Life Before Death: A Study of Judgment and Eternal Life in John's Gospel - Softcover

Hyam, Matt

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1527232964 ISBN 13: 9781527232969

Publisher: Hopeful Ink., 2018

Synopsis

Many Christians believe the primary reason for following Jesus is to escape eternal punishment in Hell and thus, the gospel message presented takes the form of the threat, “believe this or you will be punished.” This thesis focuses on the Gospel of John, in order to establish whether Jesus presented the gospel this way and to ascertain how much judgment is part of his evangelistic message. By paying careful attention to the etymology of the key words and their context, the methodology was to examine: 1) John 3:16 as a distillation of the message, particularly the use of αἰώνιος ζωή, πίστις and ἀπόλλυμι; and 2) the use of κρίσις in three passages in the Fourth Gospel – John 3:17-19, 5:24-30 and 12:44-50. In each of these judgment discourses, the person to whom Jesus was speaking was a member of the Jewish ruling council and his message was one of rebuke. The implications of these findings are that the good news invitation of Jesus in the Gospel of John does not contain the threat of judgmen and thus, raises the question whether that message has changed today.

 

About this title

About the Author

Matt Hyam studied at Spurgeon's College and Westminster Theological Centre and is the Pastor of Southampton Vineyard Church, which he inadvertently started in 1992. Since then he has been on a journey of rethinking and asking questions about what it means to be a believer and how that works out in a church community, much of which his book, I Still Have More Questions than Answers documents. He firmly believes that following Jesus should be simple, and his passion is digging through the mire to uncover the simple message of Jesus' call to radical discipleship.

Edition details

• Publisher: Hopeful Ink.
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1527232964
• ISBN 13: 9781527232969
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 70