The Gospel of the Gospel Coalition 2

Last week I interacted with Bryan Chapell’s exposition of the gospel in the officially produced book by Gospel Coalition leaders, D.A. Carson and Tim Keller. The church stands or falls — not with justification (as Luther said it) but with the gospel (and justification is a potent impact of the gospel). In fact, the church is created by the gospel because before there was a church there was the gospel.

And many are saying today that gospel is not the threshold we cross as we enter the church but threshold and floor on which the whole superstructure is built. One might even say it is the foundation — but under the gospel is our Triune God. So, let’s abandon the analogy to say this: The gospel must be seen as at the heart of our faith and our ministries. Any organization that wants to root everything in gospel, as TGC does, has my interest and my support — to the degree that its gospel is the gospel of Jesus and the apostles.

Today I want to look at the gospel statement in TGC’s official statement because, as I observed in that previous post, Chapell’s and the TGC statement had some tension for me — with Chapell’s pushing the impact or benefits of the gospel more than the framing of the gospel in the New Testament. Here is the TGC statement:

The Gospel We believe that the gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ—God’s very wisdom. Utter folly to the world, even though it is the power of God to those who are being saved, this good news is christological, centering on the cross and resurrection: the gospel is not proclaimed if Christ is not proclaimed, and the authentic Christ has not been proclaimed if his death and resurrection are not central (the message is: “Christ died for our sins . . . [and] was raised”). This good news is biblical (his death and resurrection are according to the Scriptures), theological and salvific (Christ died for our sins, to reconcile us to God), historical (if the saving events did not happen, our faith is worthless, we are still in our sins, and we are to be pitied more than all others), apostolic (the message was entrusted to and transmitted by the apostles, who were witnesses of these saving events), and intensely personal (where it is received, believed, and held firmly, individual persons are saved).

Some observations:

1. We believe that the gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ—God’s very wisdom: I like this. The gospel but I’d probably first say the gospel is the good news about Jesus Christ, and that is perhaps what TGC means. Anyway, this is the way to begin a gospel statement — with Jesus.

2. Alluding to Paul’s observations in 1 Corinthians about folly and power is fine by me, but it might be more confrontational than we need to be. Still it is true: the gospel offends human pride.

Then this TGC statement breaks the gospel into separable attributes:

3. Christological, centering on the cross and resurrection: the gospel is not proclaimed if Christ is not proclaimed, and the authentic Christ has not been proclaimed if his death and resurrection are not central (the message is: “Christ died for our sins . . . [and] was raised”). Perfect. The gospel is first and foremost christology and it has to begin here or it becomes about us and not about God. And I agree that gospeling sees the whole through the lens of death, burial, resurrection and exaltation.

There is here however a severe Pauline reduction in this TGC: to be sure, Paul has a focus on the death and burial (not mentioned here) and resurrection and exaltation (not mentioned either), but surely to use “Jesus Christ” implies his life and teachings — that is, the incarnation as revelation.

Not only that, we know this is how the apostles preached the gospel because this is found in Acts, so once again we are onto method: how do we define gospel? I contend by looking at 1 Cor 15, at the sermons in Acts (both for Jews and Gentiles), and to the Gospels themselves. This TGC statement needs some lines on the gospel’s inclusion of the life of Christ. I can agree on the centering, as long as it is not ignoring the incarnational life, teachings, vision, etc, of Jesus.

A point consider: Tom Wright is making this very point in his book How God Became King, namely, that too many today are ignoring the life of Jesus in gospel and creed. I don’t go all the way with Tom on this, but this TGC statement illustrates what Tom is pointing out.

4. This good news is biblical (his death and resurrection are according to the Scriptures). On this TGC is dead right: it is biblical and by biblical I’d want to clarify “according to the Scriptures” as the Story of Israel — the plan of God in history through Israel and Christ and the church and the kingdom — coming to fulfillment in Christ. I hear a little sola scriptura here and would like to see some Story — the plot of the Bible — come to the surface. But “biblical” is exactly the points of the gospel in 1 Cor 15, in the sermons in Acts and throughout the Gospels themselves.

5. Theological and salvific (Christ died for our sins, to reconcile us to God): this double-pronged statement is articulate, succinct and I like it. The gospel is about God — from God, through God and for God’s glory — and the impact of the gospel is that it saves, understood here as reconciliation. That’s how I would read “for our sins” in 1 Cor 15 and that is how Peter and Paul preach the impact of the gospel in Acts and saving/reconciling/table-fellowshiping is all over the Gospels.

6. Historical (if the saving events did not happen, our faith is worthless, we are still in our sins, and we are to be pitied more than all others): if Jesus didn’t die, this gospel is useless; if Jesus wasn’t raised — bodily — it is useless. I agree.

7. Apostolic (the message was entrusted to and transmitted by the apostles, who were witnesses of these saving events). I agree on this but I find this statement bland and going nowhere. Well, I say, draw it out: if it is apostolic, that means we look to their witness in 1 Cor 15, in the gospeling sermons in Acts and in their literary deposits — namely, the NT canon, which begins with the Gospels and explicates gospel in Acts and the letters through Revelation. This statement — apostolic — implicates us in canon and that implicates in creed.

8. And intensely personal (where it is received, believed, and held firmly, individual persons are saved). I like the word “intensely” here: Yes, the gospel makes a claim on each of us, and it means we have to articulate just what that means. Here’s what it means in the gospeling sermons of Acts and more or less in the Gospels: we are to repent, we are to believe, we are to be baptized, we are to confess, we are to follow. As I read this “personal” statement at TGC there’s more emphasis on theological substance — “believed” and “held firmly” and we could use some more of the angles of personal response that involve repentance, baptism and confession that leads into following Jesus.