Growing up, I thought the Great Commission was “go.”  It isn’t.  Since I thought it was “go,” I thought it was evangelism.  It isn’t.  When you think it is “go,” and you think it is evangelism, then you will miss out on the Great Commission.  That will also mess up your church in numbers of different ways. Don’t get me wrong, evangelism is part of the Great Commission, but it isn’t what the Great Commission is.  If your church doesn’t know what the Great Commission is, then your church won’t be obeying it, and, therefore, your church won’t be obedient to the One Who has all authority in heaven and in earth.  If a pastor thinks his job is to “perfect the saints for the work of the ministry,” and he doesn’t know what the ministry is in a technical sense, the Great Commission, then he won’t be doing his job either.  He can’t and won’t equip His people for what He doesn’t know.

I got a B.A., M.A., and then M.Div. and I still didn’t know the Great Commission until a little over a year after our church got started in 1987.  Nobody told me what it was, and I had interaction and reading from numbers of different sources in seminary. (As a matter of full disclosure, I believe Thomas Strouse knows what it is and probably knew then.  I just never heard it.)  A big part of people’s lack of understanding of church growth and sanctification relates to not knowing what the Great Commission is.  Maybe you know what it is.  Maybe you just think you know what it is.  It’s possible that many more know today than when I was going through my education.

Before I tell you what the Great Commission of the Lord Jesus Christ is, I want you to know that I do think “go” is important.  I’ve talked a lot about that here.  We are to go.  Scripture teaches “go,” not invite.  We go out from the assembly of believers to unbelievers, not invite the unbelievers to the assembly.  I’m not saying it’s wrong to invite, just that the philosophy should be “go,” not invite.  Missing out on that is big  It relates to a lot of problems in churches today, but again “go” is not the Great Commission.

Often in sentences there are several verbs.  Sometimes there are compound verbs.  Sometimes there is one main verb.  Other times there are main verbs with several other verbs within dependent clauses.  In Matthew 28:19-20 there is only one verb, period.  Since there is only one verb, there is only one main verb.  That main verb is also the Great Commission.

What verb is the main verb of Matthew 28:19-20?  It is the word “teach” in verse 19.  The Greek word translated “teach” is matheteuo.  You’ll notice that there is the word “teaching” in verse 20.  That is a different Greek word, the Greek word didasko.  Ruckmanites won’t appreciate this, because they don’t receive the words God gave His own like Jesus said He would give them and His own would receive them in John 17:8.  “Teach” in verse 19 and “teaching” in verse 20 don’t mean exactly the same thing.

Matheteuo in verse 19 means literally “to make disciples.”  It is an imperative verb, so it is a command. The other verbal forms — go, baptizing, and teaching — are all three participles.  The latter two explain how disciples are made.   “Go” likely, because of the conditions that exist, which are unique, is a participle use called attendant circumstance.  Disciples are made by going, baptizing, and teaching.  One might ask, “So then why does the KJV translate ‘go’ like it’s an imperative, a command?”  This participle coupled with an imperative verb comes with the force of an imperative, but it is still a complementary activity to the main verb, which is “make disciples.”

If you know that the command is to make disciples, then that changes everything for you.  You are not out there attempting to “win people to Christ.”  Your goal is to make disciples.  You can’t make a disciple of a false convert.  If you preach an inadequate or shoddy gospel, when you try to make a disciple of that person, it won’t happen.  Sometimes pastors wonder what is wrong with people in the church.  I believe that most often, they haven’t been converted.

Once a person believes the gospel, he should be baptized and be taught everything he needs to know to follow Christ.  The idea of “disciple” is “learner.”  He’s someone who can sufficiently know and follow on his own.  He can reproduce himself in another person.  The plan of the Great Commission is exponential growth through multiplication.  Paul understood this too (2 Timothy 2:2).

Each Christian should think of being required by Jesus to make disciples.  If someone is going to make a disciple, he needs to know more than a little four step plan that might result in an easy prayer.  He’s wanting to see a true worshiper of Jesus Christ, a lifetime learner of Jesus.

If the job of the pastor is to perfect the saints for the work of the ministry, and the work of the ministry is making disciples, then he must equip his people to make disciples.  Do your people know what the Great Commission is?  Does each member know he is to make disciples?  Can he do it?  Have you equipped him to do it?  Each individual member of a church should see himself as responsible to make a disciple.  If he isn’t or he hasn’t, then why not?

I want to commend John MacArthur on his repudiation of the Charismatic movement as a whole.  For awhile, his church has been advertising the Strange Fire Conference on October 16-18 of this year for the purpose of exposing the Charismatic movement.  I also believe that he is right in saying that a majority of the problems in churches today are related in some, close way to the Charismatic movement.  I wish that he would also repudiate the continuationism of John Piper and the Charismaticism of C. J. Mahaney, and to reject the Jesus’ Movement of the 1960s as a counterfeit revival, but I rejoice in what can be rejoiced in here.  I’m writing something positive about him, especially since the movement is such a monster, and that he’s making a gigantic effort to confront it.  I’m not encouraging anyone to attend his conference, because I can’t fellowship with John MacArthur, but I support his church’s idea.  Love rejoiceth in the truth.

History tells the story of Charismatic types of groups since the first century, but none so bad and widespread as the modern Charismatic movement.  Aspects of it have infiltrated almost every segment of professing Christianity.  The worst are found in the mainstream of the Charismatic movement, but I see the influence of Charismaticism everywhere, including in and perhaps especially in fundamentalism in the way of revivalism.

In one sense, the modern Charismatic movement came out of the Pentecostal movement, which originated out of and was predated by the Keswick or Higher Life movement.  All of this is about a second work of God in someone’s life after salvation, sometimes referred to as a second blessing, the baptism of the Spirit, or the filling of the Spirit.  Among the Charismatics, the experience of a second blessing or the baptism was and is to be accompanied by signs and wonders.  The revivalists see the second blessing mainly in a unique dosage of God’s power for the purposes of Christian living and evangelism success.   These movements are departures from historic Christianity on salvation and sanctification.

Various types of continuationism are rampant in fundamentalism and in independent Baptist churches, and they very often don’t even know it.  They think God still speaks to them.  They might excuse carnality as a phase of the Christian life previous to a dynamic spiritual experience.  They use human means, either with a preaching voice or the rhythm and harmonies of their music, to impersonate or concoct the sense of a spiritual experience.  Some still pray for the outpouring of the Spirit.

An irony about MacArthur is the influence of the Charismatic movement on the worship experience of his own congregation.   A lot of the music there manufactures a kind of ecstatic experience, a sort of counterfeit spirituality, a type of music that originated out of the Higher Life movement and then exploded out of the Charismatic and Jesus movements.  People like having it and would be unhappy if they didn’t get it, much like the reaction of Charismatics without their own experiences.  It is not sacred music.  It dovetails with the gratification of the flesh in all sorts of pop music today.  The false worship of this Charismatic music is a strange fire too.  It is an impostor spirituality that fools people about the reality of their spiritual condition.

If John MacArthur really wants to get serious about counterfeit Christianity that choreographs artificial spiritual experiences, much like Jonathan Edwards was warning in his Treatise on the Religious Affections, then judgment should start in his own house.  He should rid his church of its own new measures and earthly cleverness.  The bad is not justified by even much good.  In this case, if we want to get the beam out of someone else’s eye, we should start with the mote in our own eye.

If the Charismatic movement truly is strange fire, then the source of the fire, the continuationism found with Piper and Mahaney should be blasted by MacArthur.  If he wanted people to stay away from the strange fire, he would attack it, douse it, at its root level and warn of those who promote it in the most fundamental way.  If the Charismatic worship is strange fire according to MacArthur, and Mahaney is a participant and Piper is at least a supporter, an advocate by his own testimony, why isn’t he more clear about those two.  Can there be fence straddling on strange fire?  If you are going to use that term, and I agree with it, then really mean it.  It’s either strange fire or not.  Nevertheless, I’m thankful for what disavowal we get of the Charismatic movement by the leading conservative evangelical in the world today.  I’m backing him on this.

Telling the truth about the Charismatics and their relatives is an important aspect to battling the movement.  Either separating from disobedient brethren or not fellowshiping with unbelievers is another teaching of the Bible about warring against it.  Charismatics should be separated from.  If you write a book or hold a conference, and you don’t separate, you don’t mark and avoid, then you are not doing what God said to do about it.  If not, then you too are playing with strange fire.

Les Ollila is the former president of Northland Baptist Bible College, now Northland International University.  When I was in high school, our family had Ollila in for a meal when he was in Watertown, WI to speak at the Wisconsin State Youth Conclave.  I think it may have been the first ever WSYC.  At that time, I think, Les Ollila was some type of “youth evangelist,” who spoke all over the country in meetings.  He was a well-known fundamentalist leader and popular fundamentalist conference speaker.

NIU has made a massive change in leadership and direction in the last 5-10 years.  Ollila is not at Northland any more and he doesn’t support its changes.  Recently, he was invited to Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Indianapolis, IN, where Chuck Phelps is pastor, to speak at the Crossroads Conference.  There Ollila was given time in a brief Q & A to answer questions especially relating to what’s happening in relationship to NIU.  That I know of, this is the first public revelation of where Ollila stood and stands on the NIU situation.

What makes Ollila endearing is that in many ways he’s a sort of one-of-a-kind speaker or person in fundamentalism.  He’s got a campy and out-there sense of humor.  He’ll say things in a very unique way that often times covers for the poor content of what he says.  You’re too busy thinking about his funny and forget that he just said something you don’t agree with.  At one time in the Q and A, he sent everyone reeling with his in depth exegesis of Alf, illustrating something with the television show that I’ve never seen.  I think I remember the puppet-like figure Alf (sp?), which was enough to spur intense disinterest.  Ollila seemed to love Alf.  It was funny watching Dr. O go into a total Alf machination to make a point that was totally lost without Alf knowledge.

Since I’m on comedy, another funny moment was the outburst of Ollila about bloggers.  Get a life!  I don’t know who the people are who he’s talking about. I’ve not read a blog post critical of Ollila.  He doesn’t blog.  The technology is past a lot of guys his age, no disrespect.  Phelps started to cry on this point, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief.  That didn’t connect with me like it did Phelps.  I had no unction to well up with tears, so it got me thinking about how much blogging there has been about Phelps and how that connected with him emotionally.  I’m sure he wished blogging didn’t exist as it related to the Tina Anderson issue back in his Trinity days, so he had true empathy with Ollila’s feelings about blogging.

Ollila did not take questions from the crowd and there was little to no follow-up to the questions he answered from Chuck Phelps.  Phelps appeared to have his own questions and some with him from the audience.  All the interaction was with Phelps.  It’s obvious that Ollila doesn’t like what’s going on at Northland.  My overall analysis of the Q & A is that it seemed to be an opportunity for Ollila to reestablish his fundamentalist credentials and to reconnect with the mainstream of the FBFI branch of fundamentalism.  He’ll need it for his future parachurch endeavor, as he hooks himself up to another ox-cart in fundamentalism.  At the same time, Ollila was able to and will be able to remain a kind of hero among young fundamentalists with so much of what he said and how he said it.

Important aspects of what Ollila said did not jive with what I thought fundamentalists believed.   Where he clashed with typical fundamentalism, he used humor to deflect.  Phelps could have easily cleared all that up, but he just let it go.  I can’t imagine that Phelps agreed with Ollila, but perhaps he didn’t want to embarrass him in public.  Even though Ollila detached himself from NIU, I don’t see how he’s much different in principle.  His answers bothered me and they should be a problem for fundamentalism.  However, I would think that most young fundamentalists would have liked what he had to say.

In no particular order, first, Ollila said that CCM wasn’t a sin — it just wasn’t wise.  That’s a hard one to work through, but that does almost nothing to eliminate CCM.   It’s either false worship or it isn’t.  If it is false worship, it is sin.  If it isn’t false worship, then it is acceptable.  Ollila didn’t explain how it was unwise, and Phelps didn’t follow up at all.  I would have asked, “Is CCM fleshly or worldly lust?  If so, then it is sin, isn’t it?”  Or, “How is it unwise?  What do you mean by that?”  Ollila gave a big permission for CCM in fundamentalism with his statement on CCM.  That Phelps didn’t disagree showed Phelps to either agree with him or to indicate that it is a liberty issue in fundamentalism.  You are free to use CCM fundamentalism, because it isn’t a sin.  I think this is where fundamentalism is at now.

Second, Ollila talked about his visit to John MacArthur.  I don’t think there is any problem with someone visiting with John MacArthur.  Ollila was checking him out.  It’s his conclusion that was a problem.  Right there in a fundamentalist meeting, Ollila gave a complete endorsement to MacArthur with zero disclaimer and he was not challenged at all by Phelps.  Lots of cheering had to be going on from conservative evangelicals and young fundamentalists.  Phelps asked Ollila, “Are you a separatist?” Ollila:  “Yes.”  Phelps:  “Are you a fundamentalist?”  Ollila:  “Yes.”  So there we go.  Penetrating, probing analysis complete.

Ollila’s defense of MacArthur was three-fold as I heard it.  I could defend MacArthur too, because there is a lot I like about him.  But that’s not the point here — it isn’t what we’re talking about.  Ollila defended MacArthur with moral equivalency.  Ollila wasn’t going to the Hyles pastors’ conference.  What?  That came out of left field, but it seemed to be a shot at those who have appeared with Jack Schaap at various functions, including the president of the FBFI.  Ollila has a point to be made there, a legitimate one, but it doesn’t stand as a defense of fellowship with MacArthur.   At most, it scares away criticism, because it says that you can’t criticize me for MacArthur because others did worse with Schaap.  Tit for tat politics.  It should have been argued by Phelps, but he just laughed it off.

The next part of his defense was that MacArthur’s music, the one day Ollila was there, was better than a BJU vespers.   Who knows if that’s true or not, but we know that on other days that Ollila was and is not there in Southern California, MacArthur uses rock music.  That’s not hard to find out if you’re just the slightest bit curious.  I guess one day is enough to evaluate all of MacArthur’s music for anyone, according to Ollila.

Lastly, he said that MacArthur preached a true gospel, and although MacArthur might be Calvinist, Ollila himself isn’t one.  This was again fundamentalism being reduced to a defense of a true gospel alone, gospel centered fundamentalism.  Is that truly all that fundamentalism is?  Because if not, someone should step up, but Phelps does not.  Crickets.

Although Ollila really didn’t clear up the music issue, this was not and is not the main problem with MacArthur for fundamentalists.  MacArthur is the most conservative, conservative evangelical, but he does not practice separation like a fundamentalist.  If that were the case, then fundamentalists would be having MacArthur in to preach for them.  He fellowships with Southern Baptists.  He fellowships with Charismatics.  That has been a no-no for fundamentalists.  Ollila left that out of his evaluation, maybe because he is a simpleton, like he referred to himself.  If you are simpleton, you get a pass.  You get to preach at the conference, but you are excused for everything else because simpletons can pull the simpleton card.  It’s a sympathy card, very convenient.

Why Ollila left NIU was because of pragmatism.  He’s death on pragmatism.  I’d be happy to believe that.  I would call Ollila selectively death on pragmatism.  Why?  He’s so pragmatic.  He signed on to the name change of NIU.  He defended it.  Why?  It was pragmatic.  It all depends on what kind of pragmatism you’re talking about.   He blamed the changes on the PR guys that Olson brought in.  Olson brought them in, but it was the PR guys’ fault.  Why?  He knows Olson’s heart.  I know Northland had the heart conference, and I never attended it, but I hope that wasn’t the essence of it.  As long as your heart is in the right place, you really, really are sincere and want it all to be good in your heart, then you’re fine.  What you actually do, like hiring the PR guys that cause the demise and fall, that is excused by your “heart.”  This kind of goopy sentimentalism is a big issue in fundamentalism.

It might not be the worst, but the worst part of the interview of Ollila to me was Ollila’s explanation of the superiority of being a moderate.  You aren’t in the right ditch.  You aren’t in the left ditch.  The Bible teaches balance (where?) and you stay away from the right wingers and the left wingers and keep right down the middle.  That’s the explanation of fundamentalist unity, I believe.  You can unpragmatically (of course) take the right course by lopping off the extremists on either side.  Who are the right wingers?  They’re probably the ones who take strong positions on cultural issues.  Who are the left wingers?  Those are the almost-anything-goes guys.  Suddenly Northland was considered right ditch as it stayed in the middle of the road.  What to do?  When you are a parachurch organization, looking to keep your enrollment up, you’ve got to find that sweet spot.  Northland had it when Ollila was there.  Success is found in finding the middle of the road, bridging the gap between both sides.  That’s not how I read it in the Bible, but this is a generally acceptable idea for fundamentalism.   It’s not  the model for a church with the Bible as sole authority.

More could be said, but the Ollila Q & A was very informative and educational.  It doesn’t speak well for the future of fundamentalism.

The church in Jerusalem grew.   As it grew, it built bigger buildings, its leaders became famous, were approached for book contracts, and scheduled for large conferences, and many came from all over to visit to find its secret.  No.  Nothing like that.  Its members fled for their lives and nearly all its leaders were killed.

One of the area evangelical churches, which has a rock band, had someone spontaneously begin taking his music to a different level with his behavior.  He was jumping up and down and spinning and generally making the people attending feel uncomfortable.  Leadership didn’t allow him to continue.  They couldn’t agree to disagree.  They wouldn’t allow for Christian liberty.  They judged him in what one would have thought was, for them, a doubtful disputation.  According to some’s evaluation, the leaders that cut him off must have been weaker brothers with more scruples than he.  They shut down his act with no verses to stop it.  People didn’t like it.  It was their preference.  They drew a line.

The more people excluded by a line drawn, the less popular that line will be.

God doesn’t accept lipservice, people who say they’re something when they’re not or who say they believe something when they don’t.   If someone says he believes in the sovereignty of God, then he would believe what God said about His own sovereignty.  God is sovereign, so He’s sovereign over His sovereignty too.  His sovereignty is what He says it is.  Turning God’s sovereignty into something that we say it is, and that He doesn’t, acts as though we’re sovereign over Him.

The people who believe in sovereignty as God reveals it in His Word, I’m going to call The Sovereignty People.  They are the ones who really believe it.  Others might have a name that they associate with believing in sovereignty that’s only a name, because they just give sovereignty lipservice.  The Sovereignty People actually trust in the sovereignty of God, over which God is sovereign.  If you don’t trust in the sovereignty of God, you are not one of The Sovereignty People.

The following are some examples, not in any order of priority, that I ask you to consider.  Again, people claim God’s sovereignty but don’t actually trust it.  They like to talk it, but manifest in obvious ways that they don’t trust it everywhere.

The Church

I was reading a decent article on church versus parachurch.  I say “decent” because it had much good content, but wasn’t right on.  It did a masterful job of ticking off many of the problems that arise, but ultimately left room for the parachurch organization.  There were a couple of tell-tale statements (emphasis mine):

Can anyone see a parachurch organization in the NT? If not, I still wouldn’t conclude that there’s no place for them, any more than I would for organs or guitars or pews.

A kid’s at a secular college for some time, and a parachurch organization provides some on-campus fellowship, encouragement, instruction, camaraderie. I completely get that.

Why does someone conclude that there is a place for them or get why they are needed?  The reason why they cause many problems and why they suck energy from churches is because there is no place for them and they’re not needed.  They’re not.  They don’t serve the church.  Jesus didn’t start parachurch.  He didn’t promise anything for them.  There’s nothing to guide them.  They’re sheer human innovation, saying that what God designed wasn’t good enough.

So what does this have to do with the sovereignty issue?  Well, these people would claim to be sovereignty people.   But here God isn’t sovereign to them.  They can’t just trust what God said.  What He said was sufficient.  He didn’t start parachurch, didn’t mention it.  Is His way not good enough?  Did He not equip the church with enough to do what He wanted?   These additions are a faithless lack of trust in God.  They are the equivalent of David’s ox-cart.  It isn’t like using a computer instead of a typewriter, but like Caan’s vegetables instead of an animal sacrifice.

God is glorified by what He said.  When we invent something to “help” what He said, He isn’t glorified.  When we don’t trust what He said, we’re just giving His sovereignty lipservice.  God said what He said, and we should operate within that framework and then just allow Him to work how He works.  When it isn’t like we think it should be, we shouldn’t be starting something to supplement what He said because what He said doesn’t work.  We should wait on Him.  That is trusting in His sovereignty.

The idea of parachurch is a supplement to the church in some way that church is insufficient.   The advocates usually say, “Churches just can’t….”   God is omniscient.  He sees and knows what we can’t see or know.  He foreknows.  If He didn’t include something, He knew it wasn’t necessary.  And even if it were necessary, He wants to be trusted.  He wants His way to be used.  He wants the credit for how it was done.  That is someone who actually trusts in the sovereignty of God.

The Bible

We might not feel saved, but we believe God is sovereign over His salvation, from which we get assurance.  People who say they believe in sovereignty might say that they believe in His sovereignty over salvation.  They talk about that again and again.  Saints persevere because God preserves the soul.  His Word says it, so they believe it.  Fine.  God knows His Word.  He knows what He inspired.  Every word.  And He promised to preserve every one of His Words.  Will we believe that?  Do we believe He is sovereign over His Word?  Most don’t today.  They only give it lipservice.  What they really believe is that man is sovereign over God’s Word through textual criticism.  Man determines what the Words are by “recovering” them through archaeology and then criticism.  This was another innovation to make up for something God didn’t do.  I would say God couldn’t do, but they’ll say, “No, we haven’t said, He couldn’t, just that He didn’t.”  But He said that He would.  And now those preservation texts are being challenged to fit the presuppositions.

Men talk about the “version issue” or the King James Onlyism.   Generally, those two are red herrings.  We’re talking about the doctrine of God’s preservation of His Words.  In the past, men who claimed to believe in sovereignty also believed He was sovereign over His Word, and so they also believed in the perfect preservation of Scripture.  It’s not a matter of a preference for a translation or a particular translation philosophy, but whether we can know what His Words are.  Christians once believed we could and did know, and this was even before the publication of the King James Version.  It’s not a version issue, because we mean the original language words.

The big issue here is the existence of textual variants.  I believe that the soteriological equivalent are man’s sins.  Can or does God not keep man’s soul because of sins?  Yes.  Does God not keep His Word because of textual variants?  No.   See the inconsistency.   Sins are less of a problem than variants.  Why?  It isn’t because of the power or wisdom of God, but because of the unbelief of men.  They say it’s evidence.  No, it’s faithlessness.  We believe either one of these because God promises them in His Word.  Whether we believe God is sovereign is whether we believe He has followed through on what He said.

Methods for Church Growth

The worship wars may not in fact be about worship.  They’re instead about church growth.  How does a church grow or at least sustain its own numbers?  You would think that those who believe in God’s sovereignty would say through biblical methods, but that is most often not what you hear from them.  You hear that a particular church is dead because of a music style that it uses.  If you believe God is sovereign, you also believe that His methods of church growth in scripture are sufficient. There are thick manuals on church growth authored by those who say they believe in God’s sovereignty, and what they present is not solely what God said in His Word.  The Bible isn’t enough.  You also need some marketing strategy and social programs.  These are people who are not OK with God being in charge.  There’s got to be more to it to them.

There are many more examples than these., but what I am seeing is that people do not in fact believe in the sovereignty of God, because if they did, it would be more than just lipservice to them.

The idea of being gospel-centered is new.  It is pseudo-argumentation for new measures with continued popularity with the world in view, which is ironic, because you would think the gospel would be the reason for growth with something gospel-centered.  No.  Instead, it’s rock music, casual, androgynous, or immodest dress, entertainment, and recreation.

The trajectory was like the following.  Christian churches were built on the gospel.  Then two things happened.   One, the world became more pagan and Christians more different.  Two, churches started to shrink because people didn’t like being different.  Instead of getting smaller, the churches changed how they operated.  The churches that capitulated were criticized by those who didn’t.  They came up with gospel-centered to explain their approach.  They weren’t going to talk about the cultural issues, because the gospel is what’s important.

Question:  What’s the purpose of the gospel?

I now want to explore that briefly by considering 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 (I risk being gospel-centered by using the King James Version [don’t try to figure that one out]):

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. ¹⁸ And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹ To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. ²⁰ Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. ²¹ For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

The purpose of the gospel is to reconcile man to God.  Why does man need to be reconciled to God?  So that he can glorify God.  That’s what man lost because of sin.  How is man reconciled to God?  Paul explains that in this passage.   Reconciliation occurs through transformation.  Transformation?  Yes.  That’s what the passage says.  Verse 17, “all things are become new.”  Next verse, “And all things are of God.”  What things?  Becoming new is what reconciles us to God.  How are we made new?  We are made new through imputation of our sin to Christ and imputation of His righteousness to us.  Yes.  But it isn’t imputation and justification without transformation.  The point, again, is to reconcile us to God.  To God.  God doesn’t keep putting up with the old life, the former life, the way we were — that’s not what reconciliation is.

Something gospel-centered is transformational, turning us into something of a divine nature.  Our music and dress and entertainment become honoring to God.  If it doesn’t, it isn’t the gospel.

So how do they claim gospel centered?  They claim it.  That’s just it.  They’re not it.  They just claim it and then pose like it’s true.  It’s a gospel pose.  The gospel changes your dress and your music, so that you are honoring to God in this world.  The gospel doesn’t excuse your dress and your music.  The gospel reconciles you to God through transforming you.  Not being transformed isn’t gospel.  It’s a gospel pose — that’s it.

Here’s what happened recently at Northland.  Their numbers were shrinking.  They were laying off faculty and staff.  It’s too bad.  They look at the landscape, much like the overall trajectory I described in paragraph two.  The numbers are bigger in evangelicalism by far.  They’re not bigger because of the gospel.  They’re bigger because people like the world.  They’re comfortable with it.  And the evangelicals for awhile have been pushing a gospel that forgives all your sins without changing you.  How you feel when you’ve been saved is relieved.  You’re not going to Hell anymore.  What a great deal!  And now you’ve got a whole new group of friends too in a new social club called the church.  Math tells you that if you move that direction, you could get a whole new clientele.  The kids like it better.  They’d rather wear casual clothes.  They like rock music.  But you’ve got to somehow fit all that into your doctrinal statement.  Gospel-centered is what works.  You say that scripture doesn’t say anything about whether it’s right or wrong to play rock music.  And you’ve never seen the kids “praise God” with such feeling as they do when they’re doing their Joan Baez and Peter, Paul, and Mary impersonations.  It seems so authentic, the euphoria, the ecstasy.  And then you also explain that what was happening before was an immature look at the gospel, because it was all about making rules and regulations, lacking in freedom, attempting to put new wine in old bottles.

In a recent rant of someone who supports the changes at Northland, he said that the old Northland put the emphasis on form, like the Pharisees.  If the old Northland was interested in form, the new Northland is obsessed with form. You’re not gospel-centered unless you look just like a sixties rock band with the drummer, the guitarists, and a female folk singer, everybody on his microphone, looking authentic? Where is the harmonica, the saxophone, the jaws harp, and the washboard? If I want to dance with a mad frenzy, spinning like a bull fighter, why am I not free to do that? Why is freedom only looking just like almost everyone in evangelicalism today?

Everybody’s free, so now they can burp out loud, smack their lips, show their half-chewed food to everyone else, forget the napkin, and toss the biscuits if someone asks. How do you know you’re free? You can grow facial hair in all matter of designs. How do you know you’re free? Two words: blue jeans. It is also possible that kids like rock music and casual clothes and it has nothing to do with what God likes. Is all of this the key to the gospel exploding to those who’ve never heard?

Uh-huh.  Right.

This isn’t new care about the gospel and it isn’t gospel centered.  I’ve read that the churches that keep the “old form” are “dead.”  By “dead” you mean that they are smaller.  Ya think?  People have a choice to go to The Adventure with the band and the The Jungle for kids with a skate boarder park.  The other place is reverent and serious.  Which do you think will be bigger?  Why do you think Joel Osteen is so big?  The biggest?

It’s really a matter of where actual saved people are, if you’re going to be about numbers, about numbers like Jack Hyles and the Hyles movement.  The “gospel centered” really are no different than Hyles.  They’re using a worldly strategy that will work.  That’s what Hyles did.  And he called it the power of God.  Hyles’s strategy didn’t work everywhere.  If you keep tweaking it though, you can get to something like these new evangelical churches with their big screen TV, movie clips, and undulating bodies during “worship.”  They aren’t held back by “form.”  That’s the “freedom” of the “gospel.”  They are gospel-centered.

It’s all just a posture.  It’s not gospel-centered to ignore or disparage cultural applications of scripture.  Reconciliation is transformation unto God.   The imputed righteousness changes your culture.  It doesn’t leave you the same.  And if the crowd grows, it grows because of conversions, because of the gospel, which is a miracle of God that defies worldly methods.

Read parts one and two.

Perhaps you’ve seen a two year old standing at an open door.  He wants to go outside.  He looks around to see if anyone is watching.  He’s not supposed to go outside.  He’s been told not to.  He looks around again.  He steps out; just stands there.  Looks around again.  Steps forward a little ways.  Looks around again.  No one is saying anything.  And now he starts to move out to where he wants to go.  No one is stopping him.  Since no one says anything, he’s free to do whatever he wants.

What I just described is what is happening today regarding cultural relativity.  The people who once would say anything about music or dress or entertainment aren’t saying much to anything anymore.   Let me bullet point what I’m talking about.  Before I do, however, first should be said that things have changed dramatically in this regard.  The standards on cultural issues are very different today.   Some might say, and probably correctly, that this ship has already sailed.   But here’s what I’m talking about:

Bob Jones University announces something new on music — it doesn’t separate over music like it did before.  Here is what is new at Bob Jones: