Toronto is a remarkable city. It has people from every tribe tongue and nation within its limits, and yet for the most part, they belong to what Augustine called, the City of Man. For many of these inhabitants, they have thrown off the man-made restrictions of their homeland’s culture and have rushed head-long to embrace the liberties of the Western world. Sadly this has resulted in the exchange of one bondage for another. Toronto is teeming with all the fruit of wickedness which a ‘Hollywood’ society can muster. Even a building which was formerly rented by an Evangelical church has been turned into a studio for broadcasting internet pornography.

For the ‘native’ Torontonians, their idolatries are not limited to the brash culture of the strip clubs and gay bars. They also worship their own sophistication, and all the gods in the pantheon of tolerance. Here, political correctness is the civil religion. Christianity, with its distinct truth claims (and therefore declarations of what is false) is deemed to be the greatest heresy. Modern Torontonians feel obliged to belittle anything resembling the Protestant ethic which gave rise to the title, Toronto, the Good.

Today, the City of Man dominates here. It is a City where Man is the measure of all things. Freedom is unbound so that everyone may do what is right in their own eyes (Judges 17.6, 21.25). The City of Man’s desire to be without a King is nevertheless an illusion. Though Torontonians seek to be their own king or god, they foolishly deceive themselves and merely submit to another king, the Deceiver (Rom. 1.21-25, Eph. 4.18, Rev. 12.9).

Toronto and the City of God

Immigrating to Toronto has been a process of great transition for many here. Those who left their homes, families and native cultures to come to a multi-lingual, multi-cultural beehive are often greatly unsettled in their souls as well. In this environment, people who had never heard the truth of Jesus Christ in the gospel are now able to access this knowledge freely and openly. As a result, the Great Commission can no longer be perceived as the domain of the overseas missionary, but Christ’s charge to His disciples , “Go…make disciples of all nations”(Mt. 28.19) takes on a visible urgency.

The gospel is advancing with success in Toronto, but not where you would expect. The new immigrants are the fertile field yielding a harvest today. Churches of almost every ethno-linguistic group imaginable are springing up and flourishing in Canada’s largest city. The Christians in these churches tend to be committed, self-sacrificing, mission-oriented believers. Whether Tamil, Mandarin, Arabic, Ethiopian, or Hispanic, these churches reflect the multi-linguistic, multi-cultural character of the City of God.

Among native Torontonians, the pride of living at the so-called-‘centre of the universe’ has blinded them to the One by whom all things were created, “through Him and for Him” (Col. 1.16). Yet God has not left Himself without witness among these people either. There continues to be numbers of godly, faithful believers gathered together in God-honoring churches throughout the Greater Metropolitan Area of Toronto. Though these may be few in number compared to the masses of lost persons in the city, it must not cause us to despair but to look to the Almightiness of God, that He would move demonstrably in the hearts of men and women here.

The reality of life for a Christian in Toronto is the same as life for a Christian anywhere. Christians have their citizenship in heaven (Phil. 3.20,Eph. 2.19) even though they must eat and sleep and work and play in the midst of the City of Man. But by their lives and their witness to the message of gospel, they summon the City of Man, that it must turn from its ways and repent. Christians hold their allegiance to the One who reigns over all of creation, the One who is the conqueror over sin and death and Satan through His person and work. Christians from Toronto to Tehran announce this truth by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the comfort of Christ, to the glory of God.

COVENANTAL STRUCTURE
The developed understanding of the covenant structure of Scripture is helpful at this point. God has spoken in covenantal terms whenever he has spoken. In the words of Psalm 50, he “speaks and summons the earth” (v.1), and “calls to the heavens above and to the earth that he may judge his people” (v.4). The covenantal language displays the cosmic courtroom in which God is the judge, and peoples of the earth are in the dock.

When we see the centrality of theodicy in God’s relationship to his people, we can trace out one of the defining motives for the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of God the Son, as well as the creation and post-fall redemption of a peculiarly vindicated, image-bearing people.

THE REFORMERS AND PAUL
In this connection we can re-affirm with the Reformers that justification by grace (alone) through faith (alone), is a central category for understanding God’s redemptive purpose for sinners. But it must also necessarily be said that God’s own justification/vindication is central to the justification of man, so that the centrality of the latter is derivative from the former (“δικαιον και δικαιουντα” Rom. 3:26). The connection between Christ’s vindication by the resurrection and the justification of believers (Rom. 4:25) helps us to see the God-centredness of justification —nevertheless, in time and respecting sinners.

Remembering theodicy in our discussions of Paul’s views on justification will lead us back to the Reformers conception of Paul’s thought, and to Paul himself. It will also help us remedy the too-common bifurcation of soteriology and theology proper in the Church. We must also, however, be watchfully repelling the absence of a redemptive-historical application of salvation in neo-orthodox constructs. God’s vindication abstractly alone does not fit the biblical (historically oriented) evidence. Neither does the justification of sinners abstractly alone fit the biblical (multiplex-salvation oriented) evidence.

REFLECTION

Let us celebrate the justness of God, the revelation of that character, the success of the vindicating resurrection of Christ, and the graciousness of an atonement and righteousness sufficient to justify—a salvation which has been judicially wrought by Christ for sinners. S.D.G!

To many the New Testament appears as an island of religious literature in an ancient sea. That it is the beginning of a new continent of literature escapes them. Yet the New Testament was the source of a whole range of literary movements that in a few generations gave Christianity a literature that in sheer bulk and vigor dominated the ancient scene.

~ From the Preface, p.vi, in A History of Early Christian Literature Revised and Enlarged by Robert M. Grant. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1966.

• Abraham was a friend,
• David, a man after God’s heart,
• Enoch walked with God.

Yet they did not enjoy παρρησια (boldness, confidence) in that fellowship (p.6 Communion with God).

1. It seems that παρρησια, when used by John to describe the manner of Jesus’ ministry can have the sense of openness, plainness, clarity, etc. Therefore it refers to his speech in terms of contrasts of hidden/revealed; public/ private.
2. Is there a component of this previous reference retained in the boldness or confidence of the one who approaches God’s presence? (προσερχωμεθα ουν μετα παρρησιας τῳ θρονῳ της χαριτος. Heb. 4:16)
3. The significance would be that in contrast to the need for concealment of sin the believer has παρρησια —an open-hearted, transparency that invites search.

This search may be undertaken now (Heb. 4:16; 10:19; Eph 3:12), by God or men, or at the final judgement (even his παρουσια 1John 2:28).

Imagine (if possible) that an otherwise educated person of our own day, were suddenly presented wtih St Mark’s Gospel. What would he make of it? He would quickly recognize that it was quite unlike any other genre of writing known to him. It is concerned with Jesus of Nazareth, yet there is no description of his personal appearance, practically no attempt to date the action, only the barest indications of its place. It starts with no family history or backgroud, it presents little ordered sequence of events. It springs straight into what it describes as good news, εὐαγγελιον, and points to the coming of John as the fulfilment of a certain passage in the Old Testament. From this jumping-off point it goes on, through a series of brief, loosely linked paragraphs describing the activity, or (more rarely) the sayings, of Jesus, to a proportionately very long account of his arrest, trial, and execution; and at the point where the tomb is found empty it seems to end abruptly–for the few verses which follow are patently from a later hand and constitute a summary of the traditions about the sequel.This is certainly not biography, real or fictional. yet neither is it an ethical or moralistic writing. It has no real parallels before it. It is the first extant specimen of a new genre: it is what we have learnt to call ‘a Gospel’, although the term εὐαγγελιον is used by Mark himself not for his book but for its contents.

~ The Birth of the New Testament (1962), 4-5.