Has the Gospel Already Reached the Entire World?
00:00:00.000 | Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you had an edifying weekend. We're going to start
00:00:09.000 | the week with a missions question, and it's this. Did the Apostle Paul say that the gospel
00:00:14.080 | had already reached the ends of the world in his own lifetime? It appears that he did
00:00:20.320 | say that, and it raises implications about the urgency of the Great Commission today.
00:00:25.200 | Here's the question. "Pastor John, hello. My name is Kevin, and I live in Chicago. My
00:00:29.400 | question has to do with Paul's words in Colossians 1.6, where he speaks of the gospel that has
00:00:35.280 | "come to you as indeed in the whole world." He maybe suggested that the gospel had already
00:00:43.560 | reached the whole world in his lifetime. It seems clearer in Colossians 1.23. There Paul
00:00:50.280 | speaks of the hope of the gospel that you heard "which has been proclaimed in all creation
00:00:57.400 | under heaven." Wow. So, what does Paul mean when he says that the hope of the gospel has
00:01:03.760 | already been proclaimed in all creation? I feel an urgency to unreached nations, but
00:01:09.960 | these texts have dampened that urgency in me some. Can you explain what Paul means here?
00:01:15.720 | Thank you.
00:01:16.720 | Well, bless you, Kevin, for the sense of urgency that you feel. And yes, I think I can explain
00:01:24.100 | it and not only explain it, I hope I can explain it in a way that intensifies your commitment
00:01:32.100 | to reach the nations rather than dampening that commitment. So, let's take these two
00:01:37.240 | passages one at a time. First, Colossians 1.5 and 6 says, "Of this," referring to
00:01:45.480 | the hope laid up for you in heaven, "of this you have heard before in the word of
00:01:51.000 | truth the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit
00:01:59.400 | and increasing, as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood
00:02:06.260 | the grace of God in truth." Notice what that text does not say. It does not say that
00:02:14.520 | the gospel has already been preached in the whole world. It does not say that the gospel
00:02:23.100 | has reached to the ends of the world. It simply says that the gospel which has come to you,
00:02:32.360 | Colossians, is the very gospel that is bearing fruit and increasing everywhere it goes in
00:02:41.000 | the whole world. The point is not that he has finished going through the whole world.
00:02:49.160 | The point is that it's the kind of gospel that goes through the whole world, and wherever
00:02:55.720 | it goes, it bears fruit and increases. Now, to underline that we're on the right track
00:03:02.800 | in saying that, we just need to remember that Paul said, Paul himself said later in Romans
00:03:12.400 | 15, 20 to 24, this, "I make it my ambition to preach the gospel not where Christ has
00:03:21.600 | already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation. This is the reason why
00:03:27.600 | I have so often been hindered in coming to you. But now, since I no longer have any room
00:03:33.280 | for work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you, I hope
00:03:38.200 | to see you in passing as I go to Spain and to be helped on my journey there by you once
00:03:46.760 | I have enjoyed your company for a while." In other words, Paul knew very well that the
00:03:53.200 | gospel had not reached Spain, at least not to any significant degree, because he wants
00:04:01.080 | to preach the gospel where the gospel has not been preached, and that's why he's going
00:04:05.360 | to Spain. Paul had no notion that the gospel had already been preached throughout the whole
00:04:12.960 | world. So the really crucial question in Colossians
00:04:18.120 | 6 is why Paul went out of his way to say that very gospel which had come to Colossae was
00:04:28.320 | also making its way fruitfully through the whole world. Why did he say that? And I think
00:04:35.760 | there are three reasons. Number one, the gospel is not merely local, not merely tribal, not
00:04:41.920 | parochial, not limited to any one tribe or class or ethnicity or language or culture
00:04:47.400 | or city like Colossae. The point is, this gospel that you have believed, you Colossians,
00:04:54.920 | in your little out-of-the-way town of Colossae is a triumphant, global gospel laying claim
00:05:02.320 | on every single person and people group in the whole world wherever it goes. Don't
00:05:07.640 | think you've embraced a little thing. That's number one.
00:05:10.640 | Number two, Paul said this, namely that it's spreading throughout the whole world and increasing
00:05:17.280 | the gospel. He said it to underline the fact that there is a great, glorious Creator God
00:05:22.880 | behind the gospel who is laying claim on the entire creation. He's not a tribal deity.
00:05:28.720 | When you believe the gospel, you believe in the God of the universe who has no serious
00:05:34.040 | rivals. You won't ever run into another religion, wherever you go. You won't ever
00:05:40.400 | run into another religion anywhere in the world that can nullify the gospel, compromise
00:05:46.600 | the gospel.
00:05:47.600 | And the third reason I think he talks this way and stresses the global dimension of the
00:05:52.880 | gospel for the Colossians is to show that it is the power, this gospel has power, to
00:06:00.240 | change people of every kind, all kinds of people. It's not just effective among one
00:06:08.160 | kind of humanity, but will bear fruit among every single kind of humanity that it runs
00:06:15.040 | into all the unimaginable differences in the world that there are today and that there
00:06:21.520 | were then. Therefore, it is a great gospel. That, I think, is the point of Colossians
00:06:29.840 | 1.6 when he says, "As indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing."
00:06:38.200 | Now, let's look at Colossians 1.23. I'm going to read the ESV. I think this is a
00:06:44.840 | bigger problem for most people than verse 6, but it has a very simple solution if we
00:06:50.720 | could just get everybody to translate it the same way. Okay, here's verse 23. "You
00:06:57.320 | have been reconciled to God, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast,
00:07:02.960 | not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard." And here comes the problem
00:07:06.560 | part. This is the ESV. "Which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven,"
00:07:14.160 | yikes, "and of which I, Paul, became a minister." Now, that's a real stumbling
00:07:19.720 | block for lots of people to read in their translation in verse 23 that the gospel in
00:07:27.160 | the first century, halfway through the first century, has been proclaimed in all creation
00:07:34.120 | under heaven. And it's amazing to me how many commentators try to squeeze that stunning
00:07:43.440 | statement into the first century and say something like, "Well, really, the gospel had reached
00:07:50.200 | to what the first century people assumed was all creation under heaven," to which I
00:07:56.000 | delicately say, "Baloney." I say that not only because they weren't that ignorant.
00:08:03.520 | They really weren't that ignorant of the rest of the world. But I say it mainly because
00:08:09.040 | Paul—we already saw this—Paul himself said in Romans 15 that he was intending to
00:08:16.960 | proclaim the gospel in a vast region of Gaul called Spain where there hadn't been yet
00:08:24.280 | the preaching of the gospel. So he didn't believe that the gospel had been preached
00:08:29.640 | in all creation under heaven. So what's the solution? The solution is that the translation
00:08:37.480 | which has been proclaimed is not at all the most natural translation. Baffles me why translations
00:08:46.240 | give it that meaning, a temporal meaning, which has been proclaimed. That's translating
00:08:52.880 | two Greek words—the proclaimed, the proclaimed, to kairoukventos, the proclaimed. That's
00:09:03.120 | all it's translating, the proclaimed. It is a straightforward, aorist, passive, participle,
00:09:10.120 | in agreement with the word gospel. Both of them are genitive, singular, and thus clarifying.
00:09:17.400 | It clarifies and defines the kind of gospel we're talking about. With the article "the"
00:09:24.840 | in front of the participle, it is not an adverbial participle telling when. There's nothing
00:09:31.480 | temporal about it. It doesn't say "has been proclaimed." That's not in the word
00:09:38.960 | at all. Very literally, it would read like this, "The gospel that you heard, the proclaimed
00:09:48.520 | one in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister." So the solution
00:09:57.520 | is that Paul is not saying anything about when the gospel is proclaimed in all creation.
00:10:04.760 | Rather, he's saying that's the kind of gospel it is. That's what's happening.
00:10:11.920 | It is the kind of gospel that is proclaimed under all creation, under heaven. In other
00:10:18.040 | words, the meaning is virtually the same as chapter 1, verse 6, "As indeed in the whole
00:10:22.960 | world it is bearing fruit and increasing." Paul is emphasizing the fact that the gospel,
00:10:30.920 | embraced by this little group of people in this little town of Colossae, is the very
00:10:36.480 | gospel that is proclaimed in all creation under heaven. God is laying claim on the entire
00:10:46.240 | creation, and you are being swept up into that glorious plan. It does not say "has
00:10:55.560 | been proclaimed." It is proclaimed in all creation. Everywhere it goes, it is being
00:11:03.160 | proclaimed and it is bearing fruit. So Kevin, in Chicago, don't lose your sense
00:11:09.880 | of urgency or your sense of confidence that the gospel you believe can be taken, should
00:11:17.000 | be taken, must be taken to every people group on the planet. It will be as relevant there
00:11:25.400 | as it is in your own heart, with tremendous power. It is a gospel bearing fruit in the
00:11:33.120 | whole world. It is a gospel proclaimed in all creation under heaven. And when that's
00:11:40.920 | finished, Jesus says, "The end will come." Yes, so wonderful urgency remains. Thank you,
00:11:48.000 | Pastor John, for that response. And Kevin, thank you for the very astute Bible question.
00:11:53.240 | And thank you all for joining us on the podcast today. You can ask an astute Bible question
00:11:56.960 | of your own. You can search our growing archive or subscribe to the podcast, all at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:12:05.800 | Speaking of missions, we are back on Wednesday to look at how we can escape the love of safety
00:12:12.040 | and embrace risk in service to others. It's an important discussion. I'm your host, Tony
00:12:17.600 | Rehnke, and we will see you back here on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.
00:12:21.120 | [END]
00:12:23.120 | 1. What is the most important thing you have learned from the Lord? 2. How can we be more