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What is the gospel?

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Matt Stone

2008-05-10

Continuing my thread on the gospel I thought I would quote some of these thoughts by Graeme Goldsworthy from his book Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics:

The gospel is what we must believe in order to be saved. To believe the gospel is to put one’s trust and confidence in the person and work of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. To preach the gospel is faithfully to proclaim that historical event, along with the God-given interpretation of that event. It cannot be stressed too much that to confuse the gospel with certain important things that go hand in hand with it is to invite theological, hermeneutical and spiritual confusion. Such ingredients of preaching and teaching that we might want to link with the gospel would include the need for the gospel (sin and judgment), the means of receiving the benefits of the gospel (faith and repentance), the results or fruits of the gospel (regeneration, conversion, sanctification, glorification) and the results of rejecting it (wrath, judgment, hell). These, however we define and proclaim them, are not in themselves the gospel. If something is not what God did in and through the historical Jesus two thousand years ago, it is not the gospel. Thus Christians cannot “live the gospel”, as they are often exhorted to do. They can only believe it, proclaim it and seek to live consistently with it. Only Jesus lived (and died) the gospel. It is a once-for-all finished and perfected event done for us by another.

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3 responses to “What is the gospel?”

Duncan

2008-05-10

Hmm. So when Jesus and his disciples travelled preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God they were talking about the once for all finished and perfected event done for us by Jesus? I think Graeme Goldsworthy helpfully takes us back to the central narrative focusing on the Jesus event. But it seems to me that the Jesus event is still being seen as what is needed for us to have salvation, rather than for us to grasp, enter and live as participants in the kingdom of God.

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Matt Stone

2008-05-10

Why differentiate between “salvation” and living “as participants in the Kingdom of God”? One of the things I think needs deconstruction is individualistic lens that salvation and the resurrection are often interpreted through here in the West. The resurrection and crucifixion both had an extremely political dimension to them. We just need to be open to seeing it. The coming of the Kingdom of God and the resurrection of Jesus as King are deeply interrelated I would say. Don’t forget, Paul talks about those “in” Christ sharing in his death and resurrection in the now. Maybe my next post should be what is salvation? I see salvation as primarily communal and individualistic only in secondary, derivative sense. And of course there is a now / not yet tension to both the resurrection and the Kingdom of God.

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Jonathan Shearman

2008-05-11

A question has occurred to me in this regard – if all that is necessary is to believe in Christ, then why did He give so many instructions?
I mean, after all, the Gospels are full of exhortations, suggestions, parables and recommendations given by Jesus, from the Sermon and the Mount on down. (“go woman, and sin no more” “Consider the lilies of the field”, “render unto Ceasar”, “love your enemies”, there are many more…)
Aren’t these all part of a prescription for action rather than for belief? In my view, the only point of believing is that it leads to action, as ‘action speaks louder than words’. That is why, if I was Christian (and it is something I consider every day), I would have thought that the Christian life would be one of discipleship more than belief. Belief, in this sense, is simply the initial condition for the actual ‘following’.

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