Tim Keller on the fence?

Tim Keller recently spoke at the recent Q conference on the contested issue between justification and justice?  Out of Ur reported on his presentation here.  How are they related and how are they unrelated?  Which one is more important or which one comes first?  Are they part of the same message or is one the central message and the other follows as an implication.  Generally I have heard Tim Keller, a leader of the Gospel Coalition, teach that the Gospel is the Gospel of Justification by faith through Christ's death and resurrection.  Once we as sinners are justified and set free from the condemnation of our sin by faith in Christ, we have received the Gospel - therefore the Gospel is strictly our justification by Christ's death and resurrection.  In an interview with D.A. Carson and John Piper, Keller outlines that he agrees with this clearly,



The question remains - is the Gospel just justification or is it what N.T. Wright projects as the rescue, redemption and reconciliation of all things, (Colossians 1:19 and the full passage of I Corinthians 15)?  Keller goes on to explain this further in the first part of this video,




Tim Keller is helping a lot of people and is a great teacher and communicator.  I believe that he doesn't want to fall on one side of this issue or the other because he's trying to forge a via media.  Some have called this the "third way" kind of thinking which is fine I guess.  There are many third ways that are helpful but this is not one of them.  Tim is hard to nail down on this issue - he's on the fence in a manner of speaking.  I can appreciate what he's trying to do but it might cause confusion.  Either way, he seems to be saying two different things.  On one hand he is in agreement with Carson and Piper's view of how we do social justice and mercy ministries but on the other hand he wants to say that justice and justification joined at the hip and should be view through the lens of a "both/and" rather than an "either/or" perspective.  I couldn't agree more with the exception that it doesn't seem like he really believes that.

What he believes it seems is that justification comes first and then an obvious implication from a human being justified is social justice.  Social justice has no place in the definition of the Gospel because it is not the Gospel or an aspect of the Gospel - it is only an implication that follows the Gospel - the Gospel Christ's death and resurrection that sets us free from the condemnation of sin.  Therefore instead of a "both/and" view he is actually positing a "this/then that" view.  Social justice is not the Gospel because it comes after the Gospel.  This is an effort to protect the definition of the Gospel from being appropriated like it has been in the past and being widened so far that it loses its justification foundation.  That's a good concern, but we need to revisit the lost cause of the battle between social justice/the social Gospel and the fundamentalist clinging to the proclamation of the Gospel as primary.  If we revisit this debate, it is possible that a new way of inter-relating these two poles could come into existence.

Either way, it seems that Keller is still riding the fence on this one with a few quotes and comments here and there to put him on either side.  Is the Gospel on about Jesus dying and resurrecting to free us from spiritual death or is it the whole message of reconciliation and redemption of all things - which includes and even elevates humanity's redemption but not to the exclusion of everything else as being part of the Gospel's reconciliatory effects.  Our redemption may be the first fruits of the Gospel's effects but it's not the only fruit.  If sin's effects are as complicated and pervasive as they are, the Gospel's effect has to be as pervasive and effective and more.  Christ told his disciples to preach the Gospel even before he died or they understood how his death would play a role in the Gospel.  The book of Hebrews teaches that the Old Testament saints had the Gospel preached to them.  If that's the case then the Gospel has to be the whole message of redemption that has been communicated throughout both Testaments, not only the work of the cross for our justification but the work of the Trinity to redeem all things so that God might be all in all (I Corinthians 15).