gilham@csl.sri.com (Fred Gilham) (07/16/90)
Tim Hoogasian writes:
----------------------------------------
We push the Gospel of the love of Christ (which certainly should be
stressed!) at the expense of stressing the Holiness and Justness of
Almighty God! (Listen to a copy of John MacArthur's tape on God's
Holiness, and I *GUARANTEE* you'll get convicted, no matter how
righteous you think you've been lately...)
----------------------------------------
Many people make this dichotomy between God's love and his justice and
holiness. It seems to me that there should be no such dichotomy.
God's justice and holiness are aspects or projections of his love.
God takes us seriously; he gave us significance when he made us. As a
result, what we do, for good or evil, matters. When I hurt another
person, that action is of eternal significance because both I and that
other person are meant by God to be eternal beings, children of God.
(Read C. S. Lewis' THE WEIGHT OF GLORY for a better exposition of
this.) God's refusal to forgive sin without the death of Christ is
simply his refusal to take away our significance. Our evil actions
are so meaningful that they cost God the experience of death to
redeem.
On the other hand, we have only one message, the ``Good News.'' So
often it seems that Christians feel the need to preach the bad news of
condemnation to prepare people for the good news. But the conviction
of sin is the job of the Holy Spirit, and if he is not preparing the
way it does no good to try to prepare it for him. The best we can do
is to announce the fact that actions are meaningful, that they have
consequences, and to insist on the eternal significance of our
neighbor.
Paul's decision to ``know nothing among you except Christ, and him
crucified,'' seems quite appropriate for evangelism. The message of
the God who loved to the death is powerful enough.
--
Fred Gilham gilham@csl.sri.com
So long as the heaven of THOU is spread out over me the winds of
causality cower at my heels, and the whirlpool of fate stays its
course. -Martin Buberharry@atmos.washington.edu (Harry Edmon) (07/18/90)
In article <Jul.16.02.44.10.1990.14547@athos.rutgers.edu> gilham@csl.sri.com (Fred Gilham) writes:
On the other hand, we have only one message, the ``Good News.'' So
often it seems that Christians feel the need to preach the bad news of
condemnation to prepare people for the good news. But the conviction
of sin is the job of the Holy Spirit, and if he is not preparing the
way it does no good to try to prepare it for him. The best we can do
is to announce the fact that actions are meaningful, that they have
consequences, and to insist on the eternal significance of our
neighbor.
We have the duty to preach both the "Good News" (Gospel) and the "Bad
News" (Law). After all, the Good News is not "Good" unless the Law is
properly understood, i.e. what we deserve for our sins. The Church
has a prophetic responsibility to call all to repentance, and if you
read the O.T. prophets, most of that message is Doom and Gloom. What
seperates us from those prophets is our sure knowledge of God's great
forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
--
Harry Edmon INTERNET: harry@atmos.washington.edu
(206) 543-0547 UUCP: uw-beaver!atmos.washington.edu!harry
Dept of Atmospheric Sciences, AK-40
University of Washingtongilham@csl.sri.com (Fred Gilham) (07/20/90)
Harry Edmon writes:
----------------------------------------
We have the duty to preach both the "Good News" (Gospel) and the "Bad
News" (Law). After all, the Good News is not "Good" unless the Law is
properly understood, i.e. what we deserve for our sins. The Church
has a prophetic responsibility to call all to repentance, and if you
read the O.T. prophets, most of that message is Doom and Gloom. What
seperates us from those prophets is our sure knowledge of God's great
forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
----------------------------------------
There are two issues here:
1) What is the law? I refer here to Jesus' answer to the scribe who
asked what the greatest law was: ``Love God with all your heart,
soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.''
It seems that a lot of the doom and gloom in the prophets was directed
toward specific instances of failure to do one or the other (e.g.
grinding down the poor, neglecting widows, sacrificing to idols etc.).
2) Where are we told to preach the law?
My experience these days is that it is almost impossible to talk to
non-Christians about sin(s) because they have such a misconception of
it. I find it much easier to talk about restoring a broken
relationship with the creator of the universe. The broken
relationship is manifested by the state of the world and the state of
one's life. The restoration is made possible by the death of Christ.
Seems that if something like this approach doesn't make headway, the
person is probably not willing to discuss it at the time.
My sister became a Christian through some talks we had. During these
talks, there was no emphasis on sin; her situation was such that no
such emphasis was necessary. She knew she was needy and that her life
was bankrupt. Several times she said, ``I can't make it on my own.''
This is the position people need to come to in order to receive the
gospel.
I am reminded of a James Thurber cartoon. There is a woman gaily
dancing, and a man with a collar and a bible saying, ``Unhappy
woman!'' I would repeat what I said in my previous post, that it is
the job of the Spirit to convince of sin. I have the feeling he takes
this job on himself because it is too dangerous for us.
What we can do is point out the consequences of actions; if you do A,
then B will happen. If this sort of thing gets done properly,
we end up gaining credibility. For example, Christians believe in
sexual abstention before marriage. Now, one of the big problems for
women in college is date rape. Seems like there is an obvious
connection; casual treatment of sex leads to casual treatment of the
sex object.
But the whole emphasis must be on the positive value of sex as the
means of expressing deep love. Simply saying that ``God forbids sex
before or outside of marriage'' will come across as a ``puritanical''
hangup.
I think one of the problems Christians will have to come to grips with
in the near future is the impact of the ``Post-Christian'' era on the
United States. There seems to be an increasing antipathy towards
traditional Christianity in our society. Besides this, virtually all
the mass media impart values that undermine the assumptions of
Christianity. I feel that in the next hundred years or so, unless
something drastic happens, it is likely that Christianity in the U.S.
will find itself in a situation a lot like that of Western Europe.
Then we will not have the comman Christian cultural basis to underly
our evangelistic efforts; instead we will really have to approach
things like Paul did, who to the Greeks became as one without the law
(though under the law of Christ). We will have to find the entry
points in our culture where the gospel can progress, without assuming
that people know what we talk about when we use Christian terminology
and jargon. We will have to be a lot more creative.
To me it's interesting to read about Paul's encounter with the
Athenians (Acts 17). He does issue a call to repentance from
superstitious idolatry, but there are two points to note. Most of his
audience would agree with him here, and he supported his points by
quoting the Greek philosophers (``We are all his offspring;'' ''In him
we live and move and have our being''). He only started to lose
people when he talked about the resurrection. To me, this is perfect.
We should never drive people away from Christianity for any reason but
that of Christ. There should be only one stumbling block in
Christianity. If people stumble over Christ, it can't be helped. In
fact, it means we're doing our job. But if they stumble over our
politics, or our morality, or our social class, it is a sad thing.
--
Fred Gilham gilham@csl.sri.com
So long as the heaven of THOU is spread out over me the winds of
causality cower at my heels, and the whirlpool of fate stays its
course. -Martin Buberjohnw@sag4.ssl.berkeley.edu (John Warren) (07/30/90)
In article <Jul.18.03.41.23.1990.15578@athos.rutgers.edu> harry@atmos.washington.edu (Harry Edmon) writes: > >We have the duty to preach both the "Good News" (Gospel) and the "Bad >News" (Law). After all, the Good News is not "Good" unless the Law is >properly understood, i.e. what we deserve for our sins. The Church >has a prophetic responsibility to call all to repentance, and if you >read the O.T. prophets, most of that message is Doom and Gloom. What >seperates us from those prophets is our sure knowledge of God's great >forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Well, we're not Jesus, but we are his body, and this is what he came to do: The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the opressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. As this was his first public appearance after his baptism, it seems reasonable to assume that this is a basic summary of what Jesus came to do. He says nothing about judgment; in fact, here he stops this quote of Isaiah right before the part about 'the day of vengeance.' We are Christ's body. It is therefore not our part to tell of the Bad News, any more than it was Christ's part to do so. Our message is of grace and peace, and as people come to know this grace and peace through their actions of faith (which are active believing in God's promises, supported by the confidence that his promises hold true), they come to know how far short of the mark they are. The Holy Spirit is the one to convict of sin, not John MacArthur, the Pope, or anyone else in the church.