Key New Testament Themes David Gooding A Myrtlefield House Transcript www.myrtlefieldhouse.com Contents 1 Matthew’s Gospel—Structure and Some Major Themes 3 2 Matthew’s Gospel—Further Major Themes 17 3 Salvation—The Saving of the Soul, with Question Session 33 4 Salvation— Justification by Faith 54 5 Salvation—Further Discussion 69 6 Galatians—How to Argue (1): Apostolic Authority and Church History 82 7 Galatians—How to Argue (2): From Experience and From Scripture 99 8 Galatians—How to Argue (3): Using Analogy 113 9 1 John—Structure and Major Themes 133 10 1 John—Eternal Life and Fellowship with God 148 About the Author 168 David Gooding has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. © The Myrtlefield Trust, 2018 Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Holy Bible. Scripture quotations marked RV are from the English Revised Version of the Holy Bible (1885). Scripture quotations marked own trans. are Dr. Gooding’s own translations or paraphrases. This text has been edited from a transcript of talks given by David Gooding at Evangelical Ministries, Belfast (N. Ireland) in April 1996. It is made available for you to read or print out for personal or church use. However, you may not publish it either in print or electronic form. Published by The Myrtlefield Trust 180 Mountsandel Road Coleraine, N. Ireland BT52 1TB w: www.myrtlefieldhouse.com e: [email protected] Myrtlefield catalogue no: nt.001/dw 1 Matthew’s Gospel Structure and Some Major Themes Introduction The general scheme is that I should help you by coming in and rowing alongside you so that, in this good democratic society, your voice is supreme and it’s for you really to tailor this course how you wish it to go. So don’t be afraid today, and in the subsequent days, to voice your opinions. I’m aware that you are investing quite a large amount of time in this particular week and I want to help you to get the maximum benefit from it. So I shall be starting off today, but if you find the kind of thing I’m doing not to be too helpful, please say so and we can order the remainder of the course more to fit you. Proposed approach Now I believe you were brought here under somewhat false pretences, with some grandiose title like ‘A survey of the whole of the New Testament plus Apocrypha’, or something. That of course is quite impossible, but that’s the way of advertisers! What I propose to do, if you give me free rein, is to take perhaps one book of the Gospels today and another tomorrow, as representative of the Gospels. Then on the Wednesday and Thursday, to take an epistle on each occasion, as representative of the Epistles, and then perhaps, if we have time, we shall deal with the Revelation. What I will not attempt to do is to give an outline of these books. Outlines are available to us all and you have long since read many and forgotten all about them, I suspect. Outlines can be very superficial things. What I would like to do is to suggest one or two approaches to the Gospels and look at the kind of thing the Gospels themselves are saying. The Gospels are historical books and it is perfectly legitimate for us to take any fact or incident in the Gospels and to make of it what we will, because the Gospels are fact. If you like to take the phrase, for instance, that our Lord said to Peter, ‘Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch’ (Luke 5:4), and you say, ‘Well the Greek for nets is such and such and that corresponds to our dragnets nowadays, and the thing about dragnets is that they should be the right size and not take too small a fish’, and so forth, and make whatever you like of dragnets. Well, that’s perfectly true: some of them were dragnets and some weren’t. But what I shall be attempting to show is that the Gospel writers themselves are interested in certain themes. If we can determine what those themes are, then those themes will come to us with all the greater authority. It is not a question of our taking a passage and making something out of it as we see fit; it is rather determining what the original Gospel Key New Testament Themes Page | 4 writers intended to convey, what they are discussing. Of course, one man’s perception of these things will differ from another’s and you may see some other things. That’s perfectly true, and in that spirit I go about my comments this morning, putting into the pool of your thinking—along with all the other host of things that you have thought and will think, and the way that you come at Scripture—a contribution of mine to see whether it is helpful or not. Basic structure So on that basis we proceed, and I thought this morning to start at the beginning and look at the Gospel by Matthew. We’ll spend just a few moments talking about the way Matthew has organized his material. As you know, before he gave up his profession for full-time work for the Lord, he was an income tax collector and presumably used to keeping records—if not doctoring them! He shows his characteristic style in the way he has organized his material in his Gospel. He doesn’t necessarily follow chronological order, but has large groupings of material in his book. Let’s look how that happens. Narrative section If we can take our Bibles in hand and look at Matthew, and turn the pages quickly, there’s the story of our Lord’s birth in chapter 1, and Herod’s reaction and so forth in chapter 2. Then there is the story of John the Baptist at the beginning and the baptism of our Lord at the end of chapter 3; an account of the temptation in chapter 4 and, following that, the beginning of our Lord’s ministry. ‘From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”’ (4:17); and he’s calling his disciples to follow him and join in the work. So four chapters therefore of virtually nothing other than narrative. There is a little preaching from John the Baptist and so on, but it’s largely narrative concerned with the birth of our Lord and then the beginnings of his ministry. We come to 4:23, and we notice, not a particular incident, but a very general statement summing up our Lord’s ministry. And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria: and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. (4:23–25) Teaching section Now in chapters 5–7, you’ll notice at once the change in the character of the contents. Here it is not a narrative of individual incidents, but a tremendous block of teaching—commonly referred to as the Sermon on the Mount—moral and spiritual teaching. At the end of chapter 7 we see a typically Matthew thing—you’ve probably noticed it in your own readings—‘And Key New Testament Themes Page | 5 when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes’ (7:28). Section markers Now notice that phrase, ‘when Jesus finished these sayings’, because it’s a phrase Matthew will use as a method of organizing and grouping his material. We shall come across it several times later on. We shall find that it brings to an end a section of his book. As you notice now in chapter 8, we go back to narrative incidents—the leper, then a man with a paralysis, and then a woman with a fever and so forth. Some teaching is involved, but it is very much interspersed with narrative incidents; and that goes through until the end of chapter 9. Then follows chapter 10, which is altogether given up to teaching, not incidents, including the commissioning and briefing that the Lord Jesus gave to his apostles before he sent them out on their missionary journeys. At the end of that passage of teaching, you come to 11:1, which says, ‘When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities.’ So here is this phrase again, ‘when Jesus had finished’ something or other. Let’s flick the pages now and notice how that reoccurs. Chapter 13, verse 53: ‘And when Jesus had finished these parables, he went away from there’. Once more, if we just look back to chapter 11, there are incidents and some teaching intermingled. Likewise in chapter 12 there is some preaching and teaching intermingled with incidents.