5. The Gospel As Of First Importance

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared.

1 Corinthians 15:3–5

Historically, the church has understood that the Gospel of Jesus Christ must be the centerpiece of its is typically rendered as “proclamation,” “declaration,” or “preaching.” The word appears eight times in the New Testament in this noun form. The church has long understood that the substance of our proclamation is Christ himself. Paul says precisely this in Colossians 1:28: “We proclaim him.” In particular, the concerns certain realities about Christ, namely, the “proclamation of the death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus that led to evaluation of his person as both Lord and Christ, confronted man with the necessity of repentance and promised the forgiveness of sins.”¹

It is evident that the apostle Paul saw this Gospel as the sum and substance of his proclamation. He declared to the Corinthians that he had “passed on to them, as of first importance, what he had also received” (1 Cor. 15:3). He then outlined the Gospel in simple terms: “Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures . . . he was buried and on the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures, and he appeared” (1 Cor. 15:4–6). This, he declares, is the Gospel that he preached to them, which they had received and upon which they had taken their stand (1 Cor. 15:1). Paul’s language here is thoroughly catechetical—he has passed on what he himself had received. We can justly say that Paul’s catechetical content began with the Gospel. Indeed, during his eighteen months of ministry in Corinth Paul had resolved to know nothing among them “except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). In view of such a verse we might conclude that Paul’s catechesis not only began with the Gospel; it continued with the Gospel and indeed ended with the Gospel, and set everything within the Gospel as its frame.

Paul described himself as one who had been “set apart for the Gospel” (Rom. 1:1). In the Gospel he served God with all his might (Rom. 1:9). Of the Gospel he had been “appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher” (2 Tim. 1:11). “Testifying to the Gospel of God’s grace” was the task that he raced to complete (Acts 20:24; emphasis added). From verses such as these, it becomes clear that Paul saw the Gospel as more than a onetime-only for unbelievers. Evangelicals have long acted as though the Gospel was the right “medicine” for unbelievers, but that believers need to move beyond the Gospel and go on to other things, a movement from the “milk” to the “meat.” But this seems untrue—thoroughly out of step with the biblical witness. We believe, rather, that it is imperative to think of moving on from the “milk” of the Gospel to the “meat” of the Gospel. For in fact the Gospel is more profound and multifaceted than our finite minds can ever grasp. We never move on from the Gospel; we move on in the Gospel.

Thus we argue that the Gospel, which is the of the church, is also the heart of its as well. is the Greek word rendered “teaching” in such New Testament passages as Acts 2:42. We noted earlier this key passage in which we read of the three thousand newly baptized believers who steadfastly devoted themselves to four things: “the teaching of the apostles, the fellowship, the breaking of the bread and the prayers” (emphasis added). While is a rather general word for teaching derived from the most common of New Testament verbs for teaching— —it, like kerygma, has often been seen as also having a technical usage. Some have suggested that these two terms taken together—the and of the church—cover the comprehensive content of the church’s preaching and teaching ministries, respectively.²

We submit, however, that “the glorious Gospel of the blessed God” (1 Tim. 1:11) is the essence of both the New Testament and its . Paul’s personal interaction with the Gospel demonstrates this. Because the Gospel is the church’s , Paul was “appointed a herald.” Because it is also our , Paul was appointed a teacher of the Gospel as well. He was also, he says in the same verse, appointed an apostle of the Gospel (2 Tim. 1:11). As an apostle Paul took the Gospel to places it had not been before (Rom. 15:20), setting forth this Gospel of Christ as the only sure foundation of faith (1 Cor. 3:10–11) and defending it against any and all perversions, as he does so vigorously, for example, in Galatians 1:6–9. Thus the glorious Gospel of the blessed God we are entrusted with must be proclaimed and taught among us who believe as well as to the waiting world. It is at the center of both our catechetical and our evangelistic work.

Biblical Summaries of the Gospel

The glorious Gospel is immeasurable in its depths and implications, yet it can be quite simply summarized. Here are just a few of the many examples of biblical summaries of the Gospel:³

• “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isa. 53:5).⁴

• “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

• “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

• “All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43).

• “Through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the Law of Moses” (Acts 13:38–39).

• “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” (Rom. 4:25).

• “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

• “Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures . . . he was bur-ied. . . . The third day he rose again from the dead, according to the Scriptures . . . and he appeared” (1 Cor. 15:3–6). Paul writes that this is the Gospel “I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this Gospel you are saved” (1 Cor. 15:1–2). In outlining it here, Paul asserts that “what I received I passed on to you as of first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3).

• “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting men’s trespasses against them” (2 Cor. 5:19).

• “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21).

• “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my Gospel” (2 Tim. 2:8).

• “[He] gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good”

(Titus 2:14).

• “Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him” (Heb. 9:28).

• “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).

• “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (1 Peter 3:18).

• “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

The above represent just a sampling of the many clear and concise biblical summaries of the Good News. The reader will undoubtedly find numerous other passages springing to mind. In light of such summaries, the essence of the Gospel seems clear: God, in love—love that is as deep as his holiness and as strong as his wrath—has intervened on behalf of fallen humanity to reconcile sinners to himself through his Son Jesus Christ. As we saw earlier, the heart of the Gospel truth presented to us throughout the New Testament can be summarized in three words: God saves sinners.

At the heart of God’s reconciling work—as the references above make clear—“is the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross and his glorious resurrection from the dead. The Gospel is the good news about the God who has acted in history to save us. It answers the very bad news about the fallen state of humanity, our alienation from God and from one another,” and the declared wrath of God that we must one day face.⁵ Any vision of the Gospel that does not feature at its very center Christ’s atoning death for us is simply not faithful to the witness of Scripture. There are many aspects of this glorious atonement, to be sure. But the other aspects of the atonement disappear if at its heart it is not a substitutionary atonement:

For Paul, this substitution, Christ bearing our penalty in our place, is the essence of the atonement. Certainly, he celebrates the cross as a victory over the forces of evil on our behalf (Col. 2:15) and as a motivating revelation of the love of God toward us (2 Cor. 5:14–15), but if it had not been an event of penal substitution, it would not for him have been either of these.⁶

And there is more to be said (though never less!). Inseparably linked with the once-for-all event of the atonement, made by Christ on Calvary’s cross in approximately AD 30, are the further events of Christ’s rising, ascending, and enthroning as the world’s present Lord and coming Judge, and his ongoing life—for emphasis, we might say “livingness”—this and every day as the spiritually present Savior, Master, and Friend of all his followers. He is Prophet (teacher), Priest (mediator), and King (master) to all who are his. He is their way, their truth, and their life, all embodied for them in this unique Person, whom now they know in the unique relationship called faith.

Faith, in this particular sense, is a usage learned from Jesus’s own use of the word in the days of his flesh as he acknowledged the hopeful trust that specific individuals put in him (Luke 7:9, 50). What constitutes faith today? Faith is a frank facing of the above facts concerning Christ that leads to actively adoring, approaching, and accepting him as one’s living, present Savior and Lord. By our faith—let us be clear—we not only receive from him pardon for the past; we also enroll ourselves as his disciples, commit ourselves to follow his leading wherever it takes us, and enter upon a new life of permanent union and communion with him and with his Father, who now through him becomes our Father too. (With Christ it is sonship by nature; with us it is a matter of adoption: see Gal. 4:4–7.) In this new life we learn to say in truth with Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). Such is the difference that faith makes.

Coming to faith is the most momentous thing that ever happens to us; for faith, as exercised in this habitual action of believing in and into Jesus Christ (these are the principal New Testament prepositions used to denote the ongoing transaction) has now brought us as close to Christ relationally as were his first-century followers. It has introduced us into a life of radical change as the indwelling Holy Spirit, through whom we first found faith, now works within us to re-form our character in the moral image of our Savior, in liberty from the sins that once enslaved us, in loyalty to God and his truth, and in love to him and to our fellow humans. And it has established in our hearts a peace and a joy that spring from knowing that whatever happens our new relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is eternal. Such is the transformation of existence to which faithful imparting of the Gospel in its fullness will lead.

The Essence and Implications of the Gospel

Sadly, even tragically, evangelicals have sometimes been guilty of preaching and teaching a Gospel that is not, shall we say, “fully dressed.”⁷ They may have focused properly on the central features of God’s atoning work at the cross, faithfully preached Christ crucified for sinners, celebrated the resurrection as proof that Christ’s self-offering for our sins has been accepted, and urged hearers to be reconciled to God. In other words, they have been right about the essence of the Gospel; the key facts have been there in what they have said. But at the same time they have missed some of the critical implications and applications of the Gospel for daily living. They have neglected, perhaps, to explore how the same cross that reconciles us to God reconciles us also to one another in Christ (Eph. 2:11–22). Perhaps they have not duly emphasized that if God has loved us to the point of giving his only Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins then surely we ought to without limit love one another (1 John 4:10–11). Perhaps they have failed to point out that as God has loved us even while we were his enemies (Rom. 5:8), then we must act with justice and mercy toward all our neighbors and love even our enemies (Matt. 5:43–48). Perhaps they have not exhorted their congregants to work out their salvation in an obedient fear of the saving God who is at work within them (Phil. 2:12–13). Perhaps they have not urged that regular communion with the Father and the Son, good works, and kingdom service are meant to be the outcome of the new birth.

When we fail to conduct ourselves “in step with the truth of the Gospel” (Gal. 2:14), we are in serious error. We are to live in such a way as to make the teaching about God our Savior attractive to our neighbors (Titus 2:10) and to win their respect by responsible and godly living (1 Thess. 4:11–12). Thus our preaching and teaching of the Gospel—that is, our ministries of catechesis—must include teaching the godly manner of living that accords with the sound doctrines of the Gospel (Titus 2:1).

But many Gospel preachers, sad to say, have not seen any of the above as related to authentic Gospel work. Indeed, they often express concern that such preaching and teaching will likely distract us from our real business of “getting people saved.” But their understanding of salvation—if they adopt this line of thinking—is too small and their vision of the Gospel is likewise diminished. The Gospel is to be adorned by both sound doctrine and godly living. To set the Gospel before parishioners and public without these is to preach an unclothed Gospel.

Our salvation does not end at new birth. We are taught by Scripture to say not only that we have been saved (Eph. 2:8) but also that we shall be saved (Rom. 5:9–10; 13:11; 1 Peter 1:5) and even now are being saved (Phil. 2:12–13; 1 Peter 1:9). What is the power that saves us? It is the power of the Spirit at work in and through the Gospel (Rom. 1:16) to change lives. We need both a fully orbed doctrine of salvation and a “fully clothed” presentation of the Gospel. But we have often fallen short on both counts.

Reacting against this unhealthy and disjointed view of things, certain leaders in so-called “emerging churches” have been among those championing a full-fledged return to social concern. Toward this end, some of the movement’s leaders have been inclined toward novel emphases, among them:

• distinguishing between the “Gospel of the kingdom” and the “Gospel of salvation”;

• downplaying Paul in favor of a return to the way of Jesus;

• turning away from overt evangelism toward a wordless “good newsing” —focusing on being good news rather than merely proclaiming good news.⁸

While such reactions may be understandable, they come with serious risks. If earlier evangelicals were guilty of neglecting critical implications and applications of the Gospel, these newer evangelicals (or “postevangelicals,” as some have chosen to call themselves) may well be in danger of substituting the implications and applications of the Gospel for the Gospel itself.

Perhaps what has happened in regard to the thinking of these church leaders is something like this: first, the essence of the Gospel (EG) was accurately but inadequately proclaimed and practiced in evangelical churches. The inadequacy lay primarily in the fact that the implications of the Gospel (IG) were being overlooked, ignored, or even dismissed as being a diversion from the Gospel. Postevangelicals, recognizing these glaring inadequacies and rereading the biblical accounts of Jesus, concluded that EG cannot really in fact be the Gospel. Instead, they turned to IG, declaring this to be the authentic Gospel. As one emerging leader puts it, “The good news is not that [Jesus] died, but that the kingdom has come.”⁹ Such a statement, of course, puts him directly at odds with Paul’s statements in 1 Corinthians 15:1–5.

As a consequence of such thinking the atoning death of Christ on the cross is being pushed, bit by bit, to the margins of the message and ministry of many churches today. This is an example of what J.I. (writing in company with Mark Dever) has called “anti-redemptionism.” This current form of “unorthodoxy” involves “sidelining, and in some cases actually denying, the work of Jesus Christ as our redeemer, who did all that had to be done to save us from hell, in favor of Jesus the teacher, model, and pioneer of godliness.”¹⁰ The phenomenon is not news. In his commentary on Psalm 85, Charles Spurgeon quotes the well-known remark of “Rabbi” John Duncan to describe the fuzzy vision of the atonement that is put forth whenever Christ’s death for us on the cross gets sidelined: “Their doctrine of atonement has well been described by Dr. Duncan as the admission ‘that the Lord Jesus Christ did something or other, which somehow or other, was in some way or other connected with man’s salvation.’ This is their substitute for substitution.”¹¹

We have, as we said, been down this road before. Many will recognize here a trend similar to the divergence between “fundamentalists” and “modernists” in the early twentieth century. Perhaps it is not unlikely that the so-called “postevangelicals” are destined to be the next group of theological liberals. As J.I. has warned elsewhere, “Liberalism keeps reinventing itself and luring evangelicals away from their heritage.”¹² In reaction to this diminishing of the essence of the Gospel, theological conservatives may well find themselves decrying the replacement of the “true Gospel” with a more culturally savvy and professedly compassionate “social Gospel.” In other words, yet another modernist versus fundamentalist split may loom on the horizon for the church.¹³ Indeed, the taking of sides seems already to be well under way.¹⁴

The Gospel and “the New Perspectives” on Paul

Much of what we have said above could also be applied to another potential threat to the integrity of the Gospel in our day. Often referred to as “the new perspective” (more recently, “perspectives”) on Paul, there is here another sort of reactionary movement at work. This movement, in important respects, is quite dissimilar from that of the emerging churches. For example, the emerging church movement is in many respects a sort of “bottom-up” movement. It has been driven at the congregational level and has now begun to influence the curricular shape of seminaries. The new perspectives movement (which we will henceforth refer to by the initials NP) on the other hand has been driven primarily by scholars and is something of a “trickle-down” movement— its influence beginning at seminaries and universities and now reaching into congregations.¹⁵

The developed use of perspectives (plural) rather than perspective (singular) in labeling the movement reflects the fact that, while the movement has a single fountainhead (E. P. Sanders’s very influential explorations of postexilic Judaism, published in the fourth quarter of the twentieth century), scholars have fanned out into a broad spectrum of personal variants on the common theme.

Advocates will certainly claim that it is faithful scholarship that has driven them to read Paul in new ways. In short, these biblical scholars have become persuaded that evangelical Protestants have long misread Paul—especially his letters to the Galatians and to the Romans—because we have been overly influenced by the Reformers’ reading of those texts (Luther in particular is targeted here).It is argued that the Reformers misread those Pauline letters partly because they read into Paul’s text their own preoccupation with finding peace for troubled consciences and partly because they did not properly understand the Judaism that provided the backdrop for Paul’s letters. Concomitant with this, the Reformers imposed their own cultural settings upon the text (something we all tend to do), especially in relation to their struggles with the teachings of the Roman Catholic church. As they battled against what they saw as legalistic perversions of the Gospel in Catholic teaching they imposed a similar view on the Judaism of Paul’s day. What we have now come to understand (according to NP proponents), however, is that the Judaism of Paul’s day was not really legalistic but truly grace-based. Thus Paul could not have been fighting against the sort of legalism that Luther, Calvin, and others had supposed. The Reformers, battling the medieval notion of meritorious works, simply misread Paul at many key points, and we need to adopt a new perspective on “what St. Paul really said.”¹⁶

At stake here are many critical issues concerning the essence of the Gospel. Evangelicals from the Reformation forward have articulated the heart of the Gospel, in part, by use of the sola declarations: sola scriptura, solus Christus, sola gratia, sola fide, soli Deo gloria.¹⁷ But the NP calls into question in particular the notion of sola fide. Evangelicals have traditionally read Paul’s letters as teaching that “we are justified by faith alone.” Among some NP advocates one or more of the key words in this familiar articulation have come to be radically queried.

For some the central issue is what Paul means by “justification.” Does Paul mean that we are declared just in the sight of God in a forensic sense alone or that we are actually made righteous in terms of character? Is he saying that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us or that it is actually imparted to us, as Roman Catholicism has historically maintained?¹⁸ The old debate, it seems, must be reopened.

For others the primary riddle concerns the meaning of “faith.” Is faith to be understood merely as mental assent to the Gospel, or is it much more than that? Is not faith in fact an active and working trust in God? Is believing in Christ not really another way of saying obeying Christ? Related to all this is that little word alone, originally introduced by Luther to exclude meritorious works and effort. For many the vital question is whether this sola has biblical merit at all. If we understand faith to be only cognitive assent, it is argued that “faith alone” is not tenable. If on the other hand faith is taken to be an active, working, and obedient trust in Christ then perhaps we can redefine this Reformational sola to mean simply that without faith there is no salvation. But should we thus water its meaning down?

These concerns are vitally important. And as we have noted above there is a wide spectrum of conclusions offered by those who are in some way or another associated with NP teaching. For many NP proponents justification must be understood to involve actual transformation of character, so that the notion of Christ’s imputed righteousness is either diminished in importance or rejected outright. And whether or not faith is understood to be an active and obedient trust, the word alone is problematic at best when it is applied to the notion of justification by faith.

As we suggested in regard to the critiques arising from some emerging churches, we find here, at least in part, a reaction against what is perceived to be an inadequate articulation and application of the Gospel in evangelical circles. In particular, many are persuaded that evangelicalism has often been guilty of promoting an “easy believism” and a cheap grace. The idea of “once saved, always saved” has often led to apathy and laziness among those who call themselves Christians. The place of good works has not been adequately addressed or properly emphasized in much evangelical preaching and teaching. Problematic also is a perceived layer of anti-Semitism at work when it is suggested that Paul was attacking the Judaism of his day as legalistic. Related to this is concern that the New Testament teaching has been too radically disconnected from its Old Testament roots and thus evangelical believers have often considered the Old Testament to be irrelevant for Christian living today. And the Torah—which has been viewed as life giving by observant Jews—has been reduced to a life-sapping and even death-dealing law by most evangelicals.

We affirm the validity of these concerns. We find here many important issues that really do need to be raised. Evangelicals have in fact often been guilty as charged on all the points noted above. We can be thankful to scholars who have raised these issues to our consciousness. We ought to fight passionately against the anti-Semitism that exists—sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly—in some evangelical circles. We ought to be more faithful in our understanding of the beautiful biblical concept of torah. We ought to envision true saving faith as manifesting itself always in love and obedience. We ought to return good works to their proper place in our doctrine of salvation (namely as that for which we have been saved; see Eph. 2:10; Titus 2:14). And we must teach the holiness and righteousness of God in a way that leads to a proper and holy fear of the living God who has graciously invited us into an Abba-child relationship with himself.

Nevertheless we find ourselves once again compelled to reject many of the views that have been offered by NP proponents, even while accepting the validity of their concerns and questions. We would judge again that much of the NP teaching nudges its proponents toward a form of anti-redemptionism. In fact, it seems to us that the scholars in question here have been, to some extent, guilty of inappropriately scaling down many key concerns. Among other things we see evidence of tendencies to diminish the following:

• The complexity of Second Temple Judaism. If many evangelicals have wrongly assumed that the Judaism of Paul’s day was univocally legalistic, it seems that some NP proponents have made the opposite mistake: not adequately acknowledging that pockets of legalism were present in Paul’s day (as they have always been present in both Jewish and Christian circles).¹⁹ This naïveté helps nobody.

• The profound demands of the law of God. If many evangelicals have been guilty of a sort of antinomianism, it seems to us that many NP proponents underplay the righteous demands of the law when they suggest that it never demanded absolute obedience and that we are justified so long as the general tenor of our lives is marked by “faithfulness.”²⁰ We affirm the “old Gospel,” with its insistence on justification by faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. According to this Gospel God’s law demands nothing less than perfect obedience, and we have fallen short at all points. Christ alone has met these demands, in life and in death. It is by faith in him that we now begin to fulfill the demands of God’s law, with gratitude, love, and doxology as our new motivation. “Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law” (Rom. 3:31).

• The depths of human depravity. “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Rom. 3:10). As Jesus explained to the pious and wealthy young man, “No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18). All the Reformation solas make sense because of the reality of solus Deus—that is, God alone is good! Humans, by contrast, are not simply sin-sick; they are “dead in . . . transgressions and sins” (Eph. 2:1) and “by nature objects of wrath” (Eph. 2:3). Thus it is not the righteous that are justified—there are simply no such persons. Rather, God “justifies the wicked” (Rom. 4:5) and does so “freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24), demonstrating through the atoning work of his Son that he alone is “just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).

• The certainty and severity of divine wrath. The substitutionary work of Christ on the cross is marginalized whenever and wherever a fully orbed doctrine of propitiation is marginalized.²¹ And a fully orbed doctrine of propitiation is marginalized when and where God’s wrath is not taken seriously. The biblical authors take God’s wrath very seriously, and that is clear throughout both Testaments. Paul’s argument concerning justification in the book of Romans involves full attention to God’s wrath, as is clear in passages like Romans 1:18; 2:1–6, 8, 16; and 5:9. “The wrath of God is as personal, and as potent, as his love; and, just as the blood-shedding of the Lord Jesus was the direct manifesting of his Father’s love toward us, so it was the direct averting of his Father’s wrath against us.”²²

• The biblical insights of the Reformers. We submit that many of the NP scholars really need a new perspective on Luther and Calvin, for it seems that they have not read these Reformers thoroughly or fairly. Were the Reformers’ readings of Paul really more culturally biased than our own? Was not their immersion in the biblical drama and their familiarity with the sacred Scriptures far deeper and broader than ours often is? Did they not affirm—at great length and with wonderful insight—the lostness of sinners, the grace of pardon, the duty of godly living, and the necessity of good works in the lives of believers? Which is more thoroughly the case—that the Reformers misread Paul or that NP scholars have misread the Reformers?

• Their own cultural biases. One of the unhappy tendencies of some biblical scholars, it seems to us, is to underestimate the significance of their own cultural biases. Many seem to think they should approach the biblical text with detached and impersonal objectivity, with something of a pure, scientific mindset and skill set. But of course the very idea that the Bible should be approached in such fashion reveals just how influenced we moderns have been by Enlightenment culture. Some evangelical Bible teachers seem to display a greater distrust toward the theological implications of biblical history than toward the conclusions of certain contemporary scholars who have often treated the Bible with unbelief or skepticism at best. The New Perspective is then brought in to reinforce this attitude.

• The centrality of the cross and the atoning work of Christ. It is not surprising that the cross seems to be pushed to the margins in the works of some NP scholars. But Paul, as we have seen, was able to teach among the Corinthians for eighteen months “resolved to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Further, he personally resolved to boast of nothing at all except the cross of Christ (Gal. 6:14). “The cross must be central to all preaching and pastoring.”²³ But it is difficult to see how the cross is central in the thinking of some NP advocates.

• The glory of the Gospel. The Gospel is seriously diminished when and where it is presented as something like a “ticket to heaven” or a “get-out-of-jail-free card” in Monopoly. We reject visions of the Gospel that reduce it thus just as we reject a vision of salvation that has no place for good works, holiness, and obedience. But on the other hand it is every bit as much a diminishing of the Gospel’s glory if we transfer any of the burden of our salvation away from Christ’s shoulders and onto our own. And for all the claims of NP proponents that they have retained sola gratia, by abandoning the principle of sola fide have they not shifted some of the burden for attaining salvation from the Lord to us?

As we have already insisted, we must always consider both the essence of the Gospel and its implications for living. In the next chapter we take up the sound doctrines that conform to the Gospel together with the way of living that conforms to those doctrines. We shall insist that we are called to live in line with the truth of the Gospel (see Gal. 2:14). We have already mentioned some of the implications of all this above, in our response to critiques arising from so-called emerging churches. Much of the same thinking applies as we respond to the challenge of the NP. In both cases we plead for avoidance of two errors. On the one hand we must not confuse the implications of the Gospel with its essence. On the other hand we must not dismiss the implications of the Gospel as unimportant or only minimally significant.

What shall we say then in regard to the Christian’s relationship with the law of God? We must reject the antinomianism that characterizes some evangelical teaching and preaching. And we must also reject any reconfigurations of the Gospel that smack of what has been called “neo-nomianism.” That is to say, we must reject visions of the Gospel that suggest that the “Good News” is that God enables us by his Spirit to obey his law and will justify us finally on the basis of that Spirit-empowered obedience.

Seeking to avoid erring in either direction we affirm that having believed the Gospel, believers are enabled by the Spirit to begin obeying the requirements of the Torah, that is, to love God and neighbor (Rom. 8:1–4; 13:8–10; 1 John 4:10–19). The Gospel gives no license to ignore God’s law; rather, it imparts power (the gift of the Holy Spirit) to start obeying it. Believers are obliged to obey God’s commands (1 John 5:3) not causally for our justification but in good works that flow gratefully from our justification, as our only “reasonable act of worship” in response to God’s sovereign and free saving mercies (Rom. 12:1). We have been saved apart from any works of our own but we are newly created in Christ in order that we may walk in the good works God has prepared for us (Eph. 2:8–10).

Even our best works, however, are imperfect this side of glory and our obedience is not the basis of our final justification in God’s sight. It is only “through the obedience of the one man,” Jesus Christ, an obedience “even unto death,” that we are made righteous (Rom. 5:19; Phil. 2:8). We are to follow the Lord who redeems and justifies us, and so become people whose lives exhibit a grateful, God-honoring obedience. Having initially obeyed the Gospel itself (2 Thess. 1:8; 1 Peter 4:17) we are called to continue in obedience to God’s commands (1 John 5:3), to Christ personally and all that he commanded (Matt. 28:20; Rom. 16:26), and to the Faith (Acts 6:7). But in our ongoing obedience as in our initial obedience to the Gospel we are utterly dependent upon the grace of God, not just for continual power to desire and choose what is right and good, the best option and the least evil, but also for continual pardon as our very endeavors after righteousness open up to us depths of sin still operative in our spiritual system. Our only hope at any and every stage is to look away from ourselves and to look to Christ alone.

Look to Christ, speak to Christ, cry to Christ, just as you are; confess your sin, your impenitence, your unbelief, and cast yourself on his mercy; ask him to give you a new heart, working in you true repentance and firm faith; ask him to take away your evil heart of unbelief and to write his law within you, that you may never henceforth stray from him.²⁴

Pastoral and Formational Applications of the Gospel

We trust that this extended discussion of these two contemporary challenges to the “older Gospel” has actually helped to demonstrate just how vital it is that the Gospel be kept at the heart of our teaching ministries and indeed of all the ministries of the church.

We suggested at the beginning of this chapter that we are mistaken if we suppose that once we are Christians we should move on from the Gospel to other, supposedly more profound or sophisticated things. When Paul wrote to the Romans, whom he had not yet personally met, he spoke of his eagerness to “preach the Gospel also to you who are at Rome” (Rom. 1:15). He is addressing the believers in Rome, who are among those “called to belong to Jesus Christ” (1:5), who are “loved by God and called to be saints” (1:6), whose “faith is being reported all over the world” (1:9). Paul longs to be with them so that he and they “may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith” (1:12). And when, God willing, he is finally with them, what shall he offer them? He will give them the Gospel. Unlike those who would shrink back from the Gospel for fear that others will be offended by this message of apparent weakness and foolishness (1 Cor. 1:18–25), the apostle is “not ashamed of the Gospel,” for he knows that it, and it alone, “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16).

The Gospel is God’s power to save. And salvation, as we discussed above, involves the entire process of our transformation, reaching from the eternal past and into the eternal future. Christ our crucified and risen Lord “is able to save completely those who come to God through him” (Heb. 7:25). This full and complete salvation is accomplished, Paul would assure us, by means of the mighty Gospel. It is no wonder then that Paul refused to be anything but an apostle, preacher, and teacher of the Gospel. May we be wise enough and bold enough to follow his example in our ministries of catechesis.

A Gospel Alphabet

Pastor Timothy J. Keller of New York’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church has been a long-standing and passionate advocate of Gospel-centric preaching and ministry.²⁵ He has argued on numerous occasions that “the Gospel is not the ABC’s of the Christian life; it is the A through Z of the Christian life.” In that spirit, we offer the following “Gospel alphabet”—twenty-six pastoral and formational reasons why the Gospel must retain primacy as the content of Christian education.

Why must Christians continually be educated in the Gospel? For reasons of:

A—Alignment

We must continually teach and learn the Gospel because it is to be the “plumb line” for our doctrine and our living.²⁶ We are to measure all our teaching to ensure that it is in line with—that is, conformed to—the glorious Gospel of God (1 Tim. 1:11). If our teaching about God, humanity, sin, salvation, the church, last things, and whatever other doctrines we may teach do not accord with the Gospel then they must be rejected. Likewise, our way of living must conform to the sound doctrines that flow from the Gospel. If, like Peter and Barnabas, we begin to act in ways that are “not in keeping with the truth of the Gospel” (Gal. 2:14), may God raise up for us a Paul-like brother or sister to confront us and correct us.

B—Belief

We must continually teach and learn the Gospel because even Christians struggle to truly believe God’s Good News. The message of the cross is both countercultural and counterintuitive. To the world it is foolishness and weakness. To our flesh it is simply too good to be true. And Satan, the devil—that accuser of the brethren—continually speaks a contradictory word to our hearts. He accuses us before God as surely as he accused Joshua the high priest (Zech. 3:1). Hearing all this we, with full knowledge of our failings, struggle to believe the truth of the Gospel. To believe it at an appropriately deep level, with an appropriate appreciation of all that it presupposes and implies, is a lifelong task. We must hear it again and again and ask God to seal its truth in our hearts.²⁷ “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

C—Contextualization

Paul was determined to “become all things to all people” for the sake of the Gospel (1 Cor. 9:19–23). He knew that the Gospel could and should take on different cultural forms in different cultural settings. Yet when we export the Gospel to others, we may be guilty of confusing it with our own cultural trappings. For example, we know that some missionaries have been guilty of imposing their Western cultural forms on those to whom they carried the Gospel. Though this error could be conscious and express cultural imperialism, it is more often unconscious and reflects a lack of discernment about which aspects of our own Christianity are truly Gospel-driven and transcultural, and which are culturally driven and therefore variable. To help us avoid such an error, it is critical that we continually study the heart of the Gospel so that we may better distinguish the treasure we bear from the jars of clay in which we bear it (2 Cor. 4:7).

D—Depth

As we noted earlier, we do not move from the milk of the Gospel to the meat of something else, but from the milk of the Gospel to the meat of the Gospel. Even Paul, concluding his exposition of the Gospel and preparing to move on to its implications for life, closes his argument in awe and wonder: “Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out!” (Rom. 11:33).

The wonder of how deep and powerful the Gospel is—especially as it works its way into believing hearts—is well articulated in this Puritan prayer:

BLESSED Lord JESUS,

No human mind could conceive or invent the Gospel.

Acting in eternal grace, thou art both its messenger and its message,

lived out on earth through infinite compassion,

applying thy life to insult, injury, death,

that I might be redeemed, ransomed, freed.

Blessed be thou, O Father, for contriving this way,

Eternal thanks to thee, O Lamb of God, for opening this way,

Praise to thee, O Holy Spirit,

for applying this way to my heart.

Glorious Trinity, impress the Gospel on my soul,

until its virtue diffuses through every faculty;

Let it be heard, acknowledged, professed, felt.²⁸

E—Evangelism

The Gospel is food for believers. But it is also the only saving medicine for those who have not yet believed. And we are compelled by the love of Christ to declare this Good News to all people. St. Francis of Assisi told his friars not to preach unless they had permission to do so. But, he added, “Let all the brothers, however, preach by their deeds.”²⁹ Francis’s words have often been paraphrased along these lines: “Preach the Gospel always; use words when necessary.” The fact is that words are necessary, every time. We are always witnesses to the Gospel (Acts 1:8) and, as witnesses, we shall be called upon to testify. When we are, we must be sure to get the message of the Gospel right for there are many counterfeit “Gospels” in the world.

F—Fidelity

Faithfulness to the true Gospel calls for ongoing study and obedience. It calls as well for watchfulness, lest false Gospels be introduced. The battle against counterfeit Gospels has always been part of church life. Even in the first century Paul battled against such, as did Peter and Jude and John. Like Paul we must be resolved that we will tolerate no other “Gospel,” even if it comes from a heavenly angel or springs from our own imperfectly sanctified hearts, and we should expect the same fidelity from those with whom and to whom we minister (Gal. 1:6–9). Only a constant learning and reviewing of the Gospel can ensure that we will be astute enough to separate the chaff from the wheat.

G—Grace

We need to continually learn and teach the Gospel because Gospel-centricity assures and propels us toward grace-centricity. When we swerve from the Gospel we lapse into either antinomianism30 or legalism. Neither can offer the true beauty or savor of Christ. To be in the presence of individuals or congregations who are not grace-centered is enervating and exasperating. Let us then learn and relearn the glorious Gospel that we may ever stand fast in the true grace of God (1 Peter 5:12) and may indeed “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forevermore. Amen” (2 Peter 3:18).

H—Hope

We focus on the Gospel also because it is the source of our hope. In face of the brokenness that fills the world around us and rises up within our own hearts, what hope do we have? Apart from the Gospel we have none. But in the Gospel is a great and steadfast hope, and from this hope spring forth faith and love sufficient for each day (Col. 1:5). Diminished “Gospels” may promote, on the one hand, easy believism or, on the other hand, may put the burden of salvation back on human shoulders rather than locating and leaving it in the hand of God. These deviations can offer no certain hope. The glorious Gospel is a blessed hope indeed (Titus 2:13), an anchor for the soul (Heb.

6:19). Christ in us is the hope of glory (Col. 1:27). This is the hope held out in the Gospel (Col. 1:23). With such a hope fixed within our hearts—based upon the certainty that God has made us his children and the confidence that we will be with Christ and like him forever—we long for and labor toward becoming more like him even now (1 John 3:1–3).

I—Intimacy

Through the Gospel we are invited into a living relationship with the living God. In the love proclaimed at the heart of the Gospel God has adopted us into his family. “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God, and that is what we are” (1 John 3:1). The Holy Spirit empowers us to believe the Good News and is sent into our hearts, enabling us to cry, “Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6). Rehearsing the Gospel in our worship, teaching, preaching, fellowship, and service helps us to nurture and celebrate this unfathomably intimate relationship.

J—Jealousy

We learn and teach the Gospel because we are called to be jealous for those we serve. The apostle Paul declared to the Corinthian believers, “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him” (2 Cor. 11:2). If we think jealousy is unbecoming in the apostle, we should remember that God himself is a jealous God (Exod. 20:5). True love that is covenant based is properly jealous concerning the parties in that covenant. We must keep the true Gospel before the eyes of those whom we teach and serve so that they will avoid what

Paul feared for the Corinthians—that is, that they should “be deceived by the serpent’s cunning” and “somehow be led astray from [a] sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:3). Deeper acquaintance with the true Gospel will help believers recognize and reject the preaching of “another Jesus” and “a different Gospel” (2 Cor. 11:4).

K—Knowledge

We continually learn the Gospel, even as believers, because the Gospel is the revelation of the knowledge and wisdom of God. Though the message of Christ crucified seems foolish to many in this age, “to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23–24). The Gospel is “a message of wisdom among the mature” (1 Cor. 2:6), a message that is “God’s secret wisdom” that has been hidden for ages (1 Cor. 2:7). But “God has revealed it to us by his Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:10). “‘Who has known the mind of the Lord that he would instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16). Would we grow in the knowledge of God’s wisdom? Would we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ? Then let us remain steadfast in the Gospel.

L—Love

The Gospel is the revelation of God’s abounding love: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). We do well to immerse ourselves and the saints we serve in that Good News. The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, for example, is an ongoing, multisensory reminder of Christ crucified (1 Cor. 11:26). God’s Gospel love also calls forth love as response. The Lord’s Supper both declares God’s love and demands that we love one another in turn (1 Cor. 11:27). John, “the beloved apostle,” makes these truths very clear. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:10–11). And again he writes, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Would we see love grow in the hearts of God’s people and reach to their neighbors—both saints and sinners? Then we must school them continuously in the Gospel of love.

M—Mission

And why must we continually learn and teach the Gospel? We do so that we may not lose sight of the great work that God is doing in our day. God is actively engaged in the wondrous work of reconciling all things to himself. It was for this that the Son of God came forth. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). And this work continues in and through us, the body of Christ, gathered and dispersed throughout the world today. The very work for which the Father sent the Son, the Son has now sent his church to continue (Matt. 28:18–20; John 20:21). And he promises to be with us always. Being in his presence must be taken as seriously as doing the work of true mission, for mission can only have power and a cutting edge when Christ is indwelling us and we him.

N—Narrative

We must ever study the Gospel because it is the apex and summary of the great narrative of God’s redemptive activity in the world. As we saw in chapter 4, it is into this Story that we have been called. In an age when many deny the existence of a single metanarrative that applies to all persons it is more critical than ever that we know the biblical narrative and tell it faithfully to others, asking God to convince hearers as we do so that this is their Story as well.

O—Obedience

The Gospel calls forth obedience (Rom. 1:5) in at least three ways. First, we must obey the Gospel by believing and receiving this Good News (John 6:29). Second, the faith that saves works itself out in obedient living by God’s empowering grace (Phil. 2:12–13). Third, we are to obey Jesus’s command to bring this Gospel to the nations (Matt. 28:18–20). In our ministries of teaching and formation these calls to obey the Gospel must be clear and unequivocal.

P—Passion

Passion comes from the Latin passio, meaning “suffering.” We celebrate each year the passion of our Lord when we attend to the historic remembrance of Holy Week. Likewise, whenever we partake of the Lord’s Supper together we “proclaim the Lord’s death till he comes.” It is given to us not only to believe in Christ the Suffering Servant but also to suffer for him ourselves (Phil. 1:29). Paul saw his own suffering for the Gospel and for the building up of the church as an active participation in the afflictions of Christ (Col. 1:24; Phil. 3:10–11). We must be forthright in teaching our congregants, by word and by example, that this is part of our calling as well.

Q—Quickening

Though by nature we were dead in our trespasses and sins and were objects of God’s wrath, God quickened us—made us alive with Christ—through his love and grace (Eph. 2:1–5). This God did, and still does, as we believe the Gospel, putting our faith in Jesus Christ. Lutheran theology especially emphasizes the notion that the Gospel is God’s quickening word, spoken to us in infinite mercy. We need to hear this word continually for our own sakes and to speak it faithfully to others.

R—Righteousness

In the Gospel “a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last” (Rom. 1:17). Paul’s argument in the letter to the Romans is deep and complex, but we submit that the Gospel reveals God’s righteousness in at least these two ways. First, it is a declaration that God himself is just and righteous, for the Gospel teaches that in Christ our sins have been fully propitiated as a basis for his forgiving of us (Rom. 3:24–26; 1 John 1:9; 2:2). Then, second, through the Gospel God declares us righteous as we put our faith in Christ Jesus. Thus in the Gospel God demonstrates “his own justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). It is truly vital beyond words that we faithfully preach and teach this Gospel.

S—Salvation

Intricately related to the above is the whole wonder of salvation. Scripture is quite clear that the Gospel “is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). As we have already noted, this is not a truth pertaining only to evangelism. The Gospel saves those who believe, from first to last, through and through. It includes all the wondrous doctrines of our great salvation, including election, regeneration, justification, sanctification, glorification, and much more. For this reason alone, the Gospel must remain central in all the ministries of the church.

T—Theology

We saw above that both our doctrines and our manner of living must be in alignment with the Gospel. While errant theological thinking on a variety of issues can lead us to a twisted Gospel it is more to the present point to state that an errant Gospel can unleash a host of heresies. It is worth noting that Satan is a competent theologian with great skill in confusing and misleading with regard to God’s truth. We will explore this all further in the next chapter.

U—Unity

A clear Gospel focus in our preaching and teaching has the potential to contribute to the unity of the church. In the latter half of the twentieth century one frequently seen example of this was the evangelistic campaigns of Billy Graham, which typically featured the cooperation of a great diversity of congregations and denominations.³¹ At the beginning of this century new movements are afoot for the sake of the Gospel that aim to be both evangelical and ecumenical. We never seem to achieve perfect consensus here because we need to constantly wrestle with variant details of conviction and, of course, with all kinds of intellectual spin-offs of our fallenness. But magnifying the Gospel as our central point of reference can help us keep a variety of lesser concerns in proper perspective (Phil. 1:18).

V—Vision

Keeping our minds focused on the Gospel can help us align our hearts to God’s own heart. We so easily fall into pettiness and needless division when we are not prizing the things God prizes. Jesus endured the cross and its shame because of the joy set before him (Heb. 12:2), a joy which we take to refer to the fact that through suffering and death he would bring many children to glory (Heb. 2:10–18). Paul likewise endured all manner of things for the sake of the Gospel and in the furtherance of its saving ministry (1 Cor.

9:23; Phil. 1:12–13; 2 Tim. 1:11–12). A clear vision of the goal imparts great fortitude in struggling toward it and great forbearance in the face of distractions from it.

W—Worship

We must continually teach and learn the Gospel because there is simply nothing else that evokes worship and adoration as the Gospel does. A quick survey of the hymnody of the church through the past twenty centuries makes this clear. The best hymns—ancient and contemporary—which have shown themselves to have staying power have always been Gospel-obsessed. God is glorified, Christ is exalted, and the cross and Christ’s atoning work are central. The same is true of the other key elements of Christian worship— our preaching, our confessions, our prayers, our sacraments. Take away the Gospel and Christian worship simply ceases. A sampling from the thousands of Gospel-centered hymns of the church will make the point:

Not the labor of my hands can fulfill Thy law’s demands;

Could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow,

All for sin could not atone; Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling;

Naked, come to Thee for dress; helpless, look to Thee for grace;

Foul, I to the fountain fly; wash me, Savior, or I die.³²

Further comment, we think, is needless. The Gospel as sung in hymns like this moves us endlessly to wonder and adore.

X—Xenophilia

The actual Greek word we have in mind here is philoxenia, which literally means “love of strangers, foreigners, aliens.” Our coinage, if such it be, means exactly the same.³³ In our English New Testaments, philoxenia is rendered as “hospitality” (Rom. 12:13; 1 Peter 4:9) and “to show hospitality to strangers” (Heb. 13:2). Such love of strangers is a required attribute of church leaders (1 Tim. 3:2). In the final judgment Jesus will either commend or condemn based upon whether or not people have welcomed “the least of these” (and thus welcomed Christ himself; Matt. 25:35, 43). Jesus is the great model for philoxenia, as is indicated in the Gospel narratives as well as in the whole wonder of his incarnation and passion. Indeed, we were not merely strangers to him; we were God’s enemies when he died for us (Rom. 5:8). In declaring such love, the Gospel also calls us to imitate it (1 John 4:10–11).

Y—Yielding

The Gospel must be continually set forth before church members because it is in view of God’s mercy that we are provoked to yield our lives fully to God as living sacrifices (Rom. 6:13; 12:1). It is the kindness of God displayed in the Gospel that leads us to repentance (Rom. 2:4) so that we no longer live for ourselves but for him who died for us and was raised again (2 Cor. 5:15).

Z—Zeal

May God stir both our own hearts and the hearts of those we are called to serve with an authentic zeal for the Gospel, and for the Christ of the Gospel. We have seen how fully this marked Paul’s life. We could certainly say the same of Jesus, whose first public words were a call to repent and believe the Gospel (Mark 1:15) and whose entire ministry was Gospel. All that Jesus said and did and was, in life and in death, was a display of God’s Good News for humanity. In all the ways we have addressed throughout this chapter and more, may we and our readers never be lacking in zeal but keep our spiritual fervor as we serve the Lord (Rom. 12:11) in and through this glorious Gospel, the Good News of Christ.

Conclusion

It is clear that we must begin our ministries of catechesis with bold preaching and teaching of the Gospel. In fact, in faithful catechesis we never depart from the sphere of the Gospel any more than we depart from the sphere of the Story or from the sphere of the Faith. In the following chapter we turn our attention to some of the critical implications of the Gospel for faith and for life. As we do so, we return to what we have earlier called the three facets of the Faith.

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