Euangelion
In this third post on Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert’s new book What Is the Mission of the Church?: Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission
They begin the chapter by referencing the recent contentious discussion among evangelicals today about what the gospel is. They contend that most of the disagreement boils down to a “talking past” one another. They think that on the one hand there’s a group who advocates a “Wide angle lens” approach which defines the gospel as “the good news that God is going to remake the world, and that Jesus Christ is the down payment of that transformation and renewal”. As they understand this approach, the advocates “look at the gospel with the widest possible lens, taking in all the promises that God has made to his people”.
On the other side, are the “zoom-lens people” who define the gospel narrowly in terms of God’s act “to save sinners through the death of Jesus in their place and his subsequent resurrection”. So this side focuses on “that which lies at the foundation of salvation”. Through the chapter they attempt to show that both senses of the Gospel that the two sides advocate for are biblical. They think that the two groups are actually attempting to answer a different but related question. The wide lens folks are asking “What is the whole good news of Christianity”? While the zoom lens peeps are asking “What must a person believe in order to be saved?” They believe the NT uses the word “gospel” in both ways and they set out in two sections to present the two senses from NT passages.
After discussing a number of passages on both senses they attempt to synthesize the data into a coherent picture. Are there two gospels? “Heck no”, they say (well not exactly in those words). In the end, as I read it, DeYoung and Gilbert’s view on the gospel can be summarized conversely to their own statement: the gospel of the cross includes the gospel of the kingdom. Their second summary point is stated rather, “the gospel of the kingdom necessarily includes the gospel of the cross” (107). But this seems only to be revised by their third, final and climatic point: “the gospel of the cross is the fountainhead of the gospel of the kingdom” (108). They conclude:
Because the broader blessings of the gospel are attained only by means of forgiveness through the cross, and because those broader blessings are attained infallibly by means of forgiveness through the cross, it’s entirely appropriate and makes perfect sense for the New Testament writers to call forgiveness through the cross—the fountainhead of and gateway to all the rest—“the gospel” (109).
What do you think of the schema of two senses of “gospel”?
The chapter ends with six implications from their discussion:
1. It is wrong to say that the gospel is the declaration that the kingdom of God has come. I think this point is misleading. They only mean to say that the gospel must also include the means of entering it. The real point this statement is making would have been better to include the word “only” before “the declaration”: “It is wrong to say that the gospel is only the declaration . . .” It is nonsense to say that the gospel is not the declaration that the kingdom has come. This is exactly what Jesus preached. Of course he also preached, as DeYoung and Gilbert point out, the “therefore” (so repent and believe!). But do we really want to disagree with Jesus?
2. It is wrong to say that the declaration of all the blessings of the kingdom is a dilution of the true gospel. It is true that you don’t have a gospel without the cross. However, I’m confused with the language of “blessings of the kingdom”. The coming of the kingdom carries wrath and judgment as well as blessing. When one announces the kingdom, one is announcing the judgment of God. Look at Paul’s speech to the Areopagus: “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead” (17:30-31). That’s the Gospel!
3. It is wrong to say that the message of forgiveness of sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus is a reduction of the true gospel. More on this below.
4. No one is a Christian simply because he or she is living a “kingdom life”. This statement is confusing because I could either agree or disagree depending on what one means by “living a kingdom life”. They mean that the person is following the ethics of Jesus (love your neighbor as yourself) without an allegiance to Messiah. But in fact, living a kingdom life by necessity demands allegiance to the king of the kingdom. Perhaps they’re reacting to something specific, but as it is the statement doesn’t really make sense; a kingdom necessarily means a king.
5. Non-Christians do not do “kingdom work”. This is a larger question that I can’t tackle here. I do have sympathy with this assertion. And I am largely in agreement. However, the weakness of this view is the denial that the Creator-King of this world is working in and through his creation to accomplish his will in this world. I think there is a compelling case to be made that God continues to sustain his creation and to fulfill his kingdom purposes even outside his people. I can think of God’s use of Cyrus the Perisan king as perhaps a case in point. God through Isaiah remember calls him “his messiah” (Isa. 45:1). Of course Cyrus would not have seen it that way, but the biblical interpretation of that event is that Cyrus unbeknownst to him was an instrument of God’s kingdom purposes.
6. All this helps us understand why Jesus fully commissioned the church to bear witness to him and to make disciples. Of course! But I think we need to drill down on what it means to “bear witness” and to “make disciples”. I already made this point in the first post.
My Evaluation
Two Schema Gospel. I don’t want to walk through their biblical discussions here, although it would be useful. I only will make two points. First, not everyone will be convinced of their scheme of two senses of gospel. The evidence is not straightforward and it can be construed in very different directions. In other words, it is not so clear to this reader that they have been able to substantiate the case from the examples they provide. Their discussion of Romans 1:16-17 is weakened by their neglect of Paul’s explicit definition of the gospel in Romans 1:1-7. This prior definition should set the context for 1:16-17. However, to acknowledge this would undermine the proposal. In my view the framework is imposed onto the evidence rather than emerging out of it. My feeling is they want their cake (zoom lens), and eat it too. They realize there are too many passages that put the cross and personal salvation in a much larger frame of reference.
Second, there’s a real problem with the following assertion: “Why does he [Paul] never preach, “The gospel is the good news that Jew and Gentile can be reconciled to one another through Jesus”? (107) Isn’t this in fact what Paul does say the gospel is in Ephesians 2 and 3? There Paul equates the terms “God’s grace”, “mystery”, “gospel”, and “the multi-colored wisdom of God”. They all describe what God is doing in and through the gospel. In Ephesians 3, Paul uses “the gospel” to express both the reality of the reconciliation of Jew and Gentile and the means by which they are reconciled. DeYoung and Gilbert are just flat wrong here. Paul does proclaim a gospel of reconciliation between Jew and Gentile on the basis of “the blood of Christ”.
Definition of the Gospel. If there aren’t “two senses” to the New Testament’s gospel, what then is the Gospel? Here I will offer my two cents on this hot topic for what its worth. I think the two alternatives that DeYoung and Gilbert provide both miss the mark. The “gospel” is neither what a person believes to be saved nor the story of new creation. While personal salvation and the mechanics of salvation are surely a central element of the gospel and certainly the final restoration of creation is the closing frame of the gospel’s story line, I have believed for a long time now that the “gospel” is in fact the best part of the on-going story of Israel. It is the best part of Israel’s story. It is that scene in the movie that brings the powerful a-ha moment. The gospel is that part in Israel’s story; its the a-ha moment. The gospel is the resolution of Israel’s story, which has universal consequences.
The New Testament’s central claim of the gospel is Jesus is Messiah. Paul states, “Remember Jesus Messiah, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel” (2 Tim 2:8). Jesus is the Messiah of Israel come to fulfill Israel’s story. The gospel story Matthew tells is of Jesus, the Davidic and Abrahamic Son and Son of God. Jesus is the answer to Israel’s unfulfilled potential, her unfaithfulness, her exilic state of being. Through Jesus, as Israel’s Messiah, Israel finally achieves the full potential God intended for her. And Jesus’ death atones for Israel’s sin; it purifies Israel; it saves Israel. What’s more, Jesus as Israel’s Messiah in reaching Israel’s full potential and providing saving redemption for Israel sets in motion the blessings of Abraham into the world on the nations who turn in repentance to the Israel’s Messiah. In this light, Paul is, to use the title of a recent book on Paul, the “Pioneer of Israel’s Messiah” to the nations. I don’t think I can say it better than Scot McKnight has in his recent book. The gospel is “the Story of Israel that comes to completion in the saving Story of Jesus, who is Messiah of Israel, Lord over all, and the Davidic Savior” (131). This leads to a related thought.
Inconsistency. DeYoung and Gilbert’s chapter on the gospel reveals a fundamental inconsistency in the book. They want to allow the “wide angle” to be a legitimate definition of the gospel, they really only pay lip service to this assertion however. I say this for two reasons. First, in the previous chapter on the story of the Bible they already argued that the central issue in the Bible is how “hopelessly rebellious, sinful people live in the presence of a perfectly just and righteous God”. This understanding of the Story’s point prioritizes from the beginning the zoom-lens definition of the gospel. Their presupposition about the Bible’s story predisposes them to favor a narrower definition of what the gospel is. This means that fundamental to any definition of the gospel is one’s prior understanding of the point of the Story of the Bible. The argument then about the gospel is an argument about the meaning of the Story of the Bible. We can discuss all day long wide angle versus zoom-lens definitions of the Bible and say that both are present, but I don’t think we can have it both ways. The gospel means one thing. And our interpretation of the larger Story of the Bible in which the gospel is part is wholly determinative for our understanding of the Gospel.
Pure Gospel. One final comment. Although they seem to say otherwise, I think in fact DeYoung and Gilbert implicitly believe that the “zoom-lens” definition is the gospel in its purest and most basic form. From their perspective then, I don’t see the point of the wide-angle lens definition. Everything in addition to the penal-substitutionary death of Jesus and the mechanics of the application to one personally, is just the “blessings of the kingdom”; they are just the “package of blessings that Christ secures for his people” (95). I agree actually that the subsituitionary death of Jesus is a centerpiece of the gospel Story; a non-negotiable one. I agree that the gospel without it is no gospel, and even an anti-gospel (108). But for me, there is the question of the relationship between the death of Jesus and the victory of Jesus, Messiah the crucified, Messiah the King. I would see the former as the foundation of the latter, but also the means by which the latter is accomplished. Therefore the accent falls on the latter more than the former. Foundations are always essential but they are almost never the point. They serve to support the point. With a home, the foundation is without question necessary, but few will look at a house and say “what an impressive foundation!” The foundation is in the background (underground) the structure on top is in the foreground (above ground).
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