The Gospel: Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing

"The Gospel is the power of God for salvation" (Romans 1.16)

Someone told me today that their father was into Joel Rosenberg. Now I know of Joel Rosenberg, I have read one of his books, and some people swear by him - I will not talk about him in this blog, though I do have serious concerns about someone using Bible prophecy to inform foreign policy when it comes to passages that have historic referents having nothing to do with the 21st Century - but this guys father said "No one today is going to believe in Christ unless you can show them that Bible prophecy is real and happening today - that is what Joel does!" Really? Is this how shallow evangelicalism is today? No one will come to know Jesus unless they can see present-day Bible prophecy happening in the Middle East! 

To this I say there needs to be repentance. There is one way and one way only that people get changed, become born-anew, and are saved and it is not through showing them that biblical prophecy is "happening" (whatever that means!) today. It is instead quite plainly, through the gospel. It is the gospel, and it alone is the power of God - the means God uses to bring people to salvation.

That of course leaves us with a question. What exactly is the gospel? Paul gives a good summary of it in 1 Corinthians 15.1-4:

The gospel [is that] which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you...I delivered to you as of first importance...that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures."

The gospel therefore is the good news of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that provides full and free deliverance from the power and penalty of sin according to the grace of God alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

Its important to point something out in this regard. Older evangelicals are really good at the message of sin, Hell, repentance, God's wrath etc., but do not focus too much on Jesus message of the Kingdom. Newer evangelicals, in reaction, are really good at the Kingdom stuff and not very hip to the preaching sin, depravity, repentance, Hell and God's wrath. We must be a people that keeps all of this in view without neglecting either God's program of the establishing of God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, or the fact of human depravity and Hell. 

It must also be said as Tim Keller has pointed out that there is both a "means" of salvation and a "trajectory" of salvation which helps to keep the balance here. The means is clearly God's work in Jesus Christ. The trajectory is the renewal of God's creation (Rom.8.18ff.) One of these elements was at the heart of the older gospel messages, namely, salvation is by grace not works. It was the last element that was usually missing, namely that grace restores nature. 

Simon Gathercole distills a three-point outline that both Paul and the Gospel writers held in common. He writes that Paul's good news was, first, that Jesus was the promised Messianic King and Son of God come to earth as a servant, in human form. (Rom. 1:3-4; Phil. 2:4ff.)

Second, by his death and resurrection, Jesus atoned for our sin and secured our justification by grace, not by our works (1 Cor. 15:3ff.) Third, on the cross Jesus broke the dominion of sin and evil over us (Col. 2:13-15) and at his return he will complete what he began by the renewal of the entire material creation and the resurrection of our bodies (Rom 8:18ff.)

Gathercole then traces these same three aspects in the Synoptics' teaching that Jesus, the Messiah, is the divine Son of God (Mark 1:1) who died as a substitutionary ransom for the many (Mark 10:45), who has conquered the demonic present age with its sin and evil (Mark 1:14-2:10) and will return to regenerate the material world (Matt. 19:28.)

Keller says, "If I had to put this outline in a single statement, I might do it like this: Through the person and work of Jesus Christ, God fully accomplishes salvation for us, rescuing us from judgment for sin into fellowship with him, and then restores the creation in which we can enjoy our new life together with him forever."

This is about gospel-forms. Often we think the gospel need only to be preached to the unreligious, secular, "lost" people - but this is simply not true. The gospel needs to be preached to religious people - Often that is who Jesus was actually preaching to. We need to as well. People need to repent of religion of trying to work their way to God, as well as non-religion - because they both end up placing functional saviors above Jesus - they are both idolatry - just expressed differently. 

It is like the older and younger brothers in the Prodigal Sons story: one is very religious, one is not at all - the story is told to critique both in their comfort and make both realize they are in need of the gospel - the rebellious "prodigal" son and the son who stayed home who gets angry that his father has so much grace - he had all the theological answers, he had all of religion figured out.

We need to preach to both at the same time - make it clear that people have a sin problem for sure - but that problem is expressed in ways they may not understand - by way of idolatry - Again Keller is helpful here: "Kierkagaard defines sin as building your identity-your self-worth and happiness-on anything other than God. That is, I use the biblical definition of sin as idolatry. That puts the emphasis not as much on "doing bad things" but on "making good things into ultimate things."

"Instead of people they are sinning because they are doing this wrong or that wrong - I tell them that they are sinning because they are looking to their romances to give their lives meaning, to justify and save them, to give them what they should be looking for from God. This idolatry leads to anxiety, obsessiveness, envy, and resentment. I have found that when you describe their lives in terms of idolatry, postmodern people do not give much resistance. Then Christ and his salvation can be presented not (at this point) so much as their only hope for forgiveness, but as their only hope for freedom. This is my "gospel for the uncircumcised" - the rebellious brother.

We must make sure the gospel has changed us first. That we do not use Jesus but have been changed by him at the core of our being. The gospel, Paul says is "concerning God's son" (Rom 1.3) - the gospel is Jesus. Do you know him? Have you been changed by him? If so, tell others - its really that simple. 

In a Christian world trying to make all the latest stuff the "main thing" let's keep the gospel the main thing.