“The whole Christian gospel could be summed up in this point: that when the living God looks at us, at every baptized and believing Christian, he says to us what he said to Jesus on [the day of his baptism]. He sees us, not as we are in ourselves, but as we are in Jesus Christ.” – Mark for Everyone, pg. 4.
“The gospel itself refers to the proclamation that Jesus, the crucified and risen Messiah, is the one, true and only Lord of the world.” – from “Paul in Different Perspectives: Lecture 1””
“The whole Christian gospel could be summed up in this point: that when the living God looks at us, at every baptized and believing Christian, he says to us what he said to Jesus on [the day of his baptism]. He sees us, not as we are in ourselves, but as we are in Jesus Christ.” – Mark for Everyone, pg. 4.”
“The gospel itself refers to the proclamation that Jesus, the crucified and risen Messiah, is the one, true and only Lord of the world.” – from “Paul in Different Perspectives: Lecture 1”
“The idea of ‘good news,’ for which an older English word is ‘gospel,’ had two principal meanings for first-century Jews. First, with roots in Isaiah, it mean the news of YHWH’s long-awaited victory over evil and rescue of his people. Second, it was used in the Roman world of the accession, or birthday, of the emperor. Since for Jesus and Paul the announcement.”
“And in the middle of that, of course, it’s good news for you and me. But that’s the derivative from, or the corollary of the good news which is a message about Jesus that has a second-order effect on me and you and us. But the gospel is not itself about you are this sort of a person and this can happen to you. That’s the result of the gospel rather than the gospel itself.
It’s very clear in Romans. Romans 1:3-4: This is the gospel. It’s the message about Jesus Christ descended from David, designated Son of God in power, and then Romans 1:16-17 which says very clearly: “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God unto salvation.” That is, salvation is the result of the gospel, not the center of the gospel itself.”
NT Wright
15 comments:
Here's a hint: If your "gospel" relies solely on everybody's words but Jesus, perhaps it's not Jesus' gospel.
Person after person that you're citing here is making up extra biblical words or words that aren't Jesus'.
Look to Jesus.
Leaving aside that yours does the same thing. My point here is that your hunch about the singular definition of the gospel is not anywhere near universal.
To be clearer. I'm offering definitions of the term as a way to point out your nonstandard use of the term.
On this ONE point - almost uniquely and all your interpretations of my words in the last several months - you have correctly summed up one of our differences.
The definition I'm talking about the gospel, looking actually to Jesus words, IS different than what is typical in modern Evangelical circles. That IS a correct statement.
So, insofar as you read my words, understood them, and correctly stated a correct statement about them, congratulations.
But just like the old anabaptists broke away from the mainstream Church because they had wandered so far from the Gospel of Jesus as found in the gospels, so too, many today are looking at modern evengelicalism and saying, "?? WTF? That's not what Jesus said. Just as a point of reality."
The difference is, you're okay with a gospel that's different from anything that Jesus said. I'm not. We are not.
As the author of The following article illustrates, the problem that modern evangelicals have is they have goggles on that only allows them to see their views on the topic of salvation And when they read the Bible all they can see is that which validates their views and opinions. The Catholics don't agree with them and a good number of Christians today don't agree with that theory.
And it's easy to grow opposed to it, once we start trying to find a case for it in the words of Jesus, and find it thoroughly substantially absent. Indeed, I was thoroughly a supporter of PSA until I tried to find support for it in Jesus words. Taking Jesus seriously requires me to abandon that human theory.
A thoroughly biblical case against PSA...
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/emmahiggs/2016/04/a-thoroughly-biblical-argument-against-penal-substitutionary-atonement/
Aside from your passive-aggressive ad hom. You still have a huge problem.
By what standard do you assert that your hunch about your interpretation of some of Jesus' words is the only accurate one? Or. What makes your hunch more accurate than Peter, or John, or James, or Paul, or Luther, or Sproul, or Wright? To be clear, I'm not arguing that the fact that all of those people all disagree with your hunch as proof that they're right. I'm asking to to demonstrate why anyone should believe you over them.
The difference is that I'm not OK with a gospel that is different from anything Jesus said. I have a problem with limiting the gospel by not looking at everything that He and His closest followers said and did.
Your determination to falsely characterize my argument and argue against that false characterization almost makes my point for me.
In my view of the gospel, the concern for the poor (etc) is a part of the entirety of the gospel. I'm seeing a gospel that's expansive enough to encompass both spiritual deliverance from the effects of sin, as well as a "Love others as yourself" ethic. I have no desire to remove the second greatest commandment from the gospel. I also have no desire to allow it to supplant the first. You are blinded by your monomaniacal, myopic view of the gospel that shrinks it to merely works righteousness.
If that's enough to satisfy your limited view, then don't let me stop you. You go out and feed, clothe, and heal people to your hearts content. Just stop trying to pretend that your hunch about the gospel is exclusively the only correct one, and stop misrepresenting those of us who don't by your one dimensional, human focused gospel.
I'll note that in the entirety of my search of definitions of the gospel, I came across many more that substantially agreed with the ones I posted, I found absolutely zero that agreed with your hunch.
Not saying that numbers=right, but it is strange that you version is so underrepresented if it's right and all the others are wrong.
I should probably note that I'm not, and never have, argued that Penal Substitutionary Atonement is my definition of The Gospel. Nor have I ever argued that it is a 100% accurate and 100% Biblical doctrine.
But, nice job against something I didn't say. That's a great way to win arguments though. If you argue against something the other person didn't say, it's really easy to "win" or more likely to derail the actual topic off on a tangent.
I did skim the blog post and I'll note the following.
If she's accusing others of "pro PSA" goggles, she virtually admit's she's wearing "anti PSA" goggles.
Not to disqualify her but to point out that she's hardly not unbiased. Further, she doen't actually dig into the scripture she says is wrongly interpreted and offer an alternative "more correct" version. Finally, it's interesting that you'll pull out something you google searched and offer it as support for you position, when there are portions of her position that you've clearly disagreed with elsewhere.
Finally, she's clearly a progressive person (I hesitate to say scholar because I've seen no CV that would indicate that), so of course your going to find her views attractive. But, to make the leap that she's 100% correct on this issue is definitely not supported.
I don't know anything about the author, but there are plenty of us who grew up believing PSA and only changed our positions, NOT because we were opposed to PSA - since we already believed it - but because it was just so thoroughly anti-Jesus-ian and anti-biblical.
As I've noted on multiple topics, the more I took the Bible seriously the more I had to move away from traditional modern conservative Evangelicalism. Do you understand that your argument that we are progressive and thus, opposed to PSA because of that, falls apart in cases like mine where I was conservative and supportive of PSA? It was in no way the case, at least for me, that hostility towards PSA led me to find it lacking as a human theory.
So you’ve offered as proof of the correctness of your position a blog post by an author you “know nothing” about. That’s a bold move. You’ve certainly staked a lot on the title of her blog post.
As always you’re welcome to your opinion, I have no problem with you following whatever hunch floats your boat.
But none of that solves the problem that PSA isn’t the topic of this post and that I’m not (and never have) argued that PSA is the 100% official, Biblical position.
You trying to steer the topic towards your opinions about one of 4 theories of the atonement is not dealing with your claims about “the gospel”.
But if arguing against a position that I don’t hold and that isn’t necessarily wedded to the definition of The Gospel is how you want to waste your time, I can’t stop you.
If your going to characterize “my argument”, you should probably read it first, then ask questions if you don’t understand.
All I was doing was applying the argument made in the blog post and applying it equally to both sides. This is what happens when you throw out a blog, by someone you “know nothing” about, and don’t read it.
FYI. I’d love to dissect the blog post. But it has virtually nothing to do with the topic at hand and simply encourages your delusions that I’m a rabid PSA zealot.
Dan believes PSA is both unBiblical and unJesus. But he himself states that Jesus does indeed make reference to it. Dan has this problem with the Word of God, insisting that He must say something over and over and over again for a believer to abide it. For others, that God/Jesus said anything at all, even if only once, is good enough.
As to PSA being unBiblical, this is patently absurd. From the Fall of Man, everything leads up to Christ's sacrifice on our behalf. All sacrifices were worthless except as symbolic of what was to come...what HAD to come...in order that we might be saved and allowed into the presence of God someday. We deserved God's just punishment for our sin, and only God could come between it and us, which He did by becoming man to intercede...to become "the Lamb of God", a clear reference to His substituting Himself for us to appease God's righteous and just wrath. In that sense, the Bible IS proof of PSA as true and the Good News.
In the meantime, those like Dan put their own spin on what "the Good News" is in order to provide for themselves liberty to dictate terms, especially with regard to behaviors they find were "unjustly" denied us by God Himself. If we but spend our time focused on the well-being of the "poor and marginalize"...that special group of innocent and perfect individuals without blemish...then our works-based concerns will buy us a place in Eternity.
Art, I agree that Dan has to explain away some sayings of Jesus to completely make his case. I agree that it’s hard to completely remove some aspects of PSA from the words of Jesus and those who knew Him best.
Having said that I think that PSA isn’t critical to this conversation.
Dan has made claims about what specifically constitutes “the gospel “. To divert the discussion away from his claims and the fact that he’s a serious outlier into a discussion of PSA only helps him move away from the problems he has with his claims.
If you want to go down that road, feel free, I’m just hoping we can get back to the actual topic.
It the topic is about the Gospel...the Good News...I think PSA is relevant, in that it describes, or "labels" the crux of that Good News.
I’m not saying it’s totally irrelevant to the overall big picture of the gospel. I’m saying that in this case it’s s way to move away from Dan demonstrating why his version of the gospel is the objectively correct hunch.
What he’s trying to do is divert from the difference between his limited, myopic gospel and a broader more fully realized Gospel. It’s him arguing against a straw man and I’m not willing to be his enabler.
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