Wednesday, February 16, 2005
A Great Simple Gospel Insight
Jollyblogger has put his two-cents into the 'Simple Gospel' discussion, and it's a master stroke. His primary premise, if I may paraphrase, is that the Simple Gospel is Jesus.
I am somewhat embarrassed that I did not make this observation myself. His point is that the formulations that were being discussed were pedagogic devices for trying to explain Christian faith to the uninitiated, or the initiated for that matter. So right, so right.
Adrian quoted me in the early part of the discussion saying, "I love a simple gospel -- It does not get in the way of Jesus." With that quote, I was trying to make some of the same points that Jollyblogger is making.
I really like Jollyblogger's discussion about the fact that a need to identify a time and place of conversion drives the need to have some formulation to which people give assent.
This discussion can get really involved at this point, which Jollyblogger admits. I think it all revolves around people's need for assurance of salvation. One of the reasons I'm a Calvinist is that there is no assurance in that scheme, you simply have no choice but to act as if you are.
Some of my earliest posts were about the fact that I think God's judgment, that is who will and who will not make it in the end, is a far more complex question than any of us really care to admit. My love for Adrian's wife's simple gospel is not rooted in a desire to establish some measure by which we can say "Now you are saved," or "Now you are not." My love for that formulation was born of it's emphasis on confession and repentance, and its consideration of an encounter with the Holy Spirit.
Thanks for that great post Jollyblogger!
I am somewhat embarrassed that I did not make this observation myself. His point is that the formulations that were being discussed were pedagogic devices for trying to explain Christian faith to the uninitiated, or the initiated for that matter. So right, so right.
Adrian quoted me in the early part of the discussion saying, "I love a simple gospel -- It does not get in the way of Jesus." With that quote, I was trying to make some of the same points that Jollyblogger is making.
I really like Jollyblogger's discussion about the fact that a need to identify a time and place of conversion drives the need to have some formulation to which people give assent.
This discussion can get really involved at this point, which Jollyblogger admits. I think it all revolves around people's need for assurance of salvation. One of the reasons I'm a Calvinist is that there is no assurance in that scheme, you simply have no choice but to act as if you are.
Some of my earliest posts were about the fact that I think God's judgment, that is who will and who will not make it in the end, is a far more complex question than any of us really care to admit. My love for Adrian's wife's simple gospel is not rooted in a desire to establish some measure by which we can say "Now you are saved," or "Now you are not." My love for that formulation was born of it's emphasis on confession and repentance, and its consideration of an encounter with the Holy Spirit.
Thanks for that great post Jollyblogger!
