The Gospel: Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing (Part 2)

D. A. Carson gave the first plenary address to the Gospel Coalition conference under the rubric, “What is the Gospel?” This is a summary outline of his talk, which is available online here:

http://www.theresurgence.com/don_carson_2007-05-23_audio_what_is_the_gospel

Mistaken approaches to the Gospel. The Gospel is not:

1. A narrow set of teachings about Jesus, his death and resurrection that “tip people into the kingdom,” after which theology and other things come later.
2. The first and second great commandments (Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; Love your neighbor as yourself.) They are central, but they’re not the Gospel.
3. The ethical teaching of Jesus. But abstracted from his passion and resurrection rests on two mistakes:
   • In the first century there was not the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, etc. It was “The Gospel” according to Matthew, “The Gospel,” according to Mark. One gospel, various perspectives.
   • Studying Jesus’s teaching while making the cross peripheral reduces the gospel to mere obedience and duty. This is catastrophic.

   
   4. Assuming the gospel while concentrating on other issues:marriage, theology, whatever.Note that people are most likely to learn what the teacher is excited about. If the gospel is merely assumed while relatively peripheral issues ignite our passion, we will teach a new generation to downplay the gospel and focus on the periphery, be those matters of evangelism, justice, confronting Islam, or what have you.“It’s easy to sound prophetic from the margins, but harder to be prophetic from the center.”

The gospel by which you are saved is bound up in the fact that Christ died for our sins, was buried, raised on the third day and appeared to many people - the apostles and others.

Eight summarizing words. The Gospel is:

1. Christological.
   • Not a bland theism or general pantheism.
     
   • Only Jesus is the name by which we can be saved. Jesus alone reconciles us to God.
   • “The gospel is not preached if Christ is not preached,” but not just the person of Christ, but his atoning death and resurrection.
2. Theological.
   • God raised Christ Jesus from the dead.
   • God’s purpose was for Christ to die and rise, not mere death, but that he died for our sins,
     and rose for our justification
     
   • God’s wrath against sin. Our sin problem is personal. God pronounces the sentence of death against sin.
   • God is the one whom we have offended, who must be appeased. And what makes God most angry is idolatry, the “de-godding” of God, the putting of something else in God’s place. God is still jealous. Repentance is necessary because the coming of the king brings judgment as well as blessing.
3. Biblical. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was raised according to the Scriptures.
4. Apostolic. Listen to the sequence of pronouns Paul uses in 1Cor 15:11 “Whether it was I (an apostle) or they (the apostles) this is what we (the apostles) preach, and this is what you believed. I, we, they, you. This Gospel is apostolic (Carson credits J.R.W. Stott for this sequence of pronouns)
5. Historical.
   • 1Cor 15 specifies both Jesus’s burial (death) and resurrection. Jesus’s death and resurrection are tied together in history. Any approach that attempts to pit them against one another is silly.
   • The manner in which we access the events of Jesus’s death, burial and resurrection is the same as we have with any historical event: the remains and writings of those who were there. This is why the matter of being witnesses was so important.
   • The central Christian claims are irreducibly historical.Unlike all other religions, the historical uniqueness of Christ is non-negotiable, not just the historicity of the man Jesus, but the historical claims of his death for our sins, his burial and resurrection. God does not give a revelation to Jesus which Jesus passes on, rather Jesus is the revelation of God. The revelation cannot be separated from Christ. To attempt to do so is incoherent. This is a historical revelation, and there are historical events that cannot be separated, chiefly his death for our sins, burial and resurrection. These are truths of history.
   • The word “historical” is sometimes slippery. Some think that it means those events which have causes that are located only in natural things. Such a definition excludes the miraculous. We insist that historical means events that took place in history, whether from natural causes or through God’s supernatural intervention in power, operating in history.
6. Personal. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are not merely historical events, or merely theological precepts. They set forth a way of personal salvation. Paul says this is the gospel which you received and on
   which you take your stand. This is not an abstract. It is personal.
7. Universal. The gospel is a comprehensive vision of a new humanity drawn from every tribe and nation. It is not universal in that it includes everyone without exception; but it is universal in the sense that it is for all ethnic and other groups.
8. Eschatological. Some of the blessings Christians receive are blessings of the last day brought into our time. Among these are justification – we are justified (fait accompli) and we will be justified. We look forward
   to an eschatological fulfillment of the transformation that has already begun in us. We cannot focus only on the
   blessings those who are in Christ enjoy in this age, but there are greater fulfillments yet to come.

Five clarifying sentences

1. This gospel is normally disseminated in proclamation (preaching, heraldic ministry). The good news must be
   announced, heralded, explained.
2. This gospel is fruitfully received in authentic, persevering faith, faith that continues and brings forth results.
3. This gospel is properly disclosed in a context of personal self-humiliation. People respond to it by becoming aware of their own insufficiency and helplessness. “I am not what I want to be, nor what I ought to be, nor what I will be, but by the grace of God I am what I am.” John Newton. Humility. Gratitude. Dependence on Christ, contrition – these
   are the attitudes of the truly converted. “Proud Christian” is an unthinkable oxymoron.
4. This gospel is rightly asserted to be the confession of the whole church. Of course what the whole church, or all the churches are doing, is not necessarily right. Otherwise there would be no need for an Athanasius or a Luther. Hidebound tradition is not the gospel. But also be suspicious of churches who proudly flaunt how different they are from what has gone before.
5. This gospel is boldly advancing under the contested reign and inevitable victory of Jesus the king. All of God’s sovereignty is mediated through kind Jesus: All authority is given to me in heaven and on earth… the name that is above every name… he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. There is still resistance, but one day the final enemy, death itself, will die, and God will be all in all. Therefore, stand firm, let nothing move you, always give yourselves fully to the Lord, knowing that your work for him is not in vain.

One evocative summary: The gospel is not exclusively cognitive. It is also affective and active. The word of the cross is not only God’s wisdom which the world considers folly, but it is God’s power, which the word considers weakness. This gospel transforms us – not by attempting to abstract social principles from the gospel, not by imposing new levels of rules, still less by focus on the periphery in the vain attempt to sound prophetic, but precisely by preaching and teaching the blessed gospel of our glorious redeemer.