God So Loved the World

R. Wilson Jonathan

Description

Explores how Jesus Christ demonstrates the love of God in the stories, images, and practices of the New Testament.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441231550
• Langue: English

Extrait

© 2001 by Jonathan R. Wilson
Published by Baker Academic a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owners. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
eISBN 978-1-4412-3155-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version ®. NIV ®. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.© Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Scripture quotations identified KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture quotations identified RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.
For two who have taught me so much about Jesus Christ:
Julian Hartt
and
Marti Wilson
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part 1 STORY
Introduction
1 The Story of the Kingdom
2 The Story of the Messiah
3 Whose Story Is It?
Conclusion
Part 2 IMAGES
Introduction
4 Christ as Victor
5 Christ as Sacrifice
6 Christ as Example
Conclusion
Part 3 PRACTICES
Introduction
7 The Kingdom
8 The World
9 The Church
Conclusion

Conclusion
Notes
Subject Index
Scripture Index
About the Author
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Several of my colleagues at Westmont College, past and present, have read portions of this book: Michael McClymond, Russ Howell, Thomas Schmidt, Telford Work, Tremper Longman, and Bruce Fisk. I am grateful for their encouragement and comments. Over the years, students in my classes at Westmont have read drafts of various portions of the book. I am indebted to them for their help in clarifying several passages.
This work is deeply indebted to my study of Julian Hartt. Though my work is of a very different order from his, my best ideas come from the christological center of his book A Christian Critique of American Culture: An Essay in Practical Theology (Harper & Row, 1967). In his most recent letter to me, he asked, “What are you going to make of the kingdom of God? That’s what Jesus seemed to care about. What difference does it make to your theology?” This book is inadequate as a response to his question, but I hope that it at least begins to give an answer.
My wife, Marti, and our daughter, Leah, not only tolerate but celebrate my writing. For their love and prayers, I am deeply grateful. They are signs of the kingdom for me.
INTRODUCTION
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 3:16 KJV
This verse from the fourth Gospel, the Gospel according to John, is one of the best-known passages in the Bible. Christians have long considered John 3:16 to be a good summary of the good news brought by Jesus Christ. These days we see “John 3:16” held up on big signs at football games, golf tournaments, and even World Cup Soccer matches in Italy! Many know the reference and can even quote the verse. But how many of us know the meaning of the verse?
A few years ago, I discovered how easy it is to miss the meaning of a biblical passage. I was in a university classroom listening to a speaker who was trained in English literature, law, and the art of communication. In order to illustrate a point, the speaker referred to all the “John 3:16” signs at sports events. “I finally got so annoyed by those signs,” he said, “I dug out a Bible and looked up the reference. It’s some obscure, trivial claim about the end of the world.”
But John 3:16 is not a trivial verse; it’s the very heart of the good news of Jesus Christ. Obviously, in order to understand and communicate the good news brought to the world by Jesus Christ, Christians have to do more than memorize and refer to Bible verses. We must be able to say why we have news that is good for our world for today. In order to do that, we must be able to say how God’s love is shown in the gift of Jesus Christ and we must be able to show that love in the way we live our lives.
I have written this book to help you understand the love of God in Jesus Christ and to live in ways that participate in that love and witness to it more faithfully. Since what we are talking about in this book is “good news,” we should expect two things: What we discover in God’s gift of love in Jesus Christ will be surprising: It will be news. What we discover in God’s gift of love in Jesus Christ will meet needs we didn’t know we had: It will be good.
God’s gift in Jesus Christ is news. My wife, Marti, is the best gift giver I know. (Of course, when she reads this, she’ll have to outdo herself to protect her reputation. I can’t wait for my next birthday!) She puts a great deal of thought into buying a gift. She is alert to little clues about what a person is interested in, and she always cares about the person to whom she is giving a gift. No matter how creative I am in anticipating her gifts, she always surprises me. What is true of Marti is infinitely true of God. No matter how much we think we know, Jesus Christ is continually news. I hope to show you some of the surprises that we can hear even in the old, old story of Jesus Christ.
God’s gift of Jesus Christ is good. Lost in a world full of death, fueled by longings and desires, we expend our energies seeking life in all the wrong directions. God’s love in Jesus Christ is good because it shows us both the lies by which we are dying and the truth by which we may find life.
This book, then, is an attempt to describe how the love that God demonstrates in Jesus Christ is good news and how we can live that good news in our lives. There are many possible beginning points for an explanation of the good news; none is necessarily better than any other. But all approaches have to find their center in God’s gift of Jesus.
Since the focus of this work is Jesus Christ, it is a study in “Christology,” one of the traditional Christian doctrines. Today, many Christians avoid theology. Theologians seem to have their own vocabulary. Many works of theology seem to be written only for other theologians. There’s nothing wrong with specialized vocabularies. Most of us learn several in our lives the vocabulary of football (touchdown, forward pass), or cooking (saute, mince), or the vocabulary of computers (hard drive, internet). And we often use those languages to communicate efficiently with other experts in those fields. At the same time, however, we need people who can simplify a specialized vocabulary so we can begin to understand football, learn to cook, and use a computer.
In this book, I try to address the subject matter of theology, specifically Christology, for people who are just beginning to learn the specialized vocabulary of theology. I know the language of theology and the debates that theologians have among themselves, but I am not writing for them. I am writing for beginners in theology.
I am concerned that the gap between theology and the church has become so great that most Christians actually know more about sports, hobbies, and national politics than they know about Christian doctrine. As a result, Christians often explain their faith in terms of their own experiences or political stances that they hold as Christians. They don’t know much about the gospel, and their knowledge of the gospel isn’t nearly as profound as their knowledge of other areas of life.
I write this book for beginners, but I also write it for disciples of Jesus Christ. I am not primarily addressing those who reject the gospel or those who may be considering the gospel. Instead, I intend primarily to explain the significance of the gospel to those who have committed themselves to following Jesus Christ. I hope by my explanation to help Christ’s disciples know the gospel more fully and live it more faithfully. Of course, I will also be delighted if this explanation removes objections and leads readers to Christ.
The approach I have just described is guided by two convictions about the work of theology. First, I am convinced that theology needs the church. The church is the community that God calls to bear witness to Jesus Christ. The work of theology is to serve the mission of the church. The primary task of the church is to preach the gospel not produce theology. Second, I am convinced that the church needs good doctrine. If the church does not have intellectually rigorous theology, then its preaching of the gospel is vulnerable. It may be blown off course by the demands of contemporary culture and by the sin that is still in us.
God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, Jesus Christ. That love is active in the world today to redeem all who believe in Jesus Christ. The proclamation of the gospel by the church makes known to the world the good news of God’s love. Theology should help the church learn the language of the gospel so that we may faithfully proclaim it. Theology should also help us learn how to live in faithfulness to the gospel so that not only our words but also our lives bear witness to the reality of God’s love.
This book is a work of “Christology,” but it is different from many other Christologies in its structure and in some of its content. The book is divided into three parts: stories, images, and practices.
In part 1, we look at the way God’s love is revealed in the biblical stories that find their center in Jesus Christ what he said and d