03.01.07

which gospel?

Posted in formation, gospel, justice, theology at 7:19 am by len

Dallas Willard at T.A.C.T. offers that there are “3 Gospels Heard at the Present”

1.) YOUR SINS WILL BE FORGIVEN and you will be in heaven in the afterlife if you believed that Jesus suffered for your sins
2.) JESUS DIED TO LIBERATE THE OPPRESSED and you can stand with him in that battle.
3.) DO WHAT YOUR CHURCH SAYS and it will see to it you are received by God.

Dallas said compare these 3 gospels with the following:

4.) Put your confidence and trust in Jesus and live with him as his disciple now in the present Kingdom of God (Matt 6.33; Rom 8.1-14; Col 1.13; 3. 1-4; John 3.1-8).
He said “Salvation is participating now in the life which Jesus is now living on earth – Of course that involves forgiveness and heaven afterward and much more.”

David Fitch feels that the last wave of protestant justice separated Jesus and justice, losing the person of Christ and making justice into a campaign.. dare I say, an oppressive campaign and an idol where the method risked undermining the message. David asks, “How do we avoid separating Jesus and justice, making justice into another works righteousness devoid of power and transformation, another thing we are supposed to do? How do we instead see justice come as the manifestation of the Kingdom breaking through into our lives into the world?”

It seems to me that George Fox shows us the way. In 1651 he refused to accept a commission in the military, saying “I told them I lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars,”? he testified to the transforming power of God in his life. “He did not just say that war was morally wrong and we should try not to be part of it. He did not say that the Sermon on the Mount prohibited fighting and that we were to obey its precepts, so as to usher in God"s kingdom. Rather he said that he lived in a power (God"s power) which eradicated the causes of war from his heart. War was no longer possible for him because he already lived in the peaceable kingdom, not because he hoped to bring it about with his efforts.”? (Sandra Cronk, Peace Be with You: A Study of the Spiritual Basis of the Friends Peace Testimony, p. 11.)

In practical terms, this means being personally and corporately rooted in the love of God, transformed from the inside out by virtue of devotion to Jesus. It’s a matter of “being filled with the Spirit” or “abiding” in Jesus. It’s a relationship, not a religion or a set of principles. We are LOVED. Only then do we come to that place of inner rest where we no longer have to change the world in order to feel ok… because we are loved. Jean Vanier writes that,

The more we become people of action and responsibility in our community, the more we must become people of contemplation. If we do not nurture our deep emotional life in prayer hidden in God, if we do not spend time in silence and if we do not know how to take time from the presence of our brothers and sisters, we risk becoming embittered. It is only to the extent that we nurture our own hearts that we can keep interior freedom. People who are hyperactive, fleeing from their deep selves and their wound, become tyrannical and their exercise of responsibility only creates conflict. Community and Commitment

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