food for thought: March 2005 Archives
What hope is there for a world that is filled with so much tyranny and oppression if there is not an ultimate judge?
What hope is there for a world that is filled with so much tyranny and oppression if there is an ultimate judge?
Our hope is found in the Righteous Judge who was judged in our place (Romans 3:23-26; Galatians 3:10-14; 2 Corinthians 5:21).
Below is a very thought-provoking section from T.F. Torrance's The Mediation of Christ. It led me to marvel at the great wisdom and love of God. Enjoy! It's well worth the necessary time it takes to read it.
“The covenant between God and Israel was not a covenant between God and a holy people, but precisely the reverse. It was a covenant established out of pure grace between God and Israel in its sinful, rebellious and estranged existence. Hence, no matter how rebellious or sinful Israel was, it could not escape from the covenant love and faithfulness of God… There were evidently critical moments in Israel’s history when it seemed ready to do anything to flout the will of God in hope of breaking loose from the grip of his unswerving love and of escaping from the painful transformation of its existence that relations with ‘the Holy One of Israel’ involved. No, the covenant was not made with holy people, nor did its validity depend upon a contractual fulfillment of its conditions on the part of Israel, for its was a unilateral covenant which depended for its fulfillment upon the unconditional grace of God and the unrelenting purpose of reconciliation which he had pledged to work out through Israel for all peoples. And therefore…it depended upon a vicarious way of response to the love of God which God himself provided within the covenant—a way of response which he set out in the liturgy of atoning sacrifice and which he insisted on translating into the very existence of Israel in its vocation as ‘servant of the Lord.’
“…the more fully God gave himself to this people, the more he forced it to be what it actually was, what we all are, in the self-willed isolation of fallen humanity from God. Thus the movement of God’s reconciling love toward Israel not only revealed Israel’s sin but intensified it. That intensification, however, is not to be regarded simply as an accidental result of the covenant but rather as something which God deliberately took into the full design of his reconciling activity, for it was the will and the way of God’s grace to effect reconciliation with man at his very worst, precisely in his state of rebellion against God. That is to say, in his marvelous wisdom and love God worked out in Israel a way of reconciliation which does not depend on the worth of men and women, but makes their very sin in rebellion against him the means by which he binds them for ever to himself and through which he reconstitutes their relations with him in such a way that their true end is fully and perfectly realized in unsullied communion with himself.
“That is the way in which we are surely to interpret the Incarnation, in which God has drawn so near to man and drawn man so near to himself in Jesus that they are perfectly at one. In Jesus the problematic presence of God to Israel, the distance of his nearness and the nearness of his distance, which so deeply trouble the soul of the psalmists and prophets alike, was brought to its resolution” (T.F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, pp. 28-29).
What is a Gospel-centered church? Is it a church that believes that God has made Christ to be its wisdom, even its righteousness, sanctification, and glorification (1 Corinthians 1:30)? In other words, is what constitutes a Gospel-centered church the cherished belief and conviction that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, that no one comes to the Father except through him (John 14:6)? Or is there more to a Gospel-centered church than just what it believes and preaches concerning Jesus? On what criteria can we consider our churches to be or not to be Gospel-centered? That is the question.
Around A.D. 60 Paul wrote “to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae.” In his letter to them he thanks God for their faith in Christ Jesus and for the love that they had for all of God’s people (Colossians 1:4). Colossae was clearly a city where the Gospel was bearing fruit and growing since many of its people had heard and understood the Gospel of God’s grace in Christ (Colossians 1:6). The church at Colossae was plainly a Christian assembly brought into existence through the Gospel-centered preaching of Epaphras (Colossians 1:7). God was accomplishing great things in this city located in the Lycus River Valley in ancient Phrygia.
But though the Gospel was bearing much fruit there, false teaching was present having the potential of doing this new little church great harm. Evidently these false teachers “thought that Christ was no more than a beginning; to go on to spiritual maturity, it was necessary to follow their rules and practices” (Carson, Moo, and Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, p. 335). So what does Paul do in his letter to address this problem? He puts a strong emphasis on the supremacy of Christ over all creation, visible or invisible, “whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities” (Colossians 1:15ff). He tells the Colossian church that Jesus is the first to rise from the dead “that in everything he might be preeminent” (Colossians 1:18).
It is not too far into the letter that Paul begins to address the Colossian believers directly. “And you [who are the church at Colossae], who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, [Jesus] has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the Gospel that you [who are the church at Colossae] heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister (Colossians 1:21-23). Paul exhorts the Colossian church to remain stable and steadfast in the content of the Gospel.
I think it is critical that we modern day interpreters don’t allow our individualistic mindset to cloud our understanding of what Paul is doing here in this letter. He’s writing to the church at Colossae. Yes, the Colossian church is full of individuals, but Paul is not so much addressing individuals (though he is) as he is addressing the corporate body of believers at Colossae. It seems to me that we tend to read and understand these verses with reference to ourselves personally. For example, when meditating upon Colossians 1:21-23, we often think, “I was once alienated in mind, doing evil deeds, and now Christ has reconciled me in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present me holy and blameless and above reproach. Therefore, I must continue in the faith. I must remain stable and steadfast in the content of the Gospel.” Though this is true of every individual believer, Paul is not so much addressing individuals as he is addressing the corporate body of believers at Colossae.
Therefore, we can best Paul’s emphasis by paraphrasing these verses with a corporate emphasis, “The congregation at Colossae who once was alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, Jesus as now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present them holy and blameless and above reproach before him.” What was at stake in the city of Colossae was the steadfastness of the church there in the Gospel of which Paul was a minister. So over and over again Paul addresses the Colossian congregation. “I want you [the congregation] to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea” (Colossians 2:1). “As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him” (Colossians 2:6). “See to it that no one takes you [the church at Colossae] captive by philosophy and empty deceit” (Colossians 2:8).
It is clear in chapter two that the church at Colossae was formed when the content of the preached Gospel was received. Paul then informs the church that its conduct is always to be in line with the truth concerning Christ that it received (Colossians 2:6). In verse 7, Paul exhorts the Colossian church to walk in the Gospel since it has been rooted and is being built up in Christ and established in the content of the Gospel. What Paul is essentially doing in his letter to the Colossians is calling this church to be Gospel-centered.
In chapter 3, Paul calls the Colossian church to “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” since it has been raised with Christ (Colossians 3:1). What the church at Colossae was in danger of doing was thinking that in order to go on to spiritual maturity, it was necessary to follow the rules and practices taught by these false teachers. But what Paul tells this church is that its life is not found in the performance of religious rites. Rather its life is found in Christ who is its life (Colossians 3:3-4).
So what is a Gospel-centered church? What makes a church Gospel-centered? Before we answer this question, lets consider Colossians 3:16, which I believe gives us Paul’s answer. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you [the congregation at Colossae] richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” The key phrase is “the word of Christ.” What does Paul mean by that? Once we answer that question, then we can know what it means for “the word of Christ” to dwell richly in a congregation.
Consider the following verses in Colossians. “We always thank God…when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the Gospel” (Colossians 1:3-5).
“Continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the Gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister” (Colossians 1:23).
“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s affliction for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that we given to me for you, to make the word of God [concerning Christ] fully known” (Colossians 1:24-25).
“At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ” (Colossians 4:3).
It seems to me that the “word of Christ” is just another way of referring to the Gospel. So what Paul is calling the Colossian church to do is let the Gospel of Christ dwell in it richly. In other words, he is calling the Colossian church to be Gospel-centered. Paul exhorts the Colossian church to let the truth that Christ “is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead” (Colossians 1:18), that Christ has reconciled it “in his body of flesh by his death” (Colossians 1:22), that Christ is “the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27, that in Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3), that in Christ they (i.e. the Colossian church) have been filled (Colossians 2:10), that in Christ they have been delivered “from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom” of the Father’s beloved Son. We could go on and on, but what we are meant to understand is that a Gospel-centered church is a church where the word about Christ, where the Gospel, dwells richly!
If a Gospel-centered church is a church where the word about Christ dwells abundantly, how do we know if our particular church is Gospel-centered? The evidence that a church is Gospel-centered is that the Gospel marks the very songs we sing and the way in which we sing them. The singing of a Gospel-centered church is Gospel-centered, that is, a Gospel-centered church’s singing is marked by a deep rejoicing in the mighty acts of God in Christ! And the teaching and one-anothering that takes place within a Gospel-centered church is filled to overflowing with the truth of the Gospel of grace. All of these marks of Gospel-centeredness are found in Colossians 3:16.
I want to share a brief comment that Matt Hand made to me in a recent e-mail that I think is relevant to our discussion. "I am convinced the church is PEOPLE, and the only way to have a Christ-centered, Gospel-driven church is to have Christ-centered, Gospel-driven PEOPLE." May our churches be filled with wives and husbands (Colossians 3:18-19), children and parents (Colossians 3:20-21), and singles who together let the "word about Christ" dwell in them richly, "teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in [their] hearts to God."
