Day 5: What is the gospel? (part 2)

As I suggested yesterday, there are multiple ways of framing the gospel. Christians want to be succinct and to the point about it. John 3:16 seems to be the go-to verse as far as succinctness is concerned. Here we see that the gospel hinges on Jesus (God's "one and only Son") and the consequence is the gift of eternal life for those who believe in him.

I also mentioned yesterday that many Christians, when they think about the "good news," think about their guilt of sin, the wrath of God the Father toward that sin, and the substitution of Jesus, the Son, in our place on the cross. God inflicts the punishment for our sin on His own Son. This substitution atones for our sin, or as we like to say so graphically, we are washed in the blood of Jesus.

I am not going to argue against any of this, only question whether it is the best presentation of the gospel that we can have. I don't really believe that there is any brief passage of the New Testament that summarizes the Gospel completely. John 3:16 is helpful because it mentions "eternal life." Whereas nothing of that sort is mentioned in Paul's description of his gospel at 1Cor 15:1-8, where he speaks of "the gospel that I preached," over against other gospels.

So what I mean to say is, no brief rendering of the Gospel is really adequate, because the gospel turns out to incredibly large and encompassing. And has been my feeling for a long time, as I try to preach the gospel to myself each day, that we ought to begin with the big picture. We might think of the gospel as a beautiful landscape in which there are many details to admire, but it the whole picture that needs to be in view.

Here's one place we might start:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:1-3

Okay, that's a big-picture gospel if ever there was one. Of course like any other rendering of the gospel it will lead to many questions. Any relatively succinct passage that is used to explain the gospel will in reality only be a doorway to the great landscape that is the good news of Jesus Christ. You have to start somewhere, but the starting place is only that. Start, and then let the puzzling questions come. The gospel isn't so much revealed in a flash as unfolded progressively in dialogue.

So me, I would begin there at the start of John, or perhaps I'd begin with Jesus' own words concerning all this:

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matthew 4:17

 Or in the passage where Jesus reads from Isaiah in the synagogue:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and revoering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. (Luke 4:18-19)

After he read that passage (Isaiah 61:1-2), he said, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." (Luke 4:21)

There again, we've got a very big picture here, a landscape, and somewhere in that landscape, as we look more closely, we will find Christ on his cross, but also an empty tomb, and also a scene from The Revelation of John where the wounded Lamb sits on a throne, and all the hosts of heaven sing hallelujah!

What's the difference? Well, I think when you limit the gospel almost incessantly to a depiction of Christ's atoning death for sin, you leave out so much that is wondrous, beautiful, and hope-inducing. I think that's what John Piper is getting at in this article. I will quote the opening points:

The gospel is not just a sequence of steps (say, the "Four Laws" of Campus Crusade or the "Six Biblical Truths" of Quest for Joy ). Those are essential. But what makes the gospel "good news" is that it connects a person with the "unsearchable riches of Christ."

There is nothing in itself that makes "forgiveness of sins" good news. Whether being forgiven is good news depends on what it leads to. You could walk out of a courtroom innocent of a crime and get killed on the street. Forgiveness may or may not lead to joy. Even escaping hell is not in itself the good news we long for - not if we find heaven to be massively boring.

Nor is justification in itself good news. Where does it lead? That is the question. Whether justification will be good news, depends on the award we receive because of our imputed righteousness. What do we receive because we are counted righteous in Christ? The answer is fellowship with Jesus.

Among people who focus on the blood of Jesus and the cross I find often that the most they have to be thankful for is that they're sins no longer condemn them. That's a fine thing, but that's the condition that God has provided for us so that we could enter into the profound joys of the kingdom. So often I have heard, in church "share times," people stand up and testify with a kind of sorrowful thankfulness that their sins are forgiven, and I am led to wonder, where then is the joy? Where is the promise of "all things"? Where then is the kingdom?

So, to conclude, I'm for cultivating spiritual joy, which is of course a fruit of the Spirit. I believe we have to work on this some, because much that is in the world conspires to rob us of this fruit. When I share the gospel, I want it to be like offering a beautifully wrapped Christmas present, where the receiver getts a light in her eyes, a thrill of excitement, just like a kid at Christmas, or like a child in an orphanage who has just found out he's been adopted by a loving family.

So my final word to myself is this: share the gospel, because when you do, you're sharing eternal joy.