Among the highest aspirations we cherish in our hearts for CLRA would be the strengthening and deepening of our Gospel agreement within the CBOQ and CBM family of churches such that we are able to do more and reach further together in pursuit of the Great Commission. We want to facilitate discussion about what the Gospel IS so that we can partner more significantly in its propagation. While it would seem odd to our grandparents that we would need to build a website and form an association in order to facilitate agreement on the Gospel, anyone who spends any time listening to the chatter of the Christian blogosphere (or who has spoken with our denominational officials recently) knows that the word “Gospel” is used many different ways by many different people. To some it means simply the bare bones truth that God is for us not against us. To some it means something akin to “social transformation”, to others it means “being the hands and feet of Jesus” or “treating everyone with respect and dignity”. Still others offer alternative and fresh sounding terms as defining parallels; words like “shalom” and “kingdom”. All of that sounds interesting and compelling but taken together, it is clear that we can’t all mean the same thing, even if we are using similar words and terms. As with most conversations, we need to begin by defining our terms.
A few months ago I challenged my congregation to summarize the Gospel in less than 100 words. The better answers I received all looked something like this:
The Gospel is the Good News of what God has done in Christ to secure our redemption. Through the life, death, resurrection and session of Jesus Christ God has done for us what we could never do for ourselves and has paid for that which we have done in the body of his Son Jesus on the cross.
That’s pretty good, and manages to convey the heart of the historic, Apostolic Gospel in less than 100 words. 100 word definitions are very helpful – they tend to illustrate whether we understand something in its essential nature or not – but for a conversation the size and scope of the one we need to have within CBOQ, more than 100 words will likely be required.
When I was a little boy I learned “The A,B, C’s of the Gospel”:
A – All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
B – Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
C – Call upon the Name of the Lord and thou shalt be saved.
When I was a little older I learned of the Gospel in 5 G’s. The Gospel in 5 G’s is an old way of summarizing the Gospel of Jesus Christ as presented in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. I offer it by way of an opening gambit (which also starts with G!) in our discussion about the essential nature and content of the Apostolic Gospel.
G1: God
The Apostle Paul’s Gospel begins with God. Consider Romans 1:18ff:
18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man (NKJV)
In this little paragraph the Apostle Paul asserts that God exists, he is Sovereign, he reveals and we are universally accountable and without excuse. Because of, what theologians refer to as “natural revelation” and “the sensus divinitatis” (the awareness all people have that God exists) all people know that God exists and know that God is good. All people are therefore without excuse. Everyone, everywhere, has fallen short of what is essentially obvious: there is a God and He is good. According to the Apostle Paul, there is no such thing as “an innocent savage”. God is God and he is good, everybody knows it and everybody suppressed that knowledge in order to be gods unto themselves. People “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” – it isn’t that people don’t know, it is that they deeply, truly and sincerely don’t want to know because knowing implies obligation and people would rather be free. Autonomy is the age old idol of humanity. In rebellion against the God they knew was there, people worshipped created things instead of their creator. They exchanged the glory of an incorruptible God for an image made like corruptible man. When God has been de-godded, “the natural” is the chief and highest reality in the cosmos.
The consequences of denying the God we know is there are truly horrific:
24Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
26For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. (Romans 1:18-27. NKJV)
Denying that God exists and denying that he has an authoritative design for the universe causes humankind to get on a roller coaster of stupid that ends in a predictable bottom of dissipation and debauchery. The wages of sin is death, in every form imaginable. Humanity in rebellion against God embarks upon a downward spiral that ultimately ends in a complete breakdown in moral and sexual ethics. People will begin to attempt to redesign even the most basic and obvious aspects of God’s created order and they will receive in themselves the penalty for their error.
That is the first G of the Gospel and it takes us very naturally to the second G: Guilt.
G2: Guilt
Theologians sometimes refer to our guilt as humanity under the heading “total depravity”, not meaning that we are as bad as we could be (we’re not) but that our guilt and sin has effected everything in about us and the universe we live in. There is no place in me or in the world I live in that has not been touched and changed by sin. I am not the father God created me to be because of sin. I am not the husband, not the neighbour, not the employee, not the friend that God created me to be because sin has changed me in every conceivable area of my life. Sin ruins the moral compass and spiritual sensitivity of all people everywhere. Sin like a giant magnet has destroyed our cell phone and as a species, we can’t hear the voice of God anymore. That is the state of a man or a woman in their sin. Dead to God, changed and ruined with respect to self and others. The Apostle Paul describes it this way, quoting from Psalm 14 and Psalm 53:
10As it is written:
“There is none righteous, no, not one;
11 There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
12 They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.”
13 “Their throat is an open tomb;
With their tongues they have practiced deceit”;
“The poison of asps is under their lips”;
14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways;
17 And the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:10-18, 23. NKJV)
This is how the Bible describes the state of man and woman in rebellion against their Creator. It is a helpless and horrible estate and the good news of the Gospel makes no sense unless it is presented as the solution we together stand in need of. Human beings, guilty before God are in desperate need of grace.
G3: Grace
Immediately after the words: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”, the Apostle describes how we are:
24being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:24-26. NKJV)
We were dead in our sins, a stranger to God and dead to his voice so he came to us and he did for us what we could never do for ourselves and he paid for what we did do in his body on the cross. He offers this grace freely that he might be simultaneously just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Christ.
Paul goes on to sing with words borrowed from Psalm 32:
“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
And whose sins are covered;
8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.” (Romans 4:7-8. NKJV)
The grace of God; the free gift of God that is offered through Jesus Christ is first of all substitutionary. God offers an exchange. Luther called it the great exchange and I can think of none better. Our sins put on Christ’s body on the cross; his righteousness and perfect obedience applied to our account through faith. This is just in God’s sight. Paul says that in Romans 5:
through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. 19For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:18-19. NKJV)
Imputation; Luther’s great exchange; is the heart of the Christian Gospel. It is “grace”. It is what God gives without which we are damned, doomed and denied. It is something we have no rightful claim to, which is why the Apostle Paul bids us respond with gratitude; the 4th G in the Apostolic Gospel.
G4: Gratitude
1Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. (Romans 12:1. NASB)
Many of Paul’s letters have this hinge from grace to gratitude or as it is sometimes explained from theology to response. Paul is saying: “If God has been merciful to us –we should respond by laying the rest of our earthly days upon the alter as a sacrifice of worship and thanksgiving. This is the only response that makes sense. This is our reasonable service of worship.”
Understanding this sequence and this relationship is absolutely pivotal for a right understanding of the Gospel. We do not do good deeds to earn our salvation; rather we do good deeds to respond to our salvation. If we reverse that order or alter that relationship we damn our own souls. There will be no boasting in God’s heaven except in God’s mercy.
Making a very similar point Pastor Tim Keller said recently at a major conference:
“A person who knows you already have everything in Jesus Christ, you’ve already been saved by grace, why do you obey? You obey not to get things from God but to get God, to please Him.”[1]
The saved Christian serves, obeys and ministers out of gratitude and love. It is response. That is why, parenthetically, we can never advocate for charity, or mercy or social transformation without basing that advocacy upon the power of the preached Gospel. Calling on dead people to live better without preaching the life giving Gospel is irrational and contradictory. Response can never become before grace or it is not worship, it is idolatry and rebellion against God. Without faith it is impossible to please the Lord.
Where then does this Gospel end? It ends of course where all true roads end: with the glory of God alone.
G5: Glory
7Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God. 8Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, 9and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy, as it is written:
“For this reason I will confess to You among the Gentiles,
And sing to Your name.”
10And again he says:
“Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people!”
11And again:
“Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles!
Laud Him, all you peoples!” (Romans 15:7-11. NKJV)
This is essentially the end of Paul’s letter – the remainder of Romans 15 and 16 are mostly personal tidbits about his travel plans and personal greetings to friends he had among the congregation. Paul ends his letter by calling on people to walk this road together, as a tribe to the end of the glory of God among the nations. That is the ultimate “why” of our salvation. We were not the beginning of this story and we are not its end. The end of this story is the glory of God. Why did God save a wretch like me? Because it serves his glory. Why did he conceive of this strange plan to incarnate the second member of the Trinity in human flesh, to live a perfect and righteous life and then to die a sacrificial death on behalf of his rebellious children? Because it serves his glory. It shows forth his justice. He could not merely wave away human sin – that would defame his holiness, that would suggest a permissiveness in God that can never be suggested. Yet he could not leave all his creation to damnation – that would suggest a failure in God that can never be suggested. He intended humanity to enjoy him forever and therefore that must happen. So he saved his people in a way that exalted both his Holiness and his mercy. When we embrace this salvation and when we take it to the nations by means of acts of sacrifice, generosity and service and they embrace it God is glorified. The whole earth comes to the full and glorious knowledge of God’s holiness and mercy. That is the reason for everything. That is the reason you exist. The chief end of man (and woman!) is to glorify God and enjoy him forever and that is exactly what this salvation accomplishes. God is glorified and saved men and women get to enjoy him forever. Thanks be to God.
My hope and prayer for this post is that it would open a dialogue about the nature, content and character of the Gospel we mean to partner in proclaiming. The extent of our agreement will determine the utility of our association. May God’s glory and the Gospel mission be served by this effort.
S.D.G.
Paul Carter
[1] http:www.christianpost.com/news/obeying-god-comes-after-grace-says-tim-keller-7