Timothy Keller
Grateful
Michael Horton’s essay is full of kind confirmations and appreciations for the main lines of presentation in “Gospel Theology.” For this I am grateful, because Michael Horton is certainly one of the premier voices in orthodox Reformed theology today, as his landmark series of systematic theological studies attests. And his agreements are not surprising, since he and I both inhabit that (not terribly large) part of the theological world that wants to clearly distinguish law from gospel but at the same time to see a central and abiding place for the law of God in the life of the Christian.
This is why he can happily affirm the distinction of the gospel itself from the presuppositions of the gospel (doctrines of the Trinity, original sin), as well as from the effects of the gospel (working for justice, loving our neighbor). This keeps us from a creeping doctrinalism, which implies we need to believe the whole of systematic theology to be saved, and legalism, which implies that good deeds in the world are part of the gospel.
Helpful
Horton criticizes me for describing the “narrative” presentation of the gospel (creation-fall-redemption-restoration) over against the propositional approach (God-sin-cross-faith) in too mutually exclusive a way. I claim that the narrative approach mainly raises questions that the propositional formulation can answer. He contends that the two approaches are “emphases” rather than strict “categories” or forms. For example, he argues that it is possible to answer a question like “How can I find a gracious God?” by using narrative, and it is possible to present the plotline of the Bible as a set of bullet points (p. 80). I think his critique hits home. He gives me credit for later seeing the ultimate compatibility of biblical theology and systematic theology, but he thinks that at some points I drive too much of a wedge between the propositional and the narratival. I think he’s right.
In light of this admitted misstep, it was instructive to hear Horton’s strong praise for my section on how to preach the gospel from intercanonical themes, such as exile, covenant, and kingdom. There, as he points out, I fully integrate the topical-doctrinal and redemptive-historical in preaching the gospel. When I reflected on this, I realized that I am primarily a working preacher, not a teacher of theology, and therefore I am better at showing people what to do than describing how to do it. This doesn’t mean we preachers should not write books of theological reflection on what we do. It does mean, I think, that to do ministry well, we need the confluence of voices and perspectives. Many of those writing response essays in this book and the other two books in the series are also not working preachers or, in some cases, ordained ministers. But we need them all.
There is another place of “some disagreement” with Horton that I nevertheless need to place in this category of “helpful.” While my main treatment of contextualization comes in a different section of Center Church, I touch on it in Gospel Theology as well, and that gives Horton an opportunity to state, “Personally, I tend to think that much of the contextualization talk in our day is overinflated” (p. 84). He does not in any way resist the argument that Paul adapted his message to diverse audiences. Nor does he deny the great danger of “preaching sermons from nowhere to no one” (a helpful phrase). The key word here is that his resistance to my emphasis comes from experience he has had “personally.” I have heard from others who, like Horton, do not disagree with any of the particulars of my case and description of contextualization, but their personal experience is that the greater danger is young preachers in the church making “knowing one’s audience . . . more important than knowing God’s Word” (p. 84).
I don’t question that this is true to a significant degree, though it may depend on where you are looking. In many places there are young ministers putting more time and effort into finding cultural references than into clear presentation of biblical content. I also see the phenomenon of “armchair cultural analysts” who lecture their congregations on the culture instead of using their understanding of culture (without talking about it all the time) to show people the particular ways their hearts resist the claims of the Bible.
However, I too am influenced by where I am looking. In the centers of the greatest global cities in the world, where listeners are highly skeptical secularists or adherents of other religions, I see preachers struggling (and often failing) to communicate the Christian faith in a way that will bring the hearers up short by making them reexamine their own biases and assumptions. Unless you know and understand these background beliefs, I don’t see how you can challenge them or call people to repent. A traditional Asian family in a poor part of their Chinese city will find biblical faith offensive at different points from a young, single professional in Paris. Horton is right that the ultimate reason for resistance to the gospel — the sinful rebellion of the human heart — is the same across all times and places. And pride is pride is pride (anywhere), as are guilt and fear and anger. But the form of that rebellion is always culturally shaped. So preachers don’t just need to demonstrate cultural sophistication (as so many young ministers try to do). They need to use what they know about the culture, generally without talking directly about it, to bring about conviction of sin.
Still, Horton’s caution here helps me. I doubt that my own vantage point is sufficient to grasp the wider situation. “Contextualization” is evidently being used as a banner to justify attitudes that are not healthy rather than as a strategy for persuasion and conviction. When this subject is discussed and taught, those wrong attitudes need to be described and distinguished from the work of contextualizing the gospel.
Intriguing
One of Horton’s most important criticisms to reflect on is that some of my rhetoric may be “giving folks the impression that every rough patch in their lives can be solved simply by a better grasp of the gospel” (p. 88). The example he uses is of someone who is lonely for reasons beyond their control. While conceding that “the gospel is the anchor in that storm,” he fears that the preaching I encourage might drive the lonely person to despair by the implication that if he or she believed the gospel sufficiently, the pain of loneliness would be completely lifted. He hastens to add that in my actual preaching I avoid that impression but that the strength of my statements elsewhere might lead other preachers to be that simplistic.
If Horton thinks that the presentation of Gospel Theology here leads to that impression (and I’m not sure he is saying that), I don’t agree. The remedy for this kind of preaching should be found in the earlier part of the Gospel Theology section, where it is said that the gospel must be preached through the great narrative biblical themes. One of those themes is the “already but not yet” of the kingdom. The only way to give listeners the impression that the gospel will solve your problems (i.e., remove all the pain of loneliness) is to avoid explaining or expounding on this biblical theme.
Indeed, real expository preaching can’t possibly leave the impression that Horton is rightly concerned about. Psalm 88 is a powerful psalm by a lonely man who has lost both friend and neighbor so now darkness is the only friend he has left (v. 18). The psalm is one of the few that ends without a note of hope in God. The inescapable conclusion is that loneliness does not have an easy solution. It can last a long time. The very form and existence of the psalm, however, testify to God’s empathy and grace, two things that come to their ultimate expression in the incarnation and the cross. This is the grace that brings us through our own darkest times. Now, when you preach the gospel like that — and I don’t see how you cannot if you preach expositorily — no one should think that “the gospel is the answer to your problems” means “the gospel solves and removes your problem.”
Having said that, I view this critique as helpful. I can see in the church at large exactly what Horton sees — that many people do indeed preach the gospel in this reductionistic way. There are some so galvanized by the message of free grace that they grab it and run with it, ignoring all the nuances and balances, and flatten the preaching of it to simply “if you really believe hard enough that you are accepted, then all of your problems will be solved.” In correcting them, however, we must not obscure what Horton calls “the gospel as the anchor” factor, namely, that the gospel is the main resource for facing every problem. Without the platform of knowing I am “in Christ,” there is no way to handle losses, because the things we are losing will have an inordinate hold on us. Also, while the gospel is not the only instrument we use to face our problems (we also use Christian relationships, disciplines of Bible reading and prayer, good counseling, and so on), it is still fundamental because it animates the other instruments. Without a clear grasp of the gospel, I won’t be able to take loving critique from others. Without knowing the gospel, I won’t be able to meet the Lord in his Word.
Horton’s last criticism circles back to my distinction between the gospel’s presuppositions and the gospel itself. He says that while I explicitly make this distinction — which he heartily affirms — he wonders if elsewhere I don’t violate my own principle. I often say that the gospel “shows us” we are wicked and lost. Horton thinks, rather, that it is the law, not the gospel itself, that shows us our sin. He asks me to clarify this.
I believe the law of God convicts nonbelievers (the “first use”) and guides Christians (the “third use”), and it is important to avoid presuming that the gospel does all this on its own. The gospel does not contain the Ten Commandments. Nor could we possibly show the world (and the church) its sin and need of salvation without the Decalogue. Also, it is obvious that the term gospel means “good news,” not “bad news and good news.” So shouldn’t we keep things clean and neat and say it is the gospel alone that tells us we are pardoned, saved, and accepted, while it is the law alone that shows us we are sinners? Shouldn’t we say, therefore, that every evangelistic presentation is actually a law-and-gospel presentation?
Maybe we should. But if we do, we need to be generous and grant that in both the Bible and real-life ministry, it is natural to say to people, “Here’s the gospel to believe” — and to include in that presentation a description of sin. When Paul summarizes in 1 Corinthians 15 what he calls his “gospel” (vv. 1 – 2), he includes the statement that Christ “died for our sins” (v. 3). Obviously, the good news of salvation makes no sense without some description of what we are being saved from. So Paul includes that in the communication of what he calls “the gospel,” and it plays itself out in his actual speeches in the book of Acts. I don’t think, therefore, we should overcorrect people who speak (perhaps a bit imprecisely) the way Paul does.
Yet I hear Horton’s criticism as an exhortation (e.g., “Keller could offer helpful counsel by clarifying . . .” [p. 89]) for me to clearly promote the use of the law of God in preaching as such, to be kept in the closest, most intimate proximity to the gospel, both in the evangelism of nonbelievers and the edification of the saints. If we use the law with power to show people their need for grace, then when we bring in the gospel, it will fall on their ears like the greatest music. I agree with his proposal.
Some might object to this, saying, “Non-Christians in the secular West don’t believe in the Bible or the law of God. They are relativists. The ‘first use of the law’ doesn’t work on them.” That is only partly true. The truth is that those who don’t believe in God’s revelation still have a conscience that is still sensitive in some ways to the dictates of the law (Rom 2:15).
Here is just one example. John Calvin has a powerful exposition of the meaning of the second part of the great commandment “love thy neighbor” in light of the teaching of the imago Dei:
The Lord commands all men without exception “to do good” [Heb 13:16]. Yet the great part of them are most unworthy if they be judged by their own merit. But here Scripture helps in the best way when it teaches that we are not to consider that men merit of themselves but to look upon the image of God in all men, to which we owe all honor and love . . . Say, “He is contemptible and worthless”; but the Lord shows him to be one to whom he has deigned to give the beauty of his image . . . Say that he does not deserve even your least effort for his sake; but the image of God, which recommends him to you, is worthy of your giving yourself and all your possessions . . . You will say, “He has deserved something far different of me.” Yet what has the Lord deserved? . . . Assuredly there is but one way in which to achieve what is not merely difficult but utterly against human nature: to love those who hate us, to repay their evil deeds with benefits, to return blessings for reproaches [Matt 5:44]. It is that we remember not to consider men’s evil intention but to look upon the image of God in them, which cancels and effaces their transgressions, and with its beauty and dignity allures us to love and embrace them.1
This is a remarkable exhortation. We look at our neighbor, someone who in himself genuinely does not deserve our help or our love, and yet we must give him “what the Lord deserves” because every human being, even the weakest, the most unlovely, or the most twisted, has the mark of God’s image. Now most people in the West want to think they believe in human rights and the dignity of all human beings, but they will tune in to this exposition of the law, astonished by its power and beauty. Indeed, they will probably object to it — and not by saying, “Oh, that’s just your interpretation! I think it’s fine to mistreat people.” They won’t take the relativist route. No, they will complain that it’s too high a standard, impossible to attain, even though in their hearts they will admire it and the theology behind it. They will be drawn to it even as they feel it’s beyond them. That’s called conviction of sin through “the first use of the law.” It can be done. It should be done.