Gospel Debate

I found Mr Glen’s recent letter in the November edition, about the Gospel, a chilling document. It seemed to me that he wrote what to him was Gospel Truth, with no possibility of another view or another pathway up the mountain of our understanding of God.

No-one would deny that the foundations of our practice of the Christian faith are that we as Christians must love the Lord with all our heart, mind and strength and our neighbours as ourselves. It is when we add to this dogma which we must believe, that Mr Glen and I must part company. The nature of God is truly a mystery. The nature of our universe and our creation as living souls are also mysteries. The difficulty with Mr Glen’s opinion is that he uses human words to describe and define such mysteries. At the age of eighty-five I have spent much of my lifetime increasing my knowledge of this world and its people.

I have often changed my mind-set about spiritual matters. Faith cannot be defined by words.

It, too, is a mystery.

Heather McMillan, Glasgow

Which view is correct? It seems to me key themes taken mainly from the gospels, hold the answer; death, repentance, ransom, save, lost, found, faith, believing. There are four authors – one Gospel.

Matthew starts – it’s about Jesus Christ. Both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew) as titles mean the “Anointed One” – “King.”

From Jesus’ lips, Matthew 20:28 “the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” – a price to be paid. See also Mark 10:45. Jesus speaking, Matthew 26:28 “This is the blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” – his death connected with people, forgiveness, sacrifice, sins. See also Mark 14:24.

Luke’s favourite words are “save”/”salvation,” eg Luke 19:10 “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” In addition, Peter’s defence, Acts 4:12 “Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” Then Jesus’ farewell, Luke 24:47, “repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations.”

John records, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” – contains the idea of sacrifice, sins removed. Jesus in John 10:11, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” – dying in the place of. John declares, John 20:31 “these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

From these notes, taken from the gospel writers, the main points are present; substitution/repentance/sacrifice/ransom/ forgiveness of sins/faith/belief.

My prayer is that this letter may be a help to some, “that they may believe/go on believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

David King, Abernethy, Perthshire

Cartoon: Bill McArthur We don’t need to force the meaning of the Gospel into a narrow mould. ‘The Books’ (‘The Bible’) come from many authors and editors, writing over many years. Their opinions, memories and interpretations varied, for God used diverse human channels, as he does today. In fact, the word ‘Gospel’ as a noun didn’t emerge for some four hundred years. It is a generous word, as the ‘Good News’ includes the blind man healed, the poor cared for, the tax-gatherer reformed, as well as the nearness of the Kingdom and the whole revelation of God in Jesus.

The diversity of Scripture is its strength. So, for example, the moving words of Isaiah 53 speak of a servant nation betrayed into suffering by its own people and the possibility of redemption through suffering. Christians use these words to explore the meaning of the crucifixion 500 years later and they are valuable for reflection and worship - but they are not a foundation for hard dogma.

The idea of penal substitution is too legalistic – God, first condemning all humanity but then transferring the penalty to his Son. This reduces the good news to a morally dubious legal fiction – all the more inadequate if only those who recognise Jesus are saved, whilst faithful Jews, Muslims, agnostics and atheists are condemned to hell. We should remember that the disciples wished to call down fire from heaven onto Samaritan villagers but Jesus’ reply was: “You do not know what you are saying”.

Perhaps it was understandable that Christians came to make an exclusive claim – “no other name under heaven by which we can be saved” – but this should be balanced by the parable of the sheep and the goats, where Jesus taught that the Kingdom is open to those who do not even know his name, whilst those who say, “Lord, Lord” find that such a confession is not enough.

Paul changes the emphasis from Jesus’ teaching to the person of Jesus – from the Kingdom of God to the Cross. This is part of our witness but it is not the whole story. It was many years before the Cross became the central Christian symbol. And Paul shifts the focus from God to Jesus – at times forgetting that Jesus is the image and servant of God. It is God who works for the redemption and salvation of humanity; it is God who is the Saviour, (“We have put our faith in the living God, who is the saviour.” I Timothy 4:10); it is God who identifies with his people as Jesus did in his baptism, ministry and death – “He who has seen me has seen the Father”.

With this insight, we can embrace the eternal work of God in redemption and salvation. He knows the world’s distress from the inside out. Just as the father in the story of the lost son feels the pain of the son’s dissolution, so God draws into himself all the degradation of human sin – bearing and forbearing to win mankind by love. Calvary lay outside the walls of Jerusalem but it pointed to a Calvary in the very heart of God. This is the Gospel.

Graham Hellier (Rev), Marden, Hereford

Perth Sleep Out

I read with interest the two articles in November’s issue of ‘Life and Work’ concerning ‘Sleep in the Park’ to take place in Edinburgh in December.

Rough sleeping and homelessness is a concern throughout Scotland.

In the summer of 2016 ‘Church Action for the Homeless’ (CATH) based in Perth approached the Session of St John’s Kirk to host a ‘Big Sleep Out’. The action took place in November from 6pm to 6am.

The Session took up the challenge as an inclusive outreach in the community.

CATH made detailed preparations for the event including recruiting sponsored volunteer teams to participate. A number of other agencies were involved to provide security, hot drinks and entertainment.

The sleep out was not a stunt but a way to raise awareness about the problems associated with rough sleeping and homelessness. In the event over £8,000 was raised for CATH’s programmes in Perth and district. Those who took part commented on how difficult they found it to focus at work the next day realising what this must mean for those who have to do this regularly.

‘The Big Sleep Out’ in Perth 2017 took place on November 15, only a week before the city centre and St John’s Kirk was surrounded by the commercialised trappings of the run up to Christmas. The contrast with the Sleep Out could not be greater nor indeed with what we celebrate in the baby born to homeless parents.

Marjory Wylie (Elder St John’s Kirk), Perth

Commandments Guidelines

Moses received the ten commandments on tablets of stone twice a very long time ago (Exodus 20). They are part of the tradition of many faith communities today.

Could they be the basis for a new set of short and updated principles or guidelines, more in tune with the modern world? Could they be reformed by deletion, rewording and selective augmentation? These and related questions were addressed at a recent meeting of ‘Happy Hour’ at St Columba’s, Pont Street, a small but convivial focus group that convenes each month in a City of London hostelry.

After a two-hour discussion, our answers were still very much work in progress. We were of one mind on the need to include modern concerns such as stewardship of a polluted planet Earth, responsible conservation of all its components and processes and restrained exploitation of its resources.

In today’s secular, uber-materialistic world, false gods are worshipped as idols, role models and celebrities, profanity is a commonplace and not even small parts of Sundays are widely set apart. ‘Thou shall not be found out’ and ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ underpin double-standards, hypocrisy and humbug, especially in the lexicons of the miasmic swamp of public and corporate life and false, creative accounting standards and malpractices.

We tentatively concluded that our initial propositions have traction and promise. They need to be shared, discussed, scrutinised and developed in a wider context.

J Michael Buchanan, London

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