Month: October 2017

TADB 021: Kingdoms in Conflict

There are four characteristics of our culture that we can no longer ignore in our mission of bringing the gospel to our world.  Our audience is increasingly:

  • Biblically illiterate: They know very little of the basic story line of the Bible, the people, stories, or events.  They have heard of Jesus but know little of His basic claims and the story of His life.
  • Narcissistic: Beyond consumerism, narcissism is selfishness on steroids.  The prevailing question being asked is, “What’s in it for me?”
  • Humanistic: We cannot assume a historic biblical view of God or man.  The basic elements of a biblical worldview that has been a framework for centuries, is crumbling.  We cannot assume our audience sees God as the uncaused Cause: the sovereign Creator and Sustainer of all that is (the cosmos).  In our present culture man is not the crown of God’s creation and the focus of His love.  Heaven and hell are part of a fairytale fantasy.
  • Feeling base: Facts and a logical pursuit to discover what is “true” is less relevant.  “What I feel is my reality.  You can’t argue or debate it.  Since I feel it’s true, it is.”

“Authority has shifted from what is true to the feelings and beliefs of the individual.  Feelings now trump truth.”1

Past generations understood a biblical worldview regarding God, man, sin, and Jesus.  We could simply add to that background clarity on what it meant to believe the gospel or receive Christ.  People had the raw material with which we could build on.  People had pieces of the Gospel but just had not put it together.  They basically knew, understood, and accepted the back story.  We can no longer assume this is true.  We will need to present an accurate and complete picture of who Jesus is and what He came to do.  We need to set the gospel in its context if it is to be the gospel that transforms and transfers (Romans 1:16, Col. 1:13).  This gospel is more than a promise of sin management, a fire insurance policy, or a promise of the good life.  It involves a radical transfer of kingdoms and the personal transformation of lives to fit into that new kingdom reality.

We cannot risk presenting an abridged gospel to this generation.   We need to revisit how the gospel was presented in the book of Acts when the early Christians took their counter-cultural message to a skeptical and even hostile audience that also lacked a biblical framework in which to understand it.  What they did and we must do is focus on the revelation of the Son of God (His story) as the good news.  His story embodies the truth that will set people free.

We also need to resist the temptation to “sell” the gospel or try to make it attractive by putting it into the values of the current culture e.g. fast, easy, and fun.  We need to present what is accurate and true including the aspects that may be hard to accept.  We need to recognize it will always be a counter-cultural message.

1.  The Bible presents God as the eternal uncaused Cause: the Creator and Sustainer of the cosmos (our universe). Out of his sovereignty God created man as the crown of His creation, uniquely made in His likeness (image) and designed to live in relational harmony with Him.  

2.  We are all born into an existing conflict of two kingdoms (God’s and Satan’s). We have chosen to reject God’s authority and replace it with our own.  The result is a distortion of the original design and plan.  Our default condition is now:

  • Spiritually dead (Eph. 2:1; Rom 6:23)
  • Alienated from God (Eph. 2:12)
  • Stuck in a cycle of immorality (Eph. 2:3)
  • Under God’s disapproval (Eph. 2:3, John 3:18-20)
  • Captives in the kingdom of darkness (Eph. 2:2)

3.  Out of a heart of love God intervened, providing access to His kingdom of light through His Son who is called in the Bible “Jesus Christ the Lord” (Rom. 1:4). His story is reveled in the New Testament historical records.  The defining moments of His life are:

  • His incarnation (John 1:1-5, 14)
  • His demonstration (John 5:30; Phil 2:3-7; Heb. 2:17)
  • His crucifixion (and death) (Rom 5:6-8; 1 Peter 3:18)
  • His resurrection (Luke 24:1-12; Romans 1:1-4)
  • His ascension (Acts 1:9-11; Luke 24:50-53; Heb. 4:14)
  • His coronation (Heb. 1:1-3; Rev 5:11-14; Matt 28:18)
  • His revelation (John 5:25-29; Acts 17:30-31)

4.  The kingdom of light (also called the kingdom of God or heaven) offers freedom from our default condition in the kingdom of darkness. It offers a brand new life and identity (2 Cor. 5:17) substituting what we have by default to what is possible by God’s grace through the work of His Son, Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 3:18)

Jesus is referred to as the Doorway to a new dimension of life in His kingdom.  He claimed to make the kingdom of God possible.  He also claimed that He was the only way into that kingdom (John 14:6).  His kingdom offers a:

  • New dimension of life (Eph. 2:5; John 5:24)
  • New relationship with God (John17:3; 1 John 5:11-12)
  • New moral record (Eph. 1:7; Rom 8:1)
  • New spiritual power (Acts 1:8; 2 Tim 1:7)
  • New kingdom citizenship (Eph. 2:19; Col 1:13)

5.  The kingdom of light is a present potential, offered by means of the grace of God through His Son Jesus Christ the Lord. Its access requires a response of repentance and faith.  (John 1:12, John 3:16).

  • The Bible is clear that there is no way we can earn or merit all that he offers us in His kingdom. The offer is out of his love and grace.  He, however, does not force it on anyone but allows each one a chance to accept or reject it. (John 1:12)
  • The response requires we recognize and turn (repent) from our current condition of independence from God.  Then by faith accept as true all that Jesus claimed to be and what He claimed to do.  In the Bible this response is called “faith”, “accepting Christ”, “surrender”, or simply “belief”.  (John 5:24)

The gospel delivers us from more than the issue of sin.  It delivers us from the kingdom of darkness that is now in opposition to the kingdom of light.  Becoming a citizen of His kingdom means a new identity with a new passport

 1Sean McDowell, PhD, assistant professor of Christian apologetics, Biola University.  Article in Christian Research Journal, Vol 40 Number 04.

TADB 20: Now Playing: Jesus Christ the Lord

The gospel (the good news, His story) is summarized in the three names most associated with the Son of God:  Jesus + Christ + Lord.  From Acts through Jude the New Testament writers use this composite 85 times in various orders:  the Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ the Lord, etc.

There is a correlation between the defining moments in the story of the Son of God and the three names that form this triad.  “Jesus” is mostly associated with His earthly life from His incarnation (Act 1) through His demonstration (Act 2).  It is in the name Jesus that we most clearly get the concept that God has taken on flesh and blood, taken on our likeness.

“Though He was God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.  Instead, He gave up His divine privileges; He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When He appeared in human form” (Phil. 2:6-7)

The name Jesus or Joshua was a very common Hebrew name that meant savior.  Although there was a prophetic meaning that the angel gave it in his announcement to Mary (Matt 1:21), it was generally used to designate the man who was from Nazareth in Galilee, the son of Joseph and Mary, the man who became a great rabbi.  God could have selected it not only for its spiritual implication but for its commonness:  the One who lived among us.  The name Jesus clearly summarizes the initial story line of the gospel:  God now lives among us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

The name Jesus is used twelve times in the book of Revelation beginning in the first verse with “This is the revelation of Jesus Christ”.  The name Jesus clearly links the incarnate Son of God who walked on earth to the one who is now in the heavens retaining his identity with humanity.

The name Christ adds more to His story.  Christ, the anointed One, the Messiah, brings the Old Testament expectation of a Deliverer, a Restorer of Israel into the picture.  The name Christ or Jesus Christ was a very common way to refer to the Son of God on the resurrection side of the cross.

The Jews, although anticipating a Messiah, were not expecting him to be divine.  Certainly anointed by God, this deliverer was to be a nationalistic figure that would bring peace and prosperity back to the nation of Israel.  The Jewish antagonism towards Jesus increased as they realized the kingdom to which he referred was not a physical one.   It really escalated when they understood that He was not only claiming to be the way into a new kingdom but making a claim to deity.

The defining moments of His story from the crucifixion (Act 3) through the resurrection (Act 4) and to the ascension (Act 5 is certainly wrapped up in the name Christ.  In the name Christ we have Savior, Deliverer, and final High Priest captured in a name.

The final name in the triad, Lord (although present in the Gospels) was amplified with His ascended coronation (Act 6) and his final Examination (Act 7).   Without the Son of God as Lord, the gospel is incomplete.  It is as much a part of His story and the gospel as His incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.  Paul in writing to the Philippians focuses His story on the final scene of history:  the universal confession that the Son of God is Jesus Christ the Lord.

“For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW…and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9-11 NASB)

From the beginning to the end of the book of Acts, those that carried the gospel to their world told the story of Jesus Christ the Lord.

Peter

“Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ–this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36).

Paul

“And he stayed two full years in his own rented quarters … preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered” (Act 28:30-31).

With an increasingly biblical illiterate culture we cannot assume that when people think of Jesus they think correctly.  We may need to start a dialogue with questions like:

  • “What do you know about the Jesus of the Bible?”
  • “If I said the Jesus of the Bible is the most significant person in all of history, would you like to know why?”
  • “Have you ever personally explored who Jesus is and what He claimed to be?”

The gospel is in the name.  It is in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that:

  • We are to believe and find redemption.
  • We discover the heart connection that has been lost
  • We can boldly approach the throne of grace for help
  • We live in victory over the forces of darkness including death
  • We will one day live with Him in the new dimension of heaven called “home”