Kingdom of God - Least v. Great in the Kingdom

Being called least versus great in the Kingdom of Heaven – Matt. 5.17-20

Have you ever read through the OT and came across some crazy, random rules or laws? Examples from Leviticus 19. Ever wonder if we still need to fully obey such laws? I get questions all the time, especially the one about the tattoos. We'll come back to this later...

In this passage, Jesus is talking about being called least in the kingdom versus being called great in the Kingdom. Of course we all would like to hopefully work toward becoming known as great in the kingdom of heaven so what are some of the things we should work towards to make this happen?

In the context of this passage, Jesus is about to set out to definitively interpret God’s Word. But before he begins, he wants everyone to know that he holds God’s word in the highest regard.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets…

When he says this, it was another way of saying, I have not come to “set aside” or “repeal” the Hebrew Bible (or OT). Saying “The Law and Prophets” was another way of referring to the whole of the OT.

Up until this point (and from this point going forward in his story) Jesus was accused of neglecting God’s Word, or specifically the Laws of the OT. He came under attack from the groups mentioned in verse 20 of this passage: the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law.

The Pharisees - Recognized as the supreme authority in religion the written Hebrew Scriptures (all of them) and the oral tradition (or what is referred to in this text as the tradition of the elders). They were strict adherents to the Law, not only the Torah but the expositions and traditions of the Law. More of a tendency to regard outward formalism as more important than inward disposition of the heart (at least according to the gospels and Acts).

The Teachers of the Law (or Scribes) - Their key role was a more careful theoretical development of the Law – the scribes counted a total of 613 commandments in the OT. They were made in general terms and needed to be made explicit and particular. For example: walking through a grain field had to be examined. When the wheat was ankle high not knee high it was not considered threshing. But if the wheat was knee high, kernels might be knocked loose and it would be considered threshing. If a cotton wadding which was worn in one’s ear fell out it could not be replaced for this would be considered lifting a burden. The scribes wanted to make sure they knew what constituted a law and not a law. These accumulations were what came to be known as the tradition of the elders. This oral tradition was transmitted orally until about 200 AD.

Why so zealous for the Law? Understandable? The greatest lesson learned during the exile was that they had neglected the Law of God to worship idols. So the Jews were committed to studying and obeying the Law completely. Idolatry was ended. Prophecy stopped, but scribes, the experts in copying, preserving and teaching the law, became the religious leaders.

These are the guys who constantly question Jesus’ zeal for the Law. Jesus does stuff on the Sabbath that they don’t think he should do (like heal people). He eats with people they would never eat with (like tax collectors and sinners). He touches people that make them unclean (like lepers and dead people). Jesus is about to give the people his interpretation of God’s word and wants everybody to know how much respect he has for God’s word. But he is going to show them how to properly understand God’s word. God’s word needs to be read in light of him. You cannot properly understand God’s word (and that includes the laws of the OT) without knowing Jesus.

The gospel story of Jesus also resolves or brings to completion the Story of Israel as found in the Scriptures (thus, the events of Jesus story occurred “according to the Scriptures”. The Story of Jesus Christ only makes sense as it follows and completes the Story of Israel. The gospel is the resolution and fulfillment of Israel’s Story and promises. The good news of this gospel is that Israel’s Story has now reached its resolution in Jesus Christ.

Jesus does not come to abolish the word of God. This means that he does not mean to set it aside or repeal it. It still is valid and binding on the believer. He goes on to say that not the smallest letter or least stroke of a pen will disappear until everything is accomplished. (Jot and tittle, what does that mean?) What he does say is that he has come to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. What he means by that is that he has come to bring Scripture to its intended goal.

Fulfillment of Scripture is Matthew’s theme through his gospel.

In chapter 1, Matthew connects Jesus to David, the line of the everlasting king.

1.22 – Jesus’ birth by a virgin is seen as fulfilling Scripture (Isaiah 7.14).

2.3-4 – Jesus’ being born in Bethlehem fulfills Scripture (Micah 5.2, 4).

2.15 – Jesus’ escape from Herod to Egypt (Jesus identifies with Israel who also spent years in Egypt).

2.17 – Herod’s destruction of the infants was seen as fulfilling Scripture (Jer. 31.15)

3.2 – John the Baptist’s ministry was seen as fulfilling Scripture (Isaiah 40.3)

4.1-11 – Jesus time of temptation in the wilderness was seen as a way of identifying with Israel’s time in the wilderness after being set free from slavery in Egypt. The people were tested in the wilderness and failed. However, Jesus represents faithful Israel as he does not give into the devil’s temptation in the desert.

4.14-16 – His early ministry in Galilee was seen fulfilling Scripture as well (Isaiah 9.1-2).

Jesus is affirming his undying respect for the OT, and he wants us to know that all of the OT remains normative and relevant for followers of Jesus. But…it needs to be understood in how it has been fulfilled in Christ. All OT texts need to be viewed in light of Jesus’ life and ministry.

What we are going to see is that at some points, Jesus brings many OT events and laws to their fulfillment (like the sacrificial system). The sacrificial system is no longer binding, but not because Jesus set it aside, but because he fulfilled the original intent of the sacrificial system. He became the perfect sacrifice to remove our guilt and sin from before God and through him we can have an unbroken, guilt free relationship with God.

At some points, the OT Scriptures remain quite valid, like love for God and love for our neighbor.

But how do we deal with some of the verses that just don’t seem so relevant to us today like the ones I mentioned? Jesus says that if we set aside one of the least of the commands of the Bible, we’ll be least in the kingdom.

When we look at how Jesus interprets Scripture in the following verses after our passage, we see that he begins with one of the Ten Commandments or a command from the Law and then interprets it. He starts with, “you have heard it said…”, then he says “but I say to you…” In none of the following verses does Jesus contradict the Law, but what he does is present the true meaning of the command. Do not commit adultery…but I say don’t look at a woman lustfully. Jesus gets beyond the mere outward form of the command; he penetrates directly to the heart.

So, far from destroying or setting aside the law (even in the cases where it looks like he is breaking the law like in the incidents we mentioned before), Jesus’ teachings penetrate to the divinely intended meaning of the Law. Because the Law and Prophets pointed to him and he is their goal, he is able now to reveal their true meaning and bring them to fulfillment.

Knowing this, let’s go back to some of those obscure laws I mentioned earlier. When we look beyond the mere literal meaning of the laws, we should look at the original intention of God for these laws.

Why not wear clothing of mixed material? This was a symbol of purity and wholeness. They were entering into a land where the people were dishonoring God and were worshiping false gods and their lifestyles were exceedingly wicked. A law like this was showing them to be concerned with wholeness and purity. It was, in a way, a reminder to not intermix with these people or intermarry with them. And a way of impressing this on the people’s minds was to call them to wholeness in every area of their lives, like their crops, their clothes, their animals…

They were not to cut their hair because often shaving their hair, and especially their beards were pagan mourning rites. The beard was a symbol of manhood and pride within Israel. Again, it was a symbol to be different from the people God was expelling from the land before them.

Tattoo marks were often brands for devotees of pagan gods. Don’t be like them. Be set apart. Show yourself to be worshiping a different, holy God.

When we look at the intended meaning of these laws, we can better understand them and apply them to our lives. God is calling us to be different. To be set apart. How do we distinguish ourselves from the non-believers that we are surrounded with? In our day, it is not necessarily in the way we dress, or having or not having tattoos, or with the food we eat. We distinguish ourselves from the non-believers around us by following Jesus.

So, who is least in the Kingdom? If you set aside the Scripture (and more importantly) it’s intended meaning by God, you will be least in the Kingdom. Jesus is affirming the validity of the OT, but if we continue reading, he helps us understand the intention behind the commands of the OT (and really the whole Bible). We need to read the commands of the Bible in light of Jesus being the king and being the ultimate fulfillment of God’s word.

To be great in the Kingdom is to understand this as well and to teach this to others. To be great in the Kingdom we need to teach the full word of God (especially in light of Jesus’ way of looking at it) and obey his word.

Our righteousness needs to surpass the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. What does that mean? The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees spent so much time wrapped up in a detailed study of the minutiae of the law. The Pharisees were the sect who attempted to fulfill the requirement of the Torah through an elaborate system that was based on ancient teachers who tried to explain its demands. They were more interested in how they could follow the Law (or find ways to make it convenient to follow the letter of the law) than they were in loving God and loving their neighbor. And when it comes right down to it that was the ultimate intention of all of the laws, to teach us how to properly worship God and serve our neighbors. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees kept the focus on the law and not God.

The righteousness that Jesus speaks of does not come through this great preoccupation with the trivial points of the Law that outdoes the Pharisees. Jesus is going to show a new and higher kind of righteousness that comes from understanding that he is the king and that he is the one who can authoritatively interpret God’s word. And Jesus is not going to just interpret the Word for us and tell us how to live, he is going to model it. His life will be a display of his understanding of God’s word. And our righteousness is God’s gift. It comes when we repent, and we are born of the Spirit. The Spirit’s presence enables us to properly follow Jesus. Following Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit is the way to righteousness that surpasses the Pharisees and teachers of the law who were seeking to justify themselves through their obedience to the law, not through a relationship with God.

When do we do these things? Can we become like the Pharisees in regard to the commands that we thing make us right with God? Whenever we put rules and commandments above following Jesus as ways to obtain favor with God, then we are pursuing the righteousness of the Pharisees and Scribes. I don’t know what that looks like for you. In my circle, I gain some sort of righteousness if I abstain from drinking alcohol.  It could be that you are relying on the fact that you don’t drink for a type of righteousness. It could be the fact that you don’t cuss or that you abstain from premarital sex. That is what gives you your right standing with God. For some of us it is involvement in Christian events like Bible studies and church attendance. It is like God owes you because you are serving him in these ways. All of these things I’ve mentioned can be helpful to you in your walk. But you should abstain from drinking only because you feel it makes you more like Jesus. You should avoid premarital sex because that is what is best for the kingdom of God. You should study your Bible and attend church as a way of getting to know the commands of Jesus and to corporately worship and fellowship with your brothers and sister in Christ. Those things don’t gain you points with God. They should be shaping you as a follower of Christ. Your righteousness comes as a free gift when you repent, commit to Jesus and receive his Spirit. His Spirit enables you to follow him, which is the command he gives us if we want to be a disciple of his (Luke 9.24).

Jesus' Message of the Kingdom

Jesus’ Message of the Kingdom

We’ve been looking at the Kingdom of God this semester. So far we did an overview of the concept, looking at it from the perspective of what a typical hearer of Jesus might have understood when he or she first heard Jesus announce that the Kingdom of God was near. We also looked at Jesus’ first words of his public ministry in the gospels of Matthew and Mark: “The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.” We also discussed how Jesus said we must enter the kingdom of God, that is we must be born from above/again and born of water and Spirit. Last week we looked at how the Kingdom of God starts small like a mustard seed or yeast in a big batch of flour: it seems to be insignificant yet grows beyond what seems to be its capabilities. This week we are going to look at the message of the Kingdom of God. What was the core of Jesus’ teaching on the Kingdom of God? In the book of Luke, Jesus begins his public ministry with a grand announcement that will frame how Luke characterizes Jesus’ message about the Kingdom of God.

Luke 4:18-19

Context – Jesus himself had been baptized by John the Baptist as a sign that he was beginning a new phase of his life, his public ministry. Up until this point, he had lived a relatively obscure life. But now, he came out and was baptized, symbolizing new life (not repentance for forgiveness of sin) and his identification with the people of Israel. (Baptism and crossing the river?) God anointed him with his Spirit. In the OT, the Spirit would rest on people when God set them apart for a specific task. From this point on, we will see how Luke tells us constantly that Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit. In 4.1, the Spirit led him into the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil. (Here he continues to identify with Israel, just as they spent time in the desert and yet were unfaithful to God, Jesus spends time in the desert and remains faithful). This leads us to our verses today and the message of the Kingdom.

Read Luke 4.14-21.

Jesus must have drawn attention to himself because of his teaching and healing ministry. It seems that he had a teaching ministry in Galilee (northern Israel). On this occasion he reveals his true intentions, that is, his ministry is to fulfill Scripture.

The passage that he reads is from Isaiah 61.1-2 (with some allusion to 58.6). Read the passage in Isaiah. Here the speaker has been anointed with God’s Spirit to announce “good news.”

Isaiah is looking to a day in the future when the people of Israel would be greatly disciplined due to their lack of obedience. The southern kingdom of Israel, the kingdom of Judah, would be conquered and many of the citizens would be sent into exile. What Isaiah sees here is God’s message to those who have suffered through this time and are longing for release from their captivity.

The “poor” in Isaiah have the connotation of the faithful members of Israel who wait on God during times of great misfortune, like captivity and exile. This was a common metaphor for people in distress. Because, literally, the poor had no other advocate than God. The righteous and faithful poor people would rely on God for their provision and salvation. And here, the poor are those who have been sent into exile and captivity. It is very similar with the term “brokenhearted”. God is going to heal their wounds. When he proclaims freedom for the captive, he is promising release and freedom for those who will be in exile.

Jesus continues the theme from Isaiah by proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor. Here both Isaiah and Jesus are talking about a concept that is found in the book of Leviticus 25 called the year of Jubilee.

In the Hebrew Bible, God had prescribed something called a “Sabbath year”. The Sabbath year had three basic provisions: the freeing of all slaves; the cancellation of all debts and leaving the fields fallow (or uncultivated) for the year. This was to take place every 7^th year (that is what Sabbath literally means in Hebrew). After 7 Sabbath years there would be a Year of Jubilee which is the similar to the Sabbath year but all of the land reverts back to its original distribution under Moses when the Israelites first entered the land.

The primary spiritual basis for Sabbath years and for the Year of Jubilee was for the release of slaves, debts and the land. This was due because God himself was the owner of the land and the people. It was he who had delivered them from slavery in Egypt and he gave them the land, so neither they nor the land could ever truly be sold. It was given to God’s people to be good stewards of the land (or caretakers). The prophet Isaiah sees a day of release from captivity of the people of Israel in the future and he uses this Jubilee imagery.

This would have been in the minds of the people present at that synagogue when Jesus reads this passage and makes this pronouncement, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

What qualifies Jesus to make such a bold statement? He basically compares his teaching ministry to the Year of Jubilee, which is good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind and freedom for those who are oppressed. How can he say such things? He can say such things because he is the king.

Now, did he look like the king they were expecting? No, not quite. We see this in John the Baptist. In one episode John is pointing at the one who is to follow him. The one following him is greater than John. John calls him the “lamb of God” who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus will baptize with the Spirit. John must decrease and Jesus must increase in importance. John helps Jesus inaugurate his ministry with his baptism, and then Jesus sets out healing people of diseases, feeding the hungry masses, spending time with sinners, casting demons out of people who were oppressed by Satan. John is thinking, where is your army, king? When is the revolt going to start? When are you going to defeat the pagan, ungodly people who are ruling God’s land right now?

John the Baptist angers the king of the region (a man named Herod Antipas). He gets thrown in prison. That is not supposed to happen to the man who announces the king’s arrival as John did. He starts to have questions. Jesus is not acting like the king John was expecting. John sends his own disciples to question Jesus.

Luke 7:20- Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?

Jesus’ reply would surprise us at first, but when we examine the Hebrew Scriptures, these were the things that the King was supposed to be doing:

Luke 7:22 – Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.

Isaiah saw a day in the future when God would visit his people. On that day,

Isaiah 35.5 – then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer… and we’ve already seen Isaiah proclaim that the good news will be proclaimed to the poor in Is. 61.1-2.

These are the kind of things that will take place when God himself (the King) visits his people. Jesus reads the resume of the king and points to the very things he was doing.

So, how did Jesus display this “good news” in his life and ministry?

We’ll come back to the poor…

When he proclaims freedom for the prisoners, we probably shouldn't see freedom for criminals who have been justly imprisoned, but more likely in context those who have been jailed for their unpaid debts. In Jesus’ world, that was a very real possibility. They did not have the economic mobility that we have today (and even today, it has been shrinking in our sluggish economy). Someone could get into debt and would be jailed until their family paid their debt or they entered into an agreement to become a slave to the one you owe money to. There is a connection between forgiveness of sin and forgiveness of debt. Debt almost becomes a metaphor for sin. To forgive sin is compared to forgiving debt. This can potentially release someone from literal prison (in the case of monetary debt) and release from bondage (in the case of forgiveness of sin).

Luke 11.4 (in Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer) he says we should pray for God to forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. If Jesus can spread a message of forgiveness of sin it should extend to the debts that people owe us, especially if those debts came about due to unlawful exploitation of poor people (unreasonable interest rates, etc.).

Jesus’ message is good news because it means recovery of sight for the blind. This is probably referring to his healing ministry on one level, we see him healing people of many illnesses and disabilities but on another level he could be discussing spiritual sight versus spiritual blindness. In Matthew 23, Jesus criticizes the spiritual elite who thought they were honored by God due to their spiritual insight by calling them “blind guides”. And in John’s gospel Jesus heals a blind man but gives it deeper meaning in that he is allowing the people who are humble enough to accept him and his radical message to truly see in a spiritual sense. And those who are not humble enough to submit to him (the spiritual elite, the Pharisees), those who would never admit to spiritual blindness in themselves are the truly blind. They cannot see that they are guilty of sin. The blind man came to Jesus in humility risked being cast out of the community by making a profession of faith in Jesus. Because of his humility, he has received literal sight and spiritual sight as well. The sighted Pharisees were not humble, did not see their need for humility before Jesus remained spiritually blind. Jesus gives literal sight to the blind and spiritual sight to those who are humble enough to receive it.

Set the oppressed free – as we have been discussing all along, the people were expecting of the dawning of the Kingdom of God that God (or his messiah) would conquer all of Israel’s foes and rule from his throne in Jerusalem. The people of Israel of Jesus’ day were under occupation. The Romans were in charge. It was incomprehensible that a pagan government would be allowed to rule over God’s people. They were expecting deliverance. They were the oppressed and were longing for freedom (which they would fight for on several occasions). For Jesus, however, that day would lie in the future but the freedom for the oppressed that he was offering was freedom from the oppression of our sin and Satan.

When discussing our oppression due to sin, Jesus called it slavery and offered freedom.

Jesus’ healing ministry – Acts 10:38 – Peter discusses how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.

This may have shown itself in illness – Jesus offers freedom to a woman who had been tormented by disease by stating:

Luke 13:12, 16 – Woman, you are set free from your infirmity…Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

Those are drastic examples, but all of us who have sinned are in some ways slaves. Jesus discusses this John 8:34-36 - ³⁴ Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. ³⁵ Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. ³⁶ So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

When we submit to Jesus, he gives us his presence in form of the power of the Holy Spirit. This enables us to overcome our sin and live lives pleasing to God. We could not do that before we submitted to Christ.

Let us come back to the issue of Jesus proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor.

Jubilee – Why did God give his people this concept in the first place? Jubilee was to ensure that there was an equitable distribution of the land to prevent accumulation of ownership in the hands of a few. We have to be reminded that God owns not only the land but all of our resources. He allows us to be his stewards of his property.

Lev. 25.23 – The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers. And not only that,

Psalm 24.1 – The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.

[God put rules in place to make sure that sold land could be redeemed by the seller’s family that is, bought back. This was out of concern for a family, or an extended family like a clan. This kind of policy can help break the cycle of poverty and restore dignity to a family.]

The concept of Sabbath year and year of Jubilee taught God’s people faith in his sovereignty and provision (the fallow year, allowing God to provide). It also taught forgiveness, to forgive debts. To understand that you have been forgiven by God means that you need to seek practical ways to demonstrate that forgiveness. It this concept it was the forgiveness of debts and releasing slaves from bondage. That is an easy to apply message to us today, for us to think about Jubilee requires that we face the Sovereignty of God, trust in his provision, know his redeeming action, experience reconciliation and practice these things toward others.

How Jesus message can be good news to the poor? So much of Jesus’ message was directed to the poor, both spiritually and materially. This came back to me when I was teaching on Matt. 6 about not worrying about what we will eat or wear because our Father cares for us. We are called to seek first the kingdom (and we will discuss that soon) and all these things (provision) will be given to us as well. The problem comes about when we realize that there have been believers who have gone without food and clothing. They are around the world and in our community. So, isn’t this verse untrue for them? How do we reconcile Jesus’ teaching about our “needs” being met, when there are some who have gone without?

Perhaps when God’s people, like us, corporately seek first his priorities, we will by definition take care of the needy in their fellowship. When we consider that a substantial majority of believers in our world live below the “poverty line”, shouldn’t that challenge us who have “great wealth”?

Craig Blomberg – “Without a doubt, most individual and church budgets need drastic realignment in terms of what Christians spend on themselves versus what they spend on others.

Deut. 15.4-5 – there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance; he will richly bless you if you fully obey him…

We see how the early church lived this out

Acts 4.32-34 - …No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had…God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

What we need to do is figure out how to do this. As we proclaim the good news, we need to remember the poor and help make the message of Jesus good news to them as we display the generosity that was shown to us.

Book Review: The King Jesus Gospel (part 5)

Chapter 7 - Jesus and the Gospel

As Scot has defined the gospel, he now asks, “Did Jesus preach that he was the completion of Israel’s Story in such a way that he was the saving story himself? This kind of question shifts the focus of the gospel from being the personal, individual benefits we experience to the Person who himself is the good news.

Piper defines the gospel in his book, God is the Gospel, “the glory of god in the face of Christ revealed for our everlasting enjoyment.” Despite several important differences between McKnight on Piper on the contents of the gospel, they agree on this: the gospel is to declare something about a Person, about God in his revelation in Jesus Christ and about what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Scot then sets out to show that Jesus preached a gospel that concerned himself as the completion of Israel’s story in a way that he was the saving story himself.

Kingdom

Scot begins by examining how Jesus overtly connects his mission, his vision, and his preaching with kingdom. The gospels frame their stories (for the most part, synoptics anyway), from the start as how the births and beginnings of the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus point to messianic and kingdom expectations of Israel’s Story. Mary, Zechariah and john the Baptist point to the fulfillment of the Kingdom and kingdom for them is a community ruled by a King, the Messiah.

Jesus and the Kingdom

Jesus believed the kingdom of God was breaking into history. Two text point to that clearly in Mark 1.15 (the kingdom has drawn [very] near) and Matthew 12.28 (Jesus provides evidence that the kingdom has come upon you). Jesus believes he is the actual manifestation of the long awaited kingdom of god.

Jesus declares a new society in the land and a new citizenship.

Who Am I? Who are you?

Others thought Jesus was one of Israel’s great prophets. Others thought John was a prophet like Elijah or even the Messiah himself. John thought he was “the voice” calling out in the wilderness which prepare the way for the appearance of God himself. John thought Jesus was the one more powerful than himself. Perhaps even Elijah himself (the one who is coming). Jesus thought John was Elijah. This all brings to mind Paul’s thought in 1 Corinthians 15 that all of this was taking place according to the Scriptures. Jesus and John both knew they had a role to play and that role was found in Scripture.

Now, who did Jesus thing he was? Jesus preached that he was the center of God’s plan for Israel. Jesus went to the Bible to define who he was and what his mission was. Jesus believed he was completing scriptural passages. Jesus predicted and embraced his death and resurrection. Jesus therefore preached the gospel because he preached himself. Jesus preached the gospel because he saw himself completing Israel’s story.

Three “Look at Me!” Passages

The Sermon on the Mount – Jesus saw his teaching as the consummation and completion and resolution of the OT Law and the Prophets. Jesus claims that everyone’s morall life is to be measured by whther they live according to his moral vision.

Jesus and the 12 – Jesus appoints 12 that will sit on the 12 thrones that represent the covenant people of God. Yet Jesus stands above the 12, he is the Lord or King of the 12. Jesus chooses 12 to embody the hope for a reunited 12 tribes; he sees the 12 as embodying the fullness of the people of God, and he sees himself above the 12. He sees the Story of Israel coming to its completion in the 12 apostles, and he sees himself both as appointer of the 12 and the Lord over the 12.

Jesus and his death – Jesus saw himself as the Son of Man figure of Daniel 7 who suffered and was exalted. He reenacts the royal entry predicted by Zechariah the prophet. He “stages” a Passover-like meal during which time he declares his body and blood will liberate. God will protect the followers of Jesus if they will drink of his blood-cup and eat his body-bread.

When Jesus talks about moral vision, he sees himself completing the Torah and the Prophets. When he summons the twelve to be his apostles, he is summing up Israel’s hope and Israel’s covenant community as its Lord. And when Jesus speaks about his premature death, he sees it as fulfilling Scriptures, especially Passover.

So, did Jesus preach the gospel? Yes, he preached the gospel because the gospel is the saving Story of Jesus completing Israel’s Story, and Jesus clearly set himself at the center of God’s saving plan for Israel.

Kingdom of God - It starts small

The Kingdom of God starts small (Matt. 13.31-33)

When we look at the earthly ministry of Jesus, it was relatively unsuccessful, numbers wise. There were around 120 followers of Jesus immediately following his return to heaven after his resurrection. And of those 120, they were really not very powerful or even have much status in their society. But within a little more than 300 years after Jesus’ resurrection, this movement that he started grew to almost half of the population of the Roman Empire (or around 32 million people at some estimates). How did this happen?

Exposition Matt. 13.31-33

Jesus told many parables to explain the Kingdom of God. These were little word pictures of concrete examples from their everyday life to explain various aspects of the Kingdom, what it would look like, how one entered it, what one must do when they encountered it, what it would ultimately look like. We will look at several of these as the semester goes along. Now we are going to look at a couple of short parables where Jesus describes the Kingdom of God as something very small and seemingly insignificant to the naked eye, but it turns out to be quite impressive as it works toward its goal.

The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed…In the ancient world, the mustard seed was known for its smallness. Later Jesus would say that faith the size of a mustard seed would be able to move mountains (that is, such small, pure, concentrated faith would be able to accomplish the seemingly impossible.) It is from this “smallest” of seeds that a very large bush like plant eventually emerges, large enough to accommodate the nests of birds.

It is similar with the yeast. It has this gradual, almost unobservable fermentation process that makes it a good simile for the impact of the kingdom. What we have is the dynamic power of yeast where a small amount (almost imperceptible) when first mixed into a lump of dough has an eventual, astonishing effect on the whole. When Jesus says that a small amount of leaven goes this dough, he is describing a very small amount that mixes with three measures of wheat flour. That is about 40 liters (or about 10 gallons) producing 50 kilograms of bread (or 110 lbs). Enough to feed 150 people.

The point that Jesus is making here is that in spite of the expectations of many (a grand entrance by God the King who would usher in a military victory and establish a physical kingdom on a real throne), the kingdom has begun. It is very inconspicuous but it has begun. In the end the greatness of the kingdom in size will provide a contrast as that between the mustard seed and the tree. You wouldn’t think that such a great tree could come from such a small source. So it will be with the kingdom. As is with the yeast, that what at the beginning looks unimpressive will have an effect that is out of all proportion with that beginning. The kingdom’s coming did not overwhelm the world, as expected. Yet it is destined to become a tremendous entity, in spite of its small origins. The Kingdom’s growth can only be attributed to God. It has always been this way. God uses such insignificant people and instruments to expand his kingdom and give glory to him. Since it starts so small, its success can only be explained by God’s power.

This is the way God has been doing things since he began his plan of redemption. The Bible begins with God creating a good creation and the first humans who had this unbroken and free relationship with the Father. Their disobedience ruined it all. It unleashed the power of sin in that things seemed to spiral out of control as we see in the first 11 chapters of Genesis. Then, God begins his plan of redemption. Who does he choose as his agents of redemption? A tribe of great warriors? A tribe who was advanced in creating tools for advancement? A tribe of artists and poets who could praise him? No, he chooses a childless old man and old woman to begin his plan to redeem all people. He chooses Abraham and Sarah. God makes a promise to him:

Genesis 12.1-3 – I will make you into a great nation…I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

This man was 75 years old, his wife 10 years younger who was not able to conceive. That is what God does. He begins his plan of salvation with these seemingly insignificant people and plans to redeem all humanity through their offspring.

The descendants of Abraham become the people of Israel. After a few generations, we find these people not in the land that was promised to them, but in Egypt working as slaves. Yet, God hears them in their distress, remembers his promise to their Father, Abraham. He delivers them. He calls them to be a light to the rest of the world. And yet, in spite of their failure over and over again to obey the God who rescued them, and their failure to be a blessing to all the nations, God still uses them. He comes as one of them. He doesn’t come as a royal figure from an earthly perspective. He doesn’t come from a wealthy or important family. He is born to a small town carpenter and his fiancée. This family even has to flee the country after the birth of this child because important people are threatened by him. This son lives in obscurity for thirty years and announces that the king is near. And he doesn’t do this by raising an army or revealing himself to the powerful. He hangs around insignificant people like fishermen, and hated tax collectors and sinners like prostitutes. To them he reveals his kingly credentials. And it is among these “insignificant people” that Jesus resumes God’s plan of redeeming and blessing all of the nations. Through these “mustard seeds” and through this seemingly insignificant amount of yeast that needs to ferment a huge amount of flour. It was from this beginning that the Roman Empire was over half Christians in about 300 years. How did this happen?

We have to start with God’s power. As we talked about last week, God pour out his power on his people starting with 120 followers of Jesus who were gathered together and praying for Jesus to make something happen. Jesus kept his promise to come back to them through the presence of his Spirit, the Holy Spirit. In Acts 2 we see the Spirit empowering these men and women, who previously were in hiding after Jesus’ crucifixion. Now they are boldly proclaiming what they have seen and heard. And they are speaking to a large crowd and telling them to change their way (repent) and follow Jesus. They would receive forgiveness for their sins and receive this same power (Acts 2.38). At this point we see 3000 people receive this message. The next few verses give us a clue as to how this community began to grow.

Acts 2.42-47:

They were devoted to proper teaching of the Bible (or doctrine); they were devoted to fellowship (eating together, worshiping together, praying together), basically loving each other (which Jesus commanded them to do). The Spirit enabled them to perform great signs and wonders. They became generous and shared everything. They met together in some form or fashion worshiping, praying, eating every day. And God continued to allow them to grow.

So the next element of growth was they were committed to each other. They were committed to community.

Looking back at that passage, we see that they were devoted to the apostles’ teaching. They were committed to orthodoxy (or proper doctrine). They were extremely devoted to preserving the teaching of Jesus and devoted to passing it down. We see throughout early church history challenges came to the apostles’ teaching. We have groups like the Gnostics, Marcion, Arius and many others who tried to divert the mission of the church to follow human perversions of Jesus’ words. At each instance, the church came together to meet these challenges head on. These challenges made these early followers examine which of the great writings of the apostles were actually inspired by God. That is why the church developed many of the great creeds and statements of the faith.

One of these, the Apostles’ Creed, developed out of a formula that early Christians would recite before baptism to affirm that they stuck to the true teaching of the church.

Do you believe in God the Father almighty?

Do you believe in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was born of the Holy Spirit and of Mary the Virgin, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and died, and rose again at the third day, living from among the dead, and ascended into heaven and sat at the right of the Father, and will come to judge the living and the dead?

Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy church, and the resurrection of the flesh?

How did this movement spread? Was it due to some more of these big meetings like we see in Acts 2? Was it due to the work of missionaries like Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Peter and others? Somewhat, but most of the spread of the church came from normal everyday believers. Most were not esteemed in the eyes of society. In fact, one opponent of Christianity pointed out that Christianity spread in the kitchens, shops, markets by the uneducated rabble. It seems that Christianity spread through the great cities of the Roman Empire by normal people who traveled for commercial or personal reasons and as they went, they shared their faith with their family members and with coworkers and/or clients.

This movement spread in spite of brief, but at times intense, periods of persecution. Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Septimus Severus, Decius and Diocletian. These are some of the emperors who enacted state sponsored persecution over the first 300 years of the church’s life. How did the church survive times when there were forces actively trying to stamp it out? They kept their eyes on the end. They kept their focus on the final reward. I don’t think you can properly understand the book of Revelation without keeping the issue of persecution in your minds. There is a constant call from Jesus to “the one who is victorious” or “to the one who overcomes…” Revelation shows what the scene in heaven looks like, a portrait of praising the lamb who was slain (who also has experienced what they’ve experienced). This same lamb is the one “who sits on the throne” and to him be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever (Rev. 5:13)! There is even a scene where those who have been killed for their faithfulness to Jesus are shown to be serving Jesus day and night in his temple and experiencing his presence. Rev. 7:16-17. Earlier, these martyrs were asking how long until God would avenge their blood? They were told to wait until the full number of their brothers and sisters who were to be killed first (Rev. 6.9-11). Then, God would pour out his wrath on the wicked and judge the evil ones and avenge those who were killed for their testimony. This book was to assure those people who were suffering that Jesus was on his throne now and that he saw it all and was waiting, but that he would act.

How did this movement spread in spite of attacks on its beliefs and attacks on the believers? It continued to follow Jesus and obey his commands. One of the strongest statements come from a pagan emperor who wanted to stem the growth of Christianity. Emperor Julian tried to revive paganism in the Empire after the rise of Christianity. He wrote to a prominent pagan priest: “I think that when the poor happened to be neglected and overlooked by the priests, the impious Galileans (Christians) observed this and devoted themselves to benevolence…[They] support not only their poor, but ours as well, everyone can see that our people lack aid from us.”

Rodney Stark wrote a book on the rise of Christianity and made this observation:

"The power of Christianity lay not in its promise of otherworldly compensations for suffering in this life, as has so often been proposed. No, the crucial change that took place in the third century was the rapidly spreading awareness of a faith that delivered potent antidotes to life’s miseries here and now! The truly revolutionary aspect of Christianity lay in moral imperative such as “Love one’s neighbor as oneself,” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”…”When you did it to the least of my brethren, you did it unto me.” These were not just slogans. Members did nurse the sick, even during epidemics; they did support orphans, widows, the elderly, and the poor; they did concern themselves with the lot of slaves. In short, Christians created “a miniature welfare state in an empire which for the most part lacked social services.” Support for this view comes from the continuing inability of pagan groups to meet this challenge."

What does this mean to us? I hesitate to compare Missio Dei to the early church, but it does cause me to think what this small group of people could accomplish through the power of God. In the big picture of this campus, we are just a speck, 20+ people surrounded by 30k. We have some people who are with us in other campus ministries and churches, but we face a large task: to share with those around us what we’ve experienced in Jesus. I hope your experience with Jesus has been good news to you. Hopefully you constantly reflect on your experience and you seek to share it with those you know need to experience the same good things you’ve experienced.

It is my hope that we model those elements of the early church: devotion to the Word of God, to fellowship and community, to prayer, to worship and generosity and service. Even with such humble beginnings God can accomplish great things and perhaps even inaugurate a movement that we might get to be a part of.

Book Review: The King Jesus Gospel (part 4)

How Did Salvation Take over the Bible?

In this chapter, Scot makes the argument that the ancient creeds of the church were actually expositions on Paul’s gospel from 1 Corinthians 15. The creeds seek to bring out what is already in the Bible’s gospel. He walks through some of the writings of the apostolic fathers to show how this was the same in them as well. He shows many of the similarities in the language of the creeds and Paul’s gospel serves as an apt outline for them, most specifically the lines about Jesus.

So what happened? How did we transition from a gospel culture to a salvation culture? This began in the Reformation. The Reformation has brought us so much good, but the Reformers did not frame things through Paul’s gospel or even the creeds, they framed their great statements of faith around justification by faith. The gospel became about personal salvation and was cut off from the grand story of Israel and Jesus. The gospel became God loves you, you are messed up, Jesus died for you, accept him and (no matter what) you can go to heaven. We shifted from a Story to a system.

Again, Scot invokes the words of Dallas Willard. He feels our gospel as a system of personal salvation makes Jesus only a sin remover and not necessarily a King to submit to. Our salvation instead comes down to a right decision, not necessarily to becoming a disciple in its fullest sense. We inherit a Gospel of Sin Management and “presume a Christ with no serious work other than redeeming humankind…and they foster “vampire Christians,” who only want a little blood for their sins but nothing more to do with Jesus until heaven.”

The Gospel in the Gospels?

Scot lays out here that Paul’s gospel was not only the outline for the early church creeds but perhaps the gospels themselves.

There seems to be a dichotomy between the messages of Jesus and Paul. Jesus preached the Kingdom while Paul focused (at least in Romans) on justification. If we twist things a little, we can find Jesus preaching justification (a la Piper) or Paul preaching the Kingdom. McKnight wants us to look at the gospel as being bigger than both terms. As we have seen, the gospel is declaring that the story of Israel as resolved in the Story of Jesus. That was Paul’s gospel and the apostolic tradition. Was this Jesus’ gospel as well? He did if we see that Jesus made his kingdom message center on his own role in the Story of Israel.

And besides all of this, the books of the four gospel writers were called “gospels” for a reason. These books are called gospels because in story after story they show Jesus and the power of God at work through him. Paul’s gospel was the Story of Jesus completing Israel’s Story, and the reason the early Christians called Matthew, Mark, Luke and John “The Gospel according to…” was because those gospels told the very same story. The early church wasn’t saying there were four gospels, they were in effect saying that there was one Gospel, but it was written down in four versions. The Gospels are about Jesus, they tell the Story of Jesus and everything in them is about Jesus. Scot quotes Pope Benedict XVI: To call the four accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John “Gospels” is precisely to express that Jesus himself, the entirety of his acting, teaching, living, rising and remaining with us is the ‘gospel’. Since Easter, the method of evangelization has been to tell men what we now read in the Gospels. Again, the gospels narrate the Story of Jesus in a way that shows that Jesus completes Israel’s Story in a way that the story is a saving story. They are lopsided in that they focuse on the death and resurrection of the hero more than any story in ancient history. Which comports nicely with Paul’s gospel in 1 Corinthians 15.

Two NT scholars comment on this full gospel. Hengel: Mark calls hearers to belief in the person who is described in it, Jesus, the Messiah and Son of God, and thus to eternal life; in other words it seeks to be wholly and completely a message of salvation. Marshall: Luke’s purpose is not merely to narrate the deeds and words of Jesus but to show how these did in fact lead to the experience of salvation and to the formation of the community of the saved.

Dead, Burial and Resurrection

Mark’s gospel is almost 50 percent focused on Jesus’ last week. Which is very Paul like (from 1 Cor. 15). That Mark is narrating the saving, forgiving story of Jesus as the completion of Israel’s Story. Israel’s story is coming to its resolution in John and Jesus. See if this sounds familiar, the gospels declare the story of Jesus according to the apostolic script: the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus – all this according to the Scriptures.

According to the Scriptures

All of the gospels (especially Matthew, Luke and John) see the Story of Israel completing itself in the Story of Israel.

For Our Sins

Matt. 1.21 – he will save his people from their sins. Luke has Mary son rescuing Israel by saving them from the burden of their sin. Mark has John the Baptist coming in fulfillment of the OT (Mark 1.4-5). John portrays Jesus as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1.29). Jesus himself passes the cup at the Last Supper and proclaims “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26.28). Scot wants us to make sure that we remember that Christ’s death became effective over sins because of the resurrection of Jesus himself from among the dead. We need to remember that death and resurrection are bound together to unleash an entire new world order, the new creation.

So…in summing up, the apostolic gospel, which is embedded in 1 Corinthians 15, announces the Story of Jesus as the completion of Israel’s Story in the Scriptures in such a way that Jesus saves people from their sins. The gospels do this because they are all about Jesus. They are all about Jesus being the completion of Israel’s story. They are all about Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection, exaltation, and future coming. They reveal that this Jesus saves people from their sin.

I like how McKnight frames this: On the one hand, the gospel preaching of the apostles could be reduced to 1 Corinthians 15.3-5, and, at the same time, we could say that 1 Corinthians 15.3-5 was expanded and expounded into the first four gospels.

Book Review: The King Jesus Gospel (part 3)

Chapter 4 - The Apostolic Gospel of Paul

Scot begins his exposition of “the gospel” where many people would, 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul lays out his gospel. For many, this is a springboard to their version of the gospel, Scot thinks it is the outline of the gospel of the apostles. I enjoyed this chapter because it stuck firmly to the text. This chapter will prove pivotal throughout several of the next chapters. This outlined form of the gospel is the basis for the creeds, the four "gospels" and the preaching of Peter and Paul in Acts.

The Apostolic Gospel Tradition

Scholars think that this may be the earliest link to the oral tradition of the apostles, before the NT, before any letters, before the Four Gospels, the gospel was outlined by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. Scot makes eight observations about this passage and its connection to the oral tradition of the apostles. Of those observations, Scot remarks that Paul is passing on the authorized tradition of the apostles which Paul received (15.3). The gospel is the authentic, reliable gospel of the apostles – he both received that gospel and passed it on. It concerns these four events: that Christ died, that Christ was buried, that Christ was raised, and that Christ appeared. So as far as “good news” the gospel is to announce good news about key events in the life of Jesus Christ. To gospel for Paul was to tell, announce, declare, and shout aloud the Story of Jesus Christ as the saving news of God.

The gospel story of Jesus also resolves or brings to completion the Story of Israel as found in the Scriptures (thus, the events of Jesus story occurred “according to the Scriptures”. The Story of Jesus Christ only makes sense as it follows and completes the Story of Israel. The gospel is the resolution and fulfillment of Israel’s Story and promises. The good news of this gospel is that Israel’s Story has now reached its resolution in Jesus Christ. It is not the gospel if we extract a “Plan of Salvation” from this completed Story.

Here is where I think Scot is the clearest and rightest. The salvation that God provides is the intended result of the gospel story about Jesus Christ that completes the Story of Israel in the OT. The gospel needs to tell the story about how Jesus saves us from our sins. We need to go back through all of the Scriptures and pointing to the sacrificial system before we leap ahead to Isaiah 52-53.

The gospel was more than just a story about Good Friday (although that is a huge part of the story). It is a complete story. If we pick the story up in 1 Corinthians 15.20-28 we see that the gospel included the ascension of Jesus, the second coming of Christ and the final consummation of the kingdom when God becomes all in all.

The gospel Story of Jesus Christ is a story about Jesus as messiah, Jesus as Lord, Jesus as Savior, and Jesus as Son. These titles give weight to the fact that Jesus was the anointed King of Israel. The gospel must include Jesus’ triumphal victory over “all dominion, authority and power.” Jesus is the king who saved us from our sins.

End of all Ends

In looking at 1 Cor. 15.28, we see that the story will end with God the Father being God for all and in all and through all, and his Son will be glorified as the One through whom God is glorified. When we go back to Creation, we see that Humans were given just one command, to govern this world as God’s representatives. In 1 Cor. 15.28, when we are finally connected to God in this eternal union with God through his Son, humans will be doing exactly what God intended for his creation.

Pastor Tom

Scot defers to NT Wright here and his discussion of the Plan of Salvation versus the Gospel of the Kingdom. And similar to McKnight, Wright lays out what he hears in the gospel as plan of salvation: a description of how people get saved; of the theology whereby in some people’s language, Christ takes our sin and we take his righteousness; in other people’s language, Jesus becomes my personal savior, in other language, I admit to my sin, believe that he died for me, and commit my life to him. Wright doesn’t deny any of these things (or claim they are awful or wrong) they are just mislabed as the gospel.

To Wright, the word gospel in Paul is connected to the Story of Israel/Bible in his Roman context. The word gospel in the first century context was an announcement: “To announce that YHWH was king was to announce that Caesar is not.” The gospel is not a system of how people get saved. The announcement of the gospel results in people getting saved…it is the narrative proclamation of King Jesus.”

Greg Gilbert and his take on gospel: he gets his understanding of gospel from Romans 1-4 (but it really boils down to the plan of salvation again). For Gilbert, first humans are accountable to God (Romans 1). Second, the problem humans have is that we have rebelled against God (1.23; 2.1; 3.9, 19 and 3.22). Third, the solution to humanity’s rebellion problem is the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus (Rom. 3.21-26). Fourth, humans can be included in this salvation by faith alone (3.22). Four points: God, man, Christ, response. It is the plan of salvation, but not the apostolic gospel.

McKnight believes that Gilbert has not giving enough attention to the Story of Israel as yearning for resolution in Jesus as the Messiah and Lord as the framing story for resolution in Jesus as the Messiah and Lord as the framing story for how to understand gospel; and this Story of Israel is the driving focus of the book of Acts’ sermons and 1 Corinthians 15. McKnight thinks that the problem in Romans is that Paul is showing how God joins together Jewish believers and Gentile believers into one church of Jesus Christ (not simply providing the plan of personal salvation). Where Gilbert errs, according to McKnight, is that he does not see the fundamental gospel to be a declaration about Jesus as the resolution of Israel’s story. (Scot sees that 1 Cor. 15 processes the gospel through the lens of Israel’s story, finding its resting place in Jesus Christ, but is Scot seeing too much in that one phrase “according to the Scriptures”?)

Summary

To “gospel” is to declare this story, and it is a story that saves people from their sins (the absolute key to McKnight and to the gospel). The one holy and apostolic story is the Story of Israel. The gospel cannot be limited to or equated with the Plan of Salvation. The gospel of Paul is four lines and they are about the Story of Jesus (75 times). When he mentions his gospel he always means this: the gospel of the full, saving Story of Jesus resolving the Story of Israel. When the plan gets separated from the story, the plan almost always becomes abstract, propositional, logical, rational, and philosophical and, most importantly, de-storified and unbiblical. When we separate the Plan of Salvation from the story, we cut ourselves off from the story that identifies us and tells our past and tells our future. We turn it into a system.

Book Review: The King Jesus Gospel (part 2)

Here are my summaries and comments on chapters 2 and 3 of Scot McKnight's very helpful book, The King Jesus Gospel.

Chapter 2 - Gospel Culture or Salvation Culture?

A precious conviction of evangelicalism is that each person must be born again or be saved. Personal faith is both necessary and nonnegotiable. Evangelicalism is known for at least two words: gospel and (personal) salvation. Scot thinks evangelicals are more soterians than evangelical (the root of the word gospel). Evangelicals mistakenly equate the word gospel with the word salvation. Our instinct when we think of gospel is to think (personal) salvation. Scot wants us to go back to the NT to discover all over again what the Jesus gospel is and that by embracing it we become true evangelicals. Instead we have created a salvation culture instead of a gospel culture.

A Salvation Culture

Our culture focuses on the experience of personal salvation as the decisive factor, “Are you in?” A salvation culture is not the same thing as a gospel culture. It betrays a lack of awareness of what gospel means and what it might mean for our world. We need to go back to the Bible to discover that culture and make it the center of the church.

Evangelicals have struggled with moving “The Decided” to become “The Discipled”. This is because we are obsessed in making the right decision so we can move from being unsaved to saved. In a gospel culture, it means moving the Members into the Discipled.

Scot points out another pastor and “his” gospel. “The gospel is the good news that God offers us salvation through his Son, Jesus Christ.” Christ saved us from our sins, by his death and resurrection. Scot looks at what Eric left out – The gospel is not a call to imitate Jesus. It is not a public announcement that Jesus is Lord and King. It is not (directly) and invitation into the church. It does not involve a promise of a second coming. For Eric, making a decision involves a decision of the mind, heart and will. Salvation is by faith alone, and that leads to discipleship. But if one presses too hard, then one might make the mistake that works are involved in our salvation and that may compromise justification by faith. Thus a salvation culture does not require The Members or The Decided to become The Discipled for salvation. Why not? Because its gospel is a gospel shaped entirely with the “in and out” issue of salvation. Because it’s about making a decision. In this book, Scot wants to show that the gospel of Jesus and that of the apostles, both of which created a gospel culture and not simply a salvation culture, was a gospel that carried within it the power, the capacity, and the requirement to summon people who wanted to be “in” to be the “Discipled”.

Chapter 3 - From Story to Salvation

Scot puts forth four categories that need to be defined and distinguished in order for us to proceed: The Story of Israel/the Bible, The Story of Jesus, The Plan of Salvation, The Method of Persuasion. Scot believes that these categories are connected to each other and ought to build on one another. For him, the Story of Israel is the foundation, upon which the Story of Jesus makes sense. The Plan of Salvation flows out of this Story of Israel/Story of Jesus and the Method of Persuasion flows out of the Plan of Salvation.

The Story of Israel – Adam and Eve were created as divine image-bearers to represent God, to govern for God, and to relate to God, self, others, and the world in a redemptive way. This task was distorted when Adam and Eve rebelled. Some of us skip right to the book of Romans in the stage to flesh out the plan of salvation, but Scot lets us know that the rest of the story is important as well. It is important for us to see how God chose one person, Abraham, and then through him one people, Israel, and then later the Church to be God’s representatives. But like Adam, Israel and all of its kings fail. So God sent his Son to do what Adam and Israel and the kings did not (and could not) do and to rescue everyone from their sins and systemic evil and Satan. What God does in sending the Son is to establish Jesus as the Messiah, which means King, and God established in Jesus Christ the kingdom of God, which means the King is ruling in his kingdom. And this is connected to the original creation. As his original representatives failed, so God sent his son to rule. As its king and messiah and Lord, the Son commissions the Church to bear witness to the world of the redemption in Jesus Christ, the true King, and to embody the kingdom as the people of God. The story has a climax, that is when God remakes everything at the end and sets up his once for all kingdom on earth. The gospel only makes sense in that story. Without that story there is no gospel. If we ignore that story, the gospel gets distorted, and that is just what has happened in salvation culture.

The Story of Jesus – The Story of Jesus as Messiah and Lord resolves what is yearning for completion in the Story of Israel. This Jesus is the one who saves Israel from its sins and the one who rescues humans from their imprisonments. The Story of Jesus is first and foremost a resolution of Israel’s Story and because the Jesus Story completes Israel’s Story, it saves.

The Plan of Salvation – flows out of the Story of Israel and the Story of Jesus. In our salvation culture, the gospel plan is what we mean by how an individual gets saved, what God has done for us, and how we are to respond if we want to be saved. The problem has been that sometimes we are so singularly focused on the personal-Plan of Salvation and how we get saved that we eliminate the Story of Israel and the Story of Jesus altogether. For some, the question arises, do you even need the OT for your understanding of the gospel? The plan of salvation, though extremely good is not the gospel. The Plan of Salvation includes God’s love and grace and holiness and righteousness. It includes our reaction as image bearers but our choice to sin leads to a condition of being under God’s judgment. The good news of the atoning death of Jesus Christ includes the news that he forgives us our sins and reconciles us to God. There is the need for every human being to respond simply by admitting one’s sinfulness, repenting from sin, and trusting in the atoning death of Jesus. Again, all of this is important and shouldn’t be dismissed. But it is not the gospel. The gospel is much fuller than the plan of salvation. It includes the plan of salvation, but it is much, much more. The plan of salvation does not lead to discipleship. It doesn’t lead to a life of justice or goodness or loving-kindness. But the gospel properly understood does lead to those things. We see that when we focus only on the plan of salvation, we have trouble moving the decided into the column of being disciples. (Again, Scot affirms that the kingdom vision of Jesus isn’t simply about the plan but without the plan of salvation, the kingdom doesn’t work).

The Method of Persuasion – this is how we have learned to “package” the Plan of Salvation in order to most powerfully and successfully to persuade people to respond. There have been several ways to “package” the message through church history. It seems that the Plan of Salvation and the Method of Persuasion have been given so much weight they are crushing and have crushed the Story of Israel and the Story of Jesus. Our Method of Persuasion is shaped by a salvation culture and is designed from first to last to get people to make decisions so they can come inside the boundary lines of the decided (but not necessarily disciples)

What Scot sets forth in the following chapters is that the word gospel belongs to one and only one of our four sets of terms, and he will contend that it belongs to the Story of Jesus as the resolution of Israel’s Story.