The Gospel Coalition

Leaving Romania the first time after having moved there in the Fall of 2000 was difficult. I was eager to go back home and spend quality time with my friends and family. Yet, my heart was torn, because I had truly begun to feel “at home” in Romania. My understanding of God’s call to Romania during this season of my life was stronger than ever before.

Arriving back in the United States, I was surprised to encounter an unexpected case of culture shock. We were walking out of the Nashville airport and towards the parking garage and I noticed the sparkling clean, new cars in the parking garage.

So I remarked to Dad, “When did they start selling new cars near the airport?”

Dad said, “Trevin, that’s the parking lot!”

The cars were so new and clean, and they looked so expensive that I had automatically assumed it was a lot for buying new cars. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that I could be walking through a simple parking lot. Suddenly, I was awestruck by the wealth of my country.

If the unfamiliarity of poverty can shock a person, so can the unfamiliarity of wealth. After three months in Romania, I had become adjusted to the lack of wealth that I saw on a daily basis. Returning to America proved to be a culture shock in the opposite direction. Instead of being wowed by the poverty all around, I was incredulous to see the wealth of my own people.

During my first night back in the States, after I unpacked and settled into my room, I decided to go downstairs to get a glass of water. When I got to the staircase and saw our hall and foyer, it hit me again just how rich we Americans are. I looked at the beautiful staircase, the foyer, the banister, the front door, the hall, and then I remembered all the evenings spent at my Romanian village house. A family with three boys and a girl, just like mine. And somehow they manage to live, cooped up in a tiny three-room house with a kitchen. No bathroom, no shower, no running water inside at all.

Here I was walking down the stairs to a spacious kitchen to drink clean, cool water from the refrigerator, without effort. There on the staircase, my eyes filled with tears. I was so thankful for all that I had and for the life I’d been given. But my thanksgiving now included my times in Romania, experiences that had opened my eyes to see just how much I had been blessed.

Spending Christmas in the U.S. that first year was special. But I was excited about going back to Romania for the next semester. My church would be sending a medical and evangelistic mission team, and I was to help with the logistics of the trip. Also, I couldn’t wait to go back and continue the working in the village church and seeing the teenagers discipled. What I didn’t know was that I was coming up on a big disappointment. My honeymoon period in Romania was over.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2008 Kingdom People blog

“You give them something to eat!”
- Jesus to the disciples (Mark 6:37)

As the sun began to go down after a long day, the disciples realized that the thousands who had come to hear Christ teach were without food. To rid themselves of the problem they were facing, they recommended that Jesus send the crowd away to find food elsewhere. For the disciples, the people were a burden that they had to release themselves from. Jesus’ curt answer follows: “You give them something to eat!”

Many Christians view hurting and hungry people as a burden instead of a gracious responsibility. Christ has called us to love others in spite of the circumstances and to be willing to shoulder the load of reaching out to those hungry for God. Our duty as the body of Christ is to glorify Him by bringing His hope and gospel to a dying world, which means that we often must deal with the hard cases.

Putting this task on to someone else would be easier and thus make for a much more pleasant Christian experience – free of the pain of others’ heartache. That is precisely why Jesus tells us to provide the food. We are His hands in a hurting world.

Jesus was asking the disciples to do something that was practically impossible – to feed up to 20000 people (including women and children). Sometimes we feel that God is asking the impossible of us too – and He is. He wants us to try to move the mountain, so that we’ll realize that we must trust Him for the results.

Without faith it is impossible to please God. Christ asks us to help in His healing process for the spiritually malnourished, and this task requires His power. He calls us to do what we can with the little faith and resources he gives us, all the while understanding that He will be there to provide the miracle.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2008 Kingdom People blog

This Gospel of Jesus Christ which God sets forth in the infallible Scriptures combines Jesus’ own declaration of the present reality of the kingdom of God with the apostles’ account of the person, place, and work of Christ, and how sinful humans benefit from it. The Patristic Rule of Faith, the historic creeds, the Reformation confessions, and the doctrinal bases of later evangelical bodies all witness to the substance of this biblical message.

The heart of the Gospel is that our holy, loving Creator, confronted with human hostility and rebellion, has chosen in his own freedom and faithfulness to become our holy, loving Redeemer and Restorer. The Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world(1 John 4:14): it is through his one and only Son that God’s one and only plan of salvation is implemented. So Peter announced: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). And Christ himself taught: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

Through the Gospel we learn that we human beings, who were made for fellowship with God, are by nature—that is, “in Adam” (1 Cor. 15:22)—dead in sin, unresponsive to and separated from our Maker. We are constantly twisting his truth, breaking his law, belittling his goals and standards, and offending his holiness by our unholiness, so that we truly are “without hope and without God in the world” (Rom. 1:18-32, 3:9-20; Eph. 2:1-3, 12). Yet God in grace took the initiative to reconcile us to himself through the sinless life and vicarious death of his beloved Son (Eph. 2:4-10; Rom. 3:21-24).

The Father sent the Son to free us from the dominion of sin and Satan, and to make us God’s children and friends. Jesus paid our penalty in our place on his cross, satisfying the retributive demands of divine justice by shedding his blood in sacrifice and so making possible justification for all who trust in him (Rom. 3:25-26). The Bible describes this mighty substitutionary transaction as the achieving of ransom, reconciliation, redemption, propitiation, and conquest of evil powers (Matt. 20:28; 2 Cor. 5:18-21; Rom. 3:23-25; John 12:31; Col. 2:15). It secures for us a restored relationship with God that brings pardon and peace, acceptance and access, and adoption into God’s family (Col. 1:20, 2:13-14; Rom. 5:1-2; Gal. 4:4-7; 1 Pet. 3:18). The faith in God and in Christ to which the Gospel calls us is a trustful outgoing of our hearts to lay hold of these promised and proffered benefits.

This Gospel further proclaims the bodily resurrection, ascension, and enthronement of Jesus as evidence of the efficacy of his once-for-all sacrifice for us, of the reality of his present personal ministry to us, and of the certainty of his future return to glorify us (1 Cor. 15; Heb. 1:1-4, 2:1-18, 4:14-16, 7:1-10:25). In the life of faith as the Gospel presents it, believers are united with their risen Lord, communing with him, and looking to him in repentance and hope for empowering through the Holy Spirit, so that henceforth they may not sin but serve him truly.

God’s justification of those who trust him, according to the Gospel, is a decisive transition, here and now, from a state of condemnation and wrath because of their sins to one of acceptance and favor by virtue of Jesus’ flawless obedience culminating in his voluntary sin-bearing death. God “justifies the wicked” (ungodly: Rom. 4:5) by imputing (reckoning, crediting, counting, accounting) righteousness to them and ceasing to count their sins against them (Rom. 4:1-8). Sinners receive through faith in Christ alone “the gift of righteousness” (Rom. 1:17, 5:17; Phil. 3:9) and thus be come “the righteousness of God” in him who was “made sin” for them (2 Cor. 5:21).

As our sins were reckoned to Christ, so Christ’s righteousness is reckoned to us. This is justification by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. All we bring to the transaction is our need of it. Our faith in the God who bestows it, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is itself the fruit of God’s grace. Faith links us savingly to Jesus, but inasmuch as it involves an acknowledgment that we have no merit of our own, it is confessedly not a meritorious work.

The Gospel assures us that all who have en trusted their lives to Jesus Christ are born-again children of God (John 1:12), indwelt, empowered, and assured of their status and hope by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 7:6, 8:9-17). The moment we truly believe in Christ, the Father declares us righteous in him and begins conforming us to his likeness. Genuine faith acknowledges and depends upon Jesus as Lord and shows itself in growing obedience to the divine commands, though this contributes nothing to the ground of our justification (James 2:14-26; Heb. 6:1-12).

By his sanctifying grace, Christ works within us through faith, renewing our fallen nature and leading us to real maturity, that measure of development which is meant by “the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). The Gospel calls us to live as obedient servants of Christ and as his emissaries in the world, doing justice, loving mercy, and helping all in need, thus seeking to bear witness to the kingdom of Christ. At death, Christ takes the believer to himself (Phil. 1:21) for unimaginable joy in the ceaseless worship of God (Rev. 22:1-5).

Salvation in its full sense is from the guilt of sin in the past, the power of sin in the present, and the presence of sin in the future. Thus, while in foretaste believers enjoy salvation now, they still await its fullness (Mark 14:61-62; Heb. 9:28). Salvation is a Trinitarian reality, initiated by the Father, implemented by the Son, and applied by the Holy Spirit. It has a global dimension, for God’s plan is to save believers out of every tribe and tongue (Rev. 5:9) to be his church, a new humanity, the people of God, the body and bride of Christ, and the community of the Holy Spirit. All the heirs of final salvation are called here and now to serve their Lord and each other in love, to share in the fellowship of Jesus’ sufferings, and to work together to make Christ known to the whole world.

We learn from the Gospel that, as all have sinned, so all who do not receive Christ will be judged according to their just deserts as measured by God’s holy law, and face eternal retributive punishment.

- The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration

Come, my Light, and illumine my darkness.

Come, my Life, and revive me from death.

Come, my Physician, and heal my wounds.

Come, Flame of divine love, and burn up the thorns of my sins,
kindling my heart with the flame of your love.

Come, my King, sit upon the throne of my heart and reign there.

For You alone are my King and my Lord.

- Dmitri of Rostov

“The road to faith passes through obedience to the call of Jesus… Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes.”

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

I appreciate Collin Hansen for his book Young, Restless, Reformed, which helped me solidify my thoughts regarding the resurgence of Reformed theology among the younger generation. My celebration and concerns regarding this movement are included in this four-part series – an analysis of the promise and peril of the new Calvinism. Next week, I hope to have some time to post my reflections on the 2008 Together for the Gospel conference.

Reformed Resurgence 1: Calvinist Conversion?

Reformed Resurgence 2: John Piper

Reformed Resurgence 3: Southern Seminary

Reformed Resurgence 4: New Calvinists

Just a few more days before my interview with N.T. Wright regarding Surprised by Hope. If you haven’t yet submitted a question and would like to, email me ASAP.

Darryl Dash’s thoughts on Together for the Gospel. He has a list of things he liked and several things he wished had been part of the coference.

Josh Harris has the inside scoop on American Idol’s performance of “Shout to the Lord”

Ted Olsen at Christianity Today sums up the recent Compassion Forum, in which Clinton and Obama answered questions about faith.

Carl Bernstein writes about what a Hillary Clinton presidency would look like, and it doesn’t look good.

My, how things have changed in 50 years

Randy Alcorn on a new book for teenagers that challenges them to “Do Hard Things”

Is Jesus present in your preaching?

God doesn’t need your guitar on Sunday morning in order to be “relevant”

Collin Hansen has done an admirable job documenting the rise of Reformed theology among the younger generations. Those who see themselves as part of this movement will read Young, Restless, Reformed with delight. Those who are close to the movement (like myself) will discover reasons to celebrate and reasons to be concerned. Those who stand against the new Calvinism will find plenty of ammunition against the young and restless evangelicals.

I thoroughly enjoyed the chapters that recounted the Calvinism of C.J. Mahaney and Josh Harris. I am not a charismatic in any sense, but I have benefited from the worship music coming from the Sovereign Grace crowd. I read two of C.J.’s books (The Cross-Centered Life and Humility) and thought both of them were good. Then, I met C.J. personally and thought his books were great! Here is a man who lives what he preaches.

I appreciate as well the cautiousness of Mahaney’s charismatic worship. Whereas Piper has learned from Jonathan Edwards about the glory of God, Mahaney has leaned on Edwards for advice in navigating between the unbiblical excesses of many charismatic practices and the charismatic expressions of those gripped by the gospel of grace.

As I closed Young, Restless, Reformed, I found myself celebrating certain aspects of the Reformed Resurgence. I also found myself with a new concerns about the perils that this movement will face. Below are some of my main concerns.

1. Is Together for the Gospel a conference expressing our unity in the gospel of Christ? Or should it rather be called “Together for Calvinism?” After all, every speaker is a five-point Calvinist. Are we “together” and united for Calvinist soteriology or for the gospel of Jesus Christ? Many Calvinists seem to confuse the two. Calvinism is the gospel (or at least the highest expression of the gospel) for many of my Reformed friends. I beg to differ.

2. The Reformed Resurgence, by its very nature, waters down (no pun intended) the importance of baptism, and along with that, other important ecclesiological matters. Michael Horton (professor at Westminster Seminary in California) is quoted at length about the rise of Reformed theology. He is delighted at the rise of Calvinism, but he sees a problem with the lack of ecclesiological unity. Many Baptists would agree with him. Piper’s desire to open church membership to the unbaptized is a case in point. The very fact that some would express an intention to create a “Together for the Gospel” denomination or association underscores the lack of ecclesial accountability to this movement. For the most part, our denominations are with us on the gospel, even if our church people are not 5-point Calvinists.

3. I can see the blogosphere continuing to become a significant shaper of both the good and bad aspects of this movement. Like any medium, blogs can be used in good or bad ways. The danger of blogging is that blogs are, by nature, self-promoting to some extent (and I speak as one who maintains a blog… I am not pointing fingers). Bloggers can also spread divisive rhetoric, underhanded attacks on other believers and foster an atmosphere of rivalry and dissension – often without being held accountable.

4. Several times in Collin’s book, the people being interviewed talk about the fruit that is coming out of the new Calvinism. We’re seeing young people get saved. We’re watching the new Calvinists help serve the poor, work out in the inner cities. Collin seems to argue for the validity of Calvinism on the basis of how it is affecting outreach. Ironically, the Emerging Church does the same thing. Our theology must be right if it’s pushing us into greater discipleship and service! Not necessarily. I believe our actions do back up our theology, but we cannot assume that our fruit necessarily proves the validity of our theological positions. Taken to an extreme, this tendency of Calvinists to point to their fruit as the greatest evidence of the truthfulness of their theology is simply the flip-side of some Church Growth leaders who advocated change based on what seems to be working.

I mentioned yesterday the condescending, dismissive attitude that many of the new Calvinists seem to harbor against their local churches. We should learn from some of the humble Calvinists. C.J. and Joshua model the humility that should be true of all who truly believe in the doctrines of grace. Listen to Josh:

If you really understand Reformed theology, we should all just sit around shaking our heads going, ‘It’s unbelievable. Why would God choose any of us?’ Harris said. ‘You are so amazed by grace, you’re not picking a fight with anyone – you’re just crying tears of amazement that should lead to a heart for lost people, that God does indeed save, when he doesn’t have to save anybody.’ 

May this attitude of humility and grace characterize Christians everywhere, whether or not they consider themselves young, restless, or Reformed.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2008 Kingdom People blog

“The gospel is the good news of God’s saving activity in the person and work of Christ. This includes his incarnation in which he took to himself full (yet sinless) human nature; his sinless life which fulfilled the perfect law of God; his substitutionary death which paid the penalty for man’s sin and satisfied the righteous wrath of God; his resurrection demonstrating God’s satisfaction with his sacrifice; and his glorification and ascension to the right hand of the Father where he now reigns and intercedes for the church.

“Such news is specific: there is a defined ‘thatness’ to the gospel which sets forth the content of both our saving faith and our proclamation. It is objective, and not to be confused with our response. It is sufficient: we can add nothing to what Christ has accomplished for us–it falls to us simply to believe this news, turning from our sins and receiving by faith all that God has done for us in Christ.”

- Jeff Purswell

Continuing our series through Collin Hansen’s Young, Restless, Reformed, we turn to the chapter on Southern Seminary. Provocatively titled “Ground Zero,” Collin’s chapter on SBTS has already ruffled some feathers. The chapter deals with the Reformed Resurgence at Southern through the eyes of three Southern students, seminary president Albert Mohler, and then the backlash against Calvinism evident in the wider Southern Baptist Convention.

Collin describes the Conservative Resurgence at Southern before he shows how the Conservative comeback has morphed into a resurgence of Calvinism across the denomination. He then shows how many Calvinists are in between a rock and a hard place within the SBC. He tells the story of Steve Lawson, whose Dauphin Way Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama split over Calvinist teaching. He quotes Founders Ministry leader Tom Ascol on the Calvinists being forced into a “no-win” position. Collin does a good job of going back and forth between the opposing Southern Baptist views on Calvinism, moderating fairly between them as he makes his case for the Seminary being “Ground Zero.”

Celebration

Collin rightly notes how the Conservative Resurgence’s emphasis on doctrinal confessions necessarily led back to a resurgence of Calvinism at Southern Seminary. We can celebrate the fact that Southern Baptists are increasingly returning to their confessional heritage. The fact that many young Baptist pastors are reading and learning from our Baptist forefathers should cause us to rejoice. In order to know where we’re going as a Convention, we need to know where we’ve been.

The emphasis on evangelism is encouraging. Collin shows how influential some Reformed authors’ books on missions and evangelism have been. He shows how one Southern student won an evangelism award at Liberty University. He points to the number of Calvinist missionaries who are serving with the International Mission Board and the Calvinistic leanings of many contemporary church planters.

Compare the Southern Seminary of today with the Seminary thirty years ago and the reasons for rejoicing become clear. Southern now hosts a world-renowned faculty of conservative Bible scholars who believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, and who sincerely affirm the Abstract of Principles as a confessional guide. Southern has come a long way, and we can rejoice in the fearless leadership of Albert Mohler in guiding the Seminary back to orthodoxy.

Concerns

By only focusing on the Reformed resurgence at Southern, Collin does not do justice to the diversity among Southern’s faculty. I’ve written about the common misconceptions about Southern Seminary elsewhere, but some of the more important facts deserve to be mentioned again. Not one of the deans currently serving at the seminary is a five-point Calvinist. Calvinism is not the main topic of discussion at the seminary among students. Mohler’s focus is the gospel, not Calvinism per se.

Furthermore, the three students Collin highlights were all of Calvinist persuasion before coming to Southern. In other words, they came to Southern because they were Calvinists. They did not become Calvinists because they went to Southern.

Collin devotes several pages to telling Timmy Brister’s story. I sometimes wonder if Timmy Brister and I attend the same seminary. Collin writes about Timmy “giving seminary leaders an earful when they welcome chapel speakers who have elsewhere derided Calvinism.”

It saddens me that for some Southern students, inviting to chapel a Baptist brother with whom we share strong ecclesiological ties, but who doesn’t subscribe to Calvinist soteriology would be more controversial than listening to someone like R.C. Sproul or Ligon Duncan. Where is the ecclesiology in this movement? If we can learn from those who disagree with the Abstract on a doctrine as important as baptism, surely we can learn from someone who disagrees with unconditional election. There’s a double standard at work here. The Calvinists welcome paedobaptists to chapel, overlooking that ecclesiological difference. Yet they protest fellow Baptists who do not toe the line on Calvinism. Personally, I am thankful that Southern Seminary administrators have chosen to welcome a variety of godly Christian men to the pulpit with whom we might strongly disagree on certain issues, but with whom we share a strong commitment to the gospel.

Another concern that rises to the forefront in this chapter is in Steve Lawson’s story about Dauphin Way Baptist Church. Lawson, after two years of preaching at Dauphin Way still describes his former church as having a “biblical literacy” that was “amazingly low. Many people weren’t even bringing Bibles to church.” Two things bother me here: first, that two years into his ministry, Lawson still saw his church as biblically illiterate. Secondly, the ease with which Lawson speaks condescendingly of his former church. 

A common thread that seems to unite both the Emerging Church movement and the “young, restless, Reformed” crowd is that both seem to be most attractive to young, disaffected evangelicals. In other words, the same angst (some may call it “young” or “restless”) that drives one from his theologically-light home church into an “emerging” church is often the same attitude that drives one from his theologically-light home church into the Reformed camp. I cannot help but wonder if pride and elitism forms the foundation for many of the people in both movements.

Some of those quoted in Hansen’s book seem to have adopted a kind of dismissive, condescending attitude toward their home church—churches in which they were loved, heard the gospel preached, were saved, and discipled. Ironically, many of today’s restless Reformed students came to faith in the “biblically illiterate” churches they so quickly criticize. Instead of showing a humble appreciation for the local churches that nurtured them into the faith, some Calvinists return to their churches, armed and ready to “reform” their theology.

I pray that Southern Seminary will continue to be a light in an increasingly dark world. But this will only come about if those of us who believe in God’s unconditional, unmerited grace serve the church in humility. Satan would love nothing more than to have the arrogant snobbery of Old Southern’s liberalism turn into the arrogant snobbery of New Southern’s Calvinism.

Tomorrow, I’ll be back with some final thoughts on the rest of Collin’s book.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2008 Kingdom People blog