Vintage Jesus: Chapter’s 4, 5 & 6

I had been writing reviews of Mark Driscroll’s Vintage Jesus. Being that I have been busy getting things around for going to the Alliance conference in Atlanta, I have been unable to keep up with my blogging like I would like to. But now in my hotel I am going to catch up a few chapters of the review, going over chapters 4, 5 and 6.

Chapter 4- why did Jesus come to earth

Here Mark goes over in dealing with why exactly do people celebrate Christmas for. In doing so he goes over the areas of Christ being Prophet, Priest and king. He touches on areas of today’s culture in how fundamentalist, evangelicals and liberals see these offices of Christ and how they have affected people’s view of Christ. One of the most important areas of this chapter I saw was how some often see things in a prideful way. Mark says this, “The result of a double life of hypocrisy in which we call Jesus Lord, call his Word true, and then do whatever we want in some areas of our life…” How often we as believer’s need to look at ourselves and know and see in our very own lives that everything we have and everything we do as believer’s and follower’s of the Gospel, we do in and through and for Christ!

Chapter 5- Why did Jesus mom need to be a virgin?

Here Mark deals with how many people do not see the necessity of the virgin birth. One area that struck me right away was the quote of Larry King when asked if he could interview anyone in history he said, “Jesus Christ,” and what would he ask him? King said, “I would like to ask him, if he was indeed virgin born.” It is funny how some actually have a small and sad view of the inerrancy of Scripture. But Mark addresses that when he deals with Rob Bell’s statements on if we could believe if Christ was born of a virgin birth, if we knew he had a biological father form DNA. Mark answer’s that no matter what man my find in DNA the Scriptures are infallible and for that, Christ was born a virgin. Mark does this in explaining that virgin birth was a normal birth like any other. From there he address questions that may be asked in today’s 21^st century like, was Mary always a virgin? Was the virgin birth a myth? Does virgin birth mean deity of Christ? How is sin nature passed? Did Mary sleep with God? Is this an important issue? And lastly going over an important issue with how we as believers must see Mary.

Chapter 6- What did Jesus Accomplish on the cross?

What did Jesus do? Mark explains the importance of the center of the gospel in this chapter. Now that I have read the entire book, I would say this is the heart of this book, as well as the gospel. Here Mark lays out the propitiation of Christ and what it is exactly in it twofoldness. 1. Christ pleasing the wrath of God, and 2. Christ reckoning man to God. In a culture that often overlooks and dismisses the wrath pleasing Jesus that pleased his father taking on all the wrath of God for mankind, this here is what must be stood on. As John Knox said, “remembering Jesus is to first remember the cross.” This is not only important for the new convert but for the believer to preach to him every day. This here in pages 114-20 is the center piece of not only Mark’s book but, the center of Christianity in what the believer, believes! And I would say it is the must read section of this book.