Round the Sphere Again: The Gospel Coalition Edition

Updated with the audio from all the sessions and moved to the top.

What is The Gospel Coalition, anyway? Tim Challies starts to answer the question and then finishes it.

As you may know, The Gospel Coalition Conference has just ended. The session are available for download from The Gospel Coalition Webpage.

• Tim Keller: The Grand Demythologizer: The Gospel and Idolatry
• Phil Ryken: The Pattern of Sound Words
• Mark Driscoll: Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth
• John Piper: Feed the Flame of God’s Gift: Unashamed Courage in the Gospel
• K. Edward Copeland: Shadowlands: Pitfalls and Parodies of Gospel-Centered Ministry
• Bryan Chapell: Preach the Word!
• Ajith Fernando: Gospel-Faithful Mission in the New Christendom
• Ligon Duncan: Finishing Well
• D. A. Carson: That By All Means I Might Win Some: Faithfulness and Flexibility in the Gospel Proclamation
• Panel Discussion

I listened to Don Carson’s session, That By All Means I Might Win Some: Faithfulness and Flexibility in the Gospel Proclamation, in the livestream of the conference. It comes highly recommended by me.

Back to the Fight

You remember my fight, right?* Where I said that God planned the fall because he purposed from the beginning to save people? Here’s another text of scripture that would have bolstered my argument. No one mentioned it when commenters were giving the texts they would use in support of this statement, and I hadn’t thought of it either, but Ligon Duncan used it in a sermon I heard while painting last week. (His sermon was titled What Is Theology For? and if you don’t think theology is all that important, you should give it a listen. If you love theology, you should listen, too, but you’ll probably do that without my prodding.)

Here’s the text:

For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

³³Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
³⁴“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
³⁵“Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”

³⁶For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11: 32-36 ESV)

This tells us, if nothing else, that God has a purpose for human disobedience—the expression of his mercy. And the primary expression of God’s mercy, we know, is in the salvation of sinners. If you read on from verse 32, you see that this all shows God’s wisdom and brings him glory.

It’s in this context, too, that we get the statement that “from him and through him and to him are all things.” Wouldn’t those all things include the fall? How would the fall be “from Him” unless he planned it? How would the fall be “through him” unless he, at the very least, purposely allowed it?  And isn’t it “to him” because it brings him glory through the expression of his grace and mercy, but also his wisdom, justice, righteousness and more?

*If you want the whole background to this post, you’ll find it here.

My Desktop Photo 54: Yukon Spring

Photo by Andrew Stark
(click for larger view)