Moody No Other Gospel

31 Reasons from Galatians Why Justification by Faith Alone Is the Only Gospel
1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4335-2489-9
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 288 Seiten

As fallen human beings we are quick to deviate from the true gospel, for, as Pastor Josh Moody writes, 'we tend toward human gospels.' Believers must constantly battle to maintain the purity and simplicity of the gospel. Paul was acutely aware of this as he wrote his letter to the Galatians. He was writing to an established church-experienced believers who had started to slip in their gospel witness. Moody finds in Galatians particular relevance and parallels to many churches today. Stemming from a series of sermons delivered to his church, he examines thirty-one reasons Paul gives for this gospel. Moody writes this book with a pastor's heart, addressing important topics such as 'The Gospel Not Moralism' and 'The Use of Gospel Freedom.' Paul's message is foundational to the Christian faith, and thoughtful readers will benefit from Moody's exposition.

Josh Moody (PhD, University of Cambridge) serves as the senior pastor of College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, and president of God Centered Life Ministries. He was previously a fellow at Yale University. Josh and his wife have four children.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Moody, Josh

Leseproben

The God-ness of the Gospel

GALATIANS 1:1–2

In the heart of everyone lies an atheist. Not perhaps the kind that thinks in a strict literal sense that God does not exist. There may be some in church like that. When Christians gather, we are never to assume that all believe; rather, we are to hope that those who do not believe come so that we might present the truth of God in word and deed.

There may be some reading these words who struggle with the reality of God when difficult things are happening and times are tough. But the kind of atheist I am talking about, which lies in my heart and in yours, is the kind which believes not that God does not exist but that God is not able. We are practical, not theoretical, atheists. We come to church. We are busy in God’s work. We serve. We talk the talk; we even walk the walk. But we tend to act as if God and the gospel are not sufficient to achieve what needs to be achieved. We are people who have the gospel but for whom the gospel has become a starting point rather than the reference point for all our efforts. We are religious; we may call ourselves evangelicals, but the (that is, the gospel) does not impregnate every aspect of our theology nor every part of our lives.

In short, we are tempted to believe that what happens in church on Sunday morning is a human event. That is why Paul begins his letter with such a fierce denial—“not from men nor through man” (v. 1). As we notice that, we realize that straight away, unlike many of his letters, Paul seems to feel the need to begin by establishing his authority. Why does he do that? It is just one of the many puzzles that Galatians presents to the Bible student. But for all its complexity, and we will gradually unravel some of those knots together, Galatians is a book of fire and ice. It reminds me of the story of the young man who was first being set aside for the ministry. He was asked whether he was zealous. He said that he was but that he was not the kind of person who set the Thames River on fire. The man interviewing him said, “I don’t want you to set the river on fire. What I want to know is, when I throw you in will there be steam?”

Despite all the complexities in which Galatians has been tied up throughout the years of human interpretation, it still sets up steam whenever it is read. It, of course, was the book that really kicked off the Reformation. Martin Luther called it the love of his life; it was “Katherina Von Bora,” his wife. He studied it repeatedly and found in it the release of the gospel to free him from his legalism. It has done that to many another since. It was John Wesley who, through the reading of Luther’s preface to the book of Galatians, found that “his heart was strangely warmed.”

In fact, I think we may take it as a rule that Galatians is one of those books of the Bible that the Devil loves to try to blunt. It is a sharp sword, and my suspicion is that today as never before it needs to be unleashed to our world and to our church, yet scholars know that there are many head-scratching moments that it produces and that people ponder over. Our task will not be to enjoy scratching our heads together over its difficult bits but to clarify and then unleash. Like any part of the Bible, it does not need defending. “Defend the Bible,” Spurgeon said once, when asked about his approach to answering difficult questions of Scripture, “I’d sooner defend a lion.” As no other, this is a lion, and together we simply need to study it carefully so that we can clearly listen to it roar.

In this chapter we are dealing with just two verses, so we don’t need to tackle all the questions at once; these two verses will be quite enough for now. What I want us to learn here is that it is absolutely essential that we have our religious authority in the right place.

I’m a parent of three young children. Before I was a parent, there were certain things I thought I would never do as a parent. One was lick the corner of a handkerchief and wipe the face of my child. I remember seeing someone do that and thinking, . Another was resorting to the cop-out, “Because Daddy says so.” Why are we going to do this, why that? “Because Daddy says so.” But there are times when that assertion of parental authority is not only necessary but essential. “Don’t cross the road. There’s a car coming. Stop!”

That’s what Paul is doing. . In fact, the whole first two chapters of this letter are really taken up with Paul’s asserting his authority as an apostle. He interweaves complex doctrine, especially at the end of chapter 2, a long story about how he became an apostle, and about when he confronted Peter, and it’s all saying, “Not by man but by God.” Then in chapters 3 and 4 he outlines in more detail the message of the gospel as against those who had agitated the Galatian Christians with their message of the necessity of law. The agitators were saying that Jesus was not enough; you also needed lots of rules. Paul denies it there and explains why that is nonsense theologically as well as experientially. Then in chapters 5 and 6 he gets very practical and explains how his gospel (God’s gospel) actually does what the agitators said the law could do. His gospel reconciles. His gospel produces moral fruit. His gospel has the power of the Spirit and frees people from the bondage of habits that self-destruct.

Paul is saying, “You’re asking why. I’ve heard you’re off on the wrong track. Okay, I’m going to explain, but you’ve got to get this first, partly .” It’s a straightforward, bold authority claim.

I want you to understand from these first two verses, as we begin to get into Galatians together, that it’s very important that we have our religious authority in the right place. If we are crossing the road and about to get hit by a massive truck because we’re looking the wrong way, we need to have that voice say, “stop,” so he begins with this claim to his apostolic authority, “not.” What we need to learn at the outset is this: believe the message of God’s messenger. Paul gives us three reasons why we should do that.

Believe God’s Messenger Because God Sent Him

First, . “Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father”(v. 1).This looks like a traditional ancient greeting, but, like all of Paul’s greetings, this is the summary of the message of his letter. It’s like an e-mail heading: From, To, RE. This is what this letter is about. There are three practical implications for us.

1) . There is a unique aspect to Paul’s sending, which we will get to, but Paul’s conversion is also constantly used in Scripture as a model for what God can do. He was Saul. He was the religious terrorist. He was converted. He became a church planter and preacher, an evangelist and missionary. We are practical atheists if we limit God’s usefulness of us to our personality. God did not so greatly use Paul because he thought Paul had all the right credentials. It was not “Oh, Paul, he knows the Bible and has good connections; let’s get him.” No, it was the religious terrorist. How unlikely is that? God delights to take unlikely people and use them because then the focus is on God, not on the unlikely people.

I’ve heard Billy Graham preach live two or three times. I was never impressed with his rhetorical skills, but I was deeply impressed with the power of the Spirit. I’ve met powerful religious leaders, and then I’ve met the dear old lady with the faraway prayerful look in her eye. I know that “the friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him” (Ps. 25:14), and that the lady is moving heaven and earth for the Billy Grahams of the Lord. She will be at the front of the line to the throne of heaven. There are lots of talented people around church today, and I don’t despise that. We used to joke when I pastored near Yale that we were probably the Baptist church with the highest average IQ in America, and at the church where I worked in Cambridge, one practically needed a PhD to run the overhead projector. Fine, God can use our talents. He’s given them to us. But as soon as we think our talents are why God chose us, rather than that God delighted to use us, the chief of sinners, I suspect that God may begin looking for another weeping widow or broken man, for God raises up the humble, and pride comes before a fall. It is the Sauls that God makes Pauls. That is a statement of practical theism, not practical atheism.

2) . There are two kinds of apostles in the New Testament. There are the apostles of the churches, those sent by the churches for various tasks, and then there are the apostles of Christ, those sent by Jesus himself. Of course, Paul is claiming here to be the latter sort of an apostle of Christ. But where does this word come from? Some have said that it was a Jewish term used of an official position. That is ...