The discussion on the question “What is an evangelical? has been both fascinating and illuminating. The brilliance of the responses doesn’t surprise me (after all, I picked these folks) but I am surprised by how much I—as a lifelong, unapologeticly self-defined evangelical—am getting out of the exchange. It’s reminded me of how fruitful it can be to simply define terms that we are all too familiar with.
I really resonate with Fred Sanders’point that “when I see the word [evangelical], I see the good news in it, the evangel. And I want to raise my hand and identify myself with that movement which has the guts to name itself after that good word.”
Since you can’t really talk about what it means to be an evangelical without understanding the root—evangel (gospel)—perhaps we should also ask, “What is the gospel?”
Rather than provide an answer myself I’ll defer to our own Russel Moore:
November 4th, 2009 | 8:38 pm | #1
About 4 minutes into your talk, you say, “Jesus went to hell on the Cross, so that you wouldn’t have to.”
Umm, I’m sorry to break the news to you, but your “gospel” is not the true gospel.
God certainly loves you, you got that right. But God the Father did not damn God the Son on our behalf. Nor did God the Son voluntarily go to hell for us.
Jesus Christ never did suffer hell or eternal punishment or damnation or eternal separation from the Father on our behalf. If you say he did, even “for a moment”, then either: 1) You are a pagan, who believes in 2 gods who could be separated from one another; or 2) You are a Nestorian or Arian heretic, who believes that a human person “Jesus” suffered eternal damnation for us. In either case, you are still a pagan and still outside the Body of Christ.
The logic is simple: God cannot be separated from God! In the Holy Trinity, there is only one Essence, but three Persons. If the three Persons were separable, that would be three separate gods and that is the heresy of tritheism (which is nothing but paganism) and not the Holy Trinity. If at the Cross the person Jesus Christ who was God (a Divine Person) was separated eternally from the Father, then the Father and the Son are actually 2 separate gods, which is paganism, and you are a pagan. Or if at the Cross Jesus Christ was actually a human person who was separated eternally from the Father, then that is the heresy of Nestorianism or Arianism, and you are a heretic. In either case, you are outside the Body of Christ.
Now I am certainly not saying that everyone who believes your false “gospel” is damned to hell. I have no idea of who is going to heaven or hell. I’ll let God be the judge of that.
The Bible speaks of “the mystery of the gospel”, “the mystery of the faith”. I do not see that you grasp this mystery.
It would be better for you to continually say, like the thief on the Cross, “Jesus, remember me in your kingdom”, than to go any further than that and speak of things that are too lofty for you.
It would be better for you to continually say, like the publican in Luke 18, “God be merciful to me a sinner”, than to presumptuously believe you are already “saved” and like the Pharisee to be thankful that you are not like other men.
Jesus Christ did not go to hell for us. He went to Hades to rescue Adam, which is entirely different. He was never separated from the Father.
Jesus Christ was GOD. A Divine Person (who took on flesh). A Divine Person with a Divine Nature, who also took on our human nature, without separation and without confusion. As such he could never have been separated from the Father. God cannot be separated from God!
Because He had a human nature, He felt forsaken by the Father when he cried “My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”, but since He was a Divine Person, the Son of the Living God, He could not have actually been separated from the Father – not before the Cross, not on the Cross, and not in the grave, and not when He descended into Hades.
Your “gospel” is Roman Catholic to the core. I am not saying that it is official Roman Catholic dogma. What I am saying is that it is derived from a Roman Catholic ethos. It is a juridical model and is completely legalistic, just like Roman Catholicism is. It is derived from Anselm of Canterbury’s “satisfaction theory” c. 1100 A.D. Anselm was a fanatic papist, a modalist heretic, and a vehement proponent of the filioque heresy (which Protestants have yet to renounce or protest against because they are still Roman Catholic to the core in their mindset). He was the 2nd bishop installed by the Norman Franks who under William the Conqueror had recently conquered England with the blessing of the Pope, and who had killed off all the Orthodox bishops and many priests and monks of the old English Church. Anselm’s satisfaction theory basicly states that man sinned against God’s infinite justice, and it was necessary that God the Father’s justice be “satisfied” by Jesus Christ’s death on the Cross. It is an innovation that was unheard of in earlier times.
Whoever taught that “Jesus went to hell on the Cross” before 1100 A.D.?
Read some Athanasius, Chrysostom, Basil, Gregory Nyssa, Gregory Naz, Maximos, and John of Damascus. While you are at it, read the documents of the Ecumenical Councils of the first millenium of the Christian Church. But if reading is too difficult for you, then just get the “simple gospel” by buying some icons. A picture is worth a thousand words. The icon is the gospel for those who can’t read. All of this won’t do you much good, however, until you are actually baptised into the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. But at least it’s a start.
Jesus Christ, a Divine Person, took on our human nature so that He could deify it and grant us immortality. That’s why He went to the Cross and the grave. By death He trampled upon death (reversing Adam’s fall and subjection to death) and granted all humans immortality. Now it is up to us how we spend that immortality – either in heaven or in hell. He established His Church as the Ark of Salvation for us – so that we can have the means of being united to His Most Holy Body and Blood and become deified, becoming gods by participating in the very energies of God but not becoming gods in essence.
The Biblical terminology for deification is glorification. Protestants and Roman Catholics cannot receive all that God has for them, glorification, they are cut off from it in part because of their own philosophy and presuppositions. They cannot be deified or glorified in this life because deification depends on participation in the energies of God as distinct from God’s essence, but most Roman Catholics and Protestants either do not believe in or are not aware that there is a distinction between God’s essence and His energies. Deification depends on being in the Apostolic Church which they are cut off from, and it depends on believing in the true God, who is incomprehensible in His essence but who can make us gods by grace by our participation in His energies. The energies of God flow down from Jesus Christ to the Apostles to the bishops ordained by Jesus Christ or the Apostles, from those bishops to the bishops ordained by them, down to the present day, so that the current bishops still holding the orthodox faith are in organic union or apostolic succession from all prior bishops who were in organic union with the first bishops installed by the Apostles or Jesus Christ Himself. You must believe not only in the Trinity but also in the Essence-Energy distinction in God. Protestants and Roman Catholics fail to do this in part because of their philosophical presupposition of divine simplicity, which is at heart the reason why they still have not given up their heresy of the Filioque.
My friend, it is your philosophy that keeps you from God. To have a real union with God, we must become gods. This is done through participation in God’s energies. This happened to St Paul, when he was caught up to the third heaven. This is not just for St Paul but for everyone. You cannot be united to the essence of God – that is pantheism. If all you have is feelings of love, joy, and peace, this may have come from God, your own self, or from the demons, as even pagan shamans have these feelings. So I wouldn’t trust your feelings, and especially, don’t think you are “born again” just because you had some feelings. The only way to be born again is through Holy Baptism into the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. The Church is not an option. It is essential. You cannot separate Christ from His Body.
November 4th, 2009 | 10:42 pm | #2
“I have no idea of who is going to heaven or hell. I’ll let God be the judge of that.”
“My friend, it is your philosophy that keeps you from God”
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