Love is not some insipid woolly emotion offered to everyone in the same way irrespective of their response. Love is passionate. Infinite love is infinitely passionate.
God’s love has content.

He truly cares about us, and more than that he truly cares about the honor of his name and the glory of the trinity. God’s love is primarily turned towards himself as the most lovable being in the universe. For all eternity the Father loves and is satisfied in the Son, the Son loves and is satisfied in the Father. They both love and are satisfied in the Holy Spirit, and he also loves and is satisfied in them. Such love in such a holy being is also the source of wrath.

Imagine if you will that someone you love dearly is murdered. It is right and appropriate that you would feel anger. It is understandable that you would seek justice. As a believer that very impulse must be tempered, however, by the instruction to leave the due repaying to the one infinitely more wronged. “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19). We turn our wrath away by the sure and certain knowledge that someone else is wrathful on our behalf.

As finite beings, there is so much sin in this world that if we allowed ourselves to be wrathful at it, anger would consume us and there would be nothing left. Bitterness does precisely this to man.

But God is not carelessly indifferent as some imagine him to be. God’s anger burns with a holy fire precisely because he loves. It is not that love and anger are set against each other, and that somewhere in the middle a lukewarm God is forged. No, God is wrathful because it hurts him to see the destruction sin has wrought in the ones he loves.

We must not think that God loves us any less because he hates the sin that is determined to destroy us. If he didn’t hate the sin, it would be like someone gazing indifferently as their loved one was murdered.

He is angry because sin corrupts the world he cares for. He is angry because sin warps the way people see him. He is angry because the honor of the God he loves is trampled in the dust. His love for us, and his love for himself requires him to act. He is angry because holiness and justice, being in his very nature, must be vindicated or he would no longer be God. He cannot simply overlook sin and remain God. Or not the same God he has always been, anyway.

The whole argument of Romans is that God is faced with a dilemma. How can he be just and the one that forgives sins? It is only in the cross that a solution to this is found. It is not that Jesus saves us from an angry God. He himself is angry at sin. He is both the refuge and the one from which we must run. He chooses to offer us a way out. Then he warns us, that since this is the only way out, if we trample all over the offer, there is nothing left for us but wrath.

“Serve the Lord with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”
(Psalm 2:11-12)

Now that Rob Bell’s controversial book Love Wins is on sale on both sides of the Atlantic and many other comments have been made, I am feeling like I cannot avoid engaging in the controversy, or at least should read some more material to understand it better. I did not seek out such involvement, as you can see from my post which ironically listed Five Reasons I hadn’t previously blogged about Rob Bell. Since then I have posted a couple of highly relevant articles without directly addressing Bell’s work.  These are:

• Why a belief in hell is so practically important (John Piper)
• The folly of imagining hell is not real and sin is not deadly (Charles Spurgeon)
• Mark Driscoll’s sermon on hell taken from the Rich Man and Lazarus.
• Martyn Lloyd-Jones on the folly of thinking God is only love.

I have now found a very helpful round up post on Gary David Stratton’s blog that lists some of the major posts on each side of this vociferous debate. He says that over 400,000 responses are now available online, so reading every post is clearly not an option! I have been following some of the posts he lists, and have finally succumbed and am in the process of reading the book. If you have been following things more closely, and there are critical posts you think I should read that are not on Stratton’s list, please let me know. There is one additional page that I have found to be interesting, a transcript of an interview by Lisa Miller with Rob Bell.

Finally, also in Stratton’s blog is a suggestion that we should use the Apostle Paul’s blogging checklist. I have adapted this somewhat from his version, which he took from 1 Corinthians 13.  I commend this list as we consider blogging about this issue or others. For not every blog post on either side of this debate has kept within these wise boundaries. So, before you hit send, grade yourself on this list:

Is this blog post I am about to publish

1. Demonstrating patience towards those who disagree with me?
2. Kind in its tone and content? Would my “enemies” agree?
3. Free from envy in it’s motivation? Rather than secretly wishing I was as popular as the person I am condemning?
4. Full of humility and not boasting? Rather than implying I have all the answers and the monopoly on the truth?
5. Wanting others to do well and highlighting good comments elsewhere rather than arrogantly seeking more hits for my blog?
6. Polite and not rude?
7. Not insisting on my own way? Have I acknowledged that there is a chance, however small, that I might be wrong about this?
8. Calm and not irritable?
9. Avoiding even the hint of sounding resentful?
10. Rejoicing with the truth, rather than taking joy from pointing out others error? Have I struck back at those who have been hurtful to me or brushed over and endured any perceived wrongs from them, have I thought the best of others?

If you cannot honestly answer yes to all of these bold questions, it is time to save the draft, pray, go and make yourself a cup of tea, and come back to re-edit the post later. There is a time for boldly speaking the truth.  But we must always do so in love. The above checklist is demanding.  It requires careful examination of our hearts.  We will all no doubt fail at times to follow it fully.  I know I have.

Fortunately there is grace for us, as well as opportunities for public repentance when needed!  I believe that none of us can have the insight into our own sinful hearts to fully achieve such high standards on our own. I do thank God that I have people who watch over both my soul and this blog and are not afraid to point out when they feel I have erred.  I trust that you also have those who can help you to follow Jesus online.  May God help me, and each of you to blog as Christ would want us to, and to treat others online as we would want to be treated.  Those of us that love grace must be sure to demonstrate it to others.

In a sermon from the series  The Christian’s Duty in a Hostile World, John MacArthur connects two glorious truths: the centrality of Jesus’ resurrection and that “faith cannot be removed or detached from the realm of real life.”

It is no great surprise to me that I enjoyed Bob’s book so much,  or that he seems to be enjoying mine.  For while their subjects may seem disconnected at first glance, in reality they have everything to do with each other!

The truth that lies behind Bob’s view of both the individual’s need for transformation and the need for the church to impact society is well expressed by MacArthur:

Salvation is not just forgiveness for sins. Salvation is a new order of life . . . when we understand salvation in a biblical way, we must understand that salvation effects a whole transformation of life. It is not just the forgiveness of sins, it is the transformation of life.

MacArthur goes on to explain that our woeful neglect of the resurrection has led to a terrible misunderstanding:

You might be interested to know that as central as the cross is in Christianity, it was not really the central focus of the early church. The early church saw much more in salvation than just the moment at which Christ atoned for sins, the moment in which He died on the cross. The early church saw salvation in much broader terms than that. The early church saw salvation as something that only began with the forgiveness of sins and led to a life transformed into obedience and consummated in the glory with Jesus Christ. It is interesting that even history sort of reflects this. In his book, Civilization, author Kenneth Clark shows that the cross as such was a very late symbol in Christian art and Christian culture. When we think about Christianity, we think immediately about the cross as the symbol of our faith. You might be interested to know that as far as that book, Civilization, determined the first appearance of the cross in Christian art or culture occurred in A.D. 430, all the way into the fifth century, on the doors of the church at Santa Sobina(?) and that that cross was a very small little cross inset into some piece of Christian art.

The early church did not focus on the cross. The early church focused on what great event? The resurrection. It focused its attention on the resurrection. And consequently its preoccupation was not with the point at which sin is forgiven, but the point at which new life begins. And the resurrection is that point. We, of course, died in Christ spiritually and in that death the penalty of sin was paid. But we also arose in Christ, says Paul, to walk in newness of life. To be saved then to the early church, and surely to us as well, was not just to have your sin forgiven. It was not just some transaction which dealt with your guilt. But rather to be saved was to be delivered from the power of darkness and to be translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. In other words, it was to enter in to an entirely new kind of life, to enter into a new sphere of existence. Salvation is not just atonement. Salvation is not just forgiveness. Salvation is regeneration. It is transformation. It is the imparting of a new kind of life, the life of God in the soul of man.

Why do so few Christian preachers today grasp this fully?

But MacArthur doesn’t leave us there.  He goes on to explain that if life transformation has happened in you, then good works are the inevitable result.  As Bob Roberts likes to put it “We serve not to convert but because we are converted.”

MacArthur then explains that every single Christian has a unique contribution to make to the Kingdom effort.  I can almost hear Bob talking about using your job to connect to the nations:

So you have a special gift. It’s a combination of the colors, as it were, on the palette of giftedness that come together to make you unique and there’s nobody like you, absolutely no one like you . . . So you take that unique gift in a unique ministry with a unique effect with a measured amount of grace and a measured amount of faith and then you add your physical capabilities, your training, your background, your opportunities, your environment and all your influences and you function like nobody else…nobody else. That’s why there’s nobody to replace you if you don’t function. That’s the extent of spiritual gifts.

So there you have it: Because salvation is not only about forgiveness of sins but the start of a new life begun by the resurrection of Jesus, Christians have a duty in this world to spread that new life, not only by preaching but also by acts of kindness that stem from a transformed heart.

This second installment of my interview with Wayne was quite far reaching. We spoke about the atonement and how he decides what kind of people to have fellowship with. He even had a comment on the recent controversy over Rick Warren and John Piper.

Watch on Vimeo

How important do you think some of the recent realignments over doctrinal matters we have seen recently in the Church are?

It’s why I am here. It was to affirm the need for drawing boundaries on doctrinal matters that I came here to this conference. In particular, the importance of affirming penal substitutionary atonement (i.e. that Jesus was punished for our sin). That is just central to the whole of the gospel. Once that is denied, other things start to unravel. It was with a desire to encourage the people who organize New Word Alive that I came here.

We must trust in Jesus as our Saviour. Sometimes the faith in peoples hearts is better than the doctrine in their minds. With the preaching of the full gospel, people ought to believe that Jesus is both God and man that he died to receive the full penalty for our sins, and that he rose from the dead and that we trust in him for salvation. Every doctrine is related to everything else. It therefore requires mature wisdom to decide whether to endorse someone who believes something you do. So for example, on the issue of baptism, Christians have agreed to disagree on the basis that it has limited effects on the rest of our understanding of the Bible.

How do you decide what kind of people to have fellowship with?

Well it depends on what purpose. I have next door neighbours who are Muslims and we are friends with them. It doesn’t mean that I endorse what they believe. I have worked on political and legal issues with Catholics as well as having a Roman Catholic woman as a participant in a neighbourhood Bible study. On the level of church membership, however, there has to be some willingness to submit to and support the doctrinal teachings and leadership of that church. Then at the level of teaching responsibility in the church, there are more requirements, and that the level of eldership there are even more. The higher one goes on the overall influence on the direction of the church, the more careful one must be to admit someone to that role.

I share the following extract from Raised With Christ today because I am certain that no disciple could ever have thought about the death of Jesus without his or her sorrow being tinged with the wonderful joy of the resurrection. This quote shows how, in these pivotal events, Jesus chose to honor women:

Matthew tells us that Jesus died more quickly than many victims of crucifixion, and his death was associated with some miraculous signs. “Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many” (Matthew 27:50–53). These remarkable events demonstrate that even as he died, Jesus remained in control of nature. The Lord of all was continuing to sustain the universe “by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3). Even as he died, he still had life-giving power that could empty tombs.

Although his divine nature shared in the experience of the agony of death and separation from the Father, only his body was placed in the tomb. His spirit returned to God, and he promised the repentant thief, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Jesus effectively experienced hell on the cross, since hell means being separated from God . . .

Watching that day were some women who later played an extraordinary role in the events of the resurrection. We must spend a few moments understanding why this is so surprising. For Jesus to have a group of women traveling with him as disciples was very unusual in those days and revealed that he was no mere conservative follower of the culture of his day.13 Jesus gave great dignity to women. He treated them as friends and was willing to sit with them and teach them, defying all traditions of the day.

As an example of his amazing attitude toward women, we see the way he gently showed a Samaritan woman the way of salvation. Here was a teacher who did not despise women. He did not see them merely as servants to wait on the men. On one occasion he honored Mary, Lazarus’ sister, for choosing to sit with him and learn like the men rather than bustling about preparing the food. As a result of Jesus’ radical acceptance, many women followed him as part of his group. Unlike the male disciples who all “fell away”  and deserted Jesus, the women remained faithful, even when Jesus was being crucified.

It was in the events of the resurrection that Jesus gave the highest honor to women. In the world of first-century Israel, the testimony of women did not count for much, and they could not testify in court. It is astonishing that Jesus made his first post-resurrection appearance to women including Mary Magdalene, who had been demonized and is believed by many to have had a dubious moral past. To then appoint them as the first messengers of the good news that he was risen from the dead shows the total absence of prejudice in Jesus. This astonishing aspect of the resurrection story is very strong evidence for the genuineness of the account. No one would have invented an account so dependent on women as witnesses.

As the disciples scattered and were apparently nowhere to be seen, the women followed Joseph of Arimathea to see where Jesus would be buried. Their love for him was such that they wanted to care for his body. Only the arrival of the Sabbath could delay their tender care. As soon as it was practical, just before sunrise on Sunday morning, they rushed to the tomb. Approaching the tomb together were Mary Magdalene, another Mary, Salome, Joanna, and probably several other women. Their discussions on the way about how to move the stone were interrupted by an earthquake and an angel who appeared and dragged the stone away from the tomb. The soldiers who were guarding the tomb fainted, then fled back to the city. The women looked down, turning their heads from the frightening sight. It is possible that all of this occurred simultaneously with the actual resurrection of Jesus, although it is just as likely that his body had already vanished from the tomb, passing through the graveclothes and the rocks with equal ease . . .

The risen Lord of glory made his first appearance not on television or on YouTube, not before kings, not even before the future leaders of his church. Rather, he tenderly greeted a woman who, no doubt, felt that the meaning he had given to her life had been snatched away when he died. Jesus appointed her as a messenger to his disciples and then told her that he would soon ascend to be with God. READ MORE

“As a born again believer, the Bible teaches that you were there at the Cross positionally and spiritually (just as you were in Adam prior to salvation). As the apostle Paul declared, “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death… For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him….” (Rom. 6:4-6). “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above… For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Col. 3:1-3). “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:4-7). Amen!”

Read more at Simon’s Reflections

Mark Driscoll shares the following 6 Preaching & Teaching Tips for Easter | TheResurgence. He urges Christians to bring their friends to church this weekend.  In the full article he makes a point which should be obvious: this Sunday you MUST speak about the resurrection.  Strangely, I have even heard reports in the past of Easter sermons which focused on the cross and neglected  the resurrection. Please don’t do that next Sunday!

Easter is a special time for me for all the reasons I mentioned over the weekend, but also because in the weeks before Easter 2007, while I was in the center of major arguments which were raging online about the meaning of the cross, I felt the gentle tug of the Holy Spirit to begin to study the resurrection.  Raised With Christ is the direct result of my being convicted of my own personal neglect of the resurrection while preparing to preach that Easter Sunday.  May God bring the resurrection to the center of all our minds this Easter. Driscoll says:

Easter is a time to boldly, loudly, passionately, gladly, and publicly proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ . . . Hearing the good news of Jesus is something your people will delight in if the Holy Spirit resides in them, so make it plain. They know you will tell them Jesus is alive, they are coming to hear it, and it sounds good every time, much like a wife whose husband often tells her he loves her and is devoted to her—she never tires of hearing it and rejoices every time.

Driscoll lists a number of passages which are suitable for preaching about the resurrection and recommends that if you are a preacher, as well as taking some time out to be with Jesus personally this week, you should read a good Christian book on the good news to help you prepare your own heart. There are, of course, a few books around about the resurrection at the moment, and Amazon does next day delivery. The reason for this is that we must be mastered by this message if we are to proclaim it as we should.  As Driscoll puts it:

I like to think of those people who have shed tears over sin they have committed and sins that have been committed against them and picture Jesus wiping every tear from their eye on the other side of resurrection as Scripture promises. I like to think of those people I know who are disabled one day being free to run and leap for joy on the other side of the resurrection. And I remember the deceased whom I love and I look forward to seeing them again on the day when we rise together to walk into the kingdom that never ends.

Here are Driscoll’s six tips for preaching on Easter Sunday which he more fully explains in his article:

1. Keep your Easter message short.
2. Keep your Easter message simple.
3. Keep your Easter message invitational.
4. Keep your Easter message special.
5. Keep your Easter message personal.
6. Keep your Easter message biblical.

Driscoll also encourages churches that it is a great idea to “baptize people to show the personal application of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in our place for our sins. At Mars Hill, we baptize more people on Easter than any other time of the year. . .The celebration of changed lives erupts into something of a sanctified resurrection party. I would encourage every pastor to do something similar.”

At Jubilee Church, London we will also be baptizing people this Sunday.. If you attend our church, there is a baptism class this evening at 7:30 PM in the Premier Bar for anyone wanting to add their name to the list of those being baptized.  I close this post by sharing an outstanding sermon about believer’s baptism and the breakthrough it can bring in our spiritual lives.  Dave Pask preached this message yesterday at Jubilee:

download video or download audio

This would win the wrath of many neo-liberals but I am sure that Piper would be glad to make room this Friday for the following quote I found on the pyromaniacs site from C.H. Spurgeon:

Suppose,” said I, “you had killed some one. You were a murderer; you were condemned to die, and you deserved it.”

“Faith,” said he, “yes I should deserve it.”

“Well, her Majesty is very desirous of saving your life, and yet at the same time universal justice demands that someone should die on account of the deed that is done. Now, how is she to manage?”

Said he, “That is the question. I cannot see how she can be inflexibly just, and yet suffer me to escape.”

“Well,” said I, “suppose, Pat, I should go to her and say, “Here is this poor Irishman, he deserves to be hanged, your Majesty. I don’t want to quarrel with the sentence, because I think it just, but, if you please, I so love him that if you were to hang me instead of him should be very willing.

“Pat, suppose she should agree to it, and hang me instead of you, what then? would she be just in letting you go?”

“Ay” said he, “I should think she would. Would she hang two for one thing? I should say not I’d walk away, and there isn’t a policeman that would touch me for it.”

“Ah!” said I, “that is how Jesus saves. ‘Father,’ he said, ‘I love these poor sinners, let me suffer instead of them!’ ‘Yes,’ said God, ‘thou shalt’ and on the tree he died, and suffered the punishment which all his elect people ought to have suffered, so that now all who believe on him, thus proving themselves to be his chosen, may conclude that he was punished for them, and that therefore they never can be punished.”

“Well,” said he, looking me in the face once more, “I understand what you mean; but how is it, if Christ died for all men, that notwithstanding, some men are punished again? For that is unjust.”

“Ah!” said I, “I never told you that. I say to you that he has died for all that believe on him, and all who repent, and that was punished for their sins so absolutely and so really, that none of them shall ever be punished again.”

“Faith,” said the man, clapping his hands, “that’s the gospel, if it isn’t, then I don’t know anything, for no man could have made that up, it is so wonderful. Ah!” he said, as he went down the stairs, “Pat’s safe now, with all his sins about him he’ll trust in the man that died for him, and so he shall be saved.”

Dear hearer, Christ is mighty to save, because God did not turn away the sword, but he sheathed it in his own Son’s heart; he did not remit the debt, for it was paid in drops of precious blood, and now the great receipt is nailed to the cross, and our sins with it, so that we may go free if we are believers in him. For this reason he is “mighty to save,” in the true sense of the word.

Interview with Vaughan Roberts from Adrian Warnock on Vimeo.

Vaughan has been rector at St. Ebbes, Oxford since 1998. We spoke about how a few years ago it would have been surprising to see the heads of the Proclamation Trust and Newfrontiers together. He described meeting Terry Virgo and discovering that they both liked the same books. He spoke about how we all do need to learn from each other since the caricatures we have are not entirely without a grain of truth.

We then spoke about the parasitical nature of liberalism. A liberal gospel never converts anyone. People are saved into a context that is serious about what the Bible says, but then they sometimes drift into liberalism. He said he is looking for those who value the authority of the Bible over system and human reason. For some people within the evangelical tradition, the Bible doesn’t drive their ministry.

Vaughan said that whilst a new believer might not fully appreciate how the cross saves us, when someone has looked into it and is saying “I do not accept penal substitutionary atonement,” he believes they are departing from Scripture. Vaughan argues that this skews the gospel at so many levels. We have a problem, sin which leads to the wrath of God. The solution must match that. There is a simplicity and depth to the classic explanation of the gospel.

Interview With Liam Goligher from Adrian Warnock on Vimeo.

One of my favorite memories from this year’s New Word Alive is meeting Liam Goligher. If you only want to watch one video from the event, watch this one. I am thrilled that this is the post I am sharing with you on my sixth blog anniversary (it was the 16th April 2003 when this journey began!)

Liam and I have spoken on the phone before, and from the first call I immediately knew that he was a real defender of the gospel. I heard him preach at NWA, and I was blown away. He has the full package: a thoughtful intelligent approach to the text, relevance, humor with biting illustrations, passion, and a big dose of that hard to measure thing called “anointing.” His preaching brought the tangible presence of God and conviction. To be honest, and this is not an exaggeration, I think he is something of a British John Piper.

But it was only in meeting him face-to-face that I realized how much fun he is. We laughed a lot, as well as speaking about many important subjects. This included the need for preachers to let their sermon grip them personally and to pray for the work of the Holy Spirit, which must empower preaching. We also spoke about aspects of the gospel which are under attack and must be vigorously defended.

Liam also spoke about the need to remember to emphasize important aspects like the resurrection, which might not be under attack in the same way. We spoke about my book, and at one point he ribbed me mercilessly, but then was very kind about his own reaction to reading it.

Liam Goligher is the senior pastor of Duke Street Church, Richmond London, which is growing rapidly and currently has around 600 people who attend on a Sunday. Liam is on the committee which organizes New Word Alive, as well as being a regular conference speaker at other events. His preaching is available to listen to free online or to purchase on CD. He is currently preaching on Isaiah in the mornings and Revelation in the evenings.

The battle lines continue to be clearly drawn despite the best efforts to be “charitable” to both sides by those who try to occupy the middle ground. In an outrageous newspaper article which only cites one Bible verse and even that out of context, Giles Fraser declares “What vicious God would demand Jesus sacrificed for our sins? We should ditch this view of Easter”

I am not surprised by the strong language used by the opponents of the view of the cross generally called “penal substitutionary atonement” but understood by millions of children simply as “Jesus died to be punished for our sin.” If millions of Christians are as wrong as Fraser believes then no wonder he would speak the way he does.

Fraser does not grapple with the issues of the seriousness of sin, of the hundreds of mentions of the wrath of God in Scripture, or of the just requirement that sin should be punished. In short the gospel is removed. As usual the alternative explanation of what happened on the cross is not at all clear. These vague descriptions attempt to remove the very offence of the cross which Paul describes as “Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:18)

To be honest this Easter I am not angry at Fraser, nor am I angry with Steve Chalke (see my posts on the Atonement Debate). At least these people are clear about what they believe and understand. No, the people I am angry with this year are the ones in the Evangelical hierarchy who want to brush these debates to one side in the name of “unity.” There can be no real unity between those who believe that to declare Jesus was punished for us is “cosmic child abuse” and those who believe it is the most precious truth of the Bible. One side of this debate has to be wrong, and badly wrong. They cannot both be right; even N.T. Wright cannot perform such theological magic! The minute anyone tries to make this truth a debatable matter over which evangelicals can legitimately disagree is the moment they lose the right to call themselves evangelical at all in my opinion.

One of the joys of last weeks New Word Alive event was that this debate was totally unnecessary there. The main thing that held the speakers together was that they all believed this was the essential center of the gospel. You can read more about this in my Atonement series.

Where do YOU stand?

THAT’S EASTER Life to Death from St Helen’s Church on Vimeo.

http://www.st-helens.org.uk/easter/

This is a short film that takes a close look at what Good Friday is all about, and asks why the cross and Jesus’ death is such a big deal for Christians.

There is none of the five points of calvinism that are associated with more confusion than the one commonly called Limited Atonment or particular atonement. The problem comes because we do not tend to understand exactly what Calvinists have historically meant by this point, nor do we understand the alternatives on either side. Logic can be very treacherous when it comes to doctrinal understanding. So, in the following quote from Edwards we will find him steering a middle ground between two sets of rocks which are both in my view errors caused by overuse of what seems like reasonable logic.

The one error is really that of the hypercalvinist, who claims that this doctrine necessarily means that God predestines some men to hell in exactly the same way as he predestines others to heaven. It makes God the author of sin, and it means that the gospel is not a genuine offer of salvation.

The opposite error, is to say that Jesus died in the same sense “for” everyone. This alternative view to Limited Atonement is righly called “Universal Atonement” and of course is intimately linked with Universalism, which argues that all will eventually be saved. This quote from probably the greatest theologican of America, explains it well.

Universal redemption must be denied in the very sense of Calvinists themselves, whether predestination is acknowledged or no, if we acknowledge that Christ knows all things. For if Christ certainly knows all things to come, he certainly knew, when he died, that there were such and such men that would never be the better for his death. And therefore, it was impossible that he should die with an intent to make them (particular persons) happy. For it is a right-down contradiction [to say that] he died with an intent to make them happy, when at the same time he knew they would not be happy-Predestination or no predestination, it is all one for that. This is all that Calvinists mean when they say that Christ did not die for all, that he did not die intending and designing that such and such particular persons should be the better for it; and that is evident to a demonstration. Now Arminians, when [they] say that Christ died for all, cannot mean, with any sense, that he died for all any otherwise than to give all an opportunity to be saved; and that, Calvinists themselves never denied. He did die for all in this sense; ’tis past all contradiction. -Jonathan Edwards [1722], The “Miscellanies”: (Entry Nos. a–z, aa–zz, 1–500) (WJE Online Vol. 13) , Ed. Harry S. Stout, page 1 74

This is the last in my short series on Steve Chalke and The Atonement Debate. The previous posts in this series can be found by clicking on the links below:

• Update on Steve Chalke and The Atonement Debate
• Steve Chalke Confirms He Does Not Believe in Penal Substitution
• Steve Chalke Argues Against Penal Substitutionary Atonement
• Steve Chalke and Neglect of the Resurrection

In his chapter of the book, The Atonement Debate, Steve Chalke continues with a classic argument from silence. He claims that Jesus did not teach this doctrine himself and therefore it is questionable. He also argues that before Jesus’ death he would not have had any gospel message to share if PSA is true. The second aspect of this is easy to dispatch since it betrays a very linear view of time. Romans 3 makes clear that it was Jesus’ death that enabled God to overlook sins committed beforehand. In addition, I have often wondered what Chalke believes about hell. Jesus teaches a lot about hell, and a number of his parables refer to eternal suffering. Surely he is describing the problem he is about to solve in doing this. Also, at the climax of his ministry the necessity of his death is very clear to Jesus, and his words describing it as a cup he must drink are poignant. If PSA is not true, it is difficult to see how Jesus’ death was so absolutely necessary. In any case, Jesus did not have to directly teach this doctrine in order for it to be true.

Chalke tries to negate concepts of God’s anger by essentially claiming that God is defined as love, and that fact trumps any mention of God as a God of wrath and anger and presumably holiness. He then devotes an entire section to the cultural implications of PSA, which he says plays into notions of violence and “might is right,” from which the rest of the world is moving away. He also claims it is too individualistic. In fact, in this section he seems to be in danger of removing altogether the importance of the individual’s relationship with God. There is even a statement that he does not like the notion that someone can believe they are saved in an instant, claiming that “separates salvation from discipleship” (page 42). It is vital for us to separate salvation from discipleship, or legalism and justification by works is the result. We do not live good lives in order to be saved. I have long been suspicious that removing the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement inevitably weakens our belief that it is Jesus who saves us in favor of the notion that we have to do something in order to earn our way to heaven. Without fully expressing this, Chalke certainly seems to be implying it. He does not clearly elucidate his views on justification here, however, so I need to be careful, but remain very curious about the implications of what he is saying.

Finally, and perhaps most helpfully, in his closing section Chalke explains what he has put in the place of PSA. Basically he believes in the Christus Victor model whereby it is the victory won by the death and resurrection of Jesus that is key to our salvation. But before he gets there, he makes a clear statement about attempts to “soften” PSA, some of which he believes are even present in The Atonement Debate, to which he is a contributor.

“Since my book was published, and in the serious theological debate that has followed it, some have sought to readdress their definition of penal substitution. I have witnessed various attempts to redraw, redefine, recast, remodel, and rehabilitate the theory as “not really as violent and retributive a concept as The Lost Message of Jesus suggested.” But the problem is simply this: this is not how the situation is perceived either within or beyond the church. So, whilst I applaud these attempts to manufacture a kind of “penal substitution theory lite”—some of which will, no doubt, be presented in other contributions to this book—in my view, what we need is not a reworking but a renunciation” (page 42).

Chalke and I do agree on at least one thing. PSA should not be softened. We should either reject it completely as he is calling for, or, as many millions have, accept it as a precious truth despite all its shocking gruesomeness.

If you would like more information about the atonement, I would recommend the book Pierced for Our Transgressions, or you could read through my previous atonement series in the links found in the following posts from my bog,“Atonement Wars” and “More Atonement Wars.”

In his arguments against penal substitutionary atonement (PSA), Chalke parodies what its advocates believe, claiming that, according to those who hold to PSA,

. . .it is Jesus’ death alone that becomes our “good news.” This approach reduces the whole gospel to a single sentence: “God is no longer angry with us because Jesus died in our place.” Indeed, that is exactly why evangelistic presentations based on penal substitution often do not even bother to mention the resurrection; for them it serves no purpose in the story of salvation (page 39).

We need not accept the accuracy of Chalke’s parody to be stung by its application, at least in part. It is a fact that at times evangelicals neglect to talk about the resurrection and other aspects of what the cross accomplished for us. In fact, Christians should believe that the gospel is about both the death and resurrection of Jesus, and that the work of Christ is about more than only satisfying God’s wrath. For starters, regeneration requires something to be done to us right here and now, and surely our gospel presentations need to explain this. And it is important to stress that there are other aspects of the atonement itself, and in this Mark Driscoll has served us well in his book, Death By Love, which outlines in letters to church members the different aspects of what the cross accomplished.

If Chalke was merely calling for us to remember to emphasize all the aspects of what Jesus accomplished for us, then I would say Amen! to that. Indeed, it was in part because of my own study of all these issues, which was in turn prompted by the Steve Chalke controversy, that I began to feel compelled to write about the resurrection. So perhaps in some sense this whole argument is the background within which the idea for my book, provisionally entitled The Resurrection Empowered Life, arose.

The key thing here is—even if we acknowledge some neglect of other aspects of Christ’s work for us—that is no reason to deny the truth of Jesus’ wrath-absorbing death on the cross. We should heed Chalke’s calls to look at everything Jesus has accomplished for us, but ignore his desire that we reject any notion that he was punished for us. I will continue to examine Chalke’s reasons for his rejection of PSA tomorrow.

In his chapter in the recent book The Atonement Debate, Steve Chalke begins to argue against penal substitution (PSA). He starts in a surprising, and to me, a deeply concerning way. One of my major concerns about this whole debate is what a rejection of PSA does to our view of the Bible. The concept of God’s wrath is very prominent in the Bible, culminating in the famous dilemma of Romans 3 where Paul essentially asks how can God be both JUST and yet FORGIVE our sin. In the context of Romans, to me that answer is simple—because Jesus took away that wrath and bore our punishment.

Chalke sidesteps the issue of the wrath of God by attempting to remove the issue of the sacrifices of the Old Testament from the discussion by claiming:

“The emphasis on Yahweh’s apparent appetite for continuous appeasement through blood sacrifice, present within some Pentateuchal texts, is to be understood in the light of later prophetic writings as a reflection of the worship practices of the pagan cults of the nations that surrounded the people of Israel. However, the story of Israel’s salvation is the story of her journey away from these primal practices towards a new and more enlightened understanding by way of Yahweh’s self-revelation.” (page 38, The Atonement Debate)

This quote is simply breathtaking coming as it does from the pen of a professed evangelical. First of all, it seems that Chalke takes a very different view of Scripture to that of the majority of evangelicals. The books of Moses are not to be contradicted by later revelation! These sacrifices were demanded by the actual audible voice of God recorded infallibly by Moses. Chalke’s comments only make sense if he doesn’t believe that the Pentateuch is actually God’s Word. Moses records that God did not merely “accommodate himself” to the local culture; he actively commanded sacrifice!

Of course it’s not just the Pentateuch with which Chalke’s comments seem to disagree. In his attempt to separate what Jesus did on the cross from biblical notions of sacrifice, one has to wonder what he would make of the book of Hebrews. On page after page the writer to the Hebrews directly connects Jesus’ death with that of the lambs and goats of the Old Testament sacrifices. Hebrews 9:22 says, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” and clearly declares of Jesus in verse 26, “He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

We can’t just airbrush out of the Bible the teaching that it is a wrath-removing bloody sacrifice for sin that is absolutely necessary in order that we can be saved. In his comments on the Pentateuch, Chalke seems to imply that he does not believe those passages to be truly God’s infallible Word, or at least he believes that those passages were contradicted later on. Would he view Hebrews in the same way? We will continue to look at Chalke’s reasons for rejecting PSA tomorrow.

I do want to thank Steve Chalke for the honesty and openness in his contribution to the recent book, The Atonement Debate. He is very bold, and explains his position with far more clarity than I feel he has done before. Reading his chapter was worthwhile as there is much confusion about what Chalke really believes. Indeed, many people, including N. T. Wright, have gone so far as to make pronouncements about what they are sure Chalke believes. But in this book we find the answer to the question in his own words—What does Steve Chalke now think about penal substitution?

Firstly, he has not changed his mind about the appropriateness of his original use of the “cosmic child abuse” language which many found offensive. He says:

“Though the sheer bluntness of my imagery shocked some, I contend that, in truth, it represents nothing more than a stark unmasking of what I understand to be the violent, pre-Christian thinking behind the popular theory of penal substitutionary atonement. Thus, whilst having great respect for many of those who hold what, I readily concede, is currently regarded as orthodoxy within modern evangelicalism, I will attempt to set out through this essay why I believe it to be biblically, culturally, and pastorally deficient and even dangerous” (page 35).

One of the other key questions is this: Was N. T. Wright right to say that Chalke holds to a form of penal substitution that is similar to Wright’s own position? Here Chalke is very clear. He acknowledges that he does hold a “deep resonance” (page 35) with Wright’s position. But he claims that both his own and Wright’s understanding of the way in which the cross saves us is “so far removed from what is commonly taught” (page 35) that he does not like to use the word “penal” as representing his own position.

Wright, it seems, is stuck somewhat in the middle of this. Do Chalke and Wright really agree as much as they both think they do? Is Chalke right to say that Wright’s view, which the prof calls a form of PSA, is actually not really PSA at all? To be honest, sometimes Wright can be hard to fathom and it takes great patience to dissect him fully in such a manner as John Piper did over Wright’s view of justification. But Wright is not the subject of this post; instead, we are looking at Chalke’s own position.

Chalke agrees with Wright’s assessment of the book Pierced For Our Transgressions (PFOT) as “deeply, profoundly, and disturbingly unbiblical” which, since it is a book upholding PSA in a clear and strong way, makes any claim that either Wright or Chalke actually do believe in PSA quite hard to stomach. [In my view, incidentally, PFOT is probably the single best book to read if you want to understand PSA more fully.] Chalke then goes on to explain why he does not believe in PSA as almost everyone would define it. Join me tomorrow as I interact with the arguments he uses.

Somehow I missed a book published earlier this year by Zondervan called The Atonement Debate. The book was described to me as a “cool-headed” approach to the whole debate on penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) that has been raging in evangelicalism since Steve Chalke popularized attempts to dismiss it as a form of “cosmic child abuse.” It is essentially an edited and expanded publication of some papers from a theological debate which took place under the auspices of the Evangelical Alliance and the London School of Theology.

To be honest, when I heard this book was going to be “cool-headed” I was already concerned about it. I’m not sure the atonement is a subject that it’s possible to be terribly cool about. That’s because another word for cool is lukewarm. Jesus hates us to be lukewarm about crucial issues, even threatening to spit the lukewarm from his mouth (Revelation 3). I much prefer interacting with someone who is either hot or cold about important issues like this.

The truth is, there could scarcely be a more important subject. On the one side are people like Chalke who genuinely believe that many evangelicals today are teaching a barbaric pre-Christian lie that is destroying the Church’s witness. On the other hand are those of us who believe that if we were to deny that Jesus took the punishment that was due us for our sin, turning aside the wrath of God by bearing it in himself, quite simply there would be no gospel left.

I can’t see how people who really believe either of those two positions can just agree to disagree and work together as fellow evangelicals. One group must be wrong. Whichever group is right are also clearly quite correct to be very concerned about the opposite group who are, by their false teaching, distorting the gospel and preventing people from coming to a true knowledge of what Jesus has done for them. There are some issues on which we can compromise. This is not one of them.

Accordingly, the first chapter, which tried to set the scene, concerned me greatly. It was written by a believer in PSA who acknowledged that the crafters of the UK Evangelical Alliance’s Statement of Faith had clearly intended to include PSA in that statement. Minutes of the meetings and the living memory of those survivors failed to explain why, in the 1970’s, the word “penal” had been dropped from early drafts of the statement. The writer seemed anxious to stress, however, that in his view it would have been wrong to insert the word penal back into the statement in its most recent revision as that would have been seen as targeting an individual. To be honest, I find such a reluctance baffling. I believe that clarity is exactly what is needed in this debate. Can people really work together in an organization with such diametrically opposed views as I have outlined above?

For some reason it fell to me to become more involved in the debate that had been ongoing within UK evangelicalism than I ever expected. It was a great surprise to me to find myself in the position where I felt obliged to break the story that the separation of Spring Harvest and Word Alive had not been entirely amicable. What soon became clear was that this was not only an argument between Chalke and those who held to PSA. Almost more importantly, there was a disagreement between those who said that they hold to PSA about what should be done when a leading member of many evangelical organizations like Steve Chalke criticized their prevailing teaching so strongly. Many plead, “Can’t we just all get along and agree to disagree?” For more information about the controversy please see the links found in the following posts from my blog “Atonement Wars” and “More Atonement Wars.”

It would seem that The Atonement Debate is published with a desire to help evangelicals understand the debate and then move on from it. Indeed, the tone of most of the papers is conciliatory, and I suspect that one could easily come away after reading it wondering what all the fuss is about. I had assumed that Steve Chalke’s relative silence on the issue meant that he too had come to the conclusion that this didn’t really matter as much as both his original rhetoric and that of his detractors had led one to believe. I couldn’t have been more wrong, as we will see tomorrow when I continue to blog on this subject.

As Christians we must constantly remind ourselves both of the complexities and the glorious depths of the mysterious gospel of Christ, and of its ability to be summarized in a gloriously simple statement. We must keep checking ourselves! Do we actually believe what the Bible says? This is, to me, a fantastic summary of the message all Christians are meant to proclaim:

[Jesus] deliberately went to the cross and suffered the shame and the spitting and the indignity of it all; and this He did to bear my sins; to receive my punishment; to suffer the penalty that my guilt had deserved; and infinitely more important, to deliver me from the bondage of sin and of Satan; to separate me unto Himself; and to make of me a man zealous of good works, delighting in holiness. He died; He was raised from the dead; He returned to heaven, and He sent down the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost in order that I might have the assurance of my faith, and the joy, and the power. He has given me a new life and a new nature; He has joined me unto Himself; I am a member of His mystical body; I am a child of God, I am an heir of heaven.

That is what knowing Christ means, learning Him, hearing Him, being taught in Him! I believe the teaching that nought that defileth shall be allowed to enter into heaven; that heaven is eternally pure and holy, the antithesis of this world and sin, the opposite to hell. That is how I have learned Christ, that is how I have heard Him, that is how I have been taught in Him—that I am in Him the living Head, and a part of Him; and that beyond this life and death and the veil, I am going to be with Him forever and forever. If you believe these things, says Paul, you will ‘have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness’.

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Christian Unity, Studies in Ephesians, chapter 4, verses 1 through 16 (Grand Rapids MI: Baker Book House, 1972), 115. Also available electronically from Logos Bible Software.

I want to introduce you to a very unusual book by Mark Driscoll and his writing buddy and professor, Gerry Breshears. I would go so far as to say that this is a unique book in that I have never seen anything quite like it.

If their first book together, Vintage Jesus, was a light cheerful book that offended some by its use of humor and at times edgy topics for illustrations, this new book by these two men is more of a grungy, almost dark book. The video over at the ReLit site leaves you in no doubt that this is a book that will wrestle with darkness, pain, and even demonization.

Certainly this book represents just a tiny sample of the ocean of pain that a pastor of a large church has to handle over the years. Some neoliberals argue that people who believe in penal substitutionary atonement do not engage with the real suffering found in the world. This book demonstrates emphatically that in Driscoll’s case this is simply not true. Such critics also argue that the evangelical’s gospel can become overly narrow, eventually focusing solely on the “felt need” of the feelings of guilt many still experience. Guilt, however, is far from the only reason people come to Christ. The New Testament is full of helpful ways we can understand what Jesus did on the cross.

Without in any way softening his commitment to the centrality of Jesus taking the punishment of sin in our understanding of the cross, Driscoll is far broader in his understanding of and application of the cross to hurting people’s lives today. From convicted child molesters, to cheating husbands and raped women, Driscoll shares pen outlines of the destruction manifest in the lives of specific people to whom he has ministered. He then shows in a letter written to each individual how a specific aspect of what Jesus has done on the cross can bring wholeness and salvation to them.

This is a vital book that should be read by every Christian who is serious about reaching out with the gospel into this dark and damaged world. I will share a video of Mark speaking about the book, followed by an excerpt from one of those letters that particularly struck me. You will have to buy the book to see exactly how Driscoll and Breshears apply the gospel to Bill and his violent, abusive father.

“As a little boy you rightly felt angry at your dad, and that anger rightly compelled you to confront his injustice and protect the rest of the family. Therefore, anger can be a righteous virtue, which explains why God gets angry at sin too. The Bible is full of examples of God getting angry at sinners. A few examples will illustrate my point clearly, but a reading of Leviticus 26:27-30, Numbers 11:1, and Deuteronomy 29:24 for starters, speak of God’s anger as being hostile, burning, and furious.

Flaccid church guys will often accept that in the Old Testament God did get angry, but they will say that Jesus was a nice, emotionless, flaccid church guy, just like them, who chose a hollow, fake smile over anger every day. But even Jesus got angry, furious, and enraged . . . [Here Driscoll cites Mark 3:5 and Revelation 19, but one could also add Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-17, Luke 19:45-46, and John 2:13-17.]

In speaking of God’s anger, I want to be careful not to give permission for us to lose our temper and rage, because that is a sin—the very sin your father committed repeatedly. However, because God is perfect, his anger is perfect and, as such, is aroused slowly (Exodus 34:6-8), sometimes turned away (Deuteronomy 13:17), often delayed (Isaiah 48:9), and frequently held back (Psalm 78:38).

Furthermore, God feels angry because God hates sin (Proverbs 6:16-19, Zechariah 8:17). Sadly, it is commonly said among Christians that “God hates the sin but loves the sinner.” This is as stupid as saying that God loves rapists and hates rape, as if rape and rapists were two entirely different entities that could be separated from one another. Furthermore, it was not a divinely inspired author of Scripture but the Hindu, Gandhi, who coined the phrase, “Love the sinner but hate the sin” . . .

Regarding God’s anger and hatred, it is commonly protested that God cannot hate anyone because he is love. But the Bible speaks of God’s anger, wrath, and fury more than of his love, grace, and mercy. Furthermore, it is precisely because God is love that he must hate evil and all who do evil—evil is an assault on whom and what he loves.

Therefore, Bill, your anger toward and hatred of your father are justifiable and are the healthy response to seeing your dad beat the mother and siblings you love. However, in a mysterious conflict of deep emotions, you continued to love your father just as God continues to love unrepentant sinners whom he simultaneously hates . . .

I know this will be difficult for you to comprehend, Bill, but Jesus has fully experienced what you have, and much more. Jesus was mocked and beaten, though he was without sin. He willingly substituted himself for those he loved and wanted to save . . . ”

From Death By Love by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears, copyright 2008, pages 127-129. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.com.