Neglected Kerygma of Christ -- Lecture 13

[Rebbe]

THE NEGLECTED KERYGMA OF CHRIST
a series of lecture essays on the biblical concept of a universal salvation in Christ

LECTURE THIRTEEN

Copyright © BRI/IMCF 2020 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling, Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)

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A MOST MISUNDERSTOOD PARABLE
“Yeshua said, ‘There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’” So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate. ‘Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.” Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” (Lk 15.11-30).

It is the popular teaching of the universal church that only on the basis of a person's repentance will God forgive him or her. And, of course, such a view carries with it the weight and seeds of a profound and sound principle which was utilised in the organisation of the early Messianic Movement. Recall John the Immerser's thundering message in Mt 3.2,8 and Lk 3.7,8. Think back on Peter's emphasis to the Jewish people on Shavuot 30 CE.

A CHANGE IN GOD'S ADMINISTRATION
“Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and be baptised every one of you in the name of Yeshua the Messiah so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the holy Spirit” (Acts 2.38).

Now please notice that first came repentance and with that repentance came the forgiveness of sins. This is the way things were done during that primitive period in Israel's history. Also note, too, that without the physical act of repentance and water baptism it was impossible to receive the gift of the Ruach HaKodesh. We shall see in a moment that God's governmental administration was beginning to change in order to accommodate to GRACE ALONE. Not many Christians are open to this understanding. So they remain trapped in the ideology of a works consciousness.

Let me say this: if we do not possess a working knowledge of the progressive revelation contained in Scripture – and indeed a progressive revelation of the Scripture itself – we can all be caught in a web of biblical strain and contradiction and we won't know what to believe.

Later, after Pentecost and in Acts 10, Peter had a hard time coming to terms with a change in the administration of the Grace of God. We all know the story of Cornelius and how God sent Peter to make spiritual contact with this centurion because he was one of God's elect chosen since before the creation. Indeed, God even gave Peter a dream involving a great sheet let down from heaven filled with all sorts of unclean creatures which helped him to grasp that what Christ did on the cross (or tree of Golgoleth) applied directly to the Gentile Cornelius. God was turning slowly toward other nations than Israel. Intriguingly, God poured out the gift of the holy Spirit during his meeting with the apostle (see Acts 10.44-48). It's a curious account to many but to my mind it is really quite humorous. Let's read what happens in this narrative as the Spirit is poured out on Cornelius.

Peter has been sharing the Gospel with Cornelius, and “while Peter was still speaking, the holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God” (Acts 10.44-46).

The holy Spirit is poured out not just on Cornelius but on all who heard the Gospel preached. So they already had the holy Spirit WITHOUT REPENTANCE AND WITHOUT PHYSICAL WATER BAPTISM. And what does the great apostle Peter do? What does he insist on with Cornelius and the others?

“Then Peter said, Can anyone withhold the water for baptising these people who have received the holy Spirit just as we have? So he ordered them to be baptised in the name of Yeshua the Messiah. Then they invited him to stay for several days” (Acts 10.47,48).

Well, at least I find it amusing. The foreigners already have the Spirit of God especially poured out on all who hear the Gospel but Peter is so legalistic in his procedural mindset and pursuit of righteousness that he insists on them all still being water baptised because it just doesn't sit right with him that the procedure that God has laid down previously has somehow been reversed. Well, the procedure wasn't reversed at all. It was entirely CHANGED.

Paul – early in his ministry – had the same difficulties as Peter in respect (at least) of repentance as essential to salvation, “a first step to salvation” one might opine. Look at the record in Acts 16.23-40.

“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, Do not harm yourself, for we are all here. And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe in the Lord Yeshua, and you will be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and HE WAS BAPTISED IMMEDIATELY, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God. But when it was day, the magistrates sent the police, saying, Let those men go. And the jailer reported these words to Paul, saying, The magistrates have sent to let you go. Therefore come out now and go in peace. But Paul said to them, They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now throw us out secretly? No! Let them come themselves and take us out. The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens. So they came and apologised to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city. So they went out of the prison and visited Lydia. And when they had seen the brothers, they encouraged them and departed” (Acts 16.23-40). 

We see here that in Paul's early ministry there was a vital connection between a professed belief in Yeshua as Lord and Saviour and submission to immediate water baptism (even in the middle of the night) as a requirement for heathen converts. This appears the norm right throughout the early Messianic history in Acts. The gaoler had been a convert to heathen belief systems and Paul viewed his new-found faith signalling an inner repentance from his own gods of Athens and Rome to a living faith in Yeshua alone as Lord. Paul wasted no time in ritualising this man. His insistence on immediate water baptism is an evidence that Paul was witness to a repentant mindset in the Philippian gaoler and therefore his insistence on an outward witness of his faith.

BUT in the later epistles of Paul the apostle to the Gentiles divorces his ministry from water baptism. This is clearly enunciated in a passage some still attempt to use to try to lay claim for the continued practice of physical water baptism. Where is this Scriptural authority located? In Paul's letter to the Ephesians. He writes,

“I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all” (Eph 4.1-6).

Note the sequence! Upon mentioning with emphasis “the UNITY of the Spirit” Paul proceeds to list...

ONE (spiritual) body
ONE Spirit
ONE (spiritual) hope
ONE Lord (spiritual)
ONE faith (spiritual)
ONE baptism (water)
ONE God and Father of All (obviously spirit)

So what is it that fails to fit the sequence Paul has in mind? Obviously baptism. The baptism Paul is not emphasising is water baptism. Rather the baptism that is in the mind of Paul, during the period in which he penned Ephesians, is spiritual baptism (immersing oneself) INTO Christ (who is Spirit – 2 Cor 3.17).

In this NT progressive revelation about water baptism (which goes “hand in glove” with repentance as a work activated by human beings) one should appreciate in hindsight – that Christ stressed a very marked difference in meaning in his “Prodigal Son” parable than that which is swallowed glibly by “unbelieving believers” today. The common belief is that a human being must first repent and believe in “Jesus” (they go together in this system) and secondly be water baptised prior to receiving God's forgiveness of sins. Yet we have now seen that Cornelius and his entire family had their sins forgiven already and God gave them the holy Spirit before any water baptism took place!

Peter could not accept the administrative change that God had initiated in accord with His own will.

BACK TO THE PRODIGAL SON
The parable of the Prodigal Son was shared by the Christ who knew that unique and vitally imperative changes were to be forthcoming among Christian believers in the early years of the Messianic Community when Gentiles would be being “grafted in” to the Commonwealth of Israel. The truth is, however, that Christ was extending his knowledge of the behaviour of a rebel whose life of self-obsession gave a demonstration which consistently corroborated the biblical assessment of the loving heart of God. I have serious doubts about the common Christian assessment apparent in the “Repent and be saved” procedural dogma for a number of reasons which I conceive as quite reasonable, sound, and altogether biblically legitimate indeed. Consider:

(1) We fully understand that God's forgiveness of sin emanates from God's creative heart of GRACE. We know and comprehend that GRACE is the fundamental foundation upon which a salvation of humankind takes place. Without GRACE there is no salvation whatever. Recall that GRACE is undeserved favour.

(2) Repentance is an act of the human will. While this is the case, we cannot argue against the proposition that Grace inspires repentance within an individual. The experience of salvation begins with God and ends with God. “Not of GRACE? Then not of God!”

(3) Because salvation is entirely of GRACE and therefore involves the exercise of God's SALVIFIC WILL in a positive manner toward His fallen creatures, then a required repentance (even solicited by God's holy Spirit) becomes and IS a “work of the flesh” if such an individual is unconverted in the first place.

(4) When we speak of the “unconverted” we mean – and I utilise the biblical appraisal to substantiate this proposition – that in such a person there is a complete absence of the Ruach HaKodesh (holy Spirit or, better, 'spirit of holiness'). It is written:

“You [Christians] are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, HE IS NONE OF HIS. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Yeshua from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you” (Rom 8.9-11).

In vivid contrast to the picture of an unconverted individual relative to a “repentant attitude” – and make no mistake; an ordinary human being can have feelings of regret, “penitence” and sorrowful unhappiness at mistakes that are made in life but these elements are never those of an authentic repentance – in contrast to that of the unconverted a CONVERTED person will have genuine conscience issues associated with an ongoing repentant attitude toward God the Father and this is illustrated right throughout the NT record.

In other words an authentic repentance is a fruit of conversion and decidedly not a prerequisite for acceptance and forgiveness by God. Some will challenge this assertion and point back to the parable of the Prodigal Son to establish their position as the correct one to believe in. So let's look again at what Christ was conveying in this story.

ANOTHER LOOK AT THE PARABLE
Firstly, it is imperative to possess a working knowledge of the background to the sharing of Yeshua of this parable to others. The parable did not just come 'out of the blue' so to speak. There was a fundamental reason why Christ gave the parable to those who were listening to him speak. If you look closely at the start of Luke 15 Yeshua is being questioned by the religious authorities as to why it is that he spends time with sinners, prostitutes and tax collectors especially. In their view righteous and holy people did not “mix it” or “rub shoulders” with people of that ilk.

“Then all the tax collectors and sinners stained with certain vices and crimes continually drew near to him to hear what he had to say. And the Pharisees and the scribes started grumbling in a low undertone muttering, This man receives sinners as companions and even eats with them. And he shared this illustration unto them....” (Lk 15.1-3 Gk).

Secondly, do not fail to take notice of the attitude of the so-called “Prodigal Son” – the central actor in the storyline. He is most assuredly no hero. Indeed, Jews would have been aghast at the fact that his view of his father was so sickening. The Jewish people would have considered this the greatest of family crimes – an open display of total dishonour and complete lack of respect but equally an absence of affection toward the one who not only brought him into the world but who was consistently looking after his welfare. Here was a son who was demanding his share of the family inheritance long before the father was deceased.

Scholar Kenneth Bailey notes, “In all of Middle Eastern literature (aside from the prodigal story) from ancient times to the present, there is no case of any son, older or younger, asking for his inheritance from a father who is still in good health” (Kenneth Bailey, Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes, 1976, 164,176,177,183,184, 195).

What was his character like? This was also pointed out by Christ. As soon as he received his inheritance he got as far away from his family as he could, living it up in a pagan Gentile country and associating with undisciplined and wanton compatriots... until the money ran out. So when his fortunes all lay in ruin and he was hired as a “feeder of pigs” he determined to return “from the far country” and approach his father to be hired as one of his servants.

It's at this point that many of us are in agreement that he is finally returning home repentant and with humility to his father's house, after having learned from his series of tragic errors.

Not so. Read full-scale, out-and-out, consummate self-interest!

According to the biblical text itself, it is only after he has seriously considered his abject condition and realised that his father's employees were better off than himself, that he creates a verbal composition that he will intentionally articulate to his father when he arrives at the home he deserted. Herein lies a section of the parable that is often overlooked by modern readers. He precisely learns his lines that he perceives would bring instant approval from his father – and no doubt from the way Luke has recorded it the prodigal son has carefully memorised his script and is rehearsing his lines throughout the day, and more so I would suggest, the closer he gets to home. Read it for yourselves.

“And when he came to his senses, he thought, how many of my father's employees have bread enough and more to spare, and here I am perishing from hunger. I will arise and go on my way to my father AND I WILL SAY” – remember this thought bubble to study a certain script is something he is creating way ahead of time – “FATHER I HAVE SINNED BEFORE HEAVEN AND IN YOUR SIGHT. NO LONGER AM I WORTHY TO BE CALLED A SON OF YOURS. MAKE ME AT ONCE ONE OF YOUR EMPLOYEES. Having put things in readiness for his journey he went to his own father” (Lk 15.17-20a).

A modern writer remarking on the Lukan passage makes the rightful observation, “The ruined and desperate son heads home not because he is repentant but because he is starving. The story never suggests that he had a change of heart; only a change of diet. He is still the same schlemiel” – a Yiddish expression equivalent to our term “jerk” – “of a son who comes scuffing up the road to the homestead” (quoted from Linn's book Good Goats, 1994).

Another author observes, “The son regrets that he has lost all the money he got from his father, but it is unlikely that he has yet repented of breaking his father's heart.” Clearly, this is the case as there is no mention of anyone else but himself in relation to future and steady employment with remuneration.

In contrast to this unrepentant attitude toward his father, the latter sees his ragged son heading along the road in his direction and even though he is still “a long way off” the father eagerly runs out to hug him. I think that Yeshua speaks of him being a long way off not so much in geographical terms as in regard to emotional distance. Now, with that in mind, consider again what Christ deliberately includes in this section of the parable.

So “he went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his slaves...”

His compassionate father makes no comment about repentance or a lack thereof. He throws his arms around his son and hugs and kisses him. Then he does something that we don't expect. As his son begins his rehearsed, staccato speech the father cuts him off before he gets to the point of mentioning making him one of the employees. In other words his father anticipates what's coming (knowing his son really well) and he stoops to the point of even “saving face” for his son.

“Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.”

THE PRODIGAL FATHER
There is no mention in this parable of the father expecting a changed attitude, and we might assume that it is self-apparent to him. But on this matter Christ keeps his silence. This silence is peculiar indeed, but it exemplifies the character and nature of the One we inadequately call “God.” Near the conclusion of the narrative Christ adds something most pertinent in this account. The father's faithful elder son gets “all out of joint” over the entire incident and his father's generous acceptance of the rebel sibling. 

“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound. Then he became angry and refused to go in.”

All the father's attention is centred on his returned son. The elder brother fumes with intense indignation over a number of personal, understandable aggrievances. And he does so publicly. He virtually stamps his feet over his father's approach, and flatly wants nothing to do with his brother, his father, and the celebration. He's fed up to his teeth.

Kenneth Bailey grasps the situation candidly. He states, the father forgives the elder son before the elder son repents. By arguing with his father in public, the elder son puts a break in the relationship “with his father that is nearly as radical as the break between the father and the younger son at the beginning of the parable.” Yet the father will love the unrepentant elder brother and promise that, even if he doesn't come to the banquet, “Everything I have is yours” (Bailey quoted in and by Linn, Good Goats, 60).

Not only is this the case, one should reflect on the fact that when the younger son demanded his share of the inheritance his father gave both of the brothers their share.

You may not have picked up on it. But I'll repeat it now for your attention.

“There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided his property between them.”

To better understand the present biblical view of repentance we have amplified the parable of the Prodigal Son to more fully grasp a greater comprehension of GRACE in action. To underscore it, we need to once more review the conversion of a carnal and unrepentant rabbi. Now consider the apostle Paul once more.

PAUL AS A PATTERN FOR THE CALLING OF GOD'S ELECT & THE ULTIMATE SALVATION OF THE WORLD
In order to emphasise God's love and Grace in the salvation process and experience, Paul gave us a heart-warming message of assurance that he himself (and Paul did consider that he was “the worst of sinners,” 1 Timothy 1.15) was SAVED BY GRACE in order that "Yeshua haMashiach might show forth all long-suffering, FOR A PATTERN to them who should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting" (1 Timothy 1.15,16).

If Paul considered himself as “the worst of sinners,” and yet was converted by Christ BEFORE he was required to repent, then we can (with a deep sense of gratitude) assess how it could well be the case – knowing God the Father is not a “respecter of persons” – that God could equally “save” the greater harvest of souls in a future time allocation set aside for the rest of the world (who have not been selected as “Firstfruits” during this Age of Grace) without any requirement for tens of billions of men and women and children to “show forth fruits unto repentance.” The Lord Yeshua is a personal Saviour because he saves us personally. Indeed, it is a prime truth that Christ first saves us and only then reveals who it was that saved us.  Again, take notice of the order of salvation:

God “will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2.4). The Greek actually says, “and to come to a precise and experiential knowledge of the truth.”

Firstly, God calls us and saves us.

Secondly, God reveals who it was that saved us. That revelation of himself incorporates a time element which is decidedly not “an overnight experience.” An “experiential knowledge” by its own definition takes a particular length of time in the active outworking of that experience.

If we look attentively at the fifth and sixth verses, Paul clarifies (and zeroes in on) this essential “knowledge of the truth.” Of what does this knowledge or truth consist?

“There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Messiah Yeshua, who gave himself a ransom for all the testimony of which is to be given in strategic seasons [the appointed Salvific aeons] having a unique character of their own” (1 Tim 2.5,6).

The apostle Paul's salvation experience – the WAY he was converted – was a PATTERN of how God works with each of us. All of us experience, to one degree or another, a mighty intervention by the Lord God in the same way as God intervened in Paul's own life. Messiah is introduced to each of us in God's good time. All the world (and this includes all who have ever lived) will one day meet Mashiach in a personal way, and on a personal basis. We are drawn to the Messiah in our own individual way, according to our “lot” and circumstances in life. Each person who has ever lived will be given, according to God's Grace, that rich and wonderful moment when the attainment of Life will be experienced. We must all face a Vision, a Voice, a Power, in some sort of unique personal manner, on our own Damascus Road. None of us can escape the Damascus Road experience. It will come in one form or another.

The Lord, we are reliably informed in the written Word of God, is not a respecter of persons – in matters of salvation God shows no partiality. Even the “Firstfuits” chosen NOW in their calling and election is based not on “favouritism” but on the virtual cosmic rolling of a dice or spiritual lottery (I will have more to say in a future lecture on this matter.)  If this is the case, and I trust it is, then God's salvation is the revelation of Yeshua haMashiach on the human heart by Grace! All who have ever lived will one day have an opportunity to experience such a salvation. While there are a myriad of variations and methods by which conversions take place, there remains ONLY ONE WAY to salvation, through the Creator and the One Mediator, Yeshua the Mashiach.

The Gospel, if it is anything, is a declaration that it is God who saves us. God elects us. God chooses us. God calls us. God even gives us of His Spirit in order for us who have been saved, elected, chosen, and called – to repent and to believe. It all comes ALONE from God's HOLY SPIRIT, and not from our yetzer hara of inner free choice which is utterly and intrinsically antagonistic to ALL that God IS. Not of GRACE? Then not of God!

CONCLUSION
So... after a reappraisal of the parable of the “Prodigal Son” where does this understanding leave us in relation to God's GRACE in purposing an ultimate salvation of the world in Christ? For starters, it turns the understanding of modern theology on its head. God will save the world because He said He would. He also sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world, not some of the world, or part of the world, nor a fraction of the world.

He came to SAVE sinners – and the apostle Paul claimed he was “the worst of sinners” (which is exactly how WE ALL ought to view ourselves) – brought to God without repentance. Precisely because God is impartial and unprejudiced the world and the universe (again, according to both Paul and John) will participate in a reconciliation and a salvation as we have also come to realise.

We, the “Firstfruits harvest,” are called today. The world will receive its calling as “the greater harvest” in the coming Utopia of Tomorrow. We have the assurance that it will be so. In the meantime God has not been reluctant to “blind the world, imprisoning it in its darkness of disobedience in comprehension, IN ORDER THAT He may be merciful to ALL” (Rom 11.32).

It will be so because God said so.

THIS CONCLUDES THE CURRENT LECTURE