Metzger’s Tell the Truth is refreshing, yet sobering. Refreshing, in that he is relentless in arguing for the urgent need for a God-centered, Christ-exalting presentation of the Gospel that seeks to magnify God and transform the very heart of the sinner; sobering, in that he demonstrates effectively that far too often the Gospel is presented in such a manner that God is robbed of his glory, while the sinner is left feeling deceptively secure, having professed faith in a half-truth, which is in fact no truth at all.

A lack of understanding of the doctrines of the gospel can mislead the sinner and the saint in their duties. The sinner is misled regarding who God is and the danger that awaits. The saint presents a half-gospel– like the one-sided ads beckoning people to “join the Navy and see the world” (40).

Well-meaning Christians dilute the gospel into a bandage for surface wounds and medicine for selfish wishes. The deeper need of reconciliation with their Maker on his terms of unconditional surrender is omitted (24).

There is, no doubt, a tremendous fear that many evangelistic strategies have lead to ‘professed believers’ who have failed to obtain the Gospel that truly justifies. In terms of evangelism, there is no greater tragedy than a well-intended effort that fails to accomplish in its implementation, the very thing it seeks to do: beckon the sinner to repent and believe. True faith is only obtained when the sinner is awakened to the glory of the Creator, the gravity of their rebellion, and the redemption readily available to them through the life, death and resurrection of Christ, the Son.

Further, Metzger provides three practical criteria for determining authentic belief (from page 202):

1. “If people’s response to the gospel is authentic, it will issue in sincere (not perfect) obedience... ‘When God prompts faith, He prompts it in such a way that the believer becomes hungry for Scripture. He wants to live by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God. He desires the pure spiritual milk.’”

2. “An authentic conversion will lead to a love for the brethren (1 Jn 3:14-15). A Christian who desires to be a loner is inconceivable in terms of the New Testament. We have been placed in a body and must identify ourselves with the new humanity. We become part of a community of believers and can work out our new adherence to truth and love in our relationships with others. Being part of a local church is not optional.”

3. “An authentic conversion results in a life of service. Obedience and holiness are not optional. Paul exhorts people to “prove their repentance by their deeds” (Acts 26:18-23). He is not teaching works as qualifications for salvation but as evidence of genuine repentance. Faith alone saves; but faith that is alone is not saving faith.”

Metzger closes his book with the three above fruits of authentic belief, having laid out the whole of the Gospel in the preceding pages. The one who has truly been reconciled to his Creator through a recognition of the magnitude of his sin and the redemption made available through Christ’s substitutionary death, is the same one who now loathes his own disobedience, longs for holiness, rejoices together with the rest of the saints, and glories in God.

tdg

Though Bonhoeffer was vastly neo-orthodox in his thinking, The Cost of Discipleship is a work that seems to transcend such differences between many of his views and the views of mainstream protestants. There is much to be gained from the perspective of a man who resolutely followed Christ to the point of his own death. Fleeing the comforts of America for the hardships of World War II Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer became a public voice of opposition against the Nazis and in doing so, virtually signed his own execution orders leading to his death at Flossenburg on April 15, 1945 (22). The Cost of Discipleship could only have been written by such a man as Bonhoeffer determined to pave his own way to suffering and trial, and such a road could only be traveled by one who sojourned in this life as a mere stranger. Only those who no longer find their identity in this world but rather in a crucified and risen Lord, are worthy of such a journey. Though the cost of discipleship is great, Bonhoeffer exhorts those trekking beside him to persevere to the end, for the toil and pain of following Jesus Christ is far worth the reward of life and resurrection. He was, indeed, the embodiment of his now famous words, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die” (89).

Cheap Grace v. Costly Grace. Bonhoeffer’s description of cheap grace is indicting in many respects to the very core. If only every member of every church would abide by Bonhoeffer’s observations, one would pass from the streets through the doors of our meeting houses and find something distinctive about the members inside. However, it is all too common to find a mere sub-culture, more undistinguishable from the cultural elite outside than the type of relentless following of Jesus Christ described by Bonhoeffer: “Yet it is imperative for the Christian to achieve renunciation, to practice self-effacement, to distinguish his life from the life of the world. He must let grace be grace indeed; otherwise, he will destroy the world’s faith in the free gift of grace” (44). The grace that does not distinguish the church from the world is indeed cheap grace. To Bonhoeffer, grace that is “grace indeed” does not stop short of transforming the sinner, spurring him on to repentance, and enabling him to follow steadfastly after Jesus Christ. Such grace is “costly grace… the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has…. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble” (45). It is costly grace that demands and yields repentance, and grace that brings repentance cannot fail to make one distinguishable from the graceless culture at large. Those outside of the church should be the unrepentant, because unrepentance reigns where grace is not found. It should give immense cause for alarm if one’s life aligns more with the unrepentant culture at large than the type of discipleship of which Bonhoeffer speaks .

In many respects, we are like the fish who scarcely knows he is swimming in water because he has been immersed in it all of his life. For this reason, it would be so easy for one to read Bonhoeffer’s work and agree with him across the board about the costliness of following Jesus, yet not find anything applicable to his/her own life. “We are those who have left all”, some may think, removing themselves from a position where conviction and repentance are possible. This is where Bonhoeffer’s work is so crucial. A fish in water can only have the life outside described to him by an outsider. Bonhoeffer is such an outsider for many who find themselves deeply immersed in a culture which has in many respects forsaken the living God by professing to follow Christ in one breath while yielding to their temporary desires in the next. Page after page Bonhoeffer gives clear testimony of the counter-cultural life, the life lived in accordance to the revelation of Jesus Christ, the life that must be distinctive from the world at large. “The call to follow implies that there is only one way to believing on Jesus Christ, and that is by leaving all and going with the incarnate Son of God” (63). Costly grace, not cheap grace, is the essence of every believer. Cheap grace leaves us with no distinction. Costly grace is its own distinction.

Bonhoeffer takes this parallel between cheap grace and costly grace a step further:

“The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ. Such a man knows that the call to discipleship is a gift of grace, and that call is inseparable from grace. But those who try to use this grace as a dispensation from following Christ are simply deceiving themselves” (51).

Cheap grace is, in fact, not grace at all. Grace that does not transform is not sufficient enough to save. Heaven is comprised of new creatures, not merely old creatures whose sins have been glossed over. The only road to salvation is by way of the costly grace that prompts a man to leave all he has in pursuit of the Son of God. The grace that justifies the sinner saves, but the grace that merely justifies the sin leaves a man “deceived”. Costly grace will transform the very heart of a man, while cheap grace will only embolden his sin.

Conclusion. Anyone who professes faith in Jesus Christ and looks to his life, burial and resurrection for their redemption, comes to him through the same call: “Come and die.” The cost of following Jesus Christ will forever and always be one’s entire life. To look to Christ for the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner, is to lose the Gospel, but to behold him as the one whom justifies the sinner, spurring him on to surrender all for the sake of the Cross is the only means of finding life and resurrection.

Lightning Strikes Rudy

Mohler-McLaughlin Sessions

While I regather myself after a hectic last couple of weeks, enjoy this video featuring Southern Seminary’s very own, Dr. Mohler, posted most recently by our friends at SaidatSouthern.com.

tdg

In this month’s edition of Modern Reformation, Michael Horton provides an excellent assessment of the Emerging Church, a movement he equates with ‘Christless Christianity.’ Brian McClaren, in effort to curb the problem of the lack of discipleship within the faith, has suggested that the church has erred in its interpretation of the New Testament, namely the Gospels, failing to see the centrality of the moral aspect of the message of the kingdom. He argues that the church has erred by reading the Sermon on the Mount through Paul, rather than Paul through the Sermon on the Mount. McClaren, together with other Emerging leaders, provides a potentially dangerous brand of Christianity that is not overtly obvious, as their language is wrapped in orthodox overtone, yet manipulated significantly with subtle nuance. Here, Horton has spoken with clarity through appeal to the centrality of Christ’s atoning work on behalf of sinners, over and against any movement that seeks to usurp this work by shifting the question of ‘What did Jesus do?’ to ‘What would Jesus do?’ Horton is refreshingly unapologetic in his assertion for a Christ-exalting, justification-centered Christianity:

The problem, of course, is that we have an outside God and an outside redemption. Everything inside of us is the problem. The good news, however, is that the God who is completely other than we are became one of us, yet without succumbing to our selfish pride. He fulfilled the law, bore its judgment, and rose again as our solution to the curse of sin, death, and condemnation. Furthermore, he sent his Spirit to indwell us, making us new from the inside out, until one day our very bodies are raised. In one sense, of course, the Enlightenment was right: the law is in us by nature, since we are created in God’s image. The gospel is surprising, good news that has to come to us from the outside. Everyone knows that we should treat others the way we would like to be treated ourselves: the Golden Rule does not by itself provoke martyrdom. It does not need witnesses and heralds. In fact, it did not require the incarnation, much less the atonement and resurrection.

There is hardly any ‘wiggle room’ when the Gospel is viewed in this light. Either man is rotten to the core and an enemy of God, helplessly in need of an ‘outside work’ for his redemption, or he is McClaren’s striver. If Christ is not a substitutionary sacrifice, then he is merely ‘a standard,’ no different than the laws and demands heralded by the Pharisees. Lack of discipleship is not due to a failure to look more inward toward an empty well of effort, but a failure to look more outward toward the unceasing fount of Christ’s resurrection and righteousness. Obedience is not “mustered up” from within, but created from without.

Horton continues, keeping the atoning work of Christ as central, in stark contrast to any attempt to dissolve him as a mere moral example:

The gospel for sinners is Christ’s death and resurrection; the gospel for disciples, however, is, “Get busy!” But this assumes that disciples are not sinners, too. There is not a single biblical verse that calls us to “live the gospel.” By definition, the gospel is not something that we can live. It is only something that we can hear and receive. It is good news, not good advice. The good news is that, “But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the Law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe,” since sinners “are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, received through faith” (Rom. 3:21-25).

It is precisely our inability to measure up to Christ’s command that necessitates our yielding to his provision, a point made all the more clear in contrast to the word’s of McClaren in A Generous Orthodoxy. Horton narrates,

In fact, McLaren writes, “I must add, though, that I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts.” “I don’t hope all Jews or Hindus will become members of the Christian religion. But I do hope all who feel so called will become Jewish or Hindu followers of Jesus.” It is no wonder, then, that McLaren can say concerning liberal Protestants, “I applaud their desire to live out the meaning of the miracle stores even when they don’t believe the stories really happened as written.” After all, it’s deeds, not creeds that matter. McLaren seems to suggest that following Jesus (pure religion) can exist with or without explicit faith in Christ (ecclesiastical faith).

I do not know what McLaren meant by these words. I would like to think he is saying something other than what he has clearly written. However, regardless as to whether or not he is merely seeking to be provocative (an argument I have heard made on his behalf), such statements are overtly dangerous and grossly misleading. McLaren’s words, together with some other publications by the Emerging Church, are strikingly similar to the thread of liberal theology that has run throughout the course of Christianity. I believe, Horton rightly appeals to Niebuhr’s now timeless description of the liberal theology of his day as a proper summation of some of the growing trends in the liberal strand of the present age:

“A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through a Christ without a cross.”

The preaching of the Gospel that transforms the sinner from the outside through the life, death and resurrection of Christ alone is the proper response here. No doubt, the call of discipleship demands a whole obedience; however, not as old creatures adorning themselves in their best, but rather, new creatures presenting treasures not their own.

tdg

Just ran across this article on Fox News regarding threats against Christians along the Pakistan/Afghanistan Border:

About 500 Pakistani Christians in Charsadda, a town in the North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan, received letters earlier this month telling them to close their churches and convert by Thursday or be the target of “bomb explosions.”

Let’s cover them in prayer. Let’s pray for their safety amidst these threats, and let’s pray they will ultimately hold fast to the Gospel even in the face of grave danger. No doubt, their presence in that land leaves them vulnerable every day, whether the threat is specific or not; however, it appears in this instance there is an imminent threat. May the God of peace be their comfort and their shelter in the coming days, and may his presence with them and the testimony of these believers see the conversion of many Muslims.

tdg

Dr. Mohler wrote an intriguing post today in regards to an article appearing in the New York Times that noted that 90 percent of pregnant women have chosen to have an abortion after learning their baby has been diagnosed with Down Syndrome. Tragic, no doubt, especially in light of this recording Mohler posted at the end of his entry.

tdg

Paris Hilton was placed on probation as an alternative to incarceration after her DWI arrest, given a list of terms and conditions to abide by while on probation, failed to live up to those terms and conditions, and was sent back before the judge for a revocation hearing where she was sentenced to 45 days incarceration. Typically, someone who has put such minimal effort into a misdemeanor probationary term stands virtually no chance before the judge. Case closed, right?

The cultural response has been extremely puzzling, varying from pointing and laughing to outrage over her mistreatment because of who she is. Why the mixed bag? Nothing with the sentence was completely out of bounds. It wasn’t even atypical. Perhaps, as a culture, we are completely at a loss as to how to respond when the very woman whose career sky-rocketed after an illicit sex-tape is on her way to jail for 45 days. The combination of wild and famous is suppose to be a sure bet to yield nothing but more fame and more money. The poster child of the eternal spring break is not suppose to go to jail, she needs a Sharpie, and a place to sign her name. Where’s the love?

No doubt, her career will not even miss a step when she is released. In fact, she may even be hoisted on the shoulders of pop culture and heralded as a martyr. This is our cultural elite, everybody, pluralism and relativity taken to the extreme. However, until there is no longer a man wearing a long black gown with a gavel in his hand, the worldview of the day is incapable of reaching fruition. The pluralists will remain in confusion as their promiscuous videos bring fame one day, while finding themselves on the wrong end of the gavel the next; no doubt, a mere shadow of the day in which the Judge who judges even the judges dons his own court room attire but bothers not with the gavel, choosing instead the sword.

tdg

In light of Rudy Giulliani’s support for Roe v. Wade tonight in the Reagan Derby, the imminent possibility of having no pro-life option in the 2008 presidential election demands a thoughtful Christian response that is grounded in a biblical understanding of the kingdom of God.  Please consider the following excerpt I pulled from an ethics paper.  I welcome any and all dissenting views:

Transforming Culture? Any proper strategy for political and cultural engagement must give Christ the supremacy he is due as the only means of ultimately transforming culture, either in the here and now by faith, or in the kingdom to come by his might. The Emerging Church movement is exactly right in what it affirms as some of the perennial issues surrounding social activism, seeing the Gospel in a more holistic manner that incorporates the care of the needy. However, such social activism apart from the indispensable message of justification in Christ alone is not an advancement of the kingdom. Rather, as citizens of the heavenly kingdom, social activism is to be viewed as the standing in the here and now against that which will one day be destroyed and alongside that which will one day follow behind Christ as he ushers in his kingdom. Any view of the kingdom that divorces this Gospel from social justice, misses the kingdom, and effectively leaves those whom they have fed, clothed, and sheltered as the enemies whom Christ will one day make for himself a footstool; the rich man and the beggar, the strong and the weak, remain enemies of the kingdom so long as they are outside of Christ. It is crucially important to understand that socio-political engagement for its own sake, is not an advancement of the kingdom; rather, the members of the Heavenly kingdom reside in the here and now as strangers and aliens seeking the ideals of the kingdom to come, confident their message is the only source of liberation from oppression.

Should a Christian Vote for a Pro-Choice Candidate? The Emerging Church is consistent in its understanding of the kingdom and socio-political engagement when it feels comfortable voting for a pro-choice president. For example, Wallis holds fast to many Democratic party values, while at the same time pleads for the party to make way for “pro-life democrats”. When socio-political engagement is heralded as an advancement of the kingdom and an effort to ultimately transform culture, it is easy to give support to a pro-choice candidate for the sake of other issues of social justice. Herein lie the extremely practical implications of a proper justification-centered, Christ-reigning understanding of the kingdom. Our duties are not merely to advocate social justice, but rather to represent that culture-transforming entry of the kingdom consummated, a task that seems nearly impossible while at the same time pulling the lever for a leader who advocates the destruction of an unborn child. If any election pits two such candidates against each other, a Christian should have virtually an insurmountable difficulty casting a vote for either candidate in light of the immense value of life in the age to come, where “the last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:26). Knowing Christ will one day usher in his kingdom by his own power assures the believer that not participating in such an election is in no way a defeat for the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized who may be represented by other policies. Rather, they behold in the practice of its citizens their only means of victory: an eternal liberation is coming in the form of the kingdom of God, and it brings with it an ideal ethic that will last. It opens the doors for a consistent social activism that does not deny the Gospel in its practice, but affirms the priority of the kingdom to come. The poor are served only when the Kingdom’s ethic prevails, namely that a day is coming when death and social injustice shall be no more, a reality that can only be enjoyed in the here and now by faith in Christ alone. Or as Moore concludes, “When we plead in the public square for the sanctity of human life, we are saying something that we learn from the kingdom we will see in our own resurrections from the grave— that life is better than death because the gospel is more glorious than the curse.”

Addressing the obvious remaining question. Why does abortion mark the point of disengagement? Are there other issues that would constitute a similar approach? This is most definitely the line of questioning that follows the argument, and for the most part, sounds like a fair critique. It is not denied that there may be less significant issues where a lesser-of-two-evils approach is appropriate; however, in the case of abortion, there is a clear, distinctly Christian responsibility toward the protection of the unborn that is wrapped-up in the image-bearing nature of mankind. At the heart of the destruction of the image-bearer, lies an assault against the Creator himself (Gen 9:6). The same argument might be adequately made for a case that involves the issue of homosexual marriage. Other examples would have to be considered on a case by case basis and evaluated against the ideal ethic of the kingdom similarly to what has been done here in the case of abortion. Is there a distinctly Christian method of carrying out the issue at hand? Is there an immediate threat to human life involved? How much weight does the issue at hand hold against other peripheral issues that may be involved? Further, it must be conceded that for everyone, there is a point where participating in an election would cross the bounds of comfortable involvement. At the risk of sounding sensational (though history has known the type), what if both candidates favored the destruction of all newborn Jewish males? Or if both candidates promoted some sort of ethnic cleansing? There is a point when one’s economic policy or environmental strategy becomes negligible in light of the atrocities being supported on other issues. Taking into account the life that will one day be ushered in by Christ at his return, why is the destruction of an unborn life not perceived as well beyond the point where Christians refuse to participate? There is a tremendous need to recover the atrocity of the destruction of unborn human life in the face of the imminent return of Christ. Only then will the sting of abortion regain its barb, and proper political engagement its purpose.

tdg

Richard Dawkins and Bill O’Reilly

Thought this was an interesting exchange…  It matters very little whether you miss the Gospel as an atheist with a book or a post modernist with a TV Show.  I would be extremely curious to know how many frequent church goers felt represented by O’Reilly?  I hope not many… but this is no doubt not the first time this conversation has taken place between two friends at work or two passers-by on the street.  Christ is not an empty shell that can be filled with whatever the heart desires. He is either God-incarnate, crucified and risen, or he is nothing at all.

tdg