The Gospel is about what God has done, not what we do

In the April 2009 edition of the journal Themelios, D.A. Carson ponders the meaning of the word ‘Gospel’.

We must distinguish between what God has done, Carson argues, and what we must do as a response to that.  But only the first of these can properly called ‘the gospel’.

If the gospel is the (good) news about what God has done in Christ Jesus, there is ample place for including under “the gospel” the ways in which the kingdom has dawned and is coming, for tying this kingdom to Jesus’ death and resurrection, for demonstrating that the purpose of what God has done is to reconcile sinners to himself and finally to bring under one head a renovated and transformed new heaven and new earth, for talking about God’s gift of the Holy Spirit, consequent upon Christ’s resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Majesty on high, and above all for focusing attention on what Paul (and others—though the language I’m using here reflects Paul) sees as the matter “of first importance”: Christ crucified. All of this is what God has done; it is what we proclaim; it is the news, the great news, the good news.

By contrast, the great commands to love God with all our being and to love our neighbour as ourselves, do not constitute the gospel.  Nor is the gospel believing in Christ, or joining a church, or practicing discpleship.  Nor, again is it the exercise of social justice.  We may well regard all of these things as necessary consequences of the gospel, but they are not the gospel itself.  The gospel is what God has done for us in Christ, and in particular his cross and resurrection.

No Doctrine, Please, We’re Greenbelt

The Greenbelt Festival, to be held on 28th-31st August, has raised eyebrows because of its invitation to Bishop Gene Robinson to speak.

According to its mission statement, ‘Greenbelt is an independent Christian charity working to express love, creativity and justice in the arts and contemporary culture in the light of the Christian gospel.’

As a distant observer, I am scarcely qualified to comment on Greenbelt’s faithfulness to ‘the Christian gospel’.  After all, we are reminded: ‘you’ll never really ‘get it’ until you come along.’ Nevertheless, I have to say that I looked in vain on Greenbelt’s website for any apprehension of what the Christian gospel even is, let alone how it might be faithfully proclaimed and applied.

I did find the following self-advertisement. The actual words are no longer on Greenbelt’s website, but I don’t see any evidence that the attitude they represent has changed.

‘Quest, not formula; journey, not destination; dance, not doctrine.’

We come from ordinary Christian communities and from none, from being joined to worshipping families where the presence of God is regularly obscured, from places where artistic appreciation is confined to hymnody and flower arranging. We have a hunch there is more to it than this, that where two or three are gathered we can become more than the sum of our parts, maybe even a sign of another kingdom. For many of us, Greenbelt has been a kind of epiphany – an earthy sacrament, a rocking religion, an unruly faith in an untamed God, Spirit of wonder and compassion, celebrated with noise and passion, argument and laughter.

In a materialistic, anti-institutional era, where the church is marginalised and mocked, and religious icons of substance and charisma are hard to find, at its best Greenbelt remains singular in its faith-affirming, politically engaged, life-transforming experience. With many understandings of Christian community dying, one way people anticipate a new way of being church is through alternative meeting places and movements like Greenbelt. As the Canadian singer Bruce Cockburn put it, “The festival and the people involved in it are the closest thing I’ve got to a church. There is a sense of community built around a worshipful intent and a shared understanding of the need to question in the context of faith.”

There is something rather sad about this glorying in uncertainty, this cheerful anti-intellectualism, this rejection of all things doctrinal.  It may well be that some of us have much to learn about alternative cultural expressions of the Christian faith.  But, surely, the gospel we have been entrusted with consists of more than, and other than, ’quest, journey, and dance.’

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In conclusion, a few thoughts about the communication of the Gospel.

1.  The key to persuasive communication of the Gospel lies more in character than in technique.  Paul was not eloquent by the standards of the day, 2 Cor 10:10, but he knew his own mind and understood others as well.  Although he relied on the Holy Spirit, he did not despise the ordinary means of persuasion.  He made every effort to avoid cultural barriers to communication, 1 Cor 9:19-22.  He gave of himself unstintingly, and allowed himself to be stripped of cultural pretension, Phil 3.

2.  We should follow the God-given procedural guidelines for communicating the Gospel.  We follow the lines of the biblical story, we keep close to the text of Scripture, and above all we focus on the person of Christ.  We do not shrink from declaring the whole counsel of God, but we distinguish between milk and meat, between foundation and superstructure.  We show how the Gospel shapes our relationships at home and in the family and elsewhere.  We show respect for other cultures as well as our own, however pagan they may be.

3.  Christian communication is not easy.  There is not necessarily anything wrong with what we are doing if we meet anger and opposition: for this was often the experience of our Lord too.  The parable of the sower shows this, as does the raction of Chorazin and Bethsaida, Mt 11:1-6.

Based on J.I. Packer, ‘The Gospel – Its Content and Communication’, in Selected Shorter Writings 2, 230-232.

The Most Important Thing in the World – a Sermon

Text: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11  [See here for the Bible Study Notes on this passage]

One of life’s minor frustrations is over-hearing other people’s phone conversations and trying to work out what is going on:

Hi Paul, how are you?

Oh no, when did that happen?

Oh you poor thing. So where is it now?

About 1, you say. Ok, I’ll leave it under the rabbit hutch.

 

Reading Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians is a bit like listening to one side of a phone conversation. The apostle spends much of his time dealing with problems and answering questions that have been raised by the people at the other end of the line – the Christians in Corinth. Fortunately, when we come to the 15th chapter we are given a pretty clear idea of the problem that Paul was addressing.

V12 – ‘How can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?’

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Each of the six stories is authentic gospel, although the full message only appears when they are put together.

But the stories are not merely ‘models’ of human devising, but are God-given anthropomorphisms intended to be normative for our understanding.  Of course, they do not give us exhaustive truth, but are true and trustworthy so far as they go.  Nor can we cut them loose from their original cultural contexts and transpose them to our won without at least explaining that such transposition merely illustrates the original meaning and does not, strictly speaking, translate it at all.

So, what is the content of the gospel for today in any of the cultural settings which we find around the world?

1.  The Gospel tells of God who is our maker and to whom we are accountable.

2.  The Gospel tells of sin, understood as failure to meet our maker’s claims on us, and as rebellion against his authority, transgression of his law, missing the mark he has given us to aim at, and as guilty an dunclean before him.

3.  The Gospel tells of Christ, his life, death, resurrection and reign.    People need to know who he is, and what he has achieved in bearing away our sin.

4.  The Gospel tells of faith, repentance and discipleship.  Believing the Gospel message, we cast ourselves on Christ. as our only hope.  In repentance we experience a change of heart and mind, and determine to lead a new life of service to our Saviour and king.  As disciples, we becomes both learners and followers of Christ.

5.  The Gospel tells of newness.  The Holy Spirit both assures and enables.  He impels fellowship and ministry in the church and service and outreach in the world.  And there is a new hope: for Christ’s reign, now invisible, will one day become public and visible, and he will usher in new heavens and a new earth.

Based on J.I. Packer, ‘The Gospel – Its Content and Communication’, in Selected Shorter Writings 2, 229-230.

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Story #6 – Humanity’s joy begun.  Without Christ we are in a pitiable state – guilty, lost, and without hope.  But Jesus Christ gives peace, meaningfulness, purpose, and an assurance of final glory in the Saviour’s presence.  In this story, God’s purposes good for us, and the Gospel call is a summons to enter into the joy that Christ gives.

Based on J.I. Packer, ‘The Gospel – Its Content and Communication’, in Selected Shorter Writings 2, 227.

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Story #5 – God’s image restored.  Turning now from stories about God and about Christ that expound the content of the gospel, there are two that are about man.  Humans have been made to display God’s image by reflecting God’s goodness and creativity.  We have all fallen short of this vocation, but God is now restoring it in his disciples.  See Col 3:10.  In this story, God’s goal is to see his character reflected in us, and the Gospel call is to let ourselves be renewed so that we become fully human.

Based on J.I. Packer, ‘The Gospel – Its Content and Communication’, in Selected Shorter Writings 2, 226-227.

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Story #4 – The glory of Christ.  The Father has loved the Son from all eternity, and delights for him to be glorified, Jn 5:20-22.  The Son loves the Father and delights to do his will.  As the Father has made the Son pre-eminent in creation and providence, so now he makes him pre-eminent in the economy of redemption.  He has not only reward the Son’s self-humbling by restoring to him his original glory, but has made him head of the church and Lord of all.  In this story, God’s goal is the praise and glory of Jesus Christ, and the Gospel call is a summons to join those who will spend all eternity honouring his name.

Based on J.I. Packer, ‘The Gospel – Its Content and Communication’, in Selected Shorter Writings 2, 226.

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We turn now, in outlining the content of the gospel, from two stories about God to two stories about Jesus Christ.

Story #3 – The grace of Christ.  The grace of God in Christ more than matches our great need; his love far outweighs our unloveliness.  Jesus is set forth as prophet (teacher and guide), priest (mediator and intercessor) and king (master and protector).  The focal point of his saving work is the cross, which demonstrates his love and accomplishes our redemption, propitiates God’s wrath, provides a substitutionary sin-bearing, effects our justification and adoption, and transforms us by the new birth and the progressive sanctification of the Holy Spirit.  The gospel calls us to all this (and more) by an invitation to faith.

Based on J.I. Packer, ‘The Gospel – Its Content and Communication’, in Selected Shorter Writings 2, 225-226.

We Must Preach Jesus

Jared Wilson has a post in which he outlines the ways in which Christians generally, and preachers in particular, can leave Jesus out of our message.  To summarise:-

1.  We speak in vague spiritual generalities.  We talk about love, joy, hope, peace, blessings, but divorced from Christ himself as the incarnate, crucified and risen Saviour and Lord.  Our message is pleasant and up-beat; inspirational, even.  But, separated from Christ, who is himself our joy, our hope, our peace and so on, it’s rubbish.

2.  We speak of Christ only as a moral exemplar.  We tell people to be good because Jesus was good.  We deal with imperatives (‘be like Jesus’), but neglect the indicatives (‘Christ died for sins’).

3.  We avoid the real problem – sin.  And because of this we avoid the real solution – the cross.  So, in many churches, sin and the cross are scarcely mentioned.  Or, if the cross is mentioned, it is only as a demonstration of the love of God and not at all as a sacrifice for sin.

Friends, let us resolve to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:2).

 

 

 

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Story #2 – God’s people: the church.  In this fallen world people are alienated from God and from one another.  God has acted to created a new people who will live for him and for one another in covenant love and loyalty.  God established a covenant with Abraham and his descendants.  He gave the law, which showed what behaviour pleased him, and a cultus, with sacrifice at its heart, whereby sin might be dealt with.  A pattern of judgement and renewal was set up.  When Christ came to set up a new form of the covenant by his self-sacrifice, Israel spurned him, and he became in himself the faithful remnant.  In him Israel was reconstituted as comprising believing Jews and Gentiles alike, and the church will thus remain one city, one family, one flock for ever.

The pattern of judgement and renewal is fulfilled in Christ’s death and resurrection, which themselves give shape to the Christian life, as baptism shows.

Outwardly, God’s covenant people are humiliated, dispersed, opposed and distressed.  But inwardly their life is one of union and communion with the risen Christ, as the Lord’s Supper proclaims.  The Church is one body, each member serving the whole, animated by the Holy Spirit.

In this story, the goal is for God to have a people who are bound to him in love, and whose unity-in-diversity demonstrates to a watching world God’s many-stranded wisdom (Eph 3:10).  The Gospel call is to accept a share in this life and a place in God’s family by bowing to the One who loved the church and gave himself for it.

Based on J.I. Packer, ‘The Gospel – Its Content and Communication’, in Selected Shorter Writings 2, 2224-225.

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What, then, of the content of the Gospel?

The underlying word, euaggelion, good news, is used 60 times in Paul’s writings.  It refers to God’s work in Christ for the salvation of the world.  Specifically, it incorporates the message of Christ’s incarnation, death, resurrection, reign and return.  Six overlapping stories are involved:-

Story #1.  God’s purpose: the kingdom.  All of humankind is subjected to sin and death, and all of creation to futility and corruption.  But God’s eternal plan has been to restore this situation through the God-man Jesus Christ.  God will exert his kingship by bringing in his kingdom.  In his kingdom, trusting and obeying Christ, his vice-regent, is God’s appointed way of returning us from sin to God’s service.  God’s kingship over Israel was a preparation for this kingdom.  When at the appointed time Christ came, God’s prepared people rejected him, but this very rejection meant world-wide redemption.  In this story, the goal is a restored and perfected cosmos, and the Gospel call is to abandon rebellion, acknowledge Christ as Lord, accept forgiveness, enlist on the victory side, be faithful and life in hope of God’s final triumph.

Based on J.I. Packer, ‘The Gospel – Its Content and Communication’, in Selected Shorter Writings 2, 223-224.