Celucien Joseph has what I regard as a pretty awful quotation:
Were I asked to focus the New Testament message in three words, my proposal would be adoption through propitiation, and I do not expect ever to meet a richer or more pregnant summary of the gospel than that. —J.I. Packer
I’m not sure whether he has a dreadful theology or a low expectation. In fact, I’m not a fan of the idea that the message of the New Testament can be reduced to three words, or indeed reduced to words apart from the life of a fallible Church seeking to gather round her Lord in word and sacrament.
However, if I were to choose words, I doubt that one of them would be a controversial translation of a rather ambiguous word which occurs only a handful of times in the NT. In the one case (Heb 9:5) it certainly can’t mean propitiation.
Of course the (English) NT already has a three word confession of Christian faith: “Jesus is Lord”, which in its identification of the weak and crucified human being from Nazareth with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is about as rich and pregnant with meaning as you can get.
{ 5 comments }
The evangelicals of the past generation had a significant impact on me – not all good. I have a gay friend who put the matter quite succinctly. “These people want to take away my Christ from me.” I am distressed both at how important words are and how creative – but equally how wrong it is to reduce Christ to a formula. I still search for words though and hope to use them in ways that open and not shut.
I recently listened to a conservative evangelical message on the penal substitutionary theory of atonement, and how essential it was to have nothing in the gospel but that, all else is heresy of some sort or another. I find myself bewildered at that circle of Reformed folks who want to drive that point home to the exclusion of everybody they happen to disagree with.
This is a meme begging to be released into the wild.
I like your alternative.
“Come, Lord, quickly!” popped into my head.
The same guy so many Calvinists accuse of compromising the gospel because of ECT… Your proposal is far better.
Our Father
Comments on this entry are closed.
{ 1 trackback }