A London Journal—Day Five

A report of the goings-on at the Metropolitan Tabernacle

...and did you know that Louisiana is the pelican state?

The School of Theology is underway. It began this afternoon with three messages—one each from Jack Seaton, James Grier, and Chris Hand.

Jack Seaton's message was on the nature of true faith. He illustrated faith's submission with the example of Mary's surrender to the Lord's will. Jim Grier followed that with his first message in a four-part series on union with Christ, and since he began by talking about Christ's incarnation, the segue from Jack Seaton on Mary to Jim Grier on the incarnate Christ flowed so naturally that it almost seemed as if it had been orchestrated.

Chris Hand began with the first of a two-part critique of The Purpose-Driven Life. He was gracious and measured, but thorough, very pointed, and straightforward. The complete series will be a good introduction to some of the basic problems with the whole "Purpose-Driven" philosophy. Chris does a superb job of distilling a wide variety of information plus documentation into a format that never seems tedious or dry. If you are one of those who has trouble understanding why Rick Warren even has critics, you ought to give this series a listen.

After an extended break for meal time, the schedule called for me to speak twice in a double session tonight. In the first hour, I introduced the series I plan to do this week—which will be a four-part defense of the biblical principles of substitutionary atonement, imputed righteousness, and justification by faith. Then in the second hour, I spoke on justification by faith from 2 Corinthians 5:21.

Here's a thumbnail sketch of my introduction: I began by describing an eerily prophetic article titled "Evangelical Megashift" by Robert Brow that appeared in Christianity Today in 1990. It's no secret that I have little sympathy with the ideas of Mr. Brow. He is a Canadian author and theologian who thinks biblical truth has been given to us in various "models" from which we can pick and choose what we like, rather than propositions which we either believe or don't. (Brow can hardly write three sentences without using the word model. His website, called "The Robert Brow 'Model Theology' Webpage" is prominently listed in my bookmarks under "Really Bad Theology.")

You might think I disagree with Mr. Brow about everything. Not so. He was absolutely right in that 1990 CT article when he predicted that a theological megashift would soon rock the evangelical world. Most, if not all, of his 1990 predictions came true to the letter. He predicted, for example, that the coming generation of evangelicals would abandon or severely modify the ideas of substitutionary atonement, original sin, hell, and the wrath of God. That is exactly what is happening today. The Open Theists have taken all those ideas further than anyone, but various "new-model" ideas—many of the very same ideas Robert Brow was promoting back in 1990—are currently being touted by several well-known evangelical authors loosely aligned with the so-called "emerging church" (such as Brian McLaren, John Eldredge, Steve Chalke, Dave Tomlinson, and many others) who do not necessarily identify with "Open Theism."

The common thread in all these ideas is that they seek to tone down and tame the biblical concept of God—by eliminating the law-court imagery of God as a judge; by redefining his wrath; by questioning the reality of hell; and in general by trying to eliminate any need for the fear of the Lord. This inevitably culminates in an attack on the principles of original sin, imputation, and the idea of the atonement as a penal substitution.

Do away with original sin, imputation, or penal substitution and you undermine the foundations of a proper understanding of justification by faith, the principle of imputed righteousness, and ultimately the gospel itself. These are perilous times. People have itching ears. It's a time when Christians need to be sober, vigilant, and ready to give an answer.

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