The Gospel Coalition

When asked recently about the reality of hell, N.T. Wright responded:

My usual counter question is: “Why are Americans so fixated on hell?” Far more Americans ask me about hell than ever happens in my own country. And I really want to know, why is it that the most prosperous affluent nation on earth is really determined to be sure that they know precisely who is going to be frying in hell and what the temperature will be and so on. There’s something quite disturbing about that, especially when your nation and mine has done quite a lot in the last decade or two to drop bombs on people elsewhere and to make a lot of other people’s lives hell. So, I think there are some quite serious issues about why people want to ask that question.

Having said that, I am not a universalist. I’ve never been universalist. Someone quoted a theologian saying, “I’m not a universalist, but maybe God is.” That’s kind of a neat way of saying, “OK, there’s stuff in Scripture which is a little puzzling about this, and we can’t be absolutely sure all down the line.” But it seems to me that the New Testament is very clear that there are people who do reject God and reject what would have been His best will for them, and God honors that decision. How that works and how you then deal with the questions which result I have written about at some length.

I don’t think myself that Rob Bell has quite taken the same line that I did in Surprised by Hope. I haven’t actually had the conversation with Rob since his book was published. So, one of these days, we will and we’ll have that one out. I do think it’s good to stir things up because so many people, as I say, particularly in American culture, really want to know the last fine-tuned details of hell. And it seems to be part of their faith, often a central part of their faith that a certain number of people are simply going to go to hell and we know who these people are. I think Rob is saying, “Hey wait a minute! Start reading the Bible differently. God is not a horrible ogre who is just determined to fry as many people as He can forever. God is actually incredibly generous and gracious and wonderful and loving and caring. And if you paint a picture of God which is other than that, then you’re producing a monster and that has long-lasting effects in Christian lives and in the church.”

A couple of things in response:

1. Asking the question behind the question is good, but not if it results in downplaying the importance of the question.

Wright asks “Why are Americans so fixated on hell?” in order to consider the context of the question. He implies that Americans may be asking this question because of deep-seated feelings of guilt for our economic prosperity or our nation’s foreign policy. I’m afraid this simply won’t work as an explanation. The U.K. was just as invested in the Middle Eastern conflicts as the U.S., and yet he claims he is rarely asked about hell in England.

Furthermore, the idea that only Americans are asking about hell seems reductionist. When I lived overseas, I discovered Romanians to be very interested in future judgment. Visit Eastern Europe, Africa, China, and other parts of the world where there is a strong evangelical presence and you will find people grappling with these issues. The fact that few in the UK ask Wright about hell says more about the paucity of evangelical witness in England than it does any lopsided obsession with hell in the States.

Frankly, there are other, better reasons behind the recent dustup over hell. We’re coming out of a decade or two in which some of the sharp edges of Christian doctrine have been blunted and softened. Much of American preaching has centered on practical ways to better one’s present life. Newer gospel presentations sidestep the question of hell altogether and focus instead on God’s calling us to join him in the mission life for this world now. We’ve been told that people aren’t that concerned about the life of the age to come (this, despite the number of books about heaven and hell that linger around the summit of the New York Times bestseller list).

Perhaps, the reason why the subject of eternal destiny has come roaring back is because people do indeed wonder about these things, the Bible does indeed speak to them (quite often, in fact), and people who read their Bibles regularly (evangelicals in the U.S.) can’t miss all the references to final judgment. Like Wright, we should indeed ask the question behind the question, but not if our intention is to downplay the importance of the question.

2. Hell is not merely the natural outworking on sin’s consequences.

I don’t like writing about hell. I don’t relish the thought of eternal condemnation. I’m not one who, in Wright’s words, is obsessed with who will be “frying in hell and what the temperature will be and so on.” My desire is to be faithful to what Scripture teaches and to represent Jesus as best as I can – even when Jesus challenges my own presuppositions and ideas. When I asked Wright about hell back in 2008, he said this:

In a sense, it is shocking and horrifying. Think about people we know! I’m sure most people, unless we live in very enclosed worlds, must know some people (if we truly hold to a theology of hell) who are going there! That should give us pause. That should cause us to pray for them and to weep over them. So I don’t say this with any relish at all.

I echo these sentiments and have had to fight back tears even while writing this blog post.

Despite the fact that the idea of eternal judgment is difficult to swallow, Wright is not a universalist. He believes that Christ will come to judge the living and the dead.

Still, I’m not sure Wright’s picture of hell does justice to the Bible’s description of “last things”. Following the thought of C.S. Lewis, Wright casts hell as the consequential outworking of sinful life patterns. Sin becomes its own damnation, leading to dehumanization to the point that an individual is beyond pity. Wright is putting forth a middle way between eternal conscious torment and annihilationism, but I think his proposal neglects the passages that indicate God will actively be involved in a sinner’s eternal destiny.

Hell is not just the natural outworking of sin. It’s also the active judgment of God. In Counterfeit Gospels, I write:

Though it’s true that condemnation is the consequence of our sinful choices on earth, it’s not enough to speak of hell as merely consequential. There are too many biblical passages that describe God as actively judging sinners… Surely this view of judgment is unpopular and has negative connotations. It may be hard to stomach. But if Christianity is true, we should expect it to confront our presuppositions and views at several points. This may be the place it hits us Westerners the hardest. In trying to make sense of the biblical portrait of eternal judgment, we are left with no other choice. As glorious and majestic as the New Testament portrayal of resurrection and new creation is, so horrific and terrifying is its portrayal of God’s wrath against sinners outside of Christ.

It is puzzling to me that Wright never shies away from the glorious implications of resurrection and new heavens and new earth, and yet in his writings, he seems to distance himself from the frightening implications of some of the descriptions of hell found in the New Testament.

3. I’m all for stirring things up, but what I want to see stirred up is urgency in calling people to repentance and faith.

Wright clearly doesn’t agree with everything in Rob Bell’s book. (I’d love to be a fly on the wall when he and Bell get together and talk about their differences.) And yet, Wright gives Bell a pass, saying it’s “good to stir things up” among those who think they’ve got hell down to the “last fine-tuned details.” He goes easy on Bell because he sees Bell as countering a common caricature of God as a monster and ogre.

Perhaps the caricature of “God as capricious monster” exists out there, somewhere. But I have yet to run across non-Christians who conceive of God this way. In my conversations with non-Christians, I am more likely to hear them articulate a vision of God that is held captive to Western notions of “love” (sentimentalism) and “fairness”. I don’t run across many people who are afraid of hell or final judgment. Instead, I see people who resemble those in Noah’s day, eating and drinking and marrying without any sense that judgment is coming.

There is certainly a caricature of hell that deserves to be attacked (hell as a torture chamber in the middle of God’s new world), but surely the more common error in today’s time is the absence of any notion that God would actively judge sinners. Rob Bell is only counter-cultural when it comes to the evangelical subculture he has riled up. Traditional evangelicals are the true subversives, swimming hard against the entire tide of our pluralist society.

Jesus didn’t “stir things up” by backing off the truth of final judgment. He stirred things up by reaching for the most gruesome, horrifying images imaginable in order to communicate the horror of God’s judgment. I don’t think “stirring things up” among those who think they have it all figured out is the best way to increase evangelistic fervor today. Instead, I want God to use what Jesus taught about hell in such a way that my own heart will be gripped by compassion for lost people, and that I will be bold enough to faithfully represent a Savior whose teaching is increasingly unpopular.

A few years ago, I volunteered to be a counselor at a youth camp. During the bus ride to camp, I had a conversation with one of the other counselors. She told me the story of how she came to faith in Christ. “I grew up going to Catholic school and church,” she said. “I knew who Jesus was. I had an awe and fear of God instilled in me. I believed that Jesus Christ died on the cross for the sins of the world.”

Then she stopped, her lip quivering, “But I never really understood that Jesus died for me.” She went on to tell me about how she attended a Christian concert where she heard the message of the gospel. All of her Christian knowledge about Jesus became personal. Her heart was captured by the glorious truth that Christ died for her ….

Interestingly enough, the summer in which I listened to this woman’s testimony was the summer in which I was having an epiphany that went the opposite way. Having grown up in evangelical churches all my life, I had always taken for granted the truth that Christ died for me. That truth was emphasized again and again, and it had gripped my heart long ago. What was becoming more glorious to me was the truth that Christ diedfor us. I was beginning to see in Scripture how Christ’s death purchased his church as a bride. Furthermore, this action for us was ultimately for God and his glory ….

I’m afraid we often take the glorious for me and separate it from the for us and the for God. We shrink the gospel down until it is a message about the individual standing before God that no longer contains the gospel community at the heart of God’s plan. Instead, we need to see the for me wrapped up in the for us, which is wrapped up in thefor God. It all goes back to God and his glory being made manifest through the church that he has bought with the blood of his Son.

Emphasize the for me to the exclusion of everything else, and you wind up with an individualistic message about personal salvation; the church becomes an optional side effect of the gospel message. Emphasize the for us and for God aspects of the message and you never bring the good news down to the personal level; you don’t challenge someone to trust in Christ …. Once you grasp all three aspects, your personal salvation story is given eternal significance because it is caught up in the great, unfolding drama dreamed up in the heart of our good and loving Creator.

- published first in Christianity Today, April 2011; excerpt from Counterfeit Gospels

Ed Stetzer continues his series on the Missional Manifesto. This post examines the Manifesto’s section on “the church”. I like this quote from David Fairchild, as it helps us see how the gospel announcement is inextricably tied to the gospel community:

“To have a gospel-initiative, it must be placed in the context of a gospel community. The world will know we are Christians not by our disconnected, loose affiliations for one another but for our love for one another in a radical gospel community. Without the church, the preview of the Kingdom and the witness of the truth claims of the gospel are lost.”

Atheists in the Foxholes—as Chaplains: Why the military’s inclusion of non-believing chaplains matters

To what hope can an atheist call a despondent corpsman? Will suggesting that the soldier is a mass of particles driven together by blind cosmic forces inspire confidence in the heat of battle? To the dying soldier, will the message that the strong survive and the weak pass away give parting comfort?

Gallup Poll showing 61% of Americans want all or most abortions to be illegal:

“Americans are rather conservative in their stance on abortion, with 61% now preferring that abortion be legal in only a few circumstances or no circumstances. By contrast, 37% want abortion legal in all or most circumstances,” Gallup analyst Lydia Saad writes.

Hunter Baker’s belated reflections on Lost:

I’ve just seen the entire run of LOST over the course of about two months.  It is time for a few reflections.  To those who intend to watch the show, stop reading now.  There will be SPOILERS.

Pray for the people of Joplin, MO.

In recent years, New Testament theologians have discussed and debated the meaning of pistis christou. There is no doubt that the Bible calls us to put our faith in Christ’s faithfulness for our salvation. Still, when it comes to specific passages, the phrase pistis christou is ambiguous. Should this phrase be translated as “faith in Christ” or the “faithfulness of Christ”?

The discussion was reignited thirty years ago with Richard Hays proposing that the translation “faithfulness of Christ” best represents the Apostle Paul’s doctrine of “participation in Christ”. To believe in Christ is to share in his faithfulness. Those who disagree with Hays worry that pressing the “faithfulness of Christ” interpretation could downplay Paul’s emphasis on the necessity of human faith as the response to the gospel.

The debate transcends denominational categories and theological camps. New Perspective proponent N.T. Wright prefers “faithfulness of Christ” while Wright’s NP counterpart, James D.G. Dunn chooses “faith in Christ.” There is a spectrum of opinion on the subject from all different directions.

For several years now, I’ve been mulling over this discussion, seeking clarity as to what Paul intended to communicate. Though I was never 100% sure of either option, I was initially attracted to the “faithfulness of Christ” translation for several reasons that I found compelling:

1. Translating pistis christou as ”faithfulness of Christ” avoids repetition in key passages.

• Romans 3:21-22 sounds odd if translated as “- that is, God’s righteousness through trust in Jesus Christ, to all who trust.” Could it be that Paul’s intention was “God’s righteousness through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, to all who believe”?
• Here’s a similar occurrence in Galatians 2:16: “And we have trusted in Christ Jesus so that we might be justified by trust in Christ and not by works of the law.” The repetition is avoided if understood as “And we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we might be justified by the faithfulness of Christ and not by works of the law.”

2. Translating pistis christou as “faithfulness of Christ” is theologically attractive.

• The theme of “union with Christ” is a powerful one in Pauline theology, and it makes good sense of a number of passages. For example, the KJV translates Galatians 2:20 with the subjective genitive: “The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
• When incorporated into Reformation categories of theology, “faithfulness of Christ” bolsters support for the doctrine of imputation. “We are justified by the faithfulness of Christ (his perfect obedience to the Father’s will, his faithfulness unto death on behalf of his covenant people).”
• Philippians 3:9 seems to put more emphasis on Christ’s faithfulness, rather than our faith, as the means of supplying our needed righteousness. “Not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through the faithfulness of Christ – the righteousness from God based on faith.” Anything that appears to give more glory to Christ is attractive to me.

3. The juxtaposition of Israel’s unfaithfulness (works of the law) and Christ’s faithfulness (through his death) provides a compelling interpretation of the key passages in Galatians.

• Ardel Caneday writes: “In Galatians, Paul’s argument features Christ Jesus over against Torah, with Torah in a servant role to Christ, as preparatory for Christ who has now come. Paul’s antithetical placement of pistis christou with “works of the law” / “law” placards the faithfulness of Christ Jesus who accomplishes what the Law could not.”

For a while, I leaned toward the “faithfulness of Christ” view, primarily because the reasons listed above. Still, despite the attraction of that translation, I have recently shifted in the other direction. Today, I am convinced that the New Testament authors intended pistis christou to refer to “faith in Christ” rather than the faithfulness of Christ. Here are the reasons that swayed me the other way:

1. None of the early church fathers or early Greek readers give a subjective genitive reading of pistis christou. In fact, the discussion doesn’t even come up.

• This reason is the most compelling to me. As a fluent Romanian speaker, I’ve observed quirky grammatical constructions that could possibly mean two or more things within the flow of the language. If Romanians, however, hear those grammatical constructions in only one way, then I know that I’m correct in translating the ambiguous phrase according to its unambiguous meaning in its original language and the receptor language. The same principle applies to native Greek speakers.
• Barry Matlock writes: “It is not that the subjective genitive reading is explicitly rejected among early Greek readers… but rather that no awareness is shown of this option nor indeed of any problem, and so the objective is read without polemic or apology. Silence can be very eloquent, and here it fairly sings.”

2. The “repetition” problem isn’t as big a problem as it first appears.

• In Rom. 3:21-22, Paul probably intends to place the emphasis on the “all”: -that is, God’s righteousness through trust in Jesus Christ, to all who trust.
• It is also likely that Paul uses repetition intentionally. In an oral culture, this is a common technique at getting across one’s point.

3. Grammatically, there are other places where the genitive refers to Christ as the object.

• In Philippians 3:8, Jesus Christ is described as the object of knowledge. In 1 Thessalonians, he is described as the object of hope. In both these cases, it is clear from the context that Paul is not talking about Christ’s knowledge or Christ’s hope. There is no grammatical reason why the same can’t be true of pistis christou.

4. We should not do exegesis with a bias toward “what is theologically attractive.”

• Though I love the emphasis the “faithfulness of Christ” view places on Christ’s obedience, I can’t let my exegesis be driven by what appears to support my theological position. The key issue is “what did the author intend to communicate?”, not “how does this boost what I already believe?”
• Regarding my thoughts above on Christ’s faithfulness to the covenant, I should reiterate that Paul’s emphasis on “faith in Christ” does not undermine the truth that God is the One doing the saving.
• Michael Bird writes: “Faith in Christ means entrusting ourselves to the event of the gospel, which includes the theocentric act of deliverance wrought by God in Jesus which includes his coming, faithfulness, death, and resurrection. Thus, I would say that Jesus’ faithfulness is implied not in the noun pistis but in christos.”

The more I study, the more I am convinced that pistis christou should be translated “faith in Christ.” What about you? Have you considered this debate? Which way do you lean?

(For more information on this debate, I recommend reading The Faith of Jesus Christ: Exegetical, Biblical, and Theological Studies. Also of interest, a post from Collin Hansen that summarizes the views of several New Testament scholars.)

A Letter to Harold Camping and Those Who Expected Judgment Day:

When you want to believe something, and someone you respect tells you to believe something, and everyone around you also believes and wants to believe the same thing, those are extraordinarily powerful forces. I wish that you had not believed in the May 21st prediction, because I fear that it damaged the credibility of Christians in the eyes of some.  But I see no reason now to belabor that point.  Rather, I hope you have grace with yourselves.  Those forces operate not only in religious groups.  They operate in political movements, activist groups, even in enclaves within scientific communities.

Artificial Light: How Man-Made Brightness Has Changed the Way We Live and See Forever

Our modern lives would be inconceivable without abundant, cheap electric light, which for more than a century has illuminated homes, streets, workplaces, restaurants, theatres, and stores, extending both our work and our leisure time. And although the illuminated city, and the glamour and liveliness of its nights, has come to define what it means to be urban and urbane, most of us almost never think about light, since however much of it we desire – often more than we need – is usually readily available at the flick of a switch.

Amyraldian Anglicans:

The gospel is offered to all because Christ died for all. The Arminian and Calvinist are right in what they affirm, but wrong in what they deny. The Arminian is right that Christ renders all people savable, but denies that he saves any. The Calvinist is right that God saves the elect, but speaks as if the atonement in no apparent way affects the savableness of others. The elect and non-elect are made savable by Christ’s death for humanity, but only the elect receive the necessary grace for the work of Christ to be applied to them.

Extraordinary Homemade Dams:

These homes in Vicksburg are all situated along the Yazoo River, a tributary of the overflowing Mississippi River, and their owners have surrounded themselves with tons of earth and sand.

From prayer that asks that I may be
Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee,
From fearing when I should aspire,
From faltering when I should climb higher
From silken self, O Captain, free
Thy soldier who would follow Thee.

From subtle love of softening things,
From easy choices, weakenings,
(Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the Crucified)
From all that dims Thy Calvary
O Lamb of God, deliver me.

Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire;
Let me not sink to be a clod;
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.

—Amy Wilson Carmichael

“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved and to be steady on all the battle front besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”

- attributed to Martin Luther, quoted by Francis Schaeffer in The Great Evangelical Disaster

Seven links for your weekend reading:

*** Moody’s contest for the iPad2 for readers of Counterfeit Gospels will be over soon. If you haven’t entered your name, you might as well. Nothing to lose!

1. Our church gave out copies of Alex Chediak’s Thriving at College to every graduating senior this year. I recommend you take a look at this helpful resource.

2. Fascinating article by N.T. Wright on translating the Bible

3. Jon Acuff on the plague of locusts that has descended upon middle Tennessee. Our yard has thousands of these beastly things, and the screeching is so loud in the late afternoon that your ears hurt. No joke.

4. Mark Noll: Cotton Mather Reassessed

5. An Atheist Icon? Social Conservatives Worried about GOP Ayn Rand Resurgence

6. Does Fair-Trade Actually Help the Poor?

7. Guilting vs. Glorying into Obedience

If you take a look at my sidebar and peruse my blog archives by month, you might notice something odd: there is no July for 2008, 2009, or 2010. The month skips from June to August each year. That’s because, for the past three years, I have spent the month of July away from social media and the blog world. 31 days without any blogging or tweeting or updating my facebook.

Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy blogging. I am continually encouraged that people find this blog useful. But my annual social-media break is beneficial to my soul.

Blogging is an act of stewardship, an act that is fraught with peril even as it is bursting with possibilities. One of the only ways I know how to check my heart and discern where blogging is potentially harmful to my soul is to get away from it.

But this year, things are a bit more complicated. I’m going to have to approach my annual “sabbatical” differently. First off, the number of people who visit and read this blog is twice the size it was last year at this time. In addition, a few months ago, I opened up the sidebar to sponsors/advertisers. Likewise, Kingdom People is available on Kindle for a small fee per month. It seems unfair to expect advertisers and Kindle subscribers to pay for a service if the blog goes quiet for a month.

I’ve considered foregoing my regular sabbatical. Why not just blog all through the summer? Frankly, I need the soul-refreshing time away from the blog world so I can focus on more important matters. I crave the silence of the summer that I have initiated here for the past three years. So what to do?

Here is my plan. First, I will re-run some older posts from my blog archive. Blogging is such a “what’s hot now” type medium that we can easily let helpful content from the past get buried in the avalanche of new information. I look forward to pulling out some older book reviews and articles, dusting them off, and offering them again during the month of July. (I can schedule them in advance, which still gives me time away from blogging.)

Secondly, I’d like to provide a platform for some other bloggers. By the end of June, I hope to schedule 10-15 posts from guest bloggers for the month of July. If you’re interested in submitting something, take a look at the following qualifications:

1. You must be an active blogger yourself. (I would link to your blog or website.)
2. You must be familiar with the Kingdom People audience and willing to write accordingly.
3. You must focus on delivering helpful, edifying content for the good of the church and the glory of God.
4. You must submit the guest posts to me by June 21.

If you meet these qualifications, then send me an email, tell me the subject you’d like to write about, and then we can discuss the possibility of collaboration. I dare say, the quality of blogging here at Kingdom People will rise during the month of July with the addition of some new voices.

About my daily “Worth a Look” posts, I haven’t figured out a solution for continuing that yet… I’m open to ideas!

Good words from a pastor: 10 Simple Things Good Pastors Say

Good words to a pastor: You Are My Pastor

Good words for a pastor: Preaching Living Water When Your Well Has Run Dry

Good words about a pastor: Ordinary Pastors, Part 1 – Called, Gifted, and Discouraged