In my observances and critiques of what is portrayed in the "Hell House" documentary, I've looked at both the descriptions of Hell and the assumptions made regarding why a person "goes to Hell." Now I want to look at the third critique, and that is the gospel presentation. The gospel presentation, as given in the last room of the Hell House, goes something like this: "If you died tonight, where would you go? You will either go to heaven or you'll go to hell. Accept Jesus as your savior and you'll go to heaven. Don't, and you'll go to hell." And that's that. Granted this is the most common evangelical "gospel", but it misses the point. I will only make a couple brief points.
First, the gospel is not an order-of-salvation (i.e. what you do in order to get into heaven). The word "gospel" comes from the Greek euangelion, and from a Jewish perspective it means the announcement of good news that YHWH has returned to Israel, that YHWH has been enthroned over the entire world, that Israel has been set free from her captivity. We see this usage several times in the Isaianic texts in the Septuagint. Meanwhile, it also had royal connotations for the Greco-Roman world in which the New Testament was written: a euangelion was a royal announcement, generally about someone who had a great military victory, was enthroned as king, and now would promote peace and justice. In the New Testament, these themes interweave to create a gospel proclamation that is the royal proclamation of Jesus' enthronement; he has won a great victory over the powers and principalities on the cross, and thus death could not hold him; the exile has ended and YHWH has thus returned to Zion; Jesus is the true Lord of the world; and as such, all individuals, communities, and nations are to submit to him, putting their loyalty and allegiance in him. That is the gospel. That is what Christians are to proclaim.
Second, the main point of Christianity is not about which spiritual abode people go to when they die. Christianity flourishes within the framework of its Jewish roots. Christianity is not anti-Jewish; rather, Christianity is what Judaism was supposed to do all along, what Jesus did because Israel failed to do it. The death and resurrection of Jesus is God's promises through all the prophets to undo what was done all the way back in Genesis 3. It goes something like this: God created a good and beautiful and wild world and created mankind to be his co-regents over it. But the co-regents rebelled and decided instead to serve themselves instead of God. The result is that evil flooded the creation, corrupting it, not least corrupting the image-bearing creatures. So God launches a rescue operation in the people of Israel, evidenced in his covenant with Abraham. The people of Israel are to be the means by which God's rule returns to his corrupted and evil-infested world. Problem is, the people of Israel are just as much a part of the problem as the pagans whom they despise. They become, in many ways, pagan themselves. Thus they fail to fulfill their God-given mission and vocation. But then there is a representative of Israel, an Israelite who does what Israel couldn't do. That representative is Messiah, the one through whom God will deal with all the problems inaugurated by the Fall. Messiah dies and rises again, and in that he leads the powers and principalities, the forces of evil, to their own demise. He defeats them at their own game by exhausting their power upon himself. When he raises from the dead, it is evidence that God has already begun to deal with the problems; he is recreating the cosmos, first with Jesus; and, at the end, when he finally completes the recreation, all those who are in Messiah will be like Messiah, raised to a new world. That is, very briefly, the story of Christianity, a story that has been watered-down and muddled and lost through centuries of influences. When Evangelicalism just focuses on where a person will go when they die, the story begins to fade and is replaced with a pseudo-story. Now, I'm not saying that those who live (and die) by this gospel presentation are not included in the story. They are, and God will honor their loyalty and commitment to Messiah. But presenting the gospel should be revamped, redone, and reconfigured to be more loyal to the overarching narrative.
3. Third and final observance: whether or not someone gets to heaven, according to the promulgators of Hell House, depends on whether or not they "accept Jesus" as their "personal savior" and "pray the sinner's prayer." All that is required, it seems, is that a person say, "Jesus, I'm a sinner, and I trust you to save me. Amen." It sounds nice, but it's not what the gospel demands. As I made clear in my first point, the gospel is that Jesus is Lord, and the gospel is a summons (as we see in the beginning of Romans 1) for all nations to submit to Jesus. This submission doesn't mean "trusting Jesus for salvation" and "accepting him as your personal Savior." It means committing your life to him, putting your loyalty in him, and as Paul says in Romans 6, one becomes a member of the renewed covenant through baptism. The words used for faith in the New Testament were popular words used to denote loyalty and commitment to the Roman Emperor; Paul says that Jesus is the true King, the true Emperor, the true Lord, and all must submit to him. That is how one becomes a member of God's covenant: not by accepting Jesus into your heart, but by submitting to him as the rightful king over you. It is not about a three-second prayer followed by an Amen but about a decision of the will to kneel down before Jesus as Lord and Master.
First, the gospel is not an order-of-salvation (i.e. what you do in order to get into heaven). The word "gospel" comes from the Greek euangelion, and from a Jewish perspective it means the announcement of good news that YHWH has returned to Israel, that YHWH has been enthroned over the entire world, that Israel has been set free from her captivity. We see this usage several times in the Isaianic texts in the Septuagint. Meanwhile, it also had royal connotations for the Greco-Roman world in which the New Testament was written: a euangelion was a royal announcement, generally about someone who had a great military victory, was enthroned as king, and now would promote peace and justice. In the New Testament, these themes interweave to create a gospel proclamation that is the royal proclamation of Jesus' enthronement; he has won a great victory over the powers and principalities on the cross, and thus death could not hold him; the exile has ended and YHWH has thus returned to Zion; Jesus is the true Lord of the world; and as such, all individuals, communities, and nations are to submit to him, putting their loyalty and allegiance in him. That is the gospel. That is what Christians are to proclaim.
Second, the main point of Christianity is not about which spiritual abode people go to when they die. Christianity flourishes within the framework of its Jewish roots. Christianity is not anti-Jewish; rather, Christianity is what Judaism was supposed to do all along, what Jesus did because Israel failed to do it. The death and resurrection of Jesus is God's promises through all the prophets to undo what was done all the way back in Genesis 3. It goes something like this: God created a good and beautiful and wild world and created mankind to be his co-regents over it. But the co-regents rebelled and decided instead to serve themselves instead of God. The result is that evil flooded the creation, corrupting it, not least corrupting the image-bearing creatures. So God launches a rescue operation in the people of Israel, evidenced in his covenant with Abraham. The people of Israel are to be the means by which God's rule returns to his corrupted and evil-infested world. Problem is, the people of Israel are just as much a part of the problem as the pagans whom they despise. They become, in many ways, pagan themselves. Thus they fail to fulfill their God-given mission and vocation. But then there is a representative of Israel, an Israelite who does what Israel couldn't do. That representative is Messiah, the one through whom God will deal with all the problems inaugurated by the Fall. Messiah dies and rises again, and in that he leads the powers and principalities, the forces of evil, to their own demise. He defeats them at their own game by exhausting their power upon himself. When he raises from the dead, it is evidence that God has already begun to deal with the problems; he is recreating the cosmos, first with Jesus; and, at the end, when he finally completes the recreation, all those who are in Messiah will be like Messiah, raised to a new world. That is, very briefly, the story of Christianity, a story that has been watered-down and muddled and lost through centuries of influences. When Evangelicalism just focuses on where a person will go when they die, the story begins to fade and is replaced with a pseudo-story. Now, I'm not saying that those who live (and die) by this gospel presentation are not included in the story. They are, and God will honor their loyalty and commitment to Messiah. But presenting the gospel should be revamped, redone, and reconfigured to be more loyal to the overarching narrative.
3. Third and final observance: whether or not someone gets to heaven, according to the promulgators of Hell House, depends on whether or not they "accept Jesus" as their "personal savior" and "pray the sinner's prayer." All that is required, it seems, is that a person say, "Jesus, I'm a sinner, and I trust you to save me. Amen." It sounds nice, but it's not what the gospel demands. As I made clear in my first point, the gospel is that Jesus is Lord, and the gospel is a summons (as we see in the beginning of Romans 1) for all nations to submit to Jesus. This submission doesn't mean "trusting Jesus for salvation" and "accepting him as your personal Savior." It means committing your life to him, putting your loyalty in him, and as Paul says in Romans 6, one becomes a member of the renewed covenant through baptism. The words used for faith in the New Testament were popular words used to denote loyalty and commitment to the Roman Emperor; Paul says that Jesus is the true King, the true Emperor, the true Lord, and all must submit to him. That is how one becomes a member of God's covenant: not by accepting Jesus into your heart, but by submitting to him as the rightful king over you. It is not about a three-second prayer followed by an Amen but about a decision of the will to kneel down before Jesus as Lord and Master.
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