20 Jan 2024
Most religions have at their ‘centre’ good advice, good techniques, good programmes, good ideas and good support systems. These drive us deeper into ourselves, to find our inner light, inner goodness, inner voice, or inner resources. But the reality is: nothing new can be found inside of us – there is no inner rescuer deep down in our souls.
The heart of Christianity is Good News, the Gospel. It comes not as a task for us to fulfil, a mission for us to accomplish, a plan for us to follow with the help of life-coaches, but as the declaration that someone else has already fulfilled, accomplished, followed, and achieved everything for us. Good advice may help us in daily direction; the Good News concerning Jesus Christ saves us from sin’s guilt and tyranny over our lives and the fear of death. It is Good News because it does not depend on us; it is about God and HIs faithfulness to HIs own purposes and promises.
The law remains as the revelation of God’s moral will, however, it is different from the revelation of God’s saving will. We are called to love God and our neighbour, but that is not the gospel. Christ need not have died on a cross for us to know that we should be better people. It is not that the moral exhortations are wrong, but they do not have any power to bring about the kind of world that they command. These exhortations and directions may be good; if they come from the Word of God, they are in fact perfect. But they are not the gospel.
In the book of Romans, Paul explains that the law is written on the conscience in creation. Everybody knows that it is wrong to murder and steal. Idolatry is evidence that everyone knows that there is a God and their attempts to pacify him with their own rites and spiritual duties. However, the original and universal revelation is law, not gospel. After the original sin of our first parents, God was not bound in any way to save anyone. Adam and Eve had no reason to expect anything for themselves or their posterity except confirmation in everlasting death. Yet God freely chose to have mercy – He reveals the Good News of a Saviour who will come from Eve’s flesh, a new Adam who will crush the serpent’s head.
From then on, the human race has been divided into two families: one kingdom, driven by the craving for domination, aims at temporal prosperity, security and justice, but falls perpetually into violence and inner collapse; the other kingdom, driven by God’s promise, looks to God for salvation and every heavenly blessing in Christ.
Only the radical news concerning Jesus Christ can distract us from all the trivial pursuits and transform us from the inside out. Only the gospel can cause such a radical reevaluation of our core identity that we are willing, like Apostle Paul, to throw away what we thought was a great resume in exchange for being found in Christ. In fact, once the gospel reconfigures our whole take on reality, it even opens us up to God’s law again as the concrete expression of God’s moral will for our relationship to Him and to each other. The law no longer condemns us; instead it guides us.
It is not we who must find a supporting role for God in our personal and social campaigns for spiritual, moral and therapeutic well-being; we need to stop and listen to God’s surprise announcement about what He has done to save sinners like us.The only thing the church can provide to the world that is truly unique is the gospel. Only the gospel brings a new creation into this present age of sin and death.
Fallen humans think that they are in charge. We imagine that we just follow our heart, that we decide for ourselves what is true, valuable, and useful. In reality, though, our choices are already shaped by the culture of marketing, our preferences have been conditioned by the goods and service, identities and images being bombarded at us through the media (including fake news). God’s Word comes to release us from this prison that we have mistaken for a palace.
The God of the Bible is not the kind of God we can manage, manipulate, accommodate, or domesticate to our familiar experience. We cannot find this God by looking within ourselves. His Word is not the same as our inner voice. He cannot be pared down to our size, measured by our speculations, experiences, or felt needs. Rather, He stands over against us, telling us how things actually are.
The Bible is not a collection of timeless principles offering a gentle thought for the day. It is not a resource for our self-improvement. Rather, it is a dramatic story that unfolds from promise to fulfilment, with Christ at the center. Its focus is God and His action. God is not a supporting actor in our drama; it is the other way around. God does not exist to make sure that we are happy and fulfilled. Rather, we exist to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. God is not a facilitator of our “life transformation” projects. He is not a life-coach. Rather, He is our Creator, Lawgiver, Judge, and Covenant Lord. He is also our Redeemer. Before we can speak of God’s saving work in Christ we have to reverse the focus from a human-centered to a God-centered way of thinking.
The Gospel witnesses not to an inner light within the self, but to the Light that came into the world, shining in the darkness and overpowering it (John 1:4-9). The Gospel does not depend on anything in me at all; it is an objective, completed work. The Gospel is entirely outside of you. No matter what your inner voice, conscience, heart, will, or soul tells you, God’s objective Word on the matter is the final say.
For the unbelieving world a kind of superficial happiness and general well-being full of entertainment but lacking any real plot hides the fear of death. Apart from God’s grace, we cannot come to terms sufficiently either with the mortal wound, nor enter into the genuine joy and peace of God’s kingdom. Denying our sin (not just sins, but our sinful condition), we are too silly for a funeral; finding the gospel foolish, we are too serious for a party.
The distorted version of Christianity or ‘God is dead’ alternative share much in common: both are oriented toward turning within rather than receiving reality and its proper interpretation by looking outside of oneself. Both are determined to create a story from individual experience, rather than to receive judgment and salvation from a transcendent God through His eternal Word.
Understanding and receiving the Gospel as the heart of Christianity is not only relevant in sharing the gospel; it is not just for non-Christians – it is for Christians and the church too. The Gospel does not just ignite the Christian life; it is the fuel that keeps Christians going every day. The gospel is the everyday brick and mortar of a life built on the promise of eternal life in Jesus Christ. The simple message that God has done everything He requires to reconcile sinners to Himself is not the church’s slogan – it is her lifeblood!