The Gospel must be everything

What do we mean by Gospel centered? That is a question that is often asked. It is so important.

While there may be many ways to state an answer, this is what I mean: That the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is the most significant event in time and eternity. It means that when God writes the final edition of the newspaper, “Great events of history”, it will have one story – Jesus the Son of God was given by the Father and took on flesh, lived a sinless life in submission to the Father, offered up his life as a once for all sacrifice for sinners, then was buried, and broke the power of death in his resurrection. It has many implications.

Here are a variety of thoughts about this:

It means there will be no boasting in the eternal joy we shall experience because of the Gospel. There will be no competition for glory – only he will be glorified and we will be glorified in him.

The Gospel is glorious because it is not about what we do.  It is not even a message that tells us to “ask Jesus to be your savior and you will be forgiven.” That is not the Gospel, it is a response to the Gospel.  The Gospel is news about what Jesus has done.  We subtly distort the Gospel when we make it about us. The Gospel is more than “God loves you as you are.” It is God saves you as you are.

The Gospel is news about Him not about us. It is the description of what he has done. We are the beneficiaries, but God is the One who has acted to save us. We should dwell often on his person and work and less on ourselves.

The Gospel is about God and what he has done in order that we will be saved from wrath. It is not about our sense of purpose in life or our sense of meaning. It is not about our psychological problems – our “issues” as we say. It is about something far deeper – it is called sin. It is not about our needs – it is about our standing before the God who is the Creator and Judge of all. It is not a therapy, it is a blood sacrifice. It is not moral advice for the well meaning, it is resurrection of the dead.

The Gospel is stunning because our sin was great. Our sin is great because it is against a glorious God. It did not take the death of the Son of God to give us good feelings or purpose in life. The issue was sin, and the everlasting ruin that lay before us in judgment of sin. If God wanted to make us feel better about ourselves he would not have wasted his Son’s life for that. But sin is such a great evil that it required such a One to be our Savior.

The Gospel is great because it speaks to our truest and deepest needs – reconciliation with God and the end of sin.  All of our perceived and felt needs are simply surface level symptoms of a far greater issue. We are alienated from God, cut off from his life, without hope in this world. We would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven and we reap the fruit of that revolt in our entire being. The Gospel rescues us.

The Gospel is about the gracious work of God to rescue rebels from his righteous judgment and make them reflections of his glory once again. It reveals God most clearly. It was the work of God in Trinity. It is a plan of infinite wisdom that reveals God’s glory, humbles humanity, rescues us from sin and wrath to come, and recreates us into the image of God once more.

When this truth – the life and death of Jesus the Messiah – is no longer at the center of our lives and preaching and counseling, I am likely to create a caricature of God. I like to think of Gospel centrality as the Sun in the middle of the solar system – it is over 98% of the mass of the entire solar system, and its mass keeps all the planets in orbit. Shrink the centrality of the Gospel and the planets fall out of line. That means that all the good things of the Christian life are kept in line by the Gospel.  If the Gospel is diminished in our hearts, there is bad fruit.

Shrink the cross and the empty tomb and we are drawn from godliness into moralism.  We teach and bring constant exhortation to a better life but without hope. People do not live in faith, but in self-reliance.

Shrink the cross and the empty tomb and church programs, as useful as they can be, become too important. They push their way into the center and people compete for their favorites to get the most attention and being the most effective.

Shrink the cross and pride grows in its place.  I begin to think that I can make a contribution!

Shrink the cross and my felt needs creep into the center of the stage. I cease to think clearly about what God sees as important -- sin and holiness and eternity. I think my felt needs are what matters.

Shrink the cross and we become religious intellectuals, doctrinally precise and defined, but without the warm and glorious humility of living in the grace of God.

Shrink the cross and all attempts at relevance become nothing but powerless platitudes, and religious or moral vanity.

Shrink the cross and we are drawn into sentimentality and the pursuit of good religious feelings.

Shrink the cross and we become advocates of our pet peeves or preferences – we think that what we have concluded about any number of specific applications of truth to life is the most pure expression of godliness.

Shrink the cross and we are tempted to spirituality and mysticism as solutions for putting sin to death.

Shrink the cross and our hearts will take us anywhere else for the remedy to the disease of our hearts. 

Magnify the cross! With the cross dominating, we see the central issue to be our standing before God in his glorious holiness. We see that the central enemy is deep-seated sin and arrogance. We see the only power able to forgive and justify and put sin to death is the blood of Jesus applied to our lives in the power of the Spirit. We see the centrality of the local church, for which Jesus died. We see the necessity of Gospel power over religious sentiment or mysticism or how to’s.

Luther was correct, this Gospel is a message we live by and we must remind ourselves of it continually -- for in the fullness of Jesus as Savior and Lord is all peace with God, all joy before Him, all certainly in the face of trials. 

Comments

[brad]

Great entry. The rich complexity of the universe flows from the central, simple truth of the gospel. We play God when we reverse it and try to understand the complexity in order to find ultimate truth.

[Chris Gonzalez]

This is the richest blog post I have read in... a long time! Thanks for these wonderful thoughts!!!

[Steve]

Thank you, Mark! This is a full, rich, thought provoking article! Also very challenging! I am humbled to think about where I have recently been placing my thought life - in the Gospel and all it represents for me personally - or in study; gaining knowledge; learning theology; pondering my own wants, wishes and desires; thinking about my next "religious" project. This is a very helpful call to think, meditate, and stand in awe of Him who created me, Him who saved me from darkness, and Him - the great I AM - who is all sufficient. Blessings and His peace to you!

[Dave Nicholson]

I thank God and you for your encouragement. It is not often we words of Gods grace for daily life and it is a welcome message! I really appreciate the first three chapters of Hebrews. Participating in Gods rest through is life-giving indeed!

[Justin Buzzard]

I thought you were on a blogging Sabbath? Great post.