The simple gospel and profound teaching

The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved – you and your household”. Acts 16:29-31

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished  -  he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Romans 3:21-26

I once read an article by a prominent New Testament scholar in which they wrote some really quite rude things about the apostle Paul. They accused him in effect of taking the beautifully simple and clear message of Jesus and turning it into “theology”, by which they meant something very theoretical and difficult to grasp.

I think I know what they meant. As a child I used to sing in Sunday School “Tell me the stories of Jesus, I love to hear…” And who could argue with that? - Jesus healing the sick, or raising the dead, or setting free the woman taken in adultery, or calling nasty, greedy Zacchaeus down from the tree… lovely stuff! Don’t we all bask in stories like that? And then we turn to passages like Romans 3 and - let’s be honest - we find ourselves struggling even to just read, never mind fully understand, what Paul is saying.

But we are told that “all scripture is inspired by God” (2 Timothy 3:16), not just the easy bits, so we are committed to wrestling with these more demanding parts. Are we right in this? Yes, I’m sure we are. But I at least, for one, have a smidgeon of sympathy for that disrespectful scholar. I wrote last time about “keeping it simple”, but I can’t pretend I always find scripture straight-forward. I must admit that I was pleased when I first came across the words of the apostle Peter – the human head of the church, no less! – that “our dear brother Paul” wrote some things “which are hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16). I felt quite relieved!

I’ve put at the top two passages either about or by Paul. In Acts 16 we find him (with Silas) expressing himself in the simplest imaginable way – just like Jesus! And then in Romans 3 we find him giving us great helpings of “theology” – using technical terms like “law” and “righteousness”, “justification” and “faith”, “redemption” and  “atonement”. No wonder if we find ourselves rather at sea.

Of course, there are plenty of places where we find Jesus also saying hard-to-understand things – his ministry was by no means all simplicity and clarity. And Paul was by no means the only New Testament writer to pose challenges of understanding. But I’m sure you will get the point. If our salvation depends essentially on simple, childlike trust in Jesus, what need is there of all these heavy and challenging parts? Can’t we be saved without understanding them?

Yes, I’m sure we can. That’s why my mind went to the dying thief, to the Philippian jailer, to the woman taken in adultery as examples of people who knew literally nothing about “salvation” until that moment when they were brought face to face with Jesus.

Where is this leading us?

For one thing, I think it explains one of the main divisions within the Christian church today.

On the one hand there are those who stress the sheer simplicity of the gospel message: childlike faith is all you need! – and wonderful miracles will come tumbling down on your head! And then on the other hand there are those who stress the profound depth of God’s holy word, and emphasise teaching (followed  by teaching, followed by more teaching, followed by still more teaching…). Cynic that I am, I sometimes wonder if such churches require a written entrance exam before anyone can be admitted to membership: oh, you must be sure to get your doctrine right!

These two Christian “camps”, as we might call them, though they both honour Jesus as Saviour and Lord, can be suspicious of one another. The “happy-clappies”, simple believers, look down their noses at the over-fastidious “reformed” types; and they in turn are a bit contemptuous of these over-emotional “charismatic” types. (At least we can be thankful that today we don’t seek to resolve the issues as in by-gone centuries – by burning one another at the stake.)

Is there a middle way between the two types of Christianity? I think there is.

First, the “charismatic” types may well be open to the criticism of shallowness and of raising unrealistic expectations. I remember a blind lady who was on one occasion surrounded by a group of extremely zealous believers who insisted that if only she had enough faith then her sight would be restored. When that failed to happen she was left feeling guilty and troubled, for she felt she did indeed have true faith, however inadequate it might have been. She needed some wise and balanced words from a mature Christian to be reassured.

On the other hand the more “reformed” types are perhaps open to the criticism of turning faith in Jesus into simply an act of cold obedience – “Sorry, but if you don’t believe in Jesus you can’t be saved!”. (You can almost see a severely wagging finger there.) It comes across as if Christians are inventing a new “work of the law”, not much different from the scribes and Pharisees – faith is something you must devoutly do.

We need to remind ourselves that the word “gospel” means “good news”. The gospel is not a threat: “believe in Jesus or there’s no hope for you”. No, it’s a comforting offer: “you want to be saved? – just believe in Jesus!” There’s a world of difference between the tone of those two statements.

Putting it another way… we believe in justification by faith; we are not justified by faith by believing in justification by faith.

Get the difference?

Father, I thank you for your holy word in scripture, even though I find parts of it hard to understand. Help me simply to rest in Jesus and his cross and resurrection – but also to persevere in seeking deeper understanding of the Bible as a whole. Amen.