All Evangelical Christians know what the gospel is, right? It’s the good news (in Greek) that Jesus died for our sins. Unfortunately, most Christians see the gospel as the means of becoming a Christian, and then it’s on to other things, like learning how to become a better Christian. The problem with this mindset is not only that it’s untrue, but that it turns Christianity into moralism, more law than gospel. The former is the means by which sinners think they can gain approval and acceptance before God, and at the same time proves we can’t. Law shows us the need for gospel! But unfortunately we too often confuse the two, and turn law into gospel, and gospel into law. That’s like confusing the Titanic with a rowboat!
In case you’re not quite sure what I mean, I’ll try to explain, but I would also suggest becoming familiar with a podcast I’ve recently been introduced to, Saints and Sinners Unplugged. I’m a podcast addict, which I’m pretty sure is a good addiction, and I was thrilled when a new friend of mine, Pastor Ken Jones, told me about his podcast. If you know of the long-running radio program White Horse Inn, Ken’s name might sound familiar. He was a regular on the show for 20 years, and started Saints and Sinners a few year ago. I’m only 10 episodes in, but the discussions so far are a breath of fresh gospel air in a world of moralism and law.
There are many ways to explain this (listen to the podcast!), but I’ll go back to the Garden and what happened after the Fall. Once Eve bought into the serpent’s lie that she could “be like God, knowing good and evil,” the relationship between man and God changed, almost forever. We see the change played out immediately:
7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Their eyes were now opened to a new reality, and whatever that is, it included shame. So they tried to cover it with works of their own hands. We know this was wholly inadequate because they now respond to the Lord God in a different way then they had before:
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
Hide and go seek was not part of God’s original plan for his image bearers; to shame was added fear:
9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
In modern parlance we might say that the relationship was now officially dysfunctional. The problem as we’ll see it worked out in the rest of redemptive history is that human beings try to deal with this well-earned shame and fear by their own efforts, which are no more effective than the fig leaf coverings of Adam and Eve .
This is where law comes in. Sinful human beings think that if they keep the law, and obey the commands of God, they can gain God’s favor and be put in right relationship to him, almost as if the Fall never happened. But Paul tells us that the primary purpose of the law is make us aware of our inability to keep it! Why? So we can trust in a righteousness of God, he says in the same passage, that he will give to us by faith in Christ. This is the good news, the gospel, that what God requires, perfect obedience and holiness, he provides for us in Christ. Good news indeed!
As Christians we need to be reminded daily of this good news, not to mention every Sunday, that it is not what we do or don’t do that determines our acceptance before God, but what God himself has done for us in Christ. These words of Paul in I Corinthians say it all:
It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.
We never have to earn God’s favor, as if that were possible, but rest in the favor Jesus has accomplished for us in his death and resurrection. As I’ve heard Tim Keller say many times, Jesus lived the life we should have lived, and died the death we should have died. Humble gratitude for such love will create in us a longing to please God and live in communion with him, to love him, our neighbors, and ourselves as we’re commanded. Commands, or law, can’t do it, the gospel can and does. The Lord’s words through Isaiah put it perfectly: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength.”
And for those of you who have kids, helping and teaching them to live every day in light of this glorious gospel is the means by which they will in due course fall in love with their Creator God and Savior.
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