Reformed Living

The Preacher we heard yesterday preached, according to her, the Gospel of Christ's Death and Resurrection.  The only problem was she didn't!  Jesus was, she said, a victim and martyr.  He served women, the poor, the sick and marginalized and paid the price for it.  His teaching and actions got him in trouble with the rich and powerful of his day and they had to get rid of him.  But, be encouraged she told us, God enabled Jesus to overcome that opposition.  He rose from the grave and still lives to carry on his work through us.  The death and resurrection were metaphors for spiritual truths.  Evil will not triumph.  Good will overcome the bad.  Life will follow death.  The end of one thing leads to the beginning of another.  Nice aphorisms, but not the Gospel.  Her Gospel was not about the Atonement for the sins of the world.  Her Gospel was not about the resurrection of the body and the death of death. 

Christians do not suffer and die for aphorisms.  The Preacher was not taking the Bible seriously.  Jesus' death and resurrection are to be taken as historical facts, not poetic metaphors.  And both the Lord's own interpretation of those events, as well as that of his Apostles, are to be taken in the common sense meaning of their words.  If we take Scripture seriously, the grammatical-historical rules of interpretation Scripture must also be taken seriously- for the sake of God and for our Salvation!   Indeed, the Church needs to be saved from Preachers of falsehood instead of Truth