The Gospel in Chairs | Pastor Brian Zahnd

hello I'm Brian's on pastor of Word of Life Church in st. Joseph Missouri and I want to share with you something that I have found called the gospel in chairs I didn't design this I didn't come up with this it was originally developed by Anthony carbo and he is the priest at the Orthodox Church in Colorado Springs and then I heard about it through Steve Robinson who hosts our life in Christ podcast but what the gospel in chairs is is a presentation of the gospel in two different versions there is the modern Western judicial version of the gospel that most of us especially in North America are very familiar with but then there is the more ancient more biblical the patristic or comes from the Church Fathers understanding of salvation we might call that the restorative view so really what I'm going to do is contrast first the legal understanding of salvation with the restorative understanding of salvation it's called the gospel and chairs first the legal understanding of salvation or the modern understanding I might even say misunderstanding and it goes like this in the beginning God created man in His image and to reflect his glory and to have fellowship but man in the garden sinned and as man sins he becomes sinful in God because he is so holy and righteous cannot look upon sin and so God turns away from man but God in His love for Humanity sends his son to occupy our place and Jesus Christ lives in our stead and he lives as we were intended to live he lives in full relationship with the Father never turning away always doing his will but at the end of his life Jesus is put to death and in that moment the father does the unthinkable he takes our sin and places it upon Jesus so that Jesus becomes sinful and God cannot look upon sin because of his holiness and righteousness and turns away from his son and Jesus Christ receives and experiences the full wrath of God now for we sinners if we believe that God has done this and that Jesus has born our sin and the wrath of God on our behalf then we are protected from the wrath of God we receive the righteousness of Christ as our clothing so that as Martin Luther says we are snow covered dung as many preachers have described it Christ becomes our asbestos suit to protect us from the white-hot wrath of God against sinners now that's if we believe this if we don't believe that Jesus has done that then we remain in our sin and God's wrath remains upon us we remain forever alienated from God and eventually the sinner is condemned to hell that's the legal understanding of the gospel a modern version of it the more ancient the patristic the understanding of salvation that would be common to the early church fathers I'll call it the restorative understanding of salvation I believe it's much more biblical and it goes like this in the beginning God created man in His image to reflect his glory and to have fellowship but in the garden man sinned and turned away from God as the result man became subject to futility and death so that the great problem that the gospel addresses is not primarily the problem of legal guilt or personal guilt although that's included but the problem of humanity being subject to death that is the great problem the gospel addresses now because God loves humanity and doesn't want his creation to be subject to futility and death God takes on humanity he becomes a human that he might heal humanity he takes on our nature that he might heal our nature and so here is a woman who because of being subject to futility and death has lived a life where she's gone from man to man marriage to marriage she's been married five times now she's living with a man still never finding the love that she longs for and what happens God comes and sits down by her at a well and he says I am the water of life and I will love you here is a man who for the sake of greed and ambition has become a tax collector that is he's in collusion with the occupying Romans and he participates in a system of oppressive taxation against his own people as a result he is ostracized and alienated daily he has wealth and power very few friends no one wants to eat with him no one wants to be his friend but what happens God comes and sees this tax collector up in the tree and he says that kiyose come down I'll eat with you I want to go to your house and he says salvation has come to this man's house here is a woman who has been caught in adultery the religious establishment has condemned her and they want to stone her but when she is brought into the presence of God and thrown down at his feet God kneels down beside her and says let him who is without sin cast the first stone and then he speaks to the woman and says I do not condemn you go and sin no more here is a man who has been so captured by the powers of darkness that he's inhabited by a legion of demons he seems no longer hardly to be human he's driven forth from his village he lives in the cemetery he no longer wears clothes he cuts his body he's become a madman everybody's afraid to go anywhere near that graveyard but here comes God and he sails across the Sea of Galilee and he says I will come to you and I will set you free and he casts out the demons and the darkness so that the man is now clothed and in his right mind sitting with God here is a man who simply because of the random nature of the humanity of humanity subject to death has contracted some terrible disease that has caused him to be a paralytic and when he is brought into the presence of God what does God say he says son your sins are forgiven you and rise take up your bed and walk and win humanity driven by fear and pride maintaining its system of an axis of power enforced by violence take God and betray him spit upon him mock him scourge him condemn him and crucify him what does God say I forgive you and when humanity experiences the final dissolution and falls away into death to be forever separated from God God says love is greater than the grave and though you make your bed and Sheol I am there and God in Christ joins humanity in death in his wild pursuit of humanity God is willing to go all the way down into death but God also says I am the resurrection and the life and he conquers death I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am Alive for evermore amen I have the keys of death and Hades and he says all who are in the grave shall hear the voice of the son of man and they shall come out of their tombs so now there is no place where God is not he fills all things with his love for God is love and there flows from the heart of God's love a river of fire to those that respond to God's love with love they return love for love that love of God like a river of fire provides light and warmth but to those who respond towards hatred respond with hatred towards God's love they experience that river of fire as wrath the Apostle Paul said it like this if your enemy is hungry feeding if your enemy is thirsty give him drink that is continue to love him and treat him in love but the Apostle Paul also says it will be like burning coals upon his head if he continues to hate and be your enemy but all he has to do is turn around and say instead of hating I will love and then when you give your former enemy who is now a friend food and drink it's no longer torment to him but it is the joy of a shared meal this is the restorative more biblical more ancient patristic understanding of the nature of salvation the crucial difference is this first of all in this version of the gospel you never pit God against Christ keep this in mind two foundational truths of Christian theology number one God is immutable he doesn't change number two God is perfectly revealed in Christ Christ did not come to change the father or to placate the father or to satisfy the father Christ came to reveal the father God is like Jesus God has always been like Jesus there's never been a time when God was like Jesus but we haven't always known what God is like but now we do the Apostle Paul said it like this God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself he didn't say that God was in Christ reconciling in himself to the world it's not the father that needed to be reconciled to the world it's the world that needed to be reconciled to the Father and that's why Jesus perfectly revealed in the heart of the father confronts the sin of humanity with simply this I forgive you the other difference is you see that in the restorative patristic more ancient more biblical understanding of salvation God is never turning away from humanity see God is perfectly and fully revealed in Christ when do you see Jesus ever turning away from a sinner and saying I am too holy to look upon your sin did Jesus ever do anything like that no it was in fact the Pharisees that did that the Pharisees were the ones that would say I am too holy to look upon you and turn away I want to suggest to you that God is like Jesus not like a Pharisee he's not turning away from us as we turn away from God the gospel is that no matter where we turn God is always there confronting us with his love this is not the gospel is not this that is not the gospel this is the gospel that when we turn away from God he turns towards us and when we turn away from God he turns toward us and when we run away from God he confronts us with his love and even when we murder God he confronts us with forgiveness Father forgive them for they know not what they do that's a healthier more biblical understanding of the gospel that doesn't pit God against Christ but understands this that God is like Jesus God has always been like Jesus there's never been a time when God was not like Jesus we haven't always known but now we do

Channel: Word of Life Church

Views: 60,449

Rating: 4.6221499 out of 5

Keywords: Word of Life Church, Anthony Karbo, Pastor Brian Zahnd, St. Joseph, MO

Id: Wnj52gaauBs

Length: 13min 23sec (803 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 11 2011