June 11, 2012 issue
Gospel in the Gospels
A call to a Christ-centered, kingdom-bringing faith
There’s a gospel within the Gospels that most Christians overlook. That’s the premise of British scholar N.T. Wright’s new book, How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels. An Anglican, Wright preaches a Christ-centered faith that Anabaptists affirm but that Wright asserts is rare.
What is Scripture’s forgotten story? It’s the fact that Jesus’ whole life is the gospel. And it’s got to be the whole thing: birth, miracles and teachings, death, resurrection and ascension. You can’t skip from the stable to the cross. You can’t look first to Paul’s theology of the atonement. You’ve got to go straight to Jesus — and not just to his death, but his entire life.
If your response to that is, “Of course; that’s obvious,” you’ve got a Christ-centered faith. But Wright has more challenges in store.
He believes many Christians focus on Jesus’ death so much that they don’t pay attention to why Jesus lived. They turn the Gospels into an “empty cloak” and forget the person inside. If asked to explain the point of the “missing middle” — the healings, the disputes with the Pharisees, the Sermon on the Mount and all the rest — they don’t have a good answer.
Could it be? Could anyone really wonder what was the point of the Sermon on the Mount? An Anabaptist would say it’s the very core of Jesus’ teaching, among the most important things he said.
But before we smugly conclude we arrived at Wright’s destination before he did, Wright takes Jesus-first theology a step further. The whole point of the Gospels, he says, is to tell the story of how God became king of the world. Jesus established God’s reign on Earth as in heaven. He inaugurated the kingdom of God here and now, a theocracy that overrules all other powers, political and otherwise.
“The ‘kingdom of heaven’ is not about people going to heaven,” Wright says. “It is about the rule of heaven coming to Earth.”
Wright urges putting kingdom and cross — God’s reign and God’s salvation — together. The Gospels’ main application, he says, is not “ ‘how to have your sins forgiven’ or ‘how to go to heaven’ but … an agenda in which the forgiven people are put to work, addressing the evils of the world in the light of the victory of Calvary.”
He laments that “much of our Christian culture doesn’t want to know about this kingdom and prefers a cross that takes us safely away into another sphere.”
Wright hits Anabaptist notes throughout the book. He says Christ’s followers can expect to suffer and should shun the world’s notions of power. But he also criticizes the sectarian isolation of “neo-Anabaptists” who think they can be a beacon of light without actually engaging with the world. Anabaptist readers will feel at home with Wright as he illuminates the deeper meaning of a Christ-centered, kingdom-bringing faith.
Comments
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Thank you, Paul, for highlighting Wright's new book. I have found much help in his writing, which as you say often "hits Anabaptist notes" and is fun to read besides.
One discordant note: you imply Anabaptists don't share the misunderstanding of "heaven" that so abounds in "our Christian culture". I disagree. Yes, Anabaptism teaches that the Kingdom has come and calls us to live in it now. But even as that is being taught, the Mennonite congregations where I have spent my life continue to teach that the "Christian hope" is a life lived "in another sphere".
Wright teaches there is no other place to look forward to after death. That in part is the meaning of the incarnation: God in Jesus has made this orb God's home. Wright teaches that the Christian hope is resurrection, the "life after life after death" which leaves us right here where we are now.
Paul, how many Anabaptist congregations in your experience have taught that?
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I love this quote: ". . . an agenda in which the forgiven people are put to work, addressing the evils of the world in the light of the victory of Calvary.” If only folks understood the joy and rewards of this agenda, instead of dreading the pain and conflict.
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Paul, here again you bring out your Anabaptist measuring stick to determine if Christians truly measure up to the Bible according to the New Age Anabaptist wisdom thinkers.
I refer you to the excellent article in MWR authored by Andre Gingerich Stoner on Victim Mentality which remains among Mennonite/Anabaptists even after Lutherans have submitted their apology to Mennonite World Conference for their part in the persecutions in the reformation period. Are the many non Mennonites who have died for their faith in Jesus since the Reformation also considered to be Anabaptists according to the measuring stick?
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This is a response to a couple of questions. First, to Berry Friesen: I didn’t mean to imply that Anabaptist congregations teach Wright’s view of heaven. After I said that Anabaptists might find Wright’s arguments for a Christ-centered gospel obvious, I intended to say that his other points might be more novel. Perhaps that didn’t come through clearly. To Dale Welty: Non-Mennonites who have died for their faith would only be Anabaptists if they were Hutterites, Amish or Brethren. That’s not to diminish the the martyrs from any other denomination. That’s just the definition of “Anabaptist.”
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Thank you for your response, Paul.
You wrote: "The Gospels’ main application, (Wright) says, is not ‘how to have your sins forgiven’ or ‘how to go to heaven’ but … an agenda in which the forgiven people are put to work, addressing the evils of the world in the light of the victory of Calvary.” That is a good summary of what Wright is teaching.
I commented as I did because in my experience, gnostic notions of heaven have so overwhelmed our worldview that we are nearly incapable of grasping the implications of what you wrote.
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Is God ‘the King of the world’? Whilst I agree that part of Jesus’ role whilst he lived on earth was to inaugurate the Kingdom of God into the here and now, this article suggests that the Kingdom has been established and is currently completely in place with God as the undisputed King and ruler. At least that is my interpretation – correct me if I am wrong. ‘The whole point of the Gospels, he says, is to tell the story of how God became king of the world. Jesus established God’s reign on Earth as in heaven. He inaugurated the kingdom of God here and now, a theocracy that overrules all other powers, political and otherwise.’
However, scripture clearly points out that currently God is NOT the ruler of this world – see: John 14:30, John 16:11, 2 Cor 4:4, Eph 2:2 & Eph 6:12. In fact, Jesus states His Kingdom was in another place (John 18:36), so Jesus is not ruler either. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8), but at the moment the devil still rules this world. Of course God is greater than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4), and He will become King of the world.
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Yes, Damien, many do give their allegiance to principalities and powers who pretend to rule the world.
Nevertheless, the Gospel According to Luke tells us that Mary exults, Zechariah prophecies, the multitudes of heavenly hosts raise their voices in song, and Simeon and Anna praise. Because, as John the revealer puts its, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God, and they will be his people."
And as Jesus said to Pilate, "My Kingdom is not FROM this world," it is from heaven and for this world.
I can scarcely believe it, yet this is the testimony of our Lord, and of those who first followed in his Way.
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