Biblical Studies Symposium Q&A with Dr. D.A. Carson

all right we're gonna start with a question and answer now dr. Carson first question I want to ask you is to address the use of repentance in presenting the gospel what does the unbeliever understand by that word nowadays not much but it depends a bit on who the unbeliever is if you are preaching the gospel in sort of church' fide settings south of the mason-dixon line then people have at least some notion of what repentance is it shows up but if you use that word in secular eyes New England or the Pacific Northwest it's just not a word in everyday use it's a religious word that has some sort of meaning but you don't have to explain what it means what you have to see is that very often it's not the use of a particular word that is crucial but by whatever words you choose getting across certain non-negotiables that are bound up with what what is involved in conversion and and one of the things that's involved in conversion is turning away from the direction which I have been going and turning to Christ and that that will have many many different shapes if you are a Buddhist in Thailand it will have a certain kind of shape it'll be it'll include turning away from from from a conceptual conceptuality of what the spiritual world consists in might not even involve belief in a personal God and turning to an entirely different worldview and in which in which trusting Christ is is is part of the Bible storyline it it means turning away not only from a lifestyle but from a frame of reference of looking at something that is just plain wrong to do something that that puts Christ and his work right at the center of everything so it's not so much the word that is critical as as the reality of it in some context in the New Testament belief certainly includes repentance if it's genuine belief it's not just belief that it's it's belief that somehow is so bound up with all that Christ is that it necessarily means turning away from from from all that it all that he isn't which is where you have been in the past could use specifically about the text in John three today could you speak to why the the phrase born again is not rendered born rendered born from above the Greek word of course is an oath in and in in terms of etymology that is the parts of the word that go into making a word up a know above and then from there then an oath an looks as if it means from there from above and so some people want this to be born from above and if I had time to do a decent exposition for a grief class I would point that out but word meanings are not always constrained by by the parts that make them up for example in English we we in the spring we look for butterflies believe it or not butterflies are not made up of butter and flies and and and so you have to start asking yourself how is the word used not just what are the ingredients that have gone into the word the etymology and you can show that in the broader Greek literature sometimes anathan really does mean again so in that case in this instance you are you are torn in translation between choosing born again or born from above I suspect though I can't prove that John meant both but what I tend to do is stick with a translation that I'm using in which case is born again but stress the from above this thing by pointing out that Christ came from above and if this is by revelation and he was sent from the father and thus in fact you've got this dimension built into the explanation whether you get the word anathan to unpack it for you or the entire storyline what is in your opinion the greatest threat within Christianity to a proper understanding of the gospel and how do we respond it depends well I could give a general answer sin man I nail that one but the trouble is that sin has many faces and when you say the greatest threat it depends on what part of the world you're in in some parts of the world there is spectacularly disastrous poverty and in that context it's not consumerism that what is one of the greatest threats but in this country consumerism is one of them not the only one but it's one of them I have a daughter who lives in California and a son who lives in Hawaii suffering for Jesus in those two places and one of the things I observed when I go to visit either of them is in both cases how much built-in hedonism is bound up with with life in Pleasant places as a friend of mine puts it in Hawaii what do you need heaven for we're already there a pastor friend of mine in Santa Barbara says the most spectacularly difficult pastoral problem he's got is finding young men who will submit to the training to become elders they're too busy wanting to surf you start living in a culture where the only reason you work is in order to play and you will undercut the gospel without a single doctrinal deviation now having said that for other people it's not that at all its various kinds of doctrinal deviations one of them is the widespread view today that tolerance means you can't say anybody is wrong that is in fact a new definition of tolerance an older definition of tolerance said I might detest everything about what you're saying and tell you that you're wrong but I still insist that you have the right to say it that was the older view of Tolerance nowadays to say that somebody is wrong is already intolerant but that means you're not allowed to say that anybody's wrong which means you can't have discussions which means you can't reflect what the Bible says about there is no salvation given to men by which we must be saved except through the name of Jesus and no one comes to the Father except by me those are very in current statements by the new definition of intolerant but they're not intolerant by the old definition you can preach anything you like you can preach Islam you can preach radical secularism you can preach Hinduism in this country to preach a lot of things and tell me I'm wrong so long as I can tell you you're wrong that's still a very tolerant view and the older tolerance but in the new tolerance you see then the new tolerance itself is is a terrible threat toward the claims in Scripture of the exclusive sufficiency of Jesus Christ and I guarantee in this crowd there are many many many many of you who have bought into the new tolerance so that even knowing it and as a result you're made uncomfortable when you hear exclusive truth claims or the people who don't really trust Jesus as their Savior and Lord are doomed to eternal destruction you're just made uncomfortable by that because it sounds intolerant and in our culture that's one of the biggest things you can do be intolerant and we don't realize how much we've absorbed the the cultural menu do-do-do-do see so when say when people say what is the biggest thing but it really depends on where you are in the culture what age you are where in the country and then it looks a little different in China and in China it looks different depending on where you are in China when you're whether you're in one of the free economic zones where there's a surprising amount of Liberty these days and where one of the biggest dangers is consumerism versus when you're where you're up country says somewhere in Dali or someplace like that where where there's still quite a lot of persecution did you just depends it quite quite a lot on where you are do you do do you see what the what the biggest dangers are and what the biggest dangers to us are look very different from what the biggest dangers are let's say in the Middle East here it is widely accepted in the Western world that if you're tolerant you don't say anybody's wrong in Muslim countries which after all take up about a billion people that's not a small segment of the human population in Muslim countries nobody thinks that's the case everybody thinks there's only one way the argument is which one that's a very different frame of reference a different context and we should do evangelism then in our context you see so it's very difficult to say what's the greatest danger we face for the church worldwide because because the day and sin behind all of it spiritual blindness behind all of it but if you're trying to come to specifics you've got to recognize that the shape of such unbelief and sin is really quite different from culture to culture one student wants to know do you find modern-day Invitational methods and decision seeking to be a major hindrance to the gospel that's another one of those generalized questions that depends so much on what a person means DL mu D when he was criticized for his methods turned to his questioner and said what methods do you advocate yourself and the questioner said well I don't really do evangelism I don't have methods but so mu D replied I prefer to use the methods I do use that you don't like than the methods you do like that you don't have so you still want to say when when when people start criticizing methods of one sort or another I'd rather have people making lots of mistakes in their presentation of the gospel and pushing people to repentance and faith then not doing it moreover it's not it's often not just methods per se it's the context in which a method occurs so for example if you have a really shoddy presentation of the gospel it doesn't explain much of what what the cross is about doesn't explain much about the nature of sin doesn't explain what substitution is about doesn't explain the wrath of God doesn't explain it doesn't explain any of those things it just uses a whole lot of religious cliches but it doesn't explain any of those things and then you start pressing people to come forward and have eternal life come forward and have the abundant life and and maybe you're dealing with a congregation that semi-literate in any case biblically speaking well within that context it really is dangerous for to push people that way because to use the language of the prophets that they're in danger of healing my people slightly that is they make some sort of profession of faith of turning in some way to God in some fashion or the other without understanding what the real issues are for example many many of the evangelistic approaches that are used today turn on having the abundant life you know would you like to have an abundant life step 1 well what idiot is going to say no on the other hand where does the abundant life language come from in the Bible do you know it comes from one verse in John 10 I have come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly and this in the context of an extended metaphor on sheep so the sheep are supposed to have a more abundant life what does that mean probably means a whole lot more grass you really want to go to a whole lot University students and say what they need is more grass but supposing you you're dealing with a bunch of biblical alerts when I first started doing university evangelism you know then 3035 years ago then then if I were dealing with an atheist on a campus he or she was a Christian atheist that is to say the God that they disbelieved in was the Christian God which is another way of saying the arguments were still on my turf my categories I can't even assume that today the people that I evangelize in university missions today don't know the Bible has two Testaments they've never heard of Abraham if they've heard of Moses they confuse them with either Charlton Heston or the more recent cartoon character you have no idea the Bible's put together and all of their religious vocabulary as slight as it is faith God Jesus whatever in every case they mean something different from what I mean so I come to these people and say would you like to have a bun in life what are they here oh yeah you bet I'd like more sex mmm better job terrific sense of fulfillment can you give me that so they're not hearing at all what the first century hear is heard when Jesus spoke those words in John 10 do you see so we're at a time of life when if we're evangelizing to people outside of the church if I'd outside of the category of people who already have a lot of the religious vocabulary if you're evangelizing in that sort of context you've got a rebuilding job to do to explain what the categories are what the Bible storyline is how the gospel works that's part of explaining the gospel faithfully and if you don't do that and instead then apply immediately to to ask people for a decision or to come forward or pray a prayer where they don't understand any of the categories then you're asking them to leap into an experience without any of the constructs of the content of the gospel that make believing in the gospel coherent so in that sense it really is very foolish to push those things you see but then it's not just whether or not you're pushing somebody to to to bow to Christ it's it's the context in what you're doing it how well the gospel has genuinely been explained how how well people understand really what the issues really are so it's one of those questions again where it's method in some cheap little narrow sense that is at issue the much bigger issue is how faithful a presentation is there of the gospel itself discuss the role of law and gospel in your preaching hello in 25 words or less in one sense the role of law should be pretty substantial in one sense it my view it no longer takes top shouldn't take top priority and I need to explain both of those I said just briefly on the fly tonight that you you cannot get agreement on what the good news is until you get agreement on what the problem is the reverse is also true incidentally the solution of the problems stand together so if you think for example that the biggest human problem is is is economic injustice then what what you need is a new social order what you need is new economics that's what you need to fix things if you think that the biggest human need is is is loneliness or social miss identity not finding yourself then you need some decent psychologists so you you need to have some awareness of what the Bible presents as the fundamental need the need behind all other needs and biblically speaking that is alienation from God it is in a word sin it is transgression it is de God in God it is idolatry it is dishonouring God and and and until people can see that that is what the problem is to present Christ as the one who comes along and delivers us from the death that ensues from our sin then then the gospel doesn't make any sense it's not coherent you you need to present law let us say the demand of God so that people can see what the effect of the law is we we don't live up to God's standards he says we're supposed to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength and we don't he says we're supposed to love our neighbors as ourselves and we don't he says we're not supposed to lust and we do he says we're not supposed to hate and we managed that too and on and on and on and on and all of these things in the Bible are presented as as as fundamentally offenses against God himself against the Living God and he stands over against us not only as our Creator and our gracious providential provider but he's also stands over against us as judge and he has every right to be angry with us 600 times the Bible portrays God in the Old Testament alone as as a wrathful God against us not that he's lost his temper but his wrath is a determined holy response to human sin 600 times the Bible's insists that God stands over against us in wroth and so anything that we do in other words in preaching the law of God so as to set up the stage for showing how wonderful the grace of God is is surely got to be a good thing if you talk about the grace of God be before people recognize that there's any sort of problem it's it's it's almost inevitably going to turn out to be a bit of cheap grace Wesley in one of his letters I can't remember what number it is about 137 or something like that was asked how do you preach the gospel in any place that is he gets on his horse goes on the next town starts preaching what does he do first he says I begin he says with a general declaration of the love of God in the gospel and then he says I preach law I preach law so that men may know that they are lost then I preach more law and when he says I see a few people come under conviction of sin knowing they are lost maybe a few tears I preach more law when substantial numbers are clearly under conviction of sin then he says this is his expression I add mix a little grace but only he says when the entire congregation is deeply deeply under the convicting work of the Spirit of God and crying out like those in Acts what shall we do then he says I preach grace freely and fully and richly so that they see how glorious is the gospel of God and then he says quickly do admits lawless men should presume now that was actually the Puritan view of things Wesley deep down and much of his theology was actually a Puritan there is something right about all of that I think there's something wrong with it too but there's something very deeply right about it it really reflects the fact that you can't get the gospel right until you see what the problem is one way or the other you got to get that across but there's the name Tim Keller mean anything to you yes no yeah he's a dear friend he started the gospel coalition with me Presbyterian minister in New York City Redeemer pres now has something like six or seven thousand people average age is 31 or 32 most of them Congress and and they start off in the in a context like Manhattan complete biblical illiteracy and over the years he has learned not to begin with law but with idolatry because today in a postmodern world or a world still under the impact of it in a world with new ideas about tolerance when you start preaching just law what people hear you to be saying is there's some arbitrary being up there that just wants to step off and tell me what to do all the time none of his business says who but when you begin with idolatry then you're portraying something of the same thing but in a relational dimension that is the heart of idolatry is you rebel against your maker that's a form of betrayal and this generation understands betrayal better than it understands trespass and as Keller likes to point out Paul himself in Romans 5 says that before the law came that is with Moses and the giving of the law in that big sense the law covenant there was still idolatry and because of it death death reigned from Adam to Moses before the giving of the law there is still massive idolatry so there is a sentence you see in which all of idolatry is transgressing something of God all of acting against the law is also idolatrous you can't have one without the other and if you are preaching holistically then even if you begin with idolatry sooner or later you have to get to law and if you're rightly preaching law then inevitably you have to show that it's not just arbitrary law it's it's law that God has given for our good in his own glory and not to follow it is a betrayal so you're into idolatry dude did you see so it's not that Keller therefore wants to duck the importance of the law he is saying that 100 years ago in this country or in Great Britain June and years ago in most of Europe to preach the law first to preach the law and Wesley sense was coherent because the law was just about universally understood to be the law of God and to preach the law therefore was a way of showing just how lost and awful and rebellious we were in order to set up the stage for understanding the magnanimity of grace but in our culture where you might not understand those categories so well it might take so much time even to begin to explain them that it is better to begin with idolatry than with law now at what point you start introducing the grace of God in the gospel that still has to be held out there it has to be the goal toward which we press I don't care how you get your mixtures in I wouldn't word it quite the way Wesley did but nevertheless somewhere along the line if you run to grace and the gospel before people have any idea of what of what the offense is of what the danger is of what the death is of what the wrath of God is then I suspect that ultimately we end up with a truncated and reduced diminished gospel enough to interpret this question I think they were trying to fit it into the tweet and they get a little muddled but I think what they want to know is you've talked about the transforming power of the gospel and the question relates to if if you're saying that after you're saved there's a certain way you have to live how is that not works based salvation in works based salvation it is the works that finally commend you to God not Christ but in the New Testament we are finally acceptable before God exclusively on the ground of Christ substitutionary death on our behalf yet the inevitable result of genuine salvation in the New Testament I know some people dispute this but I can't help it if they're wrong but the inevitable reflect effect of genuine regeneration is as there's change in the life that's why Jesus can say things like by their fruits you shall know them many shall say to me in those days Lord Lord haven't we done this and haven't we done that then I shall say to them depart from me you workers of iniquity I never knew you so this does not say that Christians are sinlessly perfect it does not say that they all grow at the same rate it does not say there's no possibility of a background slipping as slipping and sliding on occasion and having to be restored to God it doesn't mean that in fact the experience of most Christians as you is that as you get closer to God you become more aware of the sin in your life but but yet having said all of those things putting all those caveats in place yet when you are converted you want to do what you didn't want to do before and you don't want to do what you wanted to do before there's a change in the heart is the cleaning up a change in orientation and and and holiness becomes attractive instead of something that you have to put up with to figure out what you can get away with as long as young people are asking can I get away with this or kind of get away with that I wonder if they regenerate if they're asking instead how can I grow in holiness then I suspect they've begun to understand what do you make of Scott McKnight skål för a gospel that is first Christology and second soteriology in his recent book King Jesus gospel Scott's an old friend he's a creative writer and thinker he couldn't write a boring sentence if he tried he's an excellent communicator he is also temperamental II a guy who likes to take on almost anything that's going and push it in another direction so if a whole lot of people are saying this he wants to say not really that really this and if they're really saying something over here then he wants to say no it's really something else he's he's he's the universal corrector he would probably grin and laugh if he were here because he knows that it's true at the same time one of the things that bothers me about some of Scott's writings is that often he is right in what he affirms and wrong and what he denies that is when he says it's not this but this I want to say why are you giving me an alternative I think it's a whole picture it's both and how can you possibly have a genuinely biblically faithful Christology without the soteriology entailed how can you possibly have a genuinely faithful biblical soteriology without knowing something about Christology so what why do you want to pit them against each other that to me it's almost incoherent and and so I I know what he's trying to correct I know the error that he's trying to correct but I I think that it is rarely the path of wisdom to correct an error by advocating a pendulum swing the path of wisdom when there's an error is to try to find the center of biblical faithfulness again rather than a pendulum swing kind of makes me think of the difference between what we call it systematic theology so it's a system but people seem to present it like segmented theology and what you're saying is is that Christology and soteriology should fit together rather than segmented right well they are intertwined you can start anywhere in systematic theology and embrace the whole and the trick is to find out how biblically they ought to be intertwined and and then think through how they need them to be intertwined in our presentations and in our apologetics and our evangelism and in our systematics and so on but and it's not as if biblical truth is is is separate pearls on a string and which pearl you put in what order makes no difference or anything of that order it's it's more like a symphony and and all that all the instruments need to be playing together are the issues of dispensationalism and covenant theology worth breaking fellowship over and should this affect the gospel movement worth breaking fellowship over in what context in the context of a local church which has a strong statement of faith on either one side or the other then transparently to be faithful to that heritage you do break fellowship but there might be some context in which a church that is a moderate dispensational Church and a church that is a moderate covenant church in the same town might share the platforms together might do some evangelism together might might do certain kinds of things together without each consigning the other to the lowest level of Dante's Inferno moreover you see behind the question I think is another question it's it's bounded with this new view of Tolerance again there are many many people today who are saying anything that doesn't directly affect your salvation is not an important doctrine so that they're saying in effect provided somebody can believe that and still be saved it doesn't matter a twig I think that's hugely mistaken what that's looking for is really the lowest common denominator theology it's constantly asking the question what is the least I can believe from the Bible and get away with it whereas there are so many biblical texts that say that the righteous person loves the law of the Lord and meditates on its day and night - this man will I look he was of a humble spirit and who is contrite and who trembles at my word so that it seems to me that the right approach to scripture is how I can understand and believe more accurately so that I can think God's thoughts after him not asking purely pragmatic questions what's the least I can believe and get away with it if God didn't think it was important why did he give it for all eternity we'll be thinking through the glories of God as he has disclosed them and so in the name of seemingly being generous and and tolerant in fact what we're advocating is the debasing of knowledge of God that's idolatry now once you say that you still have to recognize that some genuinely sincere informed well instructed Christians may disagree with each other on this or that and agree to be civil with each other but to part company on some issue or other it doesn't mean that because you disagree with a genuine believer in Christ Jesus that that therefore there's no context in which you can pray together have fellowship or whatever but the constant panting after lowest-common-denominator theology ultimately gives you nothing to think about or very little nothing to glory and nothing to delight in nothing richly to proclaim of all of God's most holy word I guarantee you cannot be Anna faithful expositor of Scripture if you've already adopted a lowest-common-denominator theology you cannot do it if you are going to commit yourself to the exposition of the Word of God the whole Council of God are the whole people of God sq hate lowest common denominator theology you ought to take pride not and how little you can believe but how much and still do so with a kind of civility and courtesy and humility of mind that wants to learn from other people and does not want to become judgmental one more substantial question for you a couple quick answers okay how do we preach the full magnitude of the gospel in a culture of such busyness and non commitment well if it weren't a culture of such business and non commitment then the sin would manifest itself in some other way every culture apart from the grace of God in the gospel is already alienated from God in the first century they had polytheism to contend with and paganism had blood sacrifice they had they had endless mantric cults they had at the upper levels of society they had a whole lot of polygamy and on and on and on and on every society has has has things that stand over against the gospel and what you do in a culture like that is still to preach the whole counsel of God so you learn you learn to do it winsome ly you learn where the technical not the tech know where where the tender spots are so that you can negotiate them carefully and not cause unnecessary offence but if there's an offense in the gospel itself then you bear the offense that's just the way it is if people think that you're going to be intolerant because you say there is no other name among heaven by which you must be say then you try hard to think through how you can defend yourself in that regard and thus defend Christ but you don't duck it because it's still the truth and without that truth in fact there all kinds of people are going to think that they're saved when they're not so when people are busy yeah yeah yeah yeah and in some ways people are busy today all right people make their own busyness they're not busy in the same sense that workers in the Industrial Revolution were busy who worked five and a half or six days a week 12 to 14 hours a day many of them died at the age of 40 or 45 all born all weren't out because there were no holidays there were no unions the beginning of trade unions was in fact under the Ministry of John and Charles Wesley the first three trade union leaders were in fact exported to Australia as prisoners because of the sheer rapaciousness of all the power being on only one side so in every culture there are problems to face and in our culture there are these problems so when people get converted in our culture then I want to start saying things like this when you get up in the morning is the first thing you do turn on your iphone check your email list from the night before or read your Bible that's a choice just love the imposition of a culture that's a choice you never ever pray in any culture unless you make plans to pray you never drift into self-discipline it's a choice choose your priorities stop making excuses about how busy you are you think you're busy here it's nothing compared to what will come later it's a choice there are always priorities and so you start challenging the socks off anyone who uses those things as an excuse because God has given you all the time there is 24 hours a day question is not how busy you are it's what you do with it so once again you see it's not that you go into a defensive mode because people are so busy so busy so busy so busy so yeah but I know that my boss wants them to move me up no upper middle level management now that's gonna mean I have to put in 14 hours a day you know I just don't have time for church anymore then you take the lower job you refuse to go up the corporate ladder but you refuse to serve Matt serve Mammon because you cannot serve both God and Mammon that's idolatry do you say and if your boss really thinks you're hot probably you let you get away with 10 hours a day anyway but don't let the world squeeze you into its mold 50 billion years from now you'll figure out which priorities are right might be a bit late but you'll see it and if you're a Christian you already establish your priorities in the light of the end do you say so the excuses of what the world is like therefore I can't preach this or preach that Oh rubbish you challenge the socks of it what's your favorite verse don't have one you got that's not a lot don't you know a favorite verse or favorite chapter favorite book I I don't I don't have one it mean favorite book of the Bible tends to be the one that I'm studying at the moment most closely I mean I just don't think in those terms and what's the best book you've ever read what's the worst book you've ever read what's the greatest person you've ever met what's the greatest sermon you've ever heard and I just don't think in those categories sorry I'm a failure I have three questions about future publications I often don't talk about those so I warn you I might be a little dodgy just because I've long since learned that publication plans can get hung up on things you know the gut got one big one got hung up for years and my wife's cancer and and and and so on so I rarely talk about future publications unless they're either in the press or just about in the press that was the first one the book that one off I've gone through both volumes of your devotional for the love of God and have been extremely blessed and he hopes for volumes three and four I'm working on volumes three and four I won't tell you when they're going to come out but I'm working on they are expected imminently like the parousia any plans to complete the syntactical concordance of the Greek New Testament if the Lord gives me enough birthdays okay that's all the questions we have for you tonight

Channel: Liberty University

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Length: 38min 48sec (2328 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 09 2012