So who are the Soterians?

In The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited I did my best to spread the net widely enough to catch anyone who fits broadly into the soterian way of framing the gospel. I post again my simple chart of how to “frame” the gospel, and what I see today are two broad approaches: the soterian scheme that reduces the gospel to the plan of personal salvation and omits the Bible’s central narrative and the Story scheme that focuses on the Story of Jesus, who is King, Lord and Savior. If you opt for the former, you cut out the Story; if you opt for the Story scheme, you have both Story and salvation.

But I’m being asked “who are these soterians?” I will break this down into three groups or “ideal types.” I had the first two mostly in mind when I wrote TKJG.

Where do you see the soterian gospel?

First, there are those I would call pragmatic soterians. Less interested in theology, more interested in results, willing even to eliminate as much of theology as possible and also willing to ramp up pressure and threats and hell and wrath, and willing to turn down the lights and use some music (or some organ, or the piano — always slowly and evocatively), the pragmatic soterians believe the gospel is the soterian gospel and they use it to precipitate conversions. I have seen this with revivalists, evangelists, some who use the Four Spiritual Laws and some who use the Bridge Illustration.  There are two kinds of pragmatic soterians: those who focus on God’s love and grace and good plans for your life and those who focus on God’s holiness and wrath. One tries to love people into heaven and the other seeks to scare them out of hell. But both are pragmatic soterians.

Second, there are the Calvinist and Arminian soterians. Shaped mostly by theology, whether Calvinist or Arminian, these soterians drive the gospel through their theology and so their theology becomes the essence of the gospel. For the Calvinist, the gospel becomes more systematic and thus we hear about double imputation, or propitiation, or a pointed sense of elective grace, while the Arminian soterian focuses on the grace of God, the provision of God, and the absolute importance, significance and priority of personal choice. That is, for the Arminian the universal provision for redemption is all ready; all you have to do is take it. But, whether Calvinist or Arminian, the gospel is the message of salvation, personal salvation. In many cases, the theology at work is robust, but I am convinced the driver remains the plan of personal salvation, not the Story christology of the New Testament, and not enough in a way that conforms to the gospel of 1 Cor 15, the sermons in Acts and the Gospel as told by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This is where I would place folks like The Gospel Coalition (most, not all?), Together for the Gospel, the New Calvinists (NeoPuritans), Billy Graham, and most evangelists I have heard. In the book I sketch Pastor “Eric” and Pastor “Greg” as examples of this kind of soterian.

Third, there are the covenant soterians. Paradoxically, this Reformed Story-approach to the Bible and to the gospel is closest to the King Jesus Gospel. Two observations: first, the covenant soterians frame the gospel as a focal element of the covenant Story of the Bible, the covenants God has made with humans (works, grace, whatever other terms they use), and what I like most is that they read the gospel of Jesus and the apostles through the lens of the Bible’s covenant Story. They also tend to be far more corporate and not as individualist in approach. But, but, but… I still think they are framing the covenant in terms almost exclusively of redemption/justification and not enough in terms of christology. Creation, fall, redemption covenant are central to this Story. In other words, while I have almost no final beef with the covenant soterians (they are not really the problem, I think, and I had none of them in mind in TKJG), I do think they could frame the gospel more completely in terms of christology (to be sure, a christology in which Jesus is Savior) and less in terms of justification by faith and double imputation. Michael Horton is a good covenant soterian, and so is Gerhardus Vos or Ken Stewart or Herman Ridderbos et al. It is more accurate to call covenant soterians “Reformed” instead of “Calvinist,” though they are the latter too.

Someone asked me about Alpha in the airport the other day. Two comments: first, I am not completely familiar with Alpha; but, second, I have read some of their principal stuff and what I read was the gospel of Jesus presented by reading the Gospel of Mark. What I saw there is a sound combination of the Story of Jesus (not enough Old Testament framework, but not bad), a focus on christology, but then a more soterian approach by the time the book was done.  Alpha, as I have seen it, is a half-way house between the soterian gospel and the Story gospel of Jesus and the apostles.

It comes to this: Do you think 1 Corinthians 15 is the gospel or not? And by that I mean “Do you think it is adequately the gospel so that nothing important is left out?” (Other than the response, for which Paul has no need to be concerned in that context.)