“A place to Stand, a Place to Run To: in search of Paul’s Gospel” (Grace Montreal Church: Sunday, July 22nd, 2018: Romans 1.1-17; Philippians 3.4-14)
Is there a meaning on this hill? Almost 2,000 years ago, on a hill outside of the capital city of the
Roman province of Judaea, a blue-collar worker from the tetrarchy of Galilee
(i.e. a nobody) was crucified – along
with two other brigands – on a charge of political sedition (i.e. defying the
empire). In the eyes of the world at
that moment, what happened that day was a non-event – it definitely wasn’t “gospel”.
The word “gospel” was actually a common word in the world of the New
Testament; it was not invented by Christians (from a pagan background; Jews had
a biblical concept of “gospel”: Is. 52.7).
“Gospel” meant “good news”, “worthy
of the front page”. Even the close
friends of the executed man were so scared of sharing his fate that they were
holed up in a locked apartment.
Fortunately, a sympathetic member of the Jewish Supreme Court took it
upon himself to give the condemned man a decent burial, and in this way averted
the further degradations that usually awaited crucifixion victims – that is to
say, their corpses were often left hanging on their crosses to serve as carrion
for the vultures and wild dogs. Indeed,
there was absolutely no reason for anyone outside the circle of this man’s
friends to take notice of this tragic but all-too-common happening. Not only was Yeshua/Joshua the equivalent – at
the time – of “John” among men’s names in today’s western world, but the fact
that the Romans crucified thousands of young Jewish men between the 1st
century B.C. (when they first annexed
Palestine) and the 2nd century AD (when they crushed the 2nd Jewish revolt and exiled almost
the entire population) added to the “anonymous” nature of this event. Some guy named Joshua got crucified? Well, the sun rose this morning, didn’t
it? What’s the big deal?
The turning point of world history.
The fact that we – along with over 2
billion other inhabitants of this planet – know who this man was is evidence that his death did mean something
after all. This morning, we’re going
to discuss the meaning that one first-century Jewish man gave to the
crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth – you guessed it, it’s Paul. But before we talk about Paul, let’s back up
a bit. Why did anyone – even the members
of Jesus’ inner circle – give any
meaning to his death besides that of “an empire’s got to do what an empire’s
got to do”. The obvious answer is what happened on the third day after the
crucifixion. Jesus’ resurrection from
the dead demonstrated to his disciples that there was more going on with Jesus
than they had previously supposed. But
still, the question remained – even for those who had “believed” in Jesus and
who had followed him from Galilee to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of
Passover – what did these two events
– this brutal public execution of an innocent man followed by his “rising from
the dead” into a state of bodily immortality – mean? Was it just the case
that a certain 4-letter word beginning with “sh” and ending with “it”
happens? Or was there more to it?
Obviously, those early followers of Jesus believed that there was a lot more to it – that’s why
some of them proceeded to write the documents that we now call the “New
Testament”. The NT authors tell us what Jesus’ death and resurrection mean. For them, the cross and resurrection of Jesus
were not only news-worthy events, but
– here’s the strange part – the NT authors also believed these (apparently) tragic and (definitely) strange events to be “good” news (i.e. “gospel”)! And yet – and this is where things are going
to get interesting – our understanding of
the cross and resurrection often don’t match that of the NT writers. This sometimes becomes especially (and
painfully) obvious when we try to “evangelize” someone, to share “the gospel”
with people (assuming, of course, that we are
trying; Paul himself said that it’s better to talk inadequately about Jesus
than not to talk about him at all: Phil. 1.15-18).
New(s)?
I don’t know about you, but I was born into a (fervent) evangelical
family. I’ve gone to church all my life;
I’ve been involved in “ministry” of all kinds for half of my life; I’ve been
studying theology for almost the same amount of time (i.e. way too long) – I’ve seen it all and heard it all and read
it all… How can people like us possibly
learn anything fresh about our faith
and about the Bible, after so many years of church attendance, after hearing
(perhaps, suffering through) so many sermons, after having done so much Bible
reading, etc.? Well, let’s see…
Story interpreting story. The first Christians told the story of Jesus
(i.e. “the gospel”), not as being some random event which for some reason was
necessary in order to get certain people into heaven, but rather as being the
fulfillment of another story – the story
of Israel, i.e. the long saga beginning with Abraham (20th
century B.C.) and stretching all the way to their own time (1st
century AD). As we see in the Emmaus
Road story in Luke’s Gospel, where the risen (but incognito) Jesus takes a walk with two disciples on Easter day and
explains to them that the death of Jesus of Nazareth (just imagine Jesus
talking about himself in the 3rd person) “had been spoken about” in
the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms (cf. Lk. 24.25-27, 44-49). Luke tells us: “He interpreted to them the things about himself in all the
scriptures” (24.27)[1];
Luke has Jesus say: “everything written
about me…must be fulfilled” (24.44).
Incredible! In light of the resurrection, a whole new way of reading the (Hebrew)
Bible was required. This is where the story had been going all
along! Who could have guessed? As one NT scholar (N.T. Wright) puts it: “God
had done, in a totally surprising and unexpected way, what he had always said
he was going to do”. It is in light of the entire Old Testament story – not
simply that Jesus “fulfilled” a few random prophecies, a few verses picked here
and there from the Bible – that the NT authors interpreted the meaning of
Jesus’ death and resurrection. So, have you read your OT lately? That’s
the challenge, if we really want to understand what the NT is saying. This shouldn’t be controversial; we are evangelicals, after all. Bible reading is 2nd nature for
us, right? However, as Bible-loving Christians, we have often read the NT, not in
light of the OT story, but in light of a
different story. The story
within which we have often read the NT is the story of how I get to heaven, of
how I “get saved”, of how I get “born again”, or, at the very least, of how I
plan to avoid hell, etc. Please don’t panic! God willing, we’re going to see how this all
works out as we go along this morning.
MUSICAL INTERLUDE – THE CROSS & THE LOVE OF GOD
A “ruined” life. We’re going to shift gears slightly at this
point and consider the effect of the cross in the life of a 20th-century
person, as opposed to a 1st-century one. A “kindred spirit” for me in my struggle to
better understand and articulate “the gospel” is Rich Mullins (1955-97), who – surprise! – was not a theologian, but rather a singer/songwriter who wrote, among
dozens of others, the song “Awesome God”.
Rich suffered a tremendous amount of spiritual and emotional anguish
during his not quite 42-years-long life.
And yet, 20 years after his death, Rich is still having a tremendous
impact on people though his writings and especially through his music. The
purposes of God continue to go forward in spite of – no, scratch that – because of all of Rich’s pain. Brennan Manning (1934-2013), an evangelist
and a close friend of Rich’s, said this about him: “Jesus of Nazareth ruined Rich Mullins’s life. And out of the ruins he recreated a
ragamuffin of startling originality; no human being who has crossed my path
even remotely resembles him”.[2]
Song.
We are now going to listen to one of Rich’s songs, called “A Place to
Stand” (1986)[3]. Rich wrote this song as a love song (for a girl that eventually turned down his proposal
of marriage); be that as it may, I think the lyrics are very relevant to our
daily reality as followers of Jesus.
There’s a lot of things working against us – besides all the junk that comes with just being human, we – as
Christians – are called to demonstrate to the (hopefully watching) world a new way to be human; Jesus calls us to
follow him, and we’re trying to figure out just what that means and how that
works. And while we’re trying to take
all this on, there are people, as well as spiritual forces, who are actively
and (often) intentionally working against us and trying their best to make us give up. Satan doesn’t so much want to destroy us as he just wants us to give up following God’s plan for our lives. Remember when someone said the following to
Jesus: “Lord! God forbid you should
be crucified! This must never happen to you!” (cf. Mt. 16.22-23)? Even well-intentioned friends can trip us up
as we try to follow the path God has laid out for us. Satan doesn’t care what we do with our lives,
as long as – to quote John Piper – we waste it. On the cover of Piper’s book entitled Don’t waste your Life, there is an image
of Jesus on the cross – the picture says it all. Following Jesus means changing our definition
of success.
There’s a lot of things working
against us, But we know we can’t lose – as Jesus followers, we have been
caught in – what Rich Mullins called – “the reckless raging fury that they call
the love of God”[4]. Nothing, as Paul told the Christians in Rome,
can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (cf. Rm.
8.38-39). Through the death of Jesus on
the cross, the Creator has won the victory over sin, death and every force of
evil. The battle has been won, we belong
to the champion and nothing can change
that. No hurt, pain, brokenness,
illness, disappointment, adversity, persecution – not even death itself can do anything to change the fact that we belong to the One who
loved us to the point of fighting (to the death) our battle on our behalf – the
battle that we could never hope to win on our own.
There’s a lot of love locked up inside of us,
that we’re learning to give – we were
loved into existence. Over and above the
love that our parents might or might not have had for each other, God loved us even
before we were conceived (cf. Ps. 139).
We were created to be loved and to love.
Easier said than done. A big part of the Christian life is learning how to do the following three
things: how to accept the fact
that God loves me, as I am, now –
before I’ve done anything in response
to his love; how to respond to God’s
love with my entire being over the course of my entire life; and how to love others unselfishly. If we do those things, the words spoken by Jesus
to a certain lawyer also apply to us: “You shall live” (cf. Lk. 10.28); in
other words, you will not waste your life. We’re all aware that we need love, but we
have a lot of trouble both recognizing real love and truly loving others. My prayer is that as we reflect on Paul’s
gospel this morning, we will catch a glimpse
of the reality of the love of God, as it was demonstrated in Jesus.
We need a place to run to and a place to stand – “safe places” are now a thing.
Over and above the need for a place to “hide” when we feel overwhelmed
with anxiety is our need for a place
where we know that we are on solid ground, where we are in touch with truth,
with reality, with love. We need a place
to stand, which may or may not turn out to be a “safe” place, but a place where we know who we are and what we
are called to do, a place that gives us assurance of our ultimate future. I propose that for the apostle Paul, that
place where he could “stand” was at the
foot of the cross. As Paul imagined
himself standing below Jesus as Jesus was hanging, helplessly attached to that
instrument of torture, Paul discovered who
the true God was, that this God loved
him (as well as the whole world) and that he was called to be an agent of this God’s love in the world. Nothing
easy about that. For us Christians, the cross of Jesus (re)defines love. Paul’s
gospel is all about the love of God,
revealed supremely in the death of Jesus of Nazareth on a Roman cross, and
that Jesus’ embracing of the vocation to incarnate
the Father’s love cost him everything –
it “ruined his life”.
Paul wrote to the Christians in
Corinth and told them this:
“Let
me remind you, brothers and sisters, about
the good news which I announced to
you. You received this good news,
and
you’re standing firm on it,
and you are saved through it,
if
you hold fast the message I announced to
you”
(1
Cor. 15.1-2: Kingdom NT).
So, the title of today’s
sermon is brought to us by Rich Mullins
& the apostle Paul – we “stand” on
the gospel, i.e. on the message that Paul proclaimed to the Corinthians
centuries ago and proclaims again to us, today.
SEEKING TO DEFINE THE “GOSPEL”
Jesus’ “gospel of the kingdom”. So, what exactly does the word
“gospel” mean? “Gospel” is a buzzword,
and it’s extremely easy to fill it with all kinds of content that wasn’t
intended by the NT authors themselves.
You only have to read 4 chapters into the NT before stumbling across
this (in)famous word: Matthew’s “Gospel”, i.e. his book about Jesus, tells us: “Jesus went throughout Galilee…
proclaiming the gospel (euangelion) of the kingdom…” (Mt. 4.23). So Jesus himself preached … “the gospel”? What
was the content of Jesus’ gospel? Well, Matthew told us that Jesus proclaimed
the gospel “of the kingdom”. “Right”, we
think, “Jesus was preaching the message about how to get into the ‘kingdom of
God’ i.e. ‘heaven’ (after you die)”. Wait a minute though; what did Jesus say
2 chapters later? Jesus taught his
disciples (that’s us) to pray this
way: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name; Your kingdom come…on earth
as it is in heaven” (cf. Mt. 6.9-10). In
the “Lord’s Prayer”, Jesus has turned our
eschatology upside-down. It’s not
about escaping earth and going to heaven; it’s about (the kingdom of) heaven
coming to earth (cf. Rev. 21.1-5). What’s more, the coming of the kingdom of God
to earth can never be limited to my life (or “my heart”) as a Christian
individual, or the life of a local church
community, or even to the Church “universal”.
The prayer for the Father’s kingdom to come is a request that – in the
words of a theologian who was also the prime minister of the Netherlands (Abraham
Kuyper: 1837-1920) – every “square inch”
of creation submit to the authority of its Creator. And by praying the Lord’s Prayer, we are signing ourselves up to be participants in
the realisation of the prophet Isaiah’s dream that: “the earth…be full of the
knowledge of Yahweh as the waters cover the sea” (cf. Is. 11.9). So, according to Jesus, “the gospel” is not about me getting to heaven; it’s all
about the “reign of heaven” (i.e. the kingdom of God) coming to earth, starting with my life. As another NT scholar (Michael Bird) put it,
“Some gospel presentations give me the impression that God is either some kind
of self-help therapist who wants me to feel better about myself or else is much
like the leader of a cult who promises to transport his adherents to the far
away planet “Blisstonia” on death.” As
we’ve already seen, (God’s love revealed on) the cross is on a whole different
level from “self-help therapy”.
The ruined life of Paul. So, Jesus preached the “gospel of the kingdom”; what kind of gospel did Paul proclaim? Indeed, if Saul of Tarsus (as he had been formerly
known) had been an extremist Pharisee, willing to go to any lengths to defend
his Jewish faith from all threats, Paul the apostle of Jesus was no less extreme. Once Jesus had “ruined his life”, Paul was all
in – he laid everything on the line in the attempt to (literally) spread
the “gospel” of Jesus “to the ends of the earth”.
It’s a wonderful life. Rich Mullins, Jesus & Paul – three men
whose lives were “ruined” by the love of God.
Wait a minute! That can’t be right! What’s the first of Bill Bright’s 4 spiritual
laws? “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”. I’m sorry – perhaps some here today became
Christians as a result of having read a tract entitled “The 4 spiritual laws”;
I sincerely apologize, but my feelings of remorse are in no way going to stop me from doing what I’m about to do. This morning, I am totally going to deconstruct Bright’s first spiritual “law” (falsely
so called). And I’m going to use the Bible to do it. There, you’ve been warned. I mean, can you possibly imagine Jesus, in
the Garden of Gethsemane, on the eve of his crucifixion, praying: “Father, um, remember
that wonderful plan you had for my life? …”
Of course God loves us. Of
course God has a plan for each one of our lives. There’s absolutely
no doubt about that. But here’s the
thing – at the end of the day, it’s not
about me and it’s not about you; it’s
all about …God, God and his purposes, his plans for us, yes, but firstly for his world. God
has saved us so that we can partner with him in his purpose of bringing
salvation to the entire creation. That’s the way it was for Abraham: “I will
bless you”, God told Abraham (great!),
“and you shall be a blessing for all
the nations” (cf. Gn. 12.1-3) and that’s
the way it is for us. God has a plan
for his world and he has a role for each one of us to play within it. God does indeed have a plan for each one of our
lives. However, it might turn out that
God’s “wonderful” plan for me may NOT involve me living the American
dream. Am I OK with that? Can I (honestly) say “Not my will, but yours
be done”? (Heavy stuff for a summer
Sunday morning… the truth ain’t easy, but
it’s worth it).
New law. So what can we salvage from Bill Bright’s
first “spiritual law”? It would be easy
to paraphrase the first “law” as follows: “God loves us and has a plan for our
lives that involves ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’”. Rather, I propose the following “amendment”
of this “law”: “God loves us and has a plan for our lives that involves
eternal, divine life, liberty from ourselves and the pursuit of holiness”. If we go out on the street and tell that to people as opposed to the
“wonderful plan” stuff, we might get fewer converts, but the converts we do get will have less of a shock when they come to
church and start hearing sermons telling them that the “wonderful plan”
involves stopping extramarital sex,
pornography, alcohol abuse, hatred, anger, jealousy, retaliation against
enemies, selfishness, etc. and starting
marital fidelity, single abstinence, self-control, peacemaking, loving your
enemies, giving your lives (and your money) away, etc.
There was a
famous doctor in the 2nd Century whose name was Galen. In his book
on Plato’s Republic, he made an
interesting comment about the Christians with whom he was in contact. In his book, Galen said he knew two (to him,
equally weird) things about the Christians: they believed in the resurrection
of the body, and they didn’t sleep around.
Of course, for Paul, that would have made perfect sense; he told the
Corinthians: “The body is meant not for fornication
but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also
raise us by his power” (1 Cor.
6.13-14). Since, at the return of
Christ, our bodies will be resurrected to share in the bodily, immortal, glorified reality of Jesus’ resurrection,
what we do with our bodies now
matters. Salvation is not a one-time
deal. Some people write the date of
their “conversion”, “being born again”, etc. inside their Bible. There’s nothing wrong with that. But let’s not assume that just because we
made a commitment at some time in the
past to follow Jesus, we don’t have to “confirm” that commitment on a very
regular basis. As Paul had reminded the
Corinthians of the good news “through which… they were being saved, if they held firmly to the message that Paul
had proclaimed to them” (1 Cor. 15.2).
Paul’s gospel about the Son of God.
OK, OK – so what was Paul’s “gospel”?
·
Our text today was written
after Jesus had been busy ruining Paul’s life for about 25 years: Romans
1.1-17
Content. A lot of people read the first 15 verses of
Romans very quickly, in order to get to verses 16-17, where, it’s commonly
believed, we get to the centre of what Paul’s “gospel” is all about: “in the
gospel the righteousness of God is
revealed”. “The righteousness of God” –
this is the theme of Paul’s letter to the Romans. There’s a lot of debate about what this
concept means (Here we go again. I know, I know,
but wrestling with the meaning of biblical words – especially those words that
express the very core of our faith –
is a non-negotiable. It’s a bit scary
sometimes to realize that “I’ve always ASSUMED that I knew exactly what these
words meant, but now… I’m not so sure.” Once again, let’s remind ourselves that the very fact that we’re trying to
figure this stuff out is a sign that we have already been caught in the “reckless, raging fury that they call
the love of God”. God’s got us. It’s OK. But we
still have to struggle to understand God’s word…). “The righteousness of God” – there’s a
consensus now among NT scholars that this refers neither to something God gives us (e.g. moral
uprightness, holiness, etc.) nor to God’s
“moral quality” (i.e. his
holiness). Rather, the “righteousness of
God” refers to God’s faithfulness to the
promises he made (first) to Abraham (when he established a covenant with
him) and the promises that he made to his
covenant people Israel during all of the 20 centuries between Abraham &
Jesus. There we are: Paul gave
meaning to Jesus’ death and resurrection by understanding these events in
light of the biblical story of Yahweh & Israel. God’s “righteousness”, i.e. his
covenant-faithfulness, was revealed in “the gospel”. So!?
What exactly is Paul’s gospel?
Quadripartite proclamation. To discover the precise content
of Paul’s “gospel”, we need to look closely at the first 4 verses of
Romans. “The gospel of God, which
he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the
gospel concerning his Son…” (vv.
1b-3a). Paul is setting us up for the
knock-out punch (here it comes): “his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was
declared to be Son of God with power according
to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord” (vv. 3b-4). There it is! This
is the content of Paul’s “gospel”. When he had written to the Corinthians, Paul had
defined his “gospel” this way: “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and…he was buried, and…he
was raised on the third day in accordance
with the scriptures” (1 Cor. 15.3-4).
Paul’s gospel is a 4-point message about
Jesus: (1) Jesus was crucified;
then (2) he was raised from the dead,
demonstrating that (3) he is the “Christ”
of Israel and (4) the true Lord of
the whole world. Let’s break it down.
1-2: Crucifixion & resurrection. We’ve already said a lot about
the cross; let’s consider the resurrection.
The resurrection was not just
a freak miracle – the “necessary” happy ending to the otherwise tragic story of
the cross. Au contraire, when Jesus walked out of the tomb on Easter morning,
this was the first instance of Jesus’ prayer for the Father’s reign (i.e.
“kingdom”) to be established on earth being answered. When the kingdom of God comes to earth, new creation happens. Jesus’ crucified body (i.e. the body that carried Mary’s DNA) was the first “piece”
of creation to be re-made, i.e. re-created into the resurrected, glorified,
immortal body with which he exited the tomb.
God’s promised new world begins here (cf. Rm. 8.11, 18-23; 1 Cor.
15.20-25). In Paul’s words, the risen
Jesus is the “firstfruits” – the guarantee – of the promised harvest – i.e. the
resurrection of all believers when Jesus
returns. The Church exists in the
“time between the times” (cf. 1 Cor. 10.11) – i.e. between Jesus’ resurrection,
on the one hand, and his return to fully and finally establish the kingdom of
God on (the remade) earth (i.e. to permanently
unite “earth” & “heaven”) on the other.
Jesus’ resurrection is the demonstration of the truth of points 3 & 4 of Paul’s gospel.
3: The (true) King of Israel. The word “Christ” is another
one of those words that we’ve become so accustomed to hearing that it has
become (almost) meaningless. Well, maybe
not completely meaningless. I was sitting in church at Easter-time and I
overheard a conversation between a child and her mother in the pew behind
me. The child exclaimed in shocked
surprise: “Mommy, the priest said ‘JESUS
CHRIST’!” Well, at least the name of
Jesus is still present in our popular culture…
(It’s up to us to tell people
that it’s not just a swear-word). When
the New Testament applies the word “Christ” to Jesus, it means that Jesus is
the Messiah, i.e. the “anointed” king
of Israel. Why is that important? Remember,
we can only understand Jesus, and his death and resurrection, in light of …the
biblical story of Israel. In the Old
Testament, starting at the time of King David, God made the promise to his
people that a descendant (“son”) of David
would one day rule, not only over the nation of Israel, but over all the nations of the earth (cf. Ps. 2,
89; 2 Sam. 7.12-16; indeed, “Son of God”, in these passages, refers to the king of Israel). Going further back in time to the call of
Abraham, God had promised to bring salvation to the world through Abraham and his descendants. “Salvation is of the Jews” as Jesus told the
Samaritan woman at the well (cf. Jn. 4.22).
But of course, and Paul will make this point in Romans chapters 2-3,
Abraham’s descendants – as someone once said – “were like everyone else, only
more so”. The members of the people of
God were also sinful, just like the pagan nations. So, God has a dilemma – how can he be faithful
to the covenant-promise to save the world through
the descendants of Abraham, as well as provide atonement for the sins of Abraham’s descendants
themselves? Solution: what was required was a
faithful Israelite who would represent God’s people, and atone for their sins as well as those of the entire world, thereby fulfilling the
purpose of God’s covenant with Abraham (i.e. to save the world). You guessed it: Jesus was the answer. Jesus,
the King of Israel, who represents the entire nation – as a human being and by
laying down his life on the cross – offered to God the faithfulness that God had always required from Israel, his
covenant-partner. On the cross, Yahweh’s
faithfulness met the faithfulness of Israel’s Messiah (“Christ”), and the
covenant (whose intention had always been to save the world) was thereby fulfilled. So, there’s a lot of meaning packed into the word “Christ”.
4: The world’s true Lord. “Jesus Christ our Lord” says Paul (Rm. 1.4). Once again, let’s ask ourselves our (annoying?)
question: What does that mean? It’s a commonplace for us to utter the phrase
“Jesus is my Lord &
Saviour”. And we usually understand that
phrase in the context of the story of “how I get saved”. However, for Paul and the Romans, the phrase
“Jesus Christ our Lord” was “fighting talk”.
There was already a “lord” in the Roman world of the first century – Caesar, the emperor. When Paul wrote to the Romans (c. AD 57), Nero was on the throne of Rome; he was
the first emperor to systematically persecute Christians (and would eventually
have Paul himself executed c. AD 65). Among
the many imperial titles that surrounded the image of Nero on Roman coins were:
“lord”, “saviour”, “son of the divine [in Nero’s case] Claudius”, (i.e. “son of
[a] god”), etc. It’s no accident that
Paul begins his letter to the Christians in
Rome with this power-packed declaration of “the gospel of God concerning
his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord”… As far as Paul was concerned, there was only room for one “Lord” in God’s
world – the “Christ” of Israel, Jesus of Nazareth, crucified and risen (cf.
1 Cor. 8.5-6). As Yahweh had said to the
king of Israel in Psalm 2: “You are my son…Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth
your possession” (Ps. 2.7-8). By
preaching the gospel and founding communities of people who were loyal to
Jesus, Paul was establishing – even in Rome, right under Caesar’s nose – a counterculture that was subversive –
not because the early Christians were violently rebelling against the empire –
but simply by its very existence. The man from Nazareth – the Son of (Israel’s)
God – crucified and risen, was Israel’s King and the world’s Lord. That
is Paul’s gospel.
Character. So, we’ve seen what the content of Paul’s gospel is.
But what kind of message was
it? What was its peculiar character? As we’ve seen, Paul’s gospel was NOT an
explanation about “how you can get saved, born again, justified, etc.” All of that is a result of having believed the gospel. But Paul’s gospel itself is an announcement
about events that have happened in
the world, about what God has done in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The gospel is good news.
Once again,
the early Christians were not the only ones going around the Roman Empire of
the first century proclaiming a euangelion,
i.e. “gospel”. As I mentioned at the
beginning of this sermon, “gospel” was a common word in the Roman world. So, what would be considered “good news” to
an ordinary run-of-the-mill Roman at the time of Paul? The word “gospel” was used by ordinary Romans
to refer to events concerning either the emperor (birth, enthronement, etc.) or
concerning Caesar’s legions (military victory).
Usually, the two (Roman) meanings of “gospel” were linked – the enthronement of a new emperor was “good
news” because it usually meant that there would be no more civil conflict among
competing candidates to the imperial throne.
Also, a victory for the Roman armies against the “barbarians” (i.e.
non-Romans) was “good news” – either way, “justice” would be done and the
empire would have “peace”. There are
indeed biblical roots to the word
“gospel” (cf. Is. 52.7), but the way Paul used the word was bound to be heard
as ushering a (implicit) challenge to the Roman imperial ideology. By proclaiming his gospel, Paul is (subtly)
saying, “Rome, in all its glory, has been upstaged by a young Jewish man who
was condemned to death by the empire. As
a matter of fact, the very death of
that young Galilean and his resurrection from the dead is the real ‘good news’ that should make the
world rejoice (and make Caesar shiver in his shoes)”.
Paul’s gospel was news about what God had done
in and through the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, Israel’s King
and the world’s Lord. So what was the right response to such news?
Challenge. We’ve looked at both the content and the character
of Paul’s gospel. But what was the challenge of Paul’s gospel? “We have received…apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among
all the nations”, says Paul (Rm. 1.5).
This is the appropriate
response to the proclamation of the gospel (of Jesus) – “the obedience of
faith”.
Actually,
this was also the response that Caesar expected to receive to the proclamation
of the gospel “concerning him”. The word
(don’t panic!) “faith” (pistis) means “trust”, “belief” and also
“loyalty”. So, when the gospel of Caesar was proclaimed
– e.g. Nero has just been crowned emperor! – he expected the inhabitants of his
empire to respond with “loyal obedience”, i.e. pay their taxes, offer incense
in front of his statues, be nice, submissive subjects and of course, not do
anything to disturb the imperial peace.
So much for Caesar – how did Paul
intend people to respond to the gospel of
Jesus? Ironically (and perhaps,
disappointingly), Paul also expected
Christians to pay their taxes (cf. Rm. 13.6-7). Presumably, the early Christians – for the
most part – very well-behaved when tax
season rolled around. However, many
Christians would choose to lose their lives rather than offer public acts of
worship to the emperor. This was the
paradoxical nature of being a Christian in the first century – Paul wanted the
members of his churches to be “model citizens” to the extent that that was
possible without ascribing to Caesar the
honour that was due only to Jesus.
It was a delicate and difficult balance to maintain. Actually, whenever we fully think through the
implications of our faith vis-à-vis
public life, we will find that it is an
art and a science to faithfully follow Jesus in a (western) world that has
– for all intents and purposes – “dethroned” Jesus.
(However), nothing can change the fact that Jesus is Lord. He is the “supreme ruler” (don’t worry,
he’s not part of the “First Order”…Star Wars reference…) of God’s world and he is the one to whom “every knee will (ultimately) bow” (cf. Phil.
2.9-11). Paul was travelling around the
empire where everyone was aware of Caesar’s “gospel”; Paul proclaimed his own “gospel”, according to which Jesus
of Nazareth – not Nero – was Lord, was the true “emperor”. Paul was claiming that the (known) world no
longer belonged to Caesar – it now
belonged to Jesus. Yes, Nero was
sitting on the throne of Rome, but from the perspective of (first Jewish, then)
Christian faith, he was merely a “servant of God” and his purposes (cf. Rm.
13.3-4; cf. also e.g. Is. 44.28), someone to be respected, but acknowledged as
being someone who served the will of the true Lord. So, the challenge
of Paul’s gospel is to be constantly aware of the fact that Jesus – not any government, any economic or
political world-body, the G7, the UN, NATO, not Vladimir Putin, not even Donald Trump (not sure whether
I should bother mentioning Trudeau) – Jesus
is Lord, he is the one who claims our
ultimate allegiance; Jesus is Lord now,
he was enthroned at the right hand of
God following his ascension 2,000 years ago (cf. Ac. 2.33-35), and he has been
Lord ever since. We live in God’s world, the world in which he
has launched his kingdom (through the resurrection of Jesus), the throne of
which was given to Jesus and over which he will rule “until he has put all his
enemies under his feet” (cf. 1 Cor. 15.25-26, 28; cf. also Ps. 110.1). As Christians, we are even called to share in the reign of Jesus over the
world – not by “conquering” the world, not by dropping bombs on the “axis of
evil” (in September 2001, American President Bush spoke of launching a
“crusade” to “rid the world of evil”) – but rather by bringing the “cruciform”
love of God to every corner of the world, starting in our own backyard. Yes, it will mean suffering, but Jesus said that that’s the only way (cf. e.g. Lk. 24.26).
So, this is Paul’s gospel. This is the place, the solid rock on which we take our stand in the midst of the (sometimes hostile, often
indifferent) world.
BECOMING GOSPEL-PEOPLE
So, we have a place to stand. We also
have “a place to run to”. Our place to
run to is the (local) Church. John
Calvin said: “God is our Father and
the Church is our Mother”. Our church community is the place where we
are nurtured, where we discover our (spiritual) giftings, where we are healed
and ministered to, where we learn how to minister to others – our church is where we learn (to be loved and) to love. It’s not for nothing that Paul’s favourite
way of referring to the members of his churches is as his “family” (i.e.
“brothers [and sisters]”). Life in
Christian community is not to be characterized by individualistic ambition,
achievement and “success”, but rather mutual solidarity and humble
service. Paul tells the Philippians: “Do
nothing from selfish ambition or
conceit, but in humility regard others
as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to
your own interests, but to the interests
of others” (Phil. 2.3-4).
From riches to rags to resurrection. Once we’ve grasped – or rather, been grasped
by (cf. Gal. 4.9) – the gospel (according to Paul), we are called to become
“gospel-people”. This means that we will
say, along with Paul: “I decided to know nothing
(among you) except Jesus Christ, and him
crucified” (1 Cor. 2.2). As we’ve
seen, embracing the gospel that Paul preached can NEVER be a question of simply
“getting saved” and then sitting around waiting,
either to go to heaven or for Jesus to come back. Yes, Christians who die before the return of
Christ are “with him”, as Paul tells the Philippians (1.21-24). Yes, Jesus
will return; Paul says this over and over …and over again. However, Paul has a very “active” (to put it
mildly) understanding of the Christian life.
Writing to the Philippians, Paul uses the image of Jesus “grabbing hold
of him” as he tries to “catch up to Jesus”
as Paul “runs the race” of a disciple. Listen to Paul:
“I’m not
implying that I’ve already received ‘resurrection’, or that I’ve already become
complete and mature! No: I’m hurrying on, eager to overtake it, because King
Jesus has overtaken me. My dear
family, I don’t reckon that I have yet overtaken
it. But this is my one aim: to forget everything that’s behind, and to strain every nerve to go after what’s
ahead. I mean to chase on toward the
finish line, where the prize waiting for me is the upward call of God in King
Jesus.” (Phil. 3.12-14: Kingdom NT)
Once we are “overtaken”,
“overwhelmed” by Jesus, by the gospel of his death and resurrection, it is
unthinkable that we interpret that as simply meaning: “Great, I believe that
Jesus died for my sins; I accept him (into my heart). I can’t wait to get to heaven.” What’s wrong with this picture? I, my – it’s all about me. That is the OPPOSITE conclusion
from the one Paul drew after he found himself “caught” by Jesus: “For the
love of Christ urges us on…he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him
who died and was raised for them” (2 Cor. 5.14-15; cf. Gal. 2.19-20). This is incredible! Paul says that the reason Jesus died was so that we would now live for
him. Jesus has things for us to do, and this flows straight from the
gospel itself (cf. Eph. 2.8-10).
Right before the previous passage I quoted, Paul had said this to the
Philippians:
If
anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have
more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel,
of
the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews;
as
to the law, a Pharisee;
as
to zeal, a persecutor of the church;
as
to righteousness under the law, blameless.
Yet whatever gains I had,
these I have come to regard as loss
because of Christ. More than that,
I regard everything as loss
because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For his sake I have suffered the loss of all
things,
and
I regard them as rubbish, (skybala)
in
order that I may gain Christ
…
I
want to know Christ and the power of
his resurrection
and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming
like him in his death,
if
somehow I may attain the resurrection
from the dead.
(Phil. 3.4-11; cf. Gal. 1.13-14; 2.19-20)
These are the words of a man who had it all …and then lost it all “for
the sake of Jesus”, “to gain Christ”. “I
want to know Christ”, says Paul, “and share his sufferings by becoming like him
in his death”. Paul had been “branded”
(cf. Gal. 6.17), “scarred” with the “crucified-and-risen” nature of Jesus. The cross and resurrection have left an
“indelible mark” on Paul’s soul. Paul
wants to so deeply identify with Jesus that he can “re-live” Jesus’ (cross-)experience
in his own life – as I put it – “from riches to rags to resurrection”.
Success story? We often understand someone having a
“calling” to the ministry in the same way that one can have a “professional
vocation”. Some people study welding to
become welders; others study theology for
the purpose (of realizing that most of what they are being taught is
irrelevant and then getting back to the real task) of becoming preachers.
Sometimes it works out that way; that’s the convenient and respectable
vocational journey. Or, within our
Christian sub-culture, we praise and (almost) “idolize” those who are called to
exercise an “official function” in the church.
People get ordained to the ministry and everyone says, “Congratulations,
we’re so happy for you!” I think that if
Paul could attend a modern-day ordination service, he would find it bitterly comical. Just imagine the Bishop (or whoever) inviting
Paul, the brilliantly successful missionary theologian, to come to the pulpit
to grace all the young and eager seminary graduates with a motivational speech.
“Greetings
graduates,” Paul might intone, “Let me tell you about my journey to the
apostolic ministry and becoming a world-renowned Christian thinker. Well, as you know, I was a Christian-killer
for a few years (this was my period of trying to “find myself”), then the risen
Jesus appeared to me on the road to Damascus and I decided to make a …life-change and stop killing Christians,
and become one myself. I became an
over-night …fugitive, having to repel
down the wall of Damascus in a bucket because the Damascene king wanted to kill
me. Then I tried to join the hippest,
coolest megachurch of the first century – the Jerusalem Church, you know, the one that Jesus’ brother James was
pastoring. But my application for
membership was denied because – can you believe it? – they held my past life against me. Then I spent a decade in
obscurity back in my home town of Tarsus, getting publicly beaten every time I
tried to preach in the synagogue, bringing tremendous shame on my family and
losing all my friends in the process.
Then, I had my big break, I
was …discovered by Barnabas, who
brought me to the successful Antioch Church, which served as a base of
operations for my numerous travels around the Eastern Mediterranean as a
church-planter. Life on the road as an evangelical superstar isn’t easy;
it’s basically just an endless series of …prison
cells, and mobs of people chasing you from town to town, in the hopes of
having a chance …to stone you to death
…um, where was this story going?...”
As far as Paul was concerned, “being set apart for the gospel of God” (Rm.
1.1) was not something to call home about!
From the perspective of normal, respectable, middle-class folks, being
“called to be an apostle” of Jesus was the
worst possible thing that could happen to you! Paul’s “calling” was far from being an
occasion of joy and community pride; au
contraire, the moment Paul was “called” by Jesus was the moment that his life as he had always known it was utterly and irreversibly ruined.
Life “in Christ”. This is the pattern of the life of those who
are called to Christ’s service – and we’re all
called to serve our Lord – our life has to be “ruined”, i.e. our vision for our lives has to be
dashed to pieces (i.e. “crucified”) so that we can be captured by Jesus’ vision
of how he will bring healing (i.e. “resurrection”-life)
to the world, through us, and indeed,
through our wounds. Sound familiar? It should.
After all, in the Gospels, Jesus is always saying “Pick up your cross
and follow me” (cf. Mk. 10.21; Lk.
9.23; Jn. 21.19, 22). This is – in the
words of Watchman Nee – the “normal Christian life”. As Christians, we are – as Paul is constantly
saying – “in Christ”, i.e. what is true
of Jesus is true of us (cf. 1 Peter 2.21, 24). We are the “cross-and-resurrection” people,
sent out from the cross into the world to
be sources of healing and hope. Paul
says this in a dozen different ways:
“I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in
Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” (Col.
1.24) (Stop the
presses!)
Our mission as a local church is
nothing less than to model genuine
humanness to the world, i.e. our neighbourhood. We are the people of God, we are the true humanity – we are the women and
men who are “being transformed into the…image [of Jesus, who is himself the image of God, i.e. he is the true human: cf. Col. 1.15; Gn. 1.26]
from one degree of glory to another”, as Paul puts it (2 Cor. 3.18).
May our crucified and risen Lord fill us again with his Spirit so that we may be empowered to,
as Jesus put it, “let our light shine before others, so that they may see our
good works and give glory to our Father
in heaven” (Mt. 5.16). Amen.
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