When the church fails to fulfill its ministry, it is like a bride refusing to return the love of a bridegroom. It’s a painful thing for the groom.
In 1520 Hernan Cortez visited emperor Moctezuma and preached his version of the Christian gospel to him. This gospel of Cortez to the Aztecs is summarized as follows:
“You are following and worshipping demons, but the one true God who created all things wants you to worship Him. I represent Him and you need to submit to me now and allow us to control your society and land. And if you don’t cooperate we will conquer you by force.”
Cortez’s gospel was very blunt and very demanding, his mission to ancient Mexico seemed to have serve about three main purposes for himself and for Spain.
1) To get access to Mexico’s wealth and abundance.
2) To expand the Spanish empire.
3) To provide a certain Christian gospel to the entire nation and region. Giving them a chance to be part of the Spanish Catholic kingdom.
But, what really matters is God’s motive in allowing Cortez to conquer Mexico in such dramatic manner. I think that is the most important question in studying this and most episodes of history.
After studing many accounts of this time, I think given the reports of widespread human ritual sacrifice, that the Lord determined to put a stop to the Aztec religion and government. The ungodly and self-serving motives of Spanish empire, the greed for gold, and the religious ambition of Cortez I believe were side-issues to the Lord. A means to an end. We should not interpret Cortez’s actions as approved by the Lord because he won. Neither should we interpret the evil of Cortez as an indication that the Lord was not behind the downfall of the Aztecs religion and government.
Cortez, being as militarily skilled as he and his men were, was probably one of the only persons alive at that time even able to get to the capital of the Mexican kingdom before getting killed (and perhaps eaten.)
The truth and the Lord’s reason for allowing this, is likely somewhere in the middle.
It’s sort of like the angel of the Lord responding to Joshua as he approached Canaan and asked are you with us or our enemies? The Lord responded “neither, but I am the captain of the Lord’s armies.” So, Joshua quickly got on his side, Joshua connected with the Lord’s purpose and his purpose and motives were secondary.
And I believe that Cortez was on the Lord’s side in Mexico. Not everything he did was on the Lord’s side or was the Lord even ok with. But he was a tool, just for that time and place to remove a great deal of evil, a great deal of satanic stronghold in that land and among those people.
Historians of Cortez are careful to note and emphasize his motives of greed and imperial conquest. And they should not be minimized or overlooked for sure.
However, Aztec religion believed that ritual human sacrifice was an important requirement for the continuation of the universe. They believed health, rain, crops and water were the result of the killing of children, babies and other innocent people they had conquered.
Montezuma the king of the Aztec nation even believed Cortez’s rebuke of their human sacrifice and his calling their gods ‘demons’ required even more sacrifices to appease the anger of his gods. For a glimpse of what society was like, the Mel Gibson movie, Apocalypto depicts what a society of ritual religious was human sacrifice like.
All that being said imagine if the gospel of one of the apostles, say the apostle Paul were to have invaded Mexico rather than, the gospel of Cortez. What would have been the effect? How would have Mexico fared differently? Would God have used other means entirely to break the violent Aztec religion and kingdoms?
Thinking even broader, how does the Christian gospel that comes to a non-Christian people affect a society long term?
In my article series the gospel to the Mongols I imagine what effect the gospel of the kingdom of Jesus Christ would have on the Mongols had they first heard it rather than the gospel of the Roman Catholic Pope of the 13th century. Because it was a different gospel in many significant ways.
It is too much to write here but in my coming book The Gospel of the State, I imagine what it would’ve been like if the gospel of the kingdom had come to Mexico instead of the gospel of the Spanish Catholicism of Cortez.
It’s a powerful and exciting exercise of what could have been. Would someone like Paul been immediately killed by the Aztecs? Did God have anyone at that time who would have been able to communicate to the Aztecs and represent Him? Who would not have been immediately killed and sacrificed to their gods? Was that society so violent and controlled by demonic powers that it needed a military person like Cortez to even go to these people? It is interesting to think about and it seems to me that God had decided to put a stop to the wickedness of this religion and governement so that the great peopel of Mexico can be free and have the freedom to not be sacrificed.
“The very word or term “Gospel” has come to imply something less than “the whole counsel of God”, and to be applied almost exclusively to the beginnings of the Christian life.”
T. Austin Sparks (1954)
…for teachers and preachers today to share the gospel and salvation, and to make it exclusively about the beginnings of Christianity and heaven, is to neglect much of it. It produces a church obsessed with only the beginnings of Christianity and they struggle to mature and go beyond those beginnings. It also leaves the Christian in the dark about things such as, why God created, Jesus’ role in the present and future universe, the
We should understand ‘gospel’ to mean “the whole counsel of God” and if we have that gospel it should take months to preach and teach it all. Not 3 minutes conclusions at the end of random, entertaining topical sermons. There should be some accountability for those who claim to be ‘preaching the gospel.’
To Paul ‘salvation’ meant all the work that God has done to get us into his kingdom, and that includes all the work he intends for the church to do in the earth, here and now. Not only the future experience of heaven and resurrection.
Hebrews 2:1 Therefore we must pay closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2 For if the message spoken through angels proved to be so firm that every violation or disobedience received its just penalty, 3 how will we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was first communicated through the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard him,
Whichever apostle wrote the book of Hebrews, perhaps Barnabas or Paul or maybe Silas. He warns here in Hebrews 2 to watch out for a drifting away from the gospel and neglecting it. So this is something they were already experiencing and concerned about in the first century. We have no right to dumb down the gospel, and to condense it so it will fit into our 45 minute sermon conclusion, is to strip it of much detail. Condensing it and stripping it also robs those who hear it of much insight into Jesus Christ, into our current dispensation. And understanding of the purpose of creation, Christianity itself, and the ministry/ calling of the church. The gospel preached produces the church. A partial or a dumbed down gospel, changes the church that embraces it. It hinders it, it turns it into something the Lord never intended it to be. A mere idle audience of hearers, being told elementary things repeatedly, who are often used as tithers in support of a salary or a building fund.
For more on this read T. Austin Sparks book The Gospel According to Paul
More content on the gospel from this blog. AdamCollier.com
