Moore to the Point
By Russell D. Moore. Russell D. Moore serves as the teaching pastor at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky. In addition, Dr. Moore is the Dean of the School of Theology and Senior Vice President for Academic Administration at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Find sermons and other resources to help Christians engage the culture from a biblical worldview at www.russellmoore.com.

Triumph of the Warrior-King: A Theology of the Great Commission, Part 4

— Thursday, March 6th, 2008 —

This redemptive plan focuses on the glory of God, but not in an abstract, self-focused sense. Instead, the glory of God finds its expression in the incarnation, atonement, and exaltation of Jesus of Nazareth. The entire sweep of redemptive history finds its goal in the glory of God in Christ. God is glorified when his messianic king is recognized as the rightful governor of the entire created universe (Phil 2:7-11). For this reason, the apostle Peter is able to speak of God’s glory as focused particularly on the Kingdom inheritance of Jesus as Messiah (1 Pet 4:11), a doxological theme that is in line with Old Testament messianic promise (Ps 2:4-12; 110:1-7). In the new covenant, God unveils the identity of the redemptive focus, Jesus of Nazareth, and commands all nations to surrender to his kingship.

This Christocentric focus of the Great Commission is imperiled as perhaps never before. Religious pluralism, now rampant in mainline denominations, insists that Christ is one path, among many possible paths, to the divine.[1] More subtle, and thus more deadly to the Great Commission fervor of the church, is the emergence among so-called evangelical theologians and missionaries of “inclusivism,” that is, the idea that persons may be saved through Christ without explicit faith in him.[2] 

Some argue that the unevangelized may express faith through the testimony of general revelation. Others argue that the Spirit is at work in the other world religions, with an agenda of his own that is wider than the mission of Jesus.[3] Still others appeal to the example of Old Testament believers, who were saved without knowing the name of Jesus, as hope for the salvation of those who never hear the gospel. Some missiological fads seek to “build bridges” with existing world religions as “preparation for the gospel,” with some even suggesting such things as evangelizing Muslims with the proclamation that “Allah became flesh and dwelt among us.” And, of course, many of our churches are filled with the popular notion that it would be “unfair” of God to condemn someone who was never confronted with the gospel.[4]

Triumph of the Warrior-King: A Theology of the Great Commission, Part 3

— Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 —

God’s purpose is not just the rescue of some human beings, but also the restoration of human rule by conforming believers “to the image of his Son so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom 8:29 NASB). Jesus’ death, resurrection, and his subsequent calling of sinners to repentance is presented in strikingly cosmic terms, with human redemption seen as within “a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens, and things on the earth” (Eph 1:10 NASB). 

Nowhere is the Christ-centered nature of redemption seen more clearly than in the content of Great Commission proclamation itself, the message of the crucified and resurrected Messiah (1 Cor 15:3-4), who bears the wrath of God in the place of sinners.[1]

The centrality of Christ in the accomplishment of redemption establishes both the universal scope of the mission of Christ and the freeness of the gospel offer, seen in the way Jesus is called the Savior of “the world,” literally the entire cosmos (John 3:16-17). The universal scope of the sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the world further grounds the global and cosmic nature of the Great Commission.

Some Christian theologians have tended to abstract the atonement from Christ himself, as though the atonement were simply a strictly commercial transaction of so-much wrath for so-much sin.[2]  And yet, the New Testament presents propitiation more specifically in terms of the sinner’s union with Christ as his substitute and representative.[3]

Thus, the apostle John writes: “And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:2 NKJV, emphasis added). This does not result in universalism precisely because the benefits of the atonement come only through union with Christ the covenant king. Believers, before they came to faith, were not justified before God, and their sins were not seen as propitiated, even though no one disputes that Jesus objectively died for them. 

Triumph of the Warrior-King: A Theology of the Great Commission, Part 2

— Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 —

There was no Israelite Mission Board.  Instead, the old covenant looked forward to the day when the nations would see the vindication of Israel–when Israel would be raised from the dead and cleansed from all sin (Ezek 36:33-36).  “My dwelling place will be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people,” Yahweh spoke through the prophet Ezekiel. “Then the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctified Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore” (Ezek 37:27-28 ESV). 

Israel therefore longed for the day when the ancient promises would be fulfilled, when the nations would come to Israel (Isaiah 60:1-14), when the ends of the earth would be given as an inheritance to the Son of David (Ps 2:8-9; Ps 110:1-7).  This would mean the reign of the Spirit-anointed King, the dawning of the messianic age (Isaiah 11:1-12), the kingdom of God.   This is why the apostles inquire of the resurrected Jesus as to whether this was when he would “restore the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6 ESV).  Jesus answers their question by speaking of the power of the Spirit and the global task of the Great Commission (Acts 1:7-8). 

He was not changing the subject. 

Triumph of the Warrior-King: A Theology of the Great Commission, Part 1

— Monday, March 3rd, 2008 —

Too many of us think of the Great Commission as little more than Jesus’ way of promoting the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering or of marketing the Jesus video.  With such the case, theologians tend to ignore the Great Commission.  After all, they reason, it is a “practical” exhortation, better left to denominational bureaucrats and women’s missionary auxiliary leaders. 

At the same time, missionaries and evangelists are sometime expected by churchpeople to ignore theology.  After all, what does abstract theorizing have to do with Jesus’ ultimate church-wide missions emphasis, the Great Commission? 

As a result, we are left with theologians who lust more for recognition by the American Academy of Religion than for the global expansion of the gospel.  At the same time, far too many of us see missionaries, evangelists, and church planters as the ecclesial equivalent of the civil service, organizing initiatives and promoting programs.  The problem, for both groups, is the eclipse of Jesus in evangelical theology and missiology.