There is much emphasis on \u201cgospel-centered\u201d in the evangelical culture and scholarship of our day.\u00a0 I have written here and in other forums that this is not where I am.\u00a0 I have suggested that \u201cJesus-centered\u201d is a better way to go since such an approach encompasses all that Jesus does, past-present-future, on our behalf.\u00a0 While the gospel of eternal life serves as a foundational truth for past accomplishment, present experience, and future blessing, it is not broad enough to integrate all that Jesus is and all that He does, from the creation of the world, provision of salvation in the Cross and Resurrection, setting up of a kingdom when He comes again, and the ushering in of a new heavens and new earth in the end \u2013 all of which combined offer more breadth than the simple gospel.\u00a0 This should not be taken to minimize the strategic role the gospel plays in history or in our theology.<\/p>\n
Last week we had our annual Council on Dispensational Hermeneutics.\u00a0 The topic was \u201cDispensationalism and the Glory of God.\u201d \u00a0Much profitable discussion centered on a doxological unifying theme of the Bible (Ryrie).\u00a0 The Niagara Conference men of an earlier generation said the same thing but would be comfortable with the words \u201cdoxological purpose or purposes for biblical history.\u201d\u00a0 I think the presentation is legitimately biblical.\u00a0 However, the Niagara Conference men also treated this doxological purpose for history as focused on Christology.\u00a0 That is, it was \u201cJesus-centered\u201d as I have mentioned above.\u00a0 My paper on Arno C. Gaebelein at the Council was the illustration I used for this point of view.<\/p>\n
When we ask if the Bible or biblical history or Christian life (or however we word it) is primarily soteriological (gospel-centered), Christological (Jesus-centered), theological (God-centered), or doxological (glory-centered), we are in danger of skewing the truth if we are not careful.\u00a0 All of these things are so tightly intertwined that to diminish one may be to diminish the others in our theological discourse.\u00a0 But if I had to choose, I would believe in a doxological purpose to biblical history with a Christological center.\u00a0 Jesus-centered to the glory of God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is much emphasis on \u201cgospel-centered\u201d in the evangelical culture and scholarship of our day.\u00a0 I have written here and in other forums that this is not where I am.\u00a0 I have suggested that \u201cJesus-centered\u201d is a better way to go since such an approach encompasses all that Jesus does, past-present-future, on our behalf.\u00a0 While […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1527,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1526\/revisions\/1527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}