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A Study in New Testament Communication

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

T. F. Torrance
T. F. Torrance
Affiliation:
Edinburgh
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Extract

It is often claimed that the problem of communicating the Gospel is the major practical problem facing the Church to-day, as it may also be the major theological problem. This concern is a very healthy sign, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that we are apt to be so concerned with devising new methods of evangelism as to forget the one factor of supreme importance: the burden of the Gospel itself, that is, to forget that the Gospel is not simply the message of divine love, but the actual way in which God communicates Himself to us in history. No technique that forgets that the Gospel has already been made supremely relevant to sinful humanity in the Incarnation and death of Jesus Christ will ever avail for the communication of the Gospel. This is therefore an attempt to probe into what the New Testament has to say to us about this, and into the way in which, as a matter of fact, the New Testament actually communicates the Gospel to us.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , September 1950 , pp. 298 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1950

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References

page 302 note 1 cf. 1 Cor. 2.1 ff.

page 302 note 2 The Greek word used by the Evangelists is particularly significant. παραβολή indicates the act of throwing alongside (παρà βáλλω).

page 302 note 1 There is, of course, a counterfeit mysterion in evil.

page 303 note 1 K. L. Schmidt points out that in each Synoptic set of parallels Kingdom and Word of the Kingdom are equated with the key of knowledge (Luke 11.52). The hearing of the Word is the key to knowledge, the key to the Parables of Jesus, cf. Kittel, G., Theologisches Woerterbuch zum NT, Bd. 1, pp. 581 ff.Google Scholar

page 304 note 1 This necessary time-element is really eliminated by a realised eschatology which holds that “the time-scale is irrelevant to the ultimate significance of history” (Dodd, C. H., op. cit. p. 71).Google Scholar

page 305 note 1 Comm. ad loc.

page 307 note 1 This is a quotation from Isa. 6.9 ff.; the LXX has instead of “and it should be forgiven them” the words “and I should heal them”, both of which come in the Synoptics.

page 309 note 1 cf. Kierkegaard, S., Training in Christianity, pp. 199ff.Google Scholar

page 309 note 2 cf. Cullman, O., The Earliest Christian Confessions (Eng. trans, by J. K. S. Reid) p. 25 f.Google Scholar

page 311 note 1 There is a similar thought in the Epistle to the Hebrews in the idea of the death of the Testator where the promise is sealed with blood and where the Christian bearing witness to Christ must resist evil unto blood.

page 312 note 1 That is why we cannot reject outright the thought of repetition in the Roman Mass. In the teaching of the New Testament, however, this is not temporal repetition, but eschatological event. Thus there is also an element of truth in the Roman doctrine of the opus operatum, for the Word-deed of God, that becomes event and becomes flesh in the sacrament, is the creative Word, the creating Word, the active Word, the original Word-deed of God (cf. John 1.1 ff). It is that Word that is the dynamis in kerygma.

1 Cf. Luke 24.29: καì παρεβιάσαντο αύτòν λ⋯γοντες, μεθ' .