The term gospel can be a hopeful balm, a source of unity, or a lightening rod for controversy. At least, it’s used all those ways among evangelicals. However, in Scripture, the gospel is a fairly simple (though deep), straightforward concept. It is the “good news” of all Christ has accomplished for us through His death and resurrection. It is the juxtaposition between the wrath we deserve by our very nature (Ephesians 2:1-10) and the lavish grace we have received in the place of that wrath through Christ. It’s not that He just removed His hand against us, but that now His hand is so very much FOR us. All in, through, and by Christ. By His grace and not any work of our own.
And that’s about it.
The use of the term gospel is something about which I am doing a lot of thinking as I work on a potential study on The Gospel-Centered Woman. I see in myself a tendency to throw the term around in imprecise ways. Yet it is the precision of the gospel in its simplest terms that is the power of God for salvation. While the gospel informs everything else, it is NOT everything else. So I read today a criticism (link is broken now) of a group of good conservative evangelicals with whom I agree on MUCH. I didn't agree with everything said in the series of criticisms (I HATE that I need to say that, but someone will inevitably point out some sub issue from the criticism and I don't want to focus on that). The overarching critique is valid. The group in question has chosen to center their title around the term GOSPEL. Yet their basic documents (which one must affirm to be a part of this group) extend way past the gospel. A more accurate title for their group would be along the lines of “Together 4 the Gospel Plus Some Other Things.” I have no qualms with a group organizing themselves around shared doctrinal beliefs that extend past the gospel. Just be precise in how you say it.
I think the group in question does have a good grasp of exactly what the gospel is and is not. I hope that they will prayerfully hear this criticism (not that any of them are reading this blog) and correct the perception that they are including the gospel plus some things in the term gospel. Because the entire point of the gospel is that it is NOT plus some things. It affects all things, but it stands on its own as the good news precisely because it is effective for our total salvation apart from any other work. We who most want to uphold a correct understanding of what Scripture means when it uses the term may most undermine it if we are not precise with what it is and what it is NOT. The somber warning of Scripture is that the gospel plus anything is not the gospel at all.
Thanks for your blog, Wendy! I'm enjoying your writing so much.
ReplyDeleteMichal
Wendy, you're last paragraph is amazing. Excellent comment.
ReplyDeleteI like "wrath and lavish grace"
ReplyDeleteI use the terms God's justice being satisfied by God's love.
Love and Justice. Met on the cross.....for us. And at what cost, we cannot begin to grasp what it meant for Jesus to pray...let this cup be taken away.....and to be forsaken by the Father.
Love in its most extreme incredible action,grace at its most lavish and overwhelming.
The sad part of this is how it alienates women who love Jesus and who are called, chosen, and gifted by God to serve the Body of Christ in freedom and diversity. I was raised in a rather "egalitarian" home. Divorce and independence had a very negative impact on me as a child. After becoming a Christian and a wife as a young woman I longed to know and function in the wisdom and call of the Lord on my life in my family. When I first heard the theology of "complimentarianism" it made sense to me because it seemed to address the failures I had experienced in my own upbringing. I embraced this theology with whole-hearted commitment and I have experienced great blessing from the Lord in my marriage and family. But more recently I have also experienced a very ugly and painful misuse of this theology from my pastors, my church and trickle down- in an unconscious way from my own husband with the result being I loathe the use of this term "complimentarian", and the way I see this "theology" taught and practiced because of how it leads to discrimination, abuse and oppression of women. I have been married over thirty years and I have grown children. I would be appalled for my daughters to marry men who are taught in these churches because it is abuse of women. Sadly that is what I see happening in many of these so called gospel-centered, biblical churches that are pushing this particular "doctrine." Nobody, not God, the Scripture, pastors, or the church REQUIRED me to be a stay at home mother, homeschooler with a large family. These were gifts that were given to me that I freely embraced and loved as a particular child of God with a particular call on my life. I chose these freely not under compulsion by an oppressive misused theology. My life is not what God has chosen for every woman. In the present climate of conservative evangelical Christianity I would be a rebel and teach my daughters the same. Shame on the so called "men of God" who instead of serving and loving like Jesus, who treated women with incredible respect and honor, have turned the Bible into a license to dominate and harm half the human race. Appalling!
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