One is the division in Evangelicalism between so-called Open and Conservative wings. I have tried without success to establish what underlies the bitterness of this dispute. However, it is clear we have moved a long way from the heady, and united, days of the 1977 National Evangelical Anglican Congress, when Evangelicals gathered as one body under one roof.
The other is the patent lack of evangelism within the Church of England as an institution. I have a series of ‘Google News Alerts’ which keep me in touch with various issues, one of which is the pairing of ‘Church of England’ with ‘Evangelism’. It very rarely produces anything. Indeed, even ‘Back to Church Sunday’ —surely the nearest thing the Church of England has had to an evangelistic initiative since the late and unlamented ‘Decade of Evangelism’ —is a remarkably unproductive source of news.
It seems to me, however, that the one thing which should define Evangelicalism is evangelizing. An Evangelicalism which did not evangelize would be an oxymoron. Any definition of Evangelicalism, therefore, should be gospel centred and, preferably, short. Here, then, is my offering.
Evangelicals believe in a gospel:
1. Centred on the death of Christ for sin
2. Effective for salvation from coming judgement
3. Sufficient for reconciliation with God through faith alone
1. A gospel which is centred on the death of Christ for sin
This first point is readily established from the Gospels generally, but is cogently summarised in 1 Corinthians 15:3, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures ...” Much could be said on this single verse but four things are worth noting:
a. The death of Christ for our sins is ‘of first importance’.
b. This death is to be understood ‘according to the Scriptures’, wherein we may find attributed to the cross everything from victory over the powers of evil to the substitutionary bearing of God’s wrath.
c. That ‘Christ died for our sins’ shows we are sinners for whom Christ had to die. We cannot understand ourselves without admitting this fact.
d. That ‘Christ died for our sins’ shows that he is the one whose death takes away the sin of the world. We cannot understand Christ without admitting this fact.
To preach the gospel, then, is to proclaim, in Scriptural terms, what Christ has done for us in dying for our sins. There are many starting points to this, as we see in Acts, but they all come down to admitting the truth of 1 Corinthians 15:3.
2. A gospel which is effective for salvation from coming judgement
The point about Christ dying ‘for our sins’ raises a second issue, however, which is that he died to save us from coming judgement. This is a point Paul managed to make in his sermon at the Areopagus (Acts 17) even though he preached without mentioning the name of Jesus —a fact which should tell us much about the priorities of the gospel message.
Judgement is declared, however, not to terrify but in order to allow the preaching of the news that Christ is Lord and that people should repent and be baptized in his name for the forgiveness of sins.
We may admit that we do not know all of God’s ways and, as some of the Reformers did, we may leave open the question of how God may save those, such as unborn infants, who do not have the capacity to respond to the gospel. But we have no other known remedy for sin than the gospel and no other name under heaven by which people may be saved than Jesus. Thus for our own part we are compelled to call everyone to flee from the wrath to come, knowing that the gospel is God’s effective means of deliverance.
3. A gospel which is sufficient for reconciliation with God though faith alone
The great divides between true and false understandings of the gospel have not been over whether Christ died for our sins, however, but whether faith in that message is sufficient, in itself, to reconcile us fully with God.
That is the point at issue in Acts and in many of the New Testament epistles when the early Church confronts the so-called ‘Judaizers’. These people did not deny that Christ died for our sins, but they wanted to affirm adherence to the Law as a necessary complement to belief in Christ as Lord.
During the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church similarly did not deny that Christ died for our sins. But it affirmed then, and affirms to this day, that faith enables a process by which, through the workings of God’s grace, we become sufficiently holy in ourselves to merit entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven.
This is also, I think, the dividing point between Evangelical and Charismatic theology, for in the latter, though salvation is indeed said to come through the death of Christ for our sin, the full blessings of God may not be experienced until some later endowment of the Holy Spirit, connected with some other teaching or challenge to faith than simply the gospel itself.
The dynamic of the gospel, however, is set forth in Galatians 3:13-14:
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us ... in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
The sufficiency of the gospel was Luther’s great Reformation discovery, and it therefore must remain a plank of Evangelical conviction.
We may notice that it is perfectly possible to be saved and not appreciate this last point. Many of the recipients of Paul’s letters had not appreciated it, nor, in my view, do Roman Catholics or modern Charismatics. But it is not, thereby, a minor point, for on it rests the nature of our Christian experience and the nature, ultimately, of our preaching.
Sin, salvation and Spirit
There is one other thing which must be said, arising from this understanding of the gospel. It is clear from Scripture that the Holy Spirit is given ‘through faith’ to those who believe the gospel, and through no other means. It is clear, too, that the gospel is that Christ died for our sins. We may fairly conclude, therefore, that those who do not believe that Christ died for their sins ‘according to the Scriptures’ do not have the Spirit, no matter how much they may claim to be Spirit-led.
This is why it is so vital that the gospel is preached on the basis that Christ’s death for our sins is ‘of first importance’. Any response towards God that is not based on this understanding is not only unable to find reconciliation with him, it is unable to result in receiving the Holy Spirit. We may build many things on other foundations than this gospel, but what we cannot build is the Church.
Revd John P Richardson24 September 2007
No comments will be posted without a full name and location, see the policy.
(Chelmsford)
ReplyDeleteWhen you mention the lamentable lack of evangelism in the Church of England, I am surprised that you make no mention of the Alpha Course (although I acknowledge your favourable mention at Chelmsford Anglican Mainstream), an initiative which started in the C of E, although it has spread further of course, which has led to millions hearing the gospel clearly.
Of course if you are thinking only of initiatives coming from the top, they can hardly promote evangelism unless they know what it means. Back to Church Sunday hardly counts because it seems more about bums on seats than about the gospel - although I hope at least evangelical churches will use this Sunday as an opportunity to preach the gospel clearly to the unsaved and backsliders who may come Back to Church. Anyway, the people at the top have other important issues to worry about at the moment.
Or is your real reason for ignoring Alpha in this post is because you consider it unsound because it is charismatic? If so, perhaps you should re-examine your caricature of the charismatic movement. Few modern charismatics accept the old Pentecostal position that there is a separate endowment of the Holy Spirit after true conversion, and none surely attribute any endowment of the Holy Spirit to anything other than faith and grace. The teaching is much more that many Christians do not understand that they are filled by the Holy Spirit and what the implications of this are for their life. Of course they don't understand this, because most non-charismatic evangelicals refuse to teach about this at all - except for those who teach the 19th century false doctrine that the gifts of the Spirit ceased when the apostles died. It is when Christians understand the work of the Spirit that they can allow him to work in his lives to produce gifts as well as fruit. That, together with prayer for those gifts, is the main thrust of most charismatic teaching today.
And then you imply that charismatics "do not believe that Christ died for their sins ‘according to the Scriptures’". Where did you get that idea from?
Now some conservative evangelicals would deny your statement "This death is to be understood ‘according to the Scriptures’, wherein we may find attributed to the cross everything from victory over the powers of evil to the substitutionary bearing of God’s wrath." For they would insist that the only proper understanding of the death of Christ is in terms of penal substitution. Indeed it is their insistence on this teaching, often coupled with an anti-charismatic stance and opposition to ordination of women, which in my opinion is behind the divide between "conservative" and open evangelicals.
Now some, but not all, charismatics might reject that rather narrow penal substitution understanding of the death of Christ, and on that basis it might be said that they "do not believe that Christ died for their sins ‘according to the Scriptures’" - but then the same might be said of you for allowing the cross to be described as "victory over the powers of evil". But I would be surprised if any charismatic Anglican leader would not accept your understanding of the death of Christ.
So, John, you need to decide whether you are going to perpetuate and deepen the lamentable rift between conservative and open evangelicals by demonising charismatics among others, or whether you are going to show more generosity of spirit by allowing that genuine evangelicals, ones who can accept your three point summary of the gospel at least if purged of its barbs, are your brothers in Christ who should be welcomed as such rather than preached against.
Thanks Peter, and well done for being first. Specifically on the question of the Charismatic Movement, I would refer you to this (very old) material - stuck in cyberspace as I can't access the account on which it is stored. In particular I would draw attention to the comments about Nicky Gumbel's work in Questions of Life, on which the Alpha Course material draws heavily. He and I had a very long, polite, but hard hitting conversation over this after lunch at HTB vicarage, so this is not without its element of 'dialogue'.
ReplyDeletePlease do read it carefully, though, to see what I do and do not say about 'spiritual gifts'.
Limitations of space and time prevent a fuller reply, but I'll wait to see what others may say.
Alph is a very interesting subject. I'm coming across an increasing number of Charismatics who are unhappy with it for the same reasons I am. Nothing to do with it being "Charismatic" but it doesn't really explain sin very clearly and there is little/nothing about Grace (as a direct result I guess).
ReplyDeleteWhen I've been involved in Alpha courses all the questions were about Grace and misunderstandings of it. So it is clearly lacking. Many Churches use Alpha as a marketing tool, but then teach something a bit different. Personally I'd rather use a different course than do that.
Darren Moore (Tranmere)
John
ReplyDeletejust to be clear - if I don't believe that the Penal version of the Subsitutionary Atonement theory is valid do I;
a)not believe in Christ's death for my sins 'according to the scriptures'
and therefore
b)not have the Holy Spirit living in me?
thanks for clearing this up
Jody Stowell (Maidenhead)
Hi Jody
ReplyDeleteWhat 1 Corinthians 15:3 states is that the death of Christ is to be understood ‘according to the Scriptures’. I take that to include "the substitutionary bearing of God’s wrath".
This may not be as tight as saying, "the Penal version of the Substitutionary Atonement theory" as some people would understand it, but I was deliberately attempting to say only what Scripture says with a fair degree of clarity.
It seems clear to me, beyond reasonable doubt indeed, that Scripture teaches the wrath of God against sin and sinners and the punishment of God which follows from that. (This is all very Anglican, as can be seen at the start of Morning and Evening Prayer in the Scripture sentences, exhortation, confession and absolution.)
I would then consider something like Isaiah 53:5 to indicate our 'penalty' being born by Christ.
However, substitutionary atonement is affirmed as early as Leviticus 16. I don't think there is anything exceptionable in affirming the principle that the sacrifice for sin suffered the 'penalty' of sin, leaving the sacrificer in a state of deliverance (ransom?) and reconciliation with God, and then drawing a link between that and the cross. This is all, I think, entirely 'mainstream' teaching, and not exclusive to Evangelicals or even Anglicans.
The problem would come if someone denied this concept. It is significant to me that Steve Chalke gave Isaiah 53 a fairly wide berth in terms of what it said about penalty bearing.
It would be hard to see how the gospel could be preached, or believed, without at least affirming:
a. God's wrath at sin
b. God's punishment of sinners
c. Christ's sin-bearing on the cross (cf 1 Pe 2:24; 2 Cor 5:21 and so on)
d. The link between that sin-bearing and God's wrath (compare Matt 26:39 with Isa 51:17; 51:22; Jer 25:15ff).
If someone denied these basic tenets, I think we would have to question their grasp on the biblical understanding and their ability either to preach or respond to the gospel, and hence to receive the Spirit as a result of repentance and faith.
That is not quite the same things as saying, "If you don't believe in penal substitution theory you're not a Christian," because such a statement may itself conceal misunderstandings of various sorts.
I hope this is clear!
PS do look up the references to the cup of God's wrath. They are, I think, crucial to the crucifixion narrative.
ReplyDeleteIs it worth saying, as a rider to comments on the cross that NOBODY is denying that Christ's death on the cross is an example to believers or God's victory over Satan.
ReplyDeleteIt is just that only Christ's sin bearing substituion is being questioned, therefore some see the need to defend it. Something not being attacked doesn't need defending.
I think I'd go a bit further and say all these "models" are actually dependant on each other. So the cross as an example is clearly shown in 1 Peter 2:21ff - but it shows substituion too by his use of Isaiah. How exactly does the cross defeat Satan? Well Colossians 2:13-15 by removing the accusation that stood against us.
So I think it's wrong to refer to the "narrow penal theory", I'm not sure it's all that narrow and misrepresents what John was getting at.
I think John's right to put it out as a central plank too. If it goes the example and victory go too, as does being imputed with Christ's righteousness. So a fair bit is at stake.
Interesting though isn't it that questions of what is an Evangelical always come back to "what is a Christian".
Is it worth saying, as a rider to comments on the cross that NOBODY is denying that Christ's death on the cross is an example to believers or God's victory over Satan.
ReplyDeleteIt is just that only Christ's sin bearing substituion is being questioned, therefore some see the need to defend it. Something not being attacked doesn't need defending.
I think I'd go a bit further and say all these "models" are actually dependant on each other. So the cross as an example is clearly shown in 1 Peter 2:21ff - but it shows substituion too by his use of Isaiah. How exactly does the cross defeat Satan? Well Colossians 2:13-15 by removing the accusation that stood against us.
So I think it's wrong to refer to the "narrow penal theory", I'm not sure it's all that narrow and misrepresents what John was getting at.
I think John's right to put it out as a central plank too. If it goes the example and victory go too, as does being imputed with Christ's righteousness. So a fair bit is at stake.
Interesting though isn't it that questions of what is an Evangelical always come back to "what is a Christian".
Darren Moore (Tranmere)
I left name & location off last time
A couple of points. On the 'victory over the powers of evil', I would note Col 2:15, but also Jesus' words in John 12:31.
ReplyDeleteI would want to stress, however, it is not the acceptance of the cross as a substitutionary bearing of God's wrath which marks an Evangelical, standing in the tradition of the Reformers. It is the application of that to our understanding of salvation -just as it was in the New Testament era.
Paul's argument with the Galatians, for example (and the reason for his alluding to the dispute with Peter), is that the implications of the cross were being undermined and that a second 'gospel', on top of the message the Galatians had already received, was being preached, requiring something in addition to faith in the gospel for the full blessings of God to be enjoyed.
By the time of the Reformation, the entire Western church had slipped into a similar 'Galatian' mentality, and it is therefore not surprising that it still exists today in official and unofficial forms.
I've often thought it is a bit of a give-away that one of the early Pentecostal groups was called the 'Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship International'. Clearly, such a name suggests there is a 'Not-quite-full Gospel' around somewhere. I suspect, however, that this 'inferior' product was what an earlier generation would have called 'the gospel', which brings us back to the issue of the sufficiency of the gospel message.
To add to Darren's point,I can think of no conservative evangelicals who would disagree with John and deny that Jesus' death leads to victory over the powers of evil. Perhaps Peter could give some examples? Or was he doing what open evangelicals seem very fond of doing, deliberately etting up a straw man that they know doesn't really exist. After all, conservative evangelicals have affirmed both penal substitution and christus victor in book after book- there is really no excuse for ignorance.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that it is the "Christus Victor" theory of the cross that is really "narrow", because it limits the effects of the cross to victory over evil. The board understanding is penal subsitution, because it holds together all the other aspects. The reason we need to be freed from the powers of evil is that we are under the wrath of God- our servitude is a penal servitude.
Stephen Walton
(Marbury, Cheshire)
In fairness to Peter, I doubt he was setting up a 'straw man', though I was a bit surprised to see the question raised by Peter over the legitimacy of 'allowing the cross to be described as "victory over the powers of evil"'.
ReplyDeleteI want to add a major PS to this post at some time as I think I've left out something very important!
(still in Chelmsford)
ReplyDeleteStephen and Darren, I would not really claim that any evangelicals deny "that Jesus' death leads to victory over the powers of evil", nor that they deny "that Christ's death on the cross is an example to believers". But in the extensive discussions of this issue recently on my blog and Adrian Warnock's I have come across people who have insisted that penal substitutionary atonement is objectively true in a way which these other models are not. Indeed some have sought to doubt the salvation of people like myself who have suggested that these are three equally valid but equally incomplete descriptions of a reality which is beyond complete and adequate human description. It is people like this who I would expect to raise eyebrows at John's wording "we may find attributed to the cross everything from victory over the powers of evil to the substitutionary bearing of God’s wrath", putting these two models on the same level. Each of these three models or descriptions is in itself rather narrow, focusing on just one of the many benefits of Jesus' death. That does not make them wrong, it just means that none of them should be treated as the full story on their own.
John, thanks for the update. Your story sounds rather like mine, minus the Billy Graham visit. I too was a churchgoing but uncommitted teenager who was confronted at university with the need to make a real choice.
I haven't yet looked at your old material about charismatics and Alpha, will do now.
(from Chelmsford again)
ReplyDeleteThanks for pointing me to your old material on the charismatic movement. (You could of course copy it to a new page.)
I note your little gripe "but apparently even the Alpha Course can’t do that", lead to new believers filled with the Holy Spirit from conversion. I start here because I see this as your key misunderstanding of the charismatic movement. Can't the Alpha course do this? Well, of course only God can do it. But I have seen people in my church come through an Alpha course into faith and fullness of the Holy Spirit at the same time, as they are taught to, sometimes in the same way as Cornelius did in Acts 10 where it was the experience of the Holy Spirit which cleared away the final resistance to intellectual coming to faith. But of course Nicky Gumbel realises that many people taking the Alpha course already consider themselves believers in some sense but have not experienced being filled with the Spirit, and so he provides instructions for them. Maybe he goes through conversion and filling with the Spirit as logically distinct steps in the book. But in practice the course is centred round the Holy Spirit weekend which is in fact also when participants who have not already made a faith commitment are encouraged to do so and immediately be filled with the Spirit. I have seen this happen, and it works!
This by the way is also the "full gospel" of the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship International, that the preaching of the gospel includes the promised filling with the Holy Spirit as in Acts 2:38 (a verse you quote yourself), which they (unlike me) see as evidenced by speaking in tongues. Or would you claim that Peter was preaching "another gospel" because he mentioned the Holy Spirit in his gospel presentation?
On this basis Gumbel is not a charismatic by your definition. Or would you, as a paedo-baptist (I presume) refuse to baptise an unbaptised believing adult who came to you on the grounds that they should have been baptised as an infant? Gumbel teaches that people should be filled with the Holy Spirit and exhibit his gifts when they are converted. What should he do with people who are not exhibiting the gifts? Should he tell them that it's too late? If allowing that they may later receive what they should have received earlier but did not makes him a charismatic and in error, then baptising a believer who was not baptised as an infant makes you a Baptist.
John, it is undeniable that some Christians exercise gifts of the Holy Spirit and some do not. What position do you take on this? I note that you are not denying the validity of the gifts. Are you saying that it is wrong for those who did not exercise gifts on day one of their Christian lives to subsequently start to do so? That is the implication of the way you rubbish the teaching that there may be a subsequent time when they start to do so.
So, what are you saying? "The Bible says the Christian who hears the gospel with faith is delivered from the curse of sin and that nothing can separate us from the love of God demonstrated in the death of his Son." Amen! "The Charismatic Movement says that the Christian who lacks the experience it offers is spiritually lacking." Amen to that too! But it seems that you are saying that everyone who is a believer is spiritually perfect, entirely mature and holy, has no need to improve their life, and indeed that it is heretical to suggest anything different. Or do you perhaps think that some of the Christians in your congregation are lacking in some way and so need to listen to your sermons and amend their lives as a result? If so, aren't you falling into the same "error" as charismatics in denying that they received every blessing when they were converted? What is the difference? If you preach that some people in your congregation need God's help to live better Christian lives, why is it in error for Gumbel to preach the same?
(See also this recent post of mine.)
Also note carefully that Gumbel teaches as you do that all believers have the Holy Spirit. But just as Paul teaches that believers can quench the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19), so also Gumbel teaches that in some believers that fire has been almost quenched and needs to be stirred up again. Paul tells Timothy to fan into flame the gift of God within him (2 Timothy 1:6 TNIV). In the same way Gumbel calls on believers who already have the Spirit burning in them to fan into flame that fire, so that it may burn through them into the world, to God's glory. If Gumbel is wrong to do that, surely Paul must also be wrong.
(Quoting Gumbel) 1. Ask God to forgive you for anything that could be a barrier to receiving. But you already asked God to forgive you when you repented of the sins for which Christ died (see Questions of Life, pp 54-55)!
2. Turn from any area of your life that you know is wrong. Again, you did this when you repented.
I assume that you do not say the General Confession in your church on the basis that the congregation already asked God to forgive them when they first repented. But then what do you say to believers who have fallen into sin when already believers? Are you saying that they should not repent and ask for forgiveness? That is certainly not what the Anglican liturgy implies.
The Charismatic just denies that hearing the gospel with faith and receiving the Holy Spirit as a result is the key to Christian living
I'm sorry, John, but this is quite simply an untruth, in fact it is quite blatantly the opposite of the teaching of Gumbel etc which is precisely that hearing the gospel with faith and receiving the Holy Spirit as a result is the key to Christian living.
Charismatic theology takes away the confidence ordinary Christians have in what God has done for and in them and leaves them uncertain and ineffective.
It might be interesting to compare the level of confidence and effectiveness of charismatic Christians with the average level of these among Church of England churchgoers.
John, I can see some of where you are coming from. I too became a charismatic and then went through a period of rejecting quite a lot of the charismatic movement. But in the last few years I have found a renewed confidence in it, rejecting some of the excesses like speaking in tongues as a necessary sign. I fear that your continued rejection is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of its theology, projecting on to people like Nicky Gumbel some of the theological excesses of previous generations.
If you are really concerned about "the division in Evangelicalism between so-called Open and Conservative wings", I think you need to be a bit more fair to others who call themselves evangelical, and can probably accept all of your definition of "evangelical", but don't entirely agree with you. After all, since no two Christians entirely agree, the logical result of where you are going is the church dividing not into two but into thousands of one person denominations!
Hi Peter. That's a very long post, and I'm not sure when I'm going to have time to reply in a way that does it justice.
ReplyDeleteI will say this, however. The difference between Charismatic Christianity and Evangelical Christianity (by my definition) is this. The Charismatic answer to the question, 'How can I be filled with the Holy Spirit?' is chapter 9 of Nicky Gumbel's Questions of Life. The Evangelical answer is chapter 3 ('Why did Jesus die?')
At the end of that chapter (pp54-55) is a classic 'Evangelical' prayer for commitment:
"Heavenly Father I am sorry for the things I have done wrong in my life. ... Please forgive me. I now turn from everything I know is wrong.
"Thank you that you sent your Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for me so that I could be forgiven and set free. From now on I will follow and obey him as my Lord.
"Thank you that you now offer me this gift of forgiveness and your Spirit. I now receive that gift.
"Please come into my life by your Holy Spirit to be with me for ever. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
My comment to Nicky was that you don't need chapter 9, you just need to reiterate chapter 3.
(Chelmsford)
ReplyDeleteSorry my previous comment was so long! As you might realise, I was quite upset about the misrepresentation in what I read.
I see your point in your reply. Perhaps indeed it would have been more theologically precise to refer this back to the previous chapter. On the other hand, Gumbel clearly has in mind people who have read this far in the book but have still not truly committed their lives to Christ. Perhaps they thought they were Christians before and so the earlier part didn't really apply to them. So now Gumbel leads them through a new prayer, which can do no harm for those who are already believers and is a necessary step for those who are not, and of course cannot receive any of the Holy Spirit without becoming so.
As I pointed out before, it is somewhat strange that you complain about this prayer when you presumably have your mostly Christian congregation saying some kind of General Confession every week.
I was just thinking, suppose someone came to your church who was, or claimed to be, a genuine born again Christian but had never regularly read their Bible. Would you encourage them to start reading it? Or would you refuse to do so on the grounds that to do so would be to offer them a second blessing and so undermine the fact that they had been blessed when they first believed and that the Bible was available to them from that first day?