A Weblog Dedicated to the Discussion of the Christian Faith and 21st Century Life

A Weblog Dedicated to the Discussion of the Christian Faith and 21st Century Life
___
I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe, –that unless I believed, I should not understand.-- St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)

Friday, November 25, 2011

A Soterian Gospel Test

___
Some folks have reshaped the Bible and the gospel so that it is driven by the plan for personal salvation. The Greek word for salvation is soteria so it is accurate to refer to such thinkers as soterians and their gospel as the soterian gospel. There are ways of detecting whether we are soterians or truly evangelical, and by that I mean letting the gospel be shaped by the gospel text 1 Corinthians 15 or the gospel sermons in Acts or the Gospels (which are in fact the gospel itself), but one rather simple way is to ask how one explains judgment texts.

Here's the thesis: No one in the Bible, when described in a judgment scene, is asked if they accepted, trust, or embraced the soterian gospel. In other words, "Did you accept Jesus into your heart consciously?" or "Did you walk the aisle to receive Christ?" or "Did you accept that Christ was your righteousness?" No one.
In fact, in every judgment scene in the Bible humans are judged not by a singular act of faith but by works. Every judgment scene indicates that, to use words I first heard from Howard Marshall years ago in a Tyndale House lecture, we may be saved by faith but we are judged by works. Of course, this is a complex issue but I believe the soterian gospel forces a reading of these texts that is not natural, while the apostolic gospel, what I call the King Jesus gospel, does not have the slightest trouble with the routine NT observation that we will be judged by works (and this is not about rewards but about destiny). If Jesus is king, if Jesus is the Lord who saves, if the gospel is to declare those facts about Jesus, then the response is to King Jesus, the Lord, and that means a whole-life surrender to him — and that means works are the sure sign (as Jesus teaches, as Paul teaches) that one is a kingdom citizen.

So I will simply put on the table today a few of these texts, and the test is this: Do you permit the plain reading of these texts or do they make your theology squirm some?
___
Scot quotes the biblical texts near the end of his post. Click into Scot's blog and read those texts; take the soterian gospel test.

No comments: