. God puts us through it, but never without a good reason, there is always a purpose behind it, even if we cannot begin to imagine what it could be.

Romans 8:28: “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

In the 19th century, French troops liberated the prison of the Holy Inquisition in Rome. In one of the cells, a prisoner – probably a Protestant who had been excommunicated from the Church of Rome – had scratched some words on the walls. They read: “Blessed Jesus, they cannot cast me out of Thy true Church.” Not one single believer can be snatched out of Christ’s hand by the Devil and all his minions however hard they try.

The question each of us must consider tonight is whether we are truly members of Christ’s Church. Not members of the Church of Scotland – for that membership can save no man or woman. But members of the body of Christ, part of Christ’s great congregation who trust and follow him and for whom he died to redeem and save. For membership in that Church guarantees salvation.

“And on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

The Gospel and the Message of Salvation

You would think that one of the simplest questions that any evangelical Christian would be able to answer is this: What is the gospel?

After all, isn't that the very defining aspect of everyone who identifies himself or herself as an evangelical, that they are committed to the evangel, the gospel?

A number of scholars have pointed out that what evangelicals usually call "the gospel" is not quite the same as what the biblical writers meant by "gospel". Examples of this would include N. T. Wright and Scot McKnight among others. Evangelicals tend to think that the gospel is exactly the same thing as the message of salvation – a step-by-step guide for how sinners can be forgiven, find peace with God and start a new life – but these scholars distinguish between what is specifically meant by "the gospel" itself in the New Testament and the message of salvation which is always one of the New Testament's great implications of the gospel. But the call to trust and follow Jesus in order to find salvation is not the "gospel" itself as narrowly and specifically defined in the New Testament.

The gospel or good news is the proclamation or announcement of a fact, the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the King of Israel, died for our sins and has risen from the dead to be the rightful the Lord and Saviour of the world. The gospel is in fact the story of Jesus which shows that he is the King and Saviour of the world.

The message of salvation is obviously closely linked with the gospel, but not identical to it. The message of salvation for us flows out of the story-fact that Jesus came to earth as Saviour and Lord.

The salvation message is that no one is right with God as they are, everyone needs Jesus to save them because he is the King and Saviour of the world, and Jesus is willing to save anyone who comes to him. The gospel or good news is the proclamation of who Jesus is and what he has done. Both parts are important because it is only because of who he is that he could do what he did and it is only because of what he did as well as who he is that his gospel can then become our gospel – good news for people like you and I who are not right with God and need salvation.

The King Jesus Gospel

The King Jesus Gospel
Scot McKnight
Zondervan 2011

In this challenging, radical, yet somehow comforting book, Scot McKnight tackles the centrepiece of evangelical theology - the gospel itself - and makes the stark claim that evangelicals have often failed to understand or preach the full biblical gospel. In fact McKnight takes us back to basics by asking the question: What is the gospel?

Now this is a question that evangelicals think we know the answer to. It's our question. Par excellence. We feel we own it.

McKnight argues that evangelicals have traditionally answered this question wrongly because we confuse the gospel with the plan of salvation. We have often been content with a partial gospel about our own personal salvation instead of the gospel preached by the apostles and by Jesus himself which was much bigger than just answering the question "How do I get saved?"

To borrow a telling phrase from theologian Dallas Willard, we have reduced the gospel to being about mere "sin management"rather than being about Christ's lordship over the whole world and all of life. And we have too often concentrated on making converts rather than - as Christ and the apostles focused on - making disciples. In this respect, McKnight says what we call evangelical Christianity would really be more accurately dubbed soterian Christianity or salvationist Christianity.

The trouble is that a soterian approach leads to a soterian culture instead of a genuine gospel culture. Church life becomes all about getting people into the "saved club" rather than Christ's lordship of all of life and church life being about all of life. A gospel culture's focus - just like the New Testament's focus - is about making disciples, not just converts. Rather than focusing on getting people in, the focus is on what to do with people once they are in.

I found McKnight's analysis convincing. I think he is right that there is a tendency to separate the plan of salvation from its biblical moorings in the Story of Jesus which is in itself rooted in the Story of Israel. McKnight makes the point that the plan of salvation is not the gospel. It exists. It is biblical. It emerges from the Bible's Story. The plan of salvation is dependent on the gospel, but it not the gospel.

It is well into the book before McKnight finally answers the question. The gospel is the Story of Jesus as culmination and resolution of the Story of Israel. The gospel is the announcement that God's King (Jesus) has now come to rule God's world.

He shows that this is the gospel Paul preached, regarding 1 Corinthians 15:1-5; 20-28 as the essence of the gospel:

• Christ died for our sins
• Christ was buried
• Christ is risen from the dead
• Christ has appeared to people
• Christ is victorious over his enemies

It is the telling of this story that is the gospel proclamation and it is the telling of this story that brings people to salvation. Salvation flows from the gospel.

This means that the four books we call "the Gospels" actually are the Gospel. They are therefore not mere story books before we get to the theology of the Pauline letters. They are preeminent. They are the gospel. That's why they are each called "The Gospel [singular] according to..."

This also means the ancient creeds are the gospel. I have heard evangelicals say they believe the Apostles' Creed but are disappointed it doesn't deal the gospel - by which they mean the plan of salvation - but if the gospel in summary is about who Jesus is and what he's done, then the creeds are very close to the 1 Corinthians 15 passage.

And therefore we can also agree that Jesus himself preached the gospel. (It is surprising how many evangelicals would deny this, thinking that we don't get to the gospel before the book of Acts and the letters of the New Testament.) Yes, Jesus preached the gospel because as the Messiah he is the very embodiment of the gospel in his actions as well as his teachings.

On this view, the Jesus of the Gospels with his Kingdom of God emphasis is in total harmony with the Christ of the Epistles. As McKnight shows, Paul's gospel was also Peter's gospel and all the other apostles, and it was also Jesus' gospel. One of the great things about McKnight's understanding is how it really brings the whole New Testament together.

It will come as no shock that I really liked The King Jesus Gospel. I have a feeling that because Scot McKnight challenges the heart of what we evangelicals think we are about he will be attacked for this book and these insights. It is now predictable that this will be so. The same people attacked proponents of the New Perspective on Paul (with which McKnight's views have much in common) for the same reasons. The truth is that McKnight's gospel does not take anything away from us. It gives us a whole lot more. Whether we like the more - the need to build communities of disciples rather than clubs of the saved - is another question again.

Simply Jesus

Simply Jesus
Tom Wright
SPCK, London 2011

I can't help but thinking that N. T. Wright is getting distracted from finishing the long-awaited massive volume on Paul in his Christian Origins and the Question of God series as writes more and more popular level books. So far we've had Simply Christian, Surprised by Hope, Virtue Reborn and several volumes to complete the New Testament for Everyone series. Now in that same vein comes Simply Jesus.

The book aims to answer three simple, yet central and profound questions for the Christian faith: who was Jesus, what did he do, and why does it matter?

There is little new here for those who have read some of Wright's previous work, but it was still gripping reading to see the arguments laid out in such a straightforward manner in this book.

For Wright, Jesus is very much the Jewish Messiah who "embodied Israel's God" (I think that's a direct quote - if not, Wright certainly says something very similar). He came to do for Israel what Israel could not do for itself - namely be God's light for the Gentiles and the rightful Lord and King of the whole world. Through this, he is able to bring salvation to everyone who has faith in him.

As we might expect, Wright takes the historical background to Jesus' life and ministry very seriously. He talks about a "perfect storm" in the form of a combination of Jewish expectations of deliverance by the Messiah, the power of imperial Rome, and God's strange and powerful purposes for history all coming together at the time of Jesus' life and shaping Christ's life, death and resurrection.

One thing I noted in this book is how firmly Wright seems to have moved towards the Christus Victor view of the atonement as the primary view, although not denying that penal substitution is also a motif in the New Testament, though a secondary one. I would perhaps take issue with this. I do not think Christ could be victorious without penal substitution.

Though most of the book explores who Jesus is and what he came to do, I actually found the short third section on what it means for us to say that Jesus is the king of the world in practical terms to be the most challenging and interesting part. Perhaps this is because I was already familiar with most of what Wright says in the earlier sections from his other books. But this third section where Wright begins to apply his views to normal life was new to me and fascinating. I was certainly excited by Wright's invitation to join in and play our part in God's work of building his kingdom.

In the end, it still seems to me that Wright says the very same things that thoughtful evangelical Christians have always said, but it's as if the thoughts are translated into a different language, using different words at times. This explains how he can both be lambasted by conservatives as a closet liberal and by liberals as a closet fundamentalist! Truth is he is neither, but in good Anglican tradition, he occupies middle ground, yet middle ground much more familiar to evangelicals than liberals I would say as he always seeks to honour what the Bible teaches over all traditions. This is very evident in the extended metaphor of the perfect storm he uses in the first part of the book, where he seeks to show that neither the liberal Jesus of social action, nor the conservative Jesus of deity and salvation in heaven do justice to the New Testament's full-orbed doctrine of Christ and his work.

Complete in Christ

Complete in Christ: Rediscovering Jesus and Ourselves
Nigel M. de S. Cameron
Marshall & Pickering, 1989

This is a short book of only 113 pages. I've had it on my bookshelves for years but had never got round to reading it until now. I only wish I'd read it years ago because it is worth its weight in gold. I haven't read anything else that manages to excite about a doctrine that is under emphasised in evangelical circles - namely the humanity of Christ - and through that doctrine it corrects, comforts and challenges on what it means to be human and what it means to live life as a Christian.

If that sounds like a lot to pack into a short paperback, that's probably because it is. The treatments of the various subjects dealt with are short and pithy. It is more a theological sketch book than a finished theological tome. Relatively few biblical texts are dealt with in any detail and there is almost no interaction with other theologians.

However, what it lacks in size, it makes up for in power.

The introduction sets the tone. It is entitled: "Are Christians human?" This is by no means a foolish question. Cameron rightly points out that in evangelical churches, we have a tendency to so emphasise the deity of Christ - as we wage apologetic battles against liberal heresies - that we tend to downplay (albeit accidentally) the fact that he really was human with all that entails. In the process, as a by-product, we tend to have such a high view of what a Christian should be that we inadvertently expect Christians to be more superhuman than human. This leads to guilt, fatigue, failure and sometimes despair. Instead, Cameron pleads for "a fresh realism in our Christian living."

Cameron then goes on to address the implications of the fact that God became flesh in the incarnation in chapters 1 and 2. Here he criticises evangelical theology in general for the way that Jesus' humanity and his earthly life and ministry are under examined. Too often, he feels we reduce the incarnation to no more than providing a sinless candidate for the atonement, whereas the incarnation has much more significance than this (though it does also have that significance, Cameron is quick to point out). He accuses the evangelical church of an inadvertent Docetism.

Having cleared the ground that Jesus is fully human and pointing out it matters that he was, Cameron then moves on to discuss how this insight should affect the Christian life.

He deals in chapter 3 with the whole area of the mind and intellect in humanity. This passage was very powerful as Cameron points out that life is not just for doing so-called "religious things". Important though activities like worship and evangelism are, they are not the be all and end all of being a human being. Cameron looks at creation, and man's original role as steward of the world, and claims that redemption does not do away with God's original purpose, but rather gets that original purpose back on track as it were. This reminded me of some of N. T. Wright's insights. The Bible's story is not about getting sinners to heaven and out of this mess of a creation we're in. It is about redeeming the creation and renewing it, for sinners to populate and live full human lives in a new heaven and earth.

Cameron points out that the traditional division between the secular and the sacred in life that we tacitly buy into in the church is unbiblical. At one point he says that to be novelist is every bit as noble a calling for the Christian as it is to be doctor or a teacher or a missionary.

Chapter 4 is an interesting discussion of the will and how we are guided by God. And it is a necessary corrective to the idea that Christians should be largely passive when we make important decisions.

He then discusses the emotions in what is another fine chapter.

Towards the end of the book there is a discussion of just how human (with all that entails) the "heroes of the faith" in the Bible are. Cameron suggests that if we got rid of false ideas of what it is to be "a saint" our Christian lives would be far more useful and peaceful. I think he is on the money where he criticises evangelical churches for denying perfectionism in theory but practically making it a stick to beat one another up with in practice.

His conclusion is simple yet very powerful. He points out that it is precisely when we seek to rise above our humanity as Christians or as human beings - as Adam did when he ate from the tree of good and evil - that we fall below what we should be. Since we are created in the image of God, to be human is to be as high in dignity and worth as we can ever hope to be and it is a great privilege and joy just to be a human being. Being a Christian is not about making ourselves less human, if anything it is about being more human than we could otherwise be. He writes: "[The] high goal of the Christian life does not consist in the suppression of the mind, the will, the heart, the body."

This is a book worth getting hold of and carefully reading. Any Christian would profit from it I would suggest. I would certainly like to read it again, slowly and prayerfully, because there's scarcely a page that doesn't say something challenging, encouraging and interesting.