Tim Keller has a new book coming out in October called ‘The Prodigal God‘, it’s an exposition of the ‘Parable of the Prodigal Sons’ and I get the impression that like ‘Reason for God’ it will be accessible for both Christians and non-Christians alike. It’s released on the 30th and you can currently pre-order from Amazon for around £9, I’m hoping that the Good Book Company might have it in stock at a similar price nearer the time, I’ll let you know.

Here’s a short interview with Keller about the book, and a response from Keller about the use of the word ‘Prodigal’ in relation to God.

Also, Mark Driscoll has lots of books coming out this year which has prompted the launch of Resurgence Literature publishing (ReLit). The first book was Vintage Jesus, I’ve finally got round to reading that so I’ll review it soon.

The latest books out (released last week) are a series of 4 books - ‘A Book You’ll Actually Read‘ - they’re less than 100 pages on ‘The Old Testament’, ‘The New Testament’, ‘Church Leadership’ and ‘Who is God?’. These are the square shaped ones (left). At the end of July there’s a book called ‘Practical Theology for Women’ coming out by Wendy Alsup, a deacon at Mars Hill. ‘Death by Love‘ (right) is coming out at the end of September, from what I gather it is based on Driscoll’s ‘Christ on the Cross’ series and then put in to a letter format. Finally in January 2009 ‘Vintage Church‘ (middle) is being released, subtitled ‘Timeless Truths and Timely Methods’ - it’s in the style of the Vintage Jesus book and I’m guessing will be similar to the Radical Reformission, probably with more of a focus on some of his sermon series (1 Corinthians, Nehemiah) and some practical suggestions. One more thing, they’re also publishing other non-Mars-Hill books, so far just Total Church by Timmis and Chester.

Last week I picked up some books for myself at EMA - Total Church (Timmis and Chester), Why we’re not Emergent (some American guys), and The Gospel and Personal Evangelism (Dever)… will give some thoughts when I get round to reading.

As these shouts and screams from the mob grow in volume, what’s it like for our Lord to look out upon these people? Even if you can’t recognize yourself among the angry face, or distinguish your own strident voice… He can. And in response to those sinful shouts and curses from you and me, Jesus yields to the sentence of death……
When we begin to grasp that we joined that mockery - that we are to blame for the Saviour’s death - we start to understand the seriousness of our sin.
But convicting you of sin is not my ultimate purpose here; rather, I want to convince you of grace. For when you’re deeply aware of your sin, and of what an affront it is to God’s holiness, and of how impossible it is for Him to respond with anything other than furious wrath - you can only be overwhelmed with how amazing grace is.

Only those who are truly aware of their sin can truly cherish grace.

CJ Mahaney, Living the Cross Centered Life (page 88)

With Easter approaching I wanted to read a book on the cross, but with the pressures of work I didn’t have time to pick up a ‘big one’, but this little CJ Mahaney book packs a big punch, it’s short but meaty.

CJ starts off with some basic foundational points; Paul describes the Gospel as of “first importance” (1 Cor 15), it should be the main thing in our lives and we need to keep it the main thing. But he points out there’s 3 other beliefs that draw us away from the Gospel:

1. Subjectivism - basing our view of God on our changing feelings and emotions
2. Legalism - basing our view of God on our own performance
3. Condemnation - being more focused on our sin than on God’s grace

The book goes on to deconstruct these errors and to put our focus back on God’s grace given to us at the cross. One of the things I love about this book is that CJ is so good at taking complex theological words and the different facets of the cross making them easy to understand, and thoroughly practical: love, justice, penal substitution, justification, redemption, sacrifice, wrath, ransom, expiation, judgement, imputed righteousness, suffering… all this great doctrine is interwoven into simple exultation of the cross, and the call to live life with the cross at the centre of all things.

The book is worth reading if only for chapter six and seven; they are powerful and emotive, bringing the truth of the cross to the reader with great clarity and conviction. Chapter six explains what’s going on in Gethsemane, Jesus is taking the cup of God’s wrath, his soul is “sorrowful”, he falls down and prays that God would take the cup away… CJ shows the pain caused, the anguish and agony when God’s wrath is placed upon someone, the spiritual separation from God is great, Jesus feels this pain. But, this is my cup that Jesus takes, “He took the cup that was reserved for me”, the sorrow that we see in Jesus in the garden should be what we experience now.

Chapter seven is called “Your Face in the Crowd”, who do we identify most with in the crucifiction accounts; the disciples, Pilate, Judas, the women, the crowd? Martin Povey spoke at BH last night and made it clear why we can all identify with Judas, we’ve all betrayed our saviour. The lyrics to a Mars Hill song, can’t remember the song or the exact words, but it was along the lines of “Judas sold you for 30 pieces, I’d have done it for less.” CJ puts us in the crowd above other places, we’re the ones calling for Jesus to be crucified, it’s our sin that sent him there!

You can get a book called “The Cross Centred Life” for the bargain price of £6 from the Good Book Company, that’s £4.50 with a UCCF Student Card… although it is a reduced version, my book is called “Living the Cross Centered Life” and has a white cover, the book on GBC is called “The Cross Centered Life” and has an orange cover… according to Matthew, my one is two books brought together- “The Cross Centered Life” and “Christ our mediator”… anyway, whichever book you find, buy it and read it! Will have to read Humility soon, another highly rated book by CJ.

How do you spell Centered? I would have spelt it “Centred”… am I being stupid, or is it one of those silly American spelling mistakes?

At Word Alive this year, in his talk on Atonement (from Hebrews 9), Richard Cunningham (Director of UCCF) said: “God does not forgive sin, he only punishes it”. He also went on to concur with my thoughts on sin and sinners. This is a bold statement to make, but if true, I believe it cuts to the heart of lots of issues I’ve been blogging on recently; PSA, hell, depravity etc. This post has been sitting uncompleted in the Wordpress system since coming back from Word Alive, unfortunately delayed due to more pressing things. In that time it’s been discussed elsewhere; by Cat and by a less supportive “Speaker of Truth” who accuses RC of heresy (now retracted).

Now the obvious thing to say is that this statement is clearly false, after all the Bible and creeds clearly state that God forgives sin. But is it that simple? What does Joshua 24:19 mean “..he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins”? What about those who advocate a PS (thoroughly Biblical) view of atonement - have we got it wrong? So what is forgiveness? I think part of the problem is that we may have a wrong view of what forgiveness actually is… generally the view seems to be of God ‘forgetting’ sin or simply saying it ‘doesn’t matter’ anymore. These are nice ideas, they make God sound like a big dad in the sky who really wants us to come and say sorry so he can simply ‘forgive’. Biblical forgiveness is not some kind of ‘cosmic insomnia’ but is administered through sacrifice, through blood. Not very popular, makes us sound ‘pre-Christian’! Whatever we think, the Bible states two truths - God forgives sin (1John 1:9) and God punishes sin (Gen 3).

Firstly (in response to Joshua 24), we know that God does punish the sin of the non-Christian, “the wages of sin is death…” Rom 6:23, sin has to be paid for, if all sin is forgiven then there is no punishment to face, no penalty to be paid - no hell - sounds nice, but that belief leads to Universalism, a heresy, the Bible teaches against that belief. But how is the sin of the believer dealt with? Yes, it’s forgiven, but what does that mean??

Biblical forgiveness is the diversion of God’s wrath, propitiation - it’s what we see at the Passover, the temple sacrifices and at the cross. Not diversion into some spiritual void, or diversion that just eventually fizzles out, but diversion in the full force of God’s wrath, his holy anger against sin being placed upon a substitute - a perfect lamb (Exodus 12). The overviews of the passages in ‘Pierced for our transgressions’ (Ex 12, Lev 16 and Isa 53) superbly present the case for God’s wrath being taken on the lamb (not hard as it’s a simple reading of the text) - Jesus our substitute.

And what about Hebrews 9, the text for this talk in question, what does this text have to say?

v.1-10 There’s a problem, despite all the ritual of the OT temple sacrifices, they “…were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper.” , these ceremonies were a picture, waiting for the “new order”, for Jesus and his cross.

v.11-28 The blood of the goats is a picture of the blood of Christ, but Christ achieved far more than animal sacrifices ever could. He cleanses believers from sins and secures the eternal inheritance.

There are two key verse which help to answer our questions:

“In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Heb 9:22

“so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people..” Heb 9:28 - it is the sacrifice that takes away (forgives) sin

So what?

How can sinful people come into relationship with a holy God? - our sins need to be dealt with, by God

How are our sins dealt with? - at the cross

What happened at the cross? - Jesus, the Lamb, took up the sins of his people and bore the punishment for them, he was our sacrifice and our substitute

Why did it have to happen like this? - God’s holiness and justice demands that sin is punished, Jesus was fulfilling the OT law, God did it so it was the best way

What does this mean for me?

1. Sin is serious, it invokes a death sentence
2. God is big, sometimes we misunderstand him when we try to fit him into our mould of what and who we want him to be
3. Forgiving sin isn’t an easy thing, it required the blood of Christ - be overflowing with thankfulness to God for his gift of forgiveness and eternal life in Christ