Sunday, February 21, 2016

God's wonderful announcement

What is God's wonderful announcement—the Gospel (Gk. euaggelion)—that the New Testament conveys?

A relatively clear summary is given by Jesus Christ himself.* At the end of the New Testament, Christ announces a number of repetitive, mutually clarifying promises. One may well consider that the purpose of the repetitiveness is to clear away any ambiguity surrounding earlier descriptions of the Gospel in the New Testament—ambiguity warned about, in the strongest terms, explicitly in 2 Peter 3 and 1 John 3.

(1) "To the one overcoming, I will give to him to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God" (Rev. 2:7**)

(2) "The one overcoming shall not be injured by the second death." (Rev. 2:11)

(3) "To the one overcoming, I will give to him of the hidden manna, and I will give to him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written that no one knows except the one who receives." (Rev. 2:17)

(4) "The one both overcoming and keeping my works until the end, I will give to him authority over the nations, and he will shepherd them by a rod of iron, as ceramic vessels are shattered, as also I have gotten from My Father, and I will give to him the morning star." (Rev. 2:26-28)

(5) "The one overcoming, thus will he be clothed—in white garments. And I shall not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels." (Rev. 3:5)

(6) "The one overcoming—I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. And I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, the one descending out of heaven from My God, and My new name." (Rev. 3:12)

(7) "The one overcoming—I will give to him to sit with me by My throne, as also I conquered and sat with My Father by His throne." (Rev. 3:21)

(8) "It is become. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. I myself will give to the thirsting one out of the fountain of the water of life, freely. Him overcoming will inherit all things, and I will be God to him, and he will be son to Me." (Rev. 21:6-7)

(9) "And, look! I come suddenly! Blessed is the one keeping the words of the prophecy of this book." (Rev. 22:7)


(10) "Look! I coming suddenly, and My reward is with Me to render to each as is his work." (Rev. 22:12)

(11) "Blessed are the ones washing their robes, so that the authority will be theirs to the tree of life and they may enter by the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs and the phármakoi*** and the fornicators and the murderers and the idolaters and everyone loving and making falsehood." (Rev. 22:14-15)


Naturally, a reader of these promises would want to understand what Jesus means by to overcome (Gk. nikaō). Here, too, clarity is provided, by the contexts of the promises (especially Rev. 2-3, 21-22), where the components of overcoming, and the opposite of overcoming, are repeatedly described with similar, overlapping terms. A summary of these could be: a Christian is required to be overcoming the power of sin and walking in obedience to Christ.

Finally, the question of how a person comes to be overcoming. This appears to be described well in NT texts like John 8:31-51, Romans 6:1—8:17, and Hebrews 10:1—13:21. Something like a seven-part process of sanctification is described: Christ-believers are given teaching, ransomed, baptized in water, baptized in the Holy Spirit, tested, chastized, and glorified. Even this can be summarized, with caution, as obeying Jesus—keeping Jesus's  commandments and other words (prophecies, teachings).

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* Two points ought to be noted. (1) This presentation is consistent with the Gospel presentation of the NT texts collected in "Ten Testimonies to the good news from God". (2) This counts Rev. 22:14 as speech directly by Jesus and therefore as a continuation of Jesus's speech in the previous verse (v.13). This view is not, today, a consensus position among published translations of Revelation, but it has good grounds, nonetheless: above all, that if one does count 22:13-15 as speech by Christ, it clearly has the identical form of the speech at Rev. 21:6-8 that is already, by consensus, considered to belong to Jesus.

** These translations are new and based on Nestle-Aland's 28th edition of the New Testament in Ancient Greek, available here. One way to check these translations is to consult a cross-referenced Greek-English interlinear text (e.g. here), and a dictionary such as Liddell Scott Jones, available here.

*** In Rev. 22:15, the Greek word phármakoi has a set of meanings that all could be applicable to this context, such as poisoners, magicians, sorcerers. (LSJ, s.v.)

For more discussion of the Gospel according to the entire New Testament (rather than a pared down and false gospel), see 
"The New Covenant through Christ Jesus is not unconditional", "The working system of God's salvation", "God's very best possible, wonderful announcement", "Is there any idea more destructive than a "Law-Gospel" division?", "Christian questions", "The tragic misreading of Paul (when he argues against Israelite works for Christians)", "What happens when theologians convince people that God doesn't judge sin?".

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