Wilson Gospel Deeps

Reveling in the Excellencies of Jesus
1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4335-2643-5
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 208 Seiten

While pastoring for the past fifteen years, Jared Wilson has become known in contemporary evangelicalism for his passionate, gospel-centered writing and teaching. Following Wilson's well-received publication of Gospel Wakefulness, he writes Gospel Deeps as a 'next step' to establishing the need for astonishment, which begins by looking at the astonishing things God has done in and through Christ. Wilson holds up the gospel like a diamond and examines it facet by facet, demonstrating the riches of its implications. This book serves as a valuable contribution to the emerging canon of gospel-centered literature, in the spirit of John Piper's Pleasures of God and Tim Keller's emphasis on a 'robust gospel,' and continues in the glory-reveling legacy left by Jonathan Edwards, John Owen, and the like. The distinctiveness of Gospel Deeps is found in Wilson's winsome and frequently ecstatic writing voice, as well as his unique approach to showcasing the gospel's beauty.

Jared C. Wilson is assistant professor of pastoral ministry at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and director of the Pastoral Training Center at Liberty Baptist Church in Kansas City, Missouri. He is a popular author and conference speaker, and also blogs regularly at Gospel Driven Church, hosted by the Gospel Coalition. His books include Gospel Wakefulness; The Storytelling God; and The Wonder-Working God.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Wilson, Jared C.

Leseproben

Chapter One

THE GOSPEL DEEPS

“The things of the gospel are depths.”1
—Thomas Goodwin

On the face of it, the good news of Jesus Christ is simply one thing. It is the news—not advice, instruction, or practical steps—that God saves sinners through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Depending on who we might be sharing this news with, we might want to expand a few of those details, mentioning for instance that all men and women are sinners from birth, that Jesus was God himself incarnate in human flesh, that Jesus was (and is) the Messiah, that his death was a substitutionary sacrifice, or that the resurrection was a literal resurrection of a glorified body from a real death. Or we may want to add details in order to put the gospel announcement into the context of the biblical storyline. But the basic facts are there in that first statement—God saves sinners through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ—which expresses the simple gospel in a clear and concise way.

This simple gospel is power enough to save the most hardened sinner (which is every sinner). Salvation power is conveyed through the gospel message, and received to accomplish a sinner’s justification purely by a person’s faith, and Jesus tells us that just a mustard seed–sized bit of faith can move mountains (Matt. 17:20). Because of this, then, we know that it is not the size or strength of the faith that saves, but the truth of the faith, and because of that, we know it is not our power that rouses our dead heart to trust Jesus, but the Spirit’s power working through the gospel that is being believed. This gospel, Paul says, is the power of salvation for all who believe (Rom. 1:16).

In 1 Corinthians 15:3–4, Paul expresses the simple gospel message this way:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.

Paul goes on to relay more historical detail, telling us that Jesus appeared to Peter and the other disciples, then to a crowd of five hundred, then to the apostles, and so on. But the sum of the gospel message Paul is delivering as “of first importance” is contained in verses 3 and 4: Jesus died for our sins, he was buried, and he rose again on the third day. This is the historic news that is the good news.

Simple, isn’t it? But 1 Corinthians 15 is anything but simple. As we progress through it, we see that the effects of the gospel are far-reaching and creation-transforming. That the gospel would empower the all-time forgiveness of a person’s sins is enormous in itself, but there’s more. The rest begins with Paul’s crediting the grace of the gospel for doing his good works (v. 10). Then, Paul says, the resurrection of the glorified Jesus activates the future resurrection of all believers (vv. 21–23). Then, because the gospel of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection essentially declares that he is the Messiah, the gospel’s power includes the subjection and destruction of all other powers and authorities (v. 24). Finally, not even death escapes the power of the gospel, because by conquering death and the grave, Jesus kills death and the grave (v. 26).

Clearly the gospel is both simple and complex, elementary and advanced. But all of the advanced stuff won’t fit on an end zone sign at the Super Bowl, so John 3:16 works just as well.

I have heard it said that the gospel is shallow enough that it is safe for a toddler to swim in, yet deep enough to drown an elephant. We might also think of it this way: We teach our little ones how to read by first teaching them their ABCs. From there, they may move on to the basic principles of phonics. ABCs and phonics are scaled for little children to grasp the English language. But some people get advanced degrees in linguistics. Same category, different levels. The gospel is like that. The ABCs of the gospel work very well for people at all levels of their faith, including wise old pastors and brilliant theologians, but it’s possible to explore the ABCs into their inherent complexity.

Although a small child can learn the basics of the English language, many people will nevertheless tell you that English is not the easiest of languages to learn. In the same way, even the simple gospel can be seen less simply. Suppose we use the template “God saves sinners through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.” We could go point by point through that simple statement and find depth along the way. God saves sinners through Jesus’s life? How so? Suddenly we are talking about Christ’s active obedience, the tension of the incarnation, the reality of temptation and the reality of sinlessness, and the like. How does God save sinners through Jesus’s death? There is a wealth of truth there, and now we are on the verge of discussing the various theories of the atonement. And since the resurrection changes everything, we are ready to talk about everything when we get to it! What sort of salvation does Jesus’s resurrection enact for sinners?

What we are glimpsing now is how a wardrobe can contain a world.

When Jesus came, we got all of him. Not a bit of him was held back from us. John 1:16 says that what we get in the gospel is delivered from Jesus’s fullness.

The great practical help of this truth is that no matter the day, the circumstance, the sin, or the trouble, there is a grace in the gospel demonstrating God’s love for us and empowering us to glorify him. From his fullness, John 1:16 tells us, we receive grace upon grace. In the gospel there is grace for every need, because it comes through an all-sufficient Savior who is the God of steadfast love.

THE DEEP, DEEP LOVE OF GOD

We are in love with God’s love. Even non-Christians admire this crucial tenet of the Christian faith, and hardly an atheist exists who does not know both that Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors (Matt. 22:39) and our enemies (Matt. 5:44) and that God is in fact love (1 John 4:8). The weddings of thousands of unbelievers every year will include the so-called “love chapter,” 1 Corinthians 13. Love, we know, is the greatest of the things that remain.

Of course, the love of God is a fantastic place to start in doing gospel theology, which is why one of the first ways we teach the gospel to unbelievers or those immature in the faith is through a simple exposition of John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” But in all of this admiration, by believers and unbelievers both, it’s possible we have loaded into the biblical concept of love our preconceptions and presuppositions. It’s possible that in all this celebration of God’s love, we actually distort the full biblical picture of the love of God.

How great is the love of God? Very, very great. The Scriptures tell us that God’s love is steadfast, enduring, unceasing, separation-defying, everlasting to everlasting, and manifested in the inscrutable incarnation. We are told that God’s love controls us (2 Cor. 5:14), roots and grounds us (Eph. 3:17), and surpasses knowledge (Eph. 3:19). This is not the kind of love that can be easily captured in religious sentimentalism or humanistic altruism or even romantic emotionalism. This is a specific, personal love that accomplishes things—like saving sinners (Rom. 5:8), disciplining them (Heb. 12:6), and directing their paths (Ps. 25:10)—not a vague, ethereal, “love” that “makes the world go ’round.” When the Beatles sing “All you need is love,” everyone sings along in agreement, but not everyone knows that while God is love, love is not God.

In fact, one of the chief ways we distort the biblical picture of God’s love is when we presuppose, as many Christians do, that love demands freedom. Where we get this notion, I do not know, but it is not in the Bible. In fact, we find in the Bible quite the opposite: the love of God violates human freedoms constantly and consistently. If there’s one thing any biblical figure can count on, besides that God loves him, it is that he is not in control of his own destiny. The biblical picture of God’s love is bigger, stranger, and more complex than our misguided attempts to assist the gospel by anthropomorphizing God’s love. “What the Bible says about the love of God is more complex and nuanced than what is allowed by mere sloganeering,” D. A. Carson reminds us.2

Some end up sloganeering under the guise of finally doing justice to God’s love. The fashionable new waves of postmortem free will, universalism, and inclusivism allege that their views of the love of God are more reflective of the enormity depicted in the Scriptures. Instead, by carrying in philosophical presuppositions about what love must entail in order to be real love, and by seeking to commend the gospel by making this love appear as acceptable to as many people as possible, they take what is multidimensional and squash it out, in effect flattening the idea of God’s love like pizza dough in a pan in order to make it look bigger.

But the bigness and depth of God’s love aren’t captured in flatness. They are captured in something more complex, fuller.

What every believer in every age is challenged to do is resist the innate compulsion to flatten out the expansive love of God. Does love demand freedom?

Does love demand giving the loved what he or...