福音那令人信服的獨一性The Gospel’s CompellingUniqueness

作者: Jared Wilson  譯者: Maria Marta 

http://www.ligonier.org/blog/gospels-compelling-uniqueness/

https://plus.google.com/u/1/106695469993489516884/posts/fZCcnyWvs6m

關於耶穌，說祂是模棱兩可，自相矛盾是不可能的。但祂是這樣說自己的（太十二30）。因此，當耶穌周遊城鎮鄉村傳道、教導，和事奉時，祂在祂所遇到的人身上產生強烈的兩極化影響，這就不足為奇了。一些人以敬畏之愛回應，而另一些人則以滿腔仇恨回應。如果耶穌僅僅如許多現代思想家所臆斷的那樣--------一個高尚的道德老師，那（祂產生的兩極化影響）就不可能是真實的。不，耶穌決不會如道德老師那樣的安全。基督耶穌是跨越時空的屬靈斷決（spiritual disruption）。

正如耶穌在地上事奉期間，耶穌基督與其教會的真理宣稱不斷引起共鳴和遭到排斥。當然，這些排斥是今天許多福音派所關注的。他們當中的一些人對這些排斥予以足夠的關注，目的是尋求切削基督信仰較鋒利的部分，使基督信仰更具吸引力。我們在遭搀杂的耶穌基督的信息中發現，我們既能削弱大眾反對祂的程度，也能令他們的熱情降溫。現代福音派所傳講的安全的耶穌是沒有攻擊性的，但他也是難以令人信服的。

對安全的耶穌說不，我們必須擁抱真正的耶穌-----耶穌如過去那樣，祂現在也包括祂那背十字架的要求和袒露靈魂的真理。我們會發現，當我們擁抱真正的耶穌時，我們會惹起所有對真耶穌的仇恨，但同時也會激起對祂無盡的愛。耶穌自己描述的這種現象：

「猶太人圍著他，對他說：『你使我們心裡懸疑不定，要到幾時呢？如果你是基督，就公開地告訴我們吧！』耶穌對他們說：『我已經告訴你們，你們卻不相信；我奉我父的名所作的事，可以為我作證。只是你們不信，因為你們不是我的羊。我的羊聽我的聲音，我也認識他們，他們也跟隨我。我賜給他們永生，他們永不滅亡，誰也不能把他們從我手裡奪去。那位把羊群賜給我的父比一切都大，也沒有人能把他們從我父的手裡奪去。我與父原為一。』」（约十24–30新譯本）

這裏有些很精妙的亮光，在靈性層面閃現。從根本上講，耶穌告訴我們猶太人缺乏對祂的忠誠，原因並非缺乏信息。祂告訴他們真理。有些人「用耳朵聽」，有些人卻沒有。沒有中間地帶。你要麽屬於祂，要麽不屬於祂.

耶穌基督的福音信息是如此令人信服，從這第一個方面看出來：你不得不作出回應。如果你更深入一點閱讀到這一段落，你會注意到耶穌說「我與父原為一」之後，民眾拿起石頭要砸死祂。

當你表明立場，你會得到回應，但回應並不總是正面的。有些人有時會帶著敵意來拒絕它。但其他人將挺身而進。擁有基督信仰的人不能做的事情就是對自己的信仰模棱兩可。福音迫使人立即做出決定。

我想這可能就是促成新英格蘭 (New England，美國東北部六州的總稱) 發生一場靜悄悄的復興的原因了，新英格蘭是目前全國最少教會的地區，那裡塞滿了那些聲稱要愛、包容，和寬容的人。自1970年以來，波士頓（Boston）的人口減少了，但該市的教會數量幾乎翻了一番，同一時期返教會的人數也增加了三倍多。

整個新英格蘭，保守派教會在緩慢增長，而其他教會都在持續下降。鑒於在主流教會和非正統的公理教會中找到「安全的耶穌」，你可能認為上述情況不應屬實。但事實證明，在福音派團體裡可找到令人信服的耶穌。

持保守神學的福音派教會，如何在東北部這片硬土上傳講這古舊的故事，帶領人信主呢？嗯，這似乎是反直覺的，但是當你表明立場，你往往會感動人。

耶穌基督的福音特別令人信服的另一個原因：提供確據。不像其他宗教或哲學，基督教不為人類的意志或人類的智力提供確定性。相反它確定上帝的旨意和贖罪。基督教獨有的福音所提供的保障不同於其他宗教所提供的保障，其他宗教說：「如果你千依百順，你就能得救。」

這種宗教表面上聽起來很有保障，但有許多的變數。每一種其他的宗教都是被牽動的，乖乖就範的跑步機。你永遠無法確知，為達到目標，自己要走足夠的遠或要做得足夠的好。但基督教，因為耶穌基督所成就的工作，提供了確據，即是說，「使上帝愛你少些這件事，你是無能為力的。」

我記得在華盛頓與一個穆斯林出租車司機分享福音，司機說的一件事真的把我卡住了。他承認，自己是一個名義上的穆斯林，他是「屬靈卻不宗教」的伊斯蘭教版，我問他，關於赦免，他相信什麽？他說，有一些事情你可以做，但這些事是如此邪惡，以致於你不蒙上帝赦免。他說這就是伊斯蘭恐怖主義的問題之一-------真主不會赦免。恐怖主義太可怕了。我欣賞他領會罪的嚴重性。謀殺的確是一種可怕的，配得承受憤怒的罪------大規模謀殺尤其如此。但我希望他也能領會恩典的偉大引力。

他無法想象一位上帝會對殺人犯熟視無睹。但是我們沒有一位對謀殺視而不見的上帝。祂懲罰兇手；祂懲罰一切的罪。對那些悔改並信靠耶穌的人來說，刑罰恰恰被基督在十字架上承擔了。

這種獨一專有的恩典--------拯救的恩典是基督教獨一專有的，唯獨賜給那些信靠基督的人--------提供最好的一種確據，因為它斷定躲避上帝忿怒的安全地帶只能在上帝身上找到。沒有什麼地方比上帝自己更安全的了。

Rev. Jared C. Wilson is director of content strategy for Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo., and managing editor of For the Church. He blogs at The Gospel Coalition. He is on Twitter @JaredCWilson.

本文原刊於Tabletalk雜誌2017年一月號 。

The Gospel’s Compelling Uniqueness

by Jared Wilson

It is impossible to be ambivalent about Jesus. He said so Himself (Matt. 12:30). It should come as no surprise, then, to see that as Jesus traveled around preaching, teaching, and doing ministry, He had an immensely polarizing effect on those He encountered. Some responded in loving awe and others in seething hatred. And this would not have been true if Jesus had simply been what many modern thinkers assume He was—a good moral teacher. No, Jesus is not quite so safe as all that. Jesus Christ is a spiritual disruption of the space-time continuum.

Just as in the days of his earthly ministry, the truth claims of Christ and His church continue to both resonate and repel. Of course, it’s the repulsion that many evangelicals today are concerned about. Some of them are concerned enough about it that they seek to soften some of the harder edges of the Christian faith to make it more appealing. And what we discover in adulterating the message of Jesus is that we may soften people’s objections to Him, but we also temper their enthusiasm. The safe Jesus of modern evangelicalism is not offensive, but neither is He very compelling.

No, we must embrace the real Jesus—Jesus as He was and is, with all His cross-taking demands and soul-baring truths. And when we do so, we will discover that for all the animosity the real Jesus stirs up, there are also a good many affections for Him stirred up, as well. This is how Jesus Himself described this phenomenon:

So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:24–30)

There is something fascinating here, something that plays out on the spiritual plane. Jesus is basically saying that the Jews’ lack of devotion to Him is not due to a lack of data. He’s told them the truth. But some have “the ears to hear” and others do not. There is no middle ground. You either belong to Him or you don’t.

This is the first way in which the message of Christ’s gospel is so compelling: you have to respond to it. And you will notice if you read a little further into the passage that after Jesus says, “I and the Father are one,” they take up stones to kill Him.

When you draw a line in the sand, you’re going to get a reaction, and not always a positive one. Some people are going to reject it, sometimes with hostility. But others will lean in. The thing people can’t do with an exclusive Christianity is truly be ambivalent about it. The gospel forces the issue.

I think this may be what is contributing to the quiet revival in New England, which is now the least-churched region of the nation and is chock-full of people who claim to love inclusion and tolerance. Since 1970, the population of Boston has declined, but the number of churches in the city has almost doubled, and the number of people attending church has more than tripled in that same period.

Across New England, conservative churches are on a slow increase, while all others are in a continuing decline. You would think this should not be the case, given that the “safe Jesus” is found in the more liberal mainline and heterodox congregationalist churches. But the compelling Jesus, it turns out, is found in the evangelical communities.

How are evangelical churches with conservative theology preaching this old story bringing people to the faith in the hard soil of the Northeast? Well, it seems counterintuitive, but when you draw a line in the sand, you tend to move people.

But the gospel of Jesus is singularly compelling for another reason: it provides security. Unlike other religions or philosophies, Christianity doesn’t offer certainty of human will or human intellect. It offers instead certainty of divine will and atonement. The security that Christianity’s exclusive gospel offers is different from the security offered by other religions, which say, “If you can jump through these hoops, you can be saved.”

That sort of religion sounds secure on the surface, but there are too many variables involved. Every other religion is a treadmill of hoop-jumping. You can never be sure you’ll go far enough or get good enough at it to “make it.” Christianity, however, because of what Christ has done, offers the security that says, “There’s nothing you could do to make God love you less.”

I remember sharing the gospel with a Muslim cab driver in Washington, D.C., and one thing the driver said really stuck with me. He was a nominal Muslim by his own admission; he was Islam’s version of “spiritual, but not religious.” I asked him what he believed about forgiveness, and he said there were things you could do that would be so bad that God couldn’t forgive you. He said that was one of the problems with Islamic terrorism—Allah won’t forgive that. It’s too terrible. I appreciated that he got the gravity of sin. Murder is indeed a terrible, wrath-deserving sin—mass murder even more so. But I wanted him to also somehow grasp the great gravity of grace.

He could not imagine a God who would turn a blind eye to murder. But we don’t have a God who turns a blind eye to murder. He punishes every murder; He punishes every sin. It’s just that, for those who repent and believe in Jesus Christ, the punishment is borne by Christ on the cross.

This kind of exclusivity—saving grace is exclusive to Christianity and exclusive to those who trust in Christ—provides the best kind of security because it posits that refuge from God’s wrath is only found in God Himself. And there is no place more secure than God Himself.