On Tweaking the Soterian Gospel

There’s a big discussion about “what is the gospel?” And a lot of people who talk about this, think their gospel is the real gospel. The reason I wrote my new book is because I think many people who think they understand the gospel really don’t understand the gospel. I’m calling their gospel the “soterian” gospel (see below).

In fact, some who are reading The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited are convinced they can “tweak” their soterian gospel by adding “story” to their gospel. I’m not entirely sure how they think they are going to do this, but it appears to me they want the “story” to be the creation-fall-redemption story, and just like that they’ve escaped the “soterian” net.

Not so. The creation-fall-redemption story, even if it adds “consummation” to it, remains a soterian and individual-shaped gospel. This won’t do.

As Tom Wright made clear in the preface to my book when he said the proposals here are “massive,” what King Jesus Gospel is proposing is not about tweaking our already-existing (soterian) gospel or just tweaking our already existing (soterian) evangelism or adding story to the soterian gospel. Folks, everything’s affected when the gospel shifts from the soterian approach to the Story approach. Again, here’s the chart I posted the other day.

What I’m suggesting then is not making the soterian gospel better. We’ve tried that and it doesn’t help.

The soterian gospel is not the gospel of Jesus, of Peter or Paul.

The issue here is do you want to live with the original gospel or do you want to make the gospel according to your salvation theology?

Tell me what each of the above approaches to the gospel (soterian, Story) assumes and teaches about God?

What I’m suggesting is that the soterian gospel is not the gospel. It is a way of ordering various bits of what the Bible says about salvation into the plan of salvation. I want to make this clear: the soterian gospel is not what the NT is declaring when it is gospeling. (Look at 1Cor 15, the sermons in Acts or the Gospels.)

I hear lots today about the gospel-centered preaching, and gospel-centered theology, and gospel-centered worship, and gospel-centered missions, and then I look to see what they mean by gospel … and, frankly, it is nothing but a soterian gospel amped up by a robust Calvinist theology. Some in fact think they are being “gospel-centered” if they are being Calvinist. That is, some find a deeper gospel in the so-called doctrines of grace, but those doctrines are only a deepening of soteriology; in other words, yet more of the soterian gospel.

But gospel is not about the so-called “doctrines of grace,” or about Calvinism or about double imputation. The gospel is the announcement that Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary, is in fact the long-awaited King (Messiah), the Lord of all, the one who alone brings the kingdom and those who order their lives under him are the true kingdom people. Anyone connected to that Jesus by faith, by repentance, by baptism, etc, will find the forgiveness of sins and will be summoned into a new creation life.

Now I want to press this harder: the fundamental orientation of the soterian gospel is about the benefits “I” get if I respond. The fundamental orientation of the Story gospel is not about “my” benefits but about Jesus. Embracing the Story gospel brings benefits, to be sure, but we embrace this Story because we embrace Jesus, not because we get something. The entire soterian approach is shaped by benefits.

I press harder: the God of the soterian gospel is formed around two features about God: God is judge, and God is wrathful (and will send folks to hell). Or, in some forms, the soterian gospel is framed about this: God is judge, but God loves us and wants a better life for us but God will judge if we don’t respond aright. The operating idea then is “How can I escape God’s wrath or God’s judgment against me?”

The God of the Story gospel is formed around these: God is creator, God is director of history, God is incarnate in Jesus, and God calls humans to live in God’s ordered kingdom world by living under Jesus. The operating idea here is “Who rules the world and do I live under that rule?” The Gods of these two “gospels” are framed differently.