“We testify that Christ is able to change man’s nature, and then good fruits will come as a matter of course. But I am afraid that in many Sunday-schools the children are taught a different doctrine, somewhat after this fashion: ‘Now, dear children, be very good, and obey your parents, and love Jesus, and you will be saved.’ That is not the gospel, and it is not true. Often do I hear it said, ‘Love Jesus, dear children.’ That is not the gospel. It is ‘Trust Him–believe.’ Not love, but faith is the saving grace, and that love of Jesus of a sentimental kind, which does not spring out of faith in Him, is a spurious emotion, a counterfeit of love, not at all the love of God, shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit. The root of the matter is, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shalt be saved;’ and that is the gospel for a child of two years of age, and the gospel for a man of a hundred. There is only one gospel for all that are born on the face of the earth–‘Believe in Jesus.’”

Greg,
I will never get tired of Spurgeon quotations. This is another classic. Acts 16 “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” is the basic gospel and deserves our emphasis.

Stan

I think “Sir Charles” will make periodic visits to the homepage to weigh in from time to time.  He truly was the prince of preachers.

Greg

Here is a great piece on the cross of Christ by Mark Driscoll. This pastor has really been on the cutting edge in Seattle with his Mars Hill church. But he comes up with some great thoughts on the gospel here:

A recent issue of Christianity Today has the curious cover of Jesus being crucified and the title “No Substitute for the Substitute.” Inside, Mark Dever (whom I recently had the pleasure of meeting at a theological colloquium hosted by Dr. D. A. Carson at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) writes a theological article titled “Nothing But the Blood” on the nature of the atoning death of Jesus Christ. He argues against the horrendous trend to prefer some secondary aspects of Jesus’ atoning death such as His example or victory over evil while neglecting what John Stott, Leon Morris, and J. I. Packer call the primary and central idea of Jesus putting Himself in our place and suffering our penalty for our sin. This is the growing hot issue among emerging-type evangelicals who see the cross as too bloody, too violent, and too male for itching postmodern ears.

In the fall of 2005, I preached a lengthy series on the accomplishments of Jesus’ crucifixion and came to realize that the cross was as foolish and offensive as ever. We had to call 911 for a woman who passed out during the sermon on blood. We had more than one angry person try and get on the stage to fight me during the propitiation sermon, which resulted in beefing up our security on Sundays and having a police officer on site. And, as usual, the blogosphere had a field day. Anyone interested can listen to the sermons at http://www.MarsHillChurch.org for free, but be warned–you get what you pay for, so don’t complain if you don’t like the free gift.

My fascination with the atoning death of Jesus was sparked by a chapter I wrote for a forthcoming book edited by Dr. Robert Webber called Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches, in which Dan Kimball, Doug Pagitt, John Burke, Karen Ward and I tackle the issues of Trinity, Atonement, and Scripture for Zondervan. As a result I read hundreds of articles and maybe fifty books on the atonement as my mind was captured by the biblical exegesis and historical fights over what Jesus did for us on the cross. The result is a book that I’m working on, tentatively titled Death by Love, that will explore twelve aspects of what Jesus accomplished on the cross with the big idea being substitutionary atonement. I also preached a session at the recent Resurgence Conference in Seattle by the same name that will soon be available for free download on this site.

The following is a simple introduction to the issue:

Nearly 2,000 years ago a poor, homeless, single man in his early thirties was executed by crucifixion like many other common criminals. He never wrote a book, never traveled more than 200 miles from his home, never held a political office, never married or had children, and never ran a company. His name is Jesus Christ and history is divided into the periods before and after his life. Time magazine named him “Man of the Millennium,” and more songs have been sung to, books written about, and artwork painted of him than anyone who has ever lived. Moreover, a few billion people alive today worship Him as their only God and deeply love Him unlike anyone who has ever lived.

Why?

Because Jesus has done what no one else could do: take away their sin by dying on a cross as a substitute in their place. It is the cross of Jesus that is the symbol of the Christian faith and the crux of human history. In explaining Jesus’ death for sin on the cross, theologians use the word atonement. The word literally means “at-one-ment” and explains how Jesus as God and man can alone reconcile sinners to a holy God.

Jesus dying in the place of sinners (also known as Penal Substitution and Substitutionary Atonement) is a frequent theme of Scripture, including the following verses:

Isaiah 53:6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him [Jesus] the iniquity of us all.

John 1:29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

Romans 3:25 God presented Him [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood.

Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

1 Corinthians 15:3 …Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.

2 Corinthians 5:21 God made Him [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

Hebrews 2:17 For this reason He [Jesus] had to be made like His brothers in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people.

Hebrews 9:28 Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him.

1 Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed.

1 John 2:1-2 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense–Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

1 John 4:10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Simply, like I tell my little kids, Jesus died on the cross in your place for your sins to save you from sin, Satan, death, and hell.

** © 2006 Mars Hill Church. (This material is free to use, but not to be re-published or sold.)

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Stan, thanks for sharing that piece by Mark Driscoll. How incredible is it that he can preach on the doctrine of propitiation and have people rushing the pulpit in anger? This is the scandal of the gospel--whenever a sermon like this is preached, you can bet someone’s personal view of God is rocked to the core. Another sure-fire way to elicit this response is to talk about judgment and hell.

My experience on http://www.heavenlysanctuary.com has opened my eyes to just how far people will go to cultivate a view of God they don’t find offensive. Theological foundations that have stood the test of time for 2000 years are torn away in a desire to create a god in our own image that meets our standards and felt needs.

One of the posters over there asked me if I could bring myself to like an all-loving God who would never punish anyone, as if he would expose me for not being able to love a God like that. But this totally misses the point that it doesn’t matter what I think of God or whether I make the decision to love him. My opinion of God is ultimately worthless in light of his holiness and righteousness, which he has revealed through his Word and his Son.

How far off the track have we Christians fallen when we teach that God’s character needs vindication, that his righteousness is up for public debate and that the gospel is not about Christ’s substitutionary payment for our sins?

Greg

Mark Driscoll’s blog is here: http://theresurgence.com I just checked it out and found it to be very worthwhile reading. Another blog on that site by Ed Stetzer has an entry entitled “Humble Missiology.”

In the opening paragraphs, he says this “Let me suggest that we also need a humble missiology. Missiology is central to how we reach people in culture. Yet, it seems that some are using missiology for the wrong reasons as of late… to justify a change to the gospel rather than finding ways to more accurately communicate it. <strong>Others contend that culture does not matter and anyone who desires to be culturally relevant must be compromised.</strong>”

Some within the former Adventist “movement” imply that anyone who has a heart for Adventists or wants to approach them as friends must not understand the real spiritual battle at hand or must in some way be compromised. There are definite parallels with what Stetzer describes as a mischaracterization of some culturally relevant evangelists.

I pray this site will approach Adventists with a “humble missiology” that does not compromise the gospel.

Greg

Thanks Greg for those thoughts. That is what is so great about Mark Driscoll. He is culturally relevant without any compromise of the basic message. He is Reformed theology without compromise, but he preaches in a culturally relevant fashion. This is far different than Rick Warren with his watered down gospel that even compromises the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Driscoll proves that you can be sensitive to seekers without compromising the message.

In presenting the gospel to Adventists, we certainly need to be sensitive, find common ground, but there also can’t be compromise about what Ellen said, or on how the IJ denies the gospel.

Stan

Along the same lines, I would like to share this article by Jerry Bridges, from “Modern Reformation” magazine about the discomfort we have in living the justified life. This is related to the original Spurgeon quote at the top of this thread:

http://www.modernreformation.org/jb06unsettled.htm Here is an excerpt:

We Americans don’t like defeat, whether it’s in a basketball game or in dealing with sin in our lives. I suspect that’s why we don’t like the seventh chapter of Romans. It sounds too much like defeat. It really isn’t about defeat, however. It’s about struggle; a struggle between the flesh and the Spirit. As Paul wrote in Galatians 5:17, “For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” This is a picture of struggle. Then Peter urged us in 1 Peter 2:11, “To abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your souls.” Notice the war metaphor. There is indeed a guerilla warfare going on in the soul of every believer that causes us a great deal of discomfort. We don’t like the struggle, and we especially do not like it when we feel defeated in the struggle.

Unbelievers don’t have such a struggle. For the most part, they enjoy their sin or rationalize their sinful attitudes. They feel justified in their self-righteousness, their critical and unforgiving spirits, and their pursuits of pleasure and materialism. Occasionally, they regret the consequences of their attitudes and actions, but they do not see them as sin. There is no guerilla warfare for the unbeliever. They may or may not have conflicts with other people, but there is little conflict within themselves.

Not so with the believer. The moment we trust in Christ as Savior, we are made new creations in Christ. The Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us to animate and empower this new life. He comes to deal with those sinful attitudes and actions, but they don’t disappear overnight. They must be, to use Paul’s words, “put to death” (Rom. 8:13, Col. 3:5). And that’s when the guerilla warfare begins. The flesh–that is, our persistent inclination towards sin, which we have from birth–that generates those sinful attitudes and actions begins to fight back. Romans 7:14—25 helps us understand this internal conflict with the flesh in a helpful way because it describes the experience of a growing Christian who is continually discovering the depths of sin still present in his or her life. Many Bible students will disagree with that last sentence. In fact, this passage of Scripture has been something of an exegetical battleground for centuries. Pages have been written by capable and godly people presenting other views and rejecting the view to which I subscribe. This is not the place, however, to discuss the various interpretations of Romans 7:14—25. Most readers of Modern Reformation will already be familiar with them. For those who want to pursue this debate, James Montgomery Boice’s expositional commentary on Romans has an excellent, nontechnical discussion of four main interpretations.

Theological giants, such as Charles Hodge and John Murray, have ably defended the view that Romans 7:14—25 describes the internal conflict between the flesh and the Spirit. And I certainly cannot add anything to their technical arguments. However, I can offer two of the most compelling reasons for seeing the passage as descriptive of the internal conflict with sin that any growing Christian experiences.

First, there is the natural, literary sense of the passage. What would those reading Romans 7:14—25, untutored in familiar theological debates, understand Paul to mean? Would they not assume that Paul is describing himself in his present state at the time he is writing? They might not fully understand what he is saying, but they would assume Paul is describing the reality of his present experience. Paul did not play literary games with his first-century readers. Admittedly, as Peter wrote in 2 Peter 3:16, some things in his letters are hard to understand. But from his point of view, Paul wrote his letters in a straightforward manner to people who were fairly new believers. I believe the first-century Christians in Rome would have assumed Paul was describing his own experience as an illustration of how all believers struggle with the flesh.

The second reason I believe Romans 7:14—25 describes the experience of a growing Christian is that it so accurately reflects the experience of any believer who is intentional about his or her pursuit of a holy and Christ-like life. For the reality is, the more mature we become, the more anguish we experience over the difference between desire and accomplishment in our efforts to put sin to death and to put on Christ-like character.

Early in my Christian life I was exposed to the view that every Christian should “get out of Romans 7 into Romans 8.” This view depicts the Romans 7:14—25 person as one who is seeking to live the Christian life in the energy of the flesh, whereas Romans 8 depicts him as living by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Romans 7 person is living a life of spiritual defeat, but the Romans 8 man is living a life of continual victory. This view created great frustration for me because I never seemed to be able to make the transition from Romans 7 to Romans 8.

I could see myself described in Romans 7, but I assumed that was because I was a “defeated” Christian. Then gradually I came to the conviction that a person never does get out of Romans 7 in the sense that he or she no longer struggles with the flesh. God providentially brought me into contact with the works of the older Reformed writers who reinforced my newly developed conviction. This was a great liberating experience. I found I could deal with the reality of the Romans 7 conflict when I realized it was the normal experience of people who are sincere and intentional about spiritual growth.

Again, the reality for every believer is that the more we grow in Christian maturity, the sharper this conflict becomes. The more we understand the perfect will of God, the more we see how far short we come in obeying it. And we should keep in mind that we are not only to joyously obey the moral will of God but we are to graciously submit to the providential will of God–that is, to the circumstances, whether good or bad, that he brings or allows into our lives.

Then in Romans 8:1, Paul assures us that “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” So, Romans 7:4 and 8:1 say essentially the same thing: God does not look on our struggles against indwelling sin with an attitude of condemnation and judgment because the condemning power of his law has been forever dealt with by Christ.

So in the midst of our struggle with indwelling sin, we must continually keep our focus on the gospel. We must always go back to the truth that even in the face of the fact that so often “I do not do the good that I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (v. 19), there is no condemnation. God no longer counts our sin against us (Rom. 4:8 ).

Or, to say it another way, God wants us to find our primary joy in our objectively declared justification, not in our subjectively perceived sanctification. Regardless of how much progress we make in our pursuit of holiness, it will never come close to the absolute perfect righteousness of Christ that is ours through our union with him in his life and death. “

There is more to read at that link. A very encouraging article.

Stan