JoyaTeemer: moved Editorial to Themelios Editorial 34.1 (2009)

JoyaTeemer — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:37:25 GMT

moved Editorial to Themelios Editorial 34.1 (2009)

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JoyaTeemer — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:09:36 GMT

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In blogs, journal essays, and books, there has been quite a lot written recently about what
“the gospel” is. In the hands of some, the question of what “the gospel” is may be tied to
the question of what “evangelicalism” is, since “gospel” = εὐαγγέλιον = evangel, which lies at the
heart of evangelicalism. People talk variously of the “simple” gospel or the “robust” gospel or the “pure”
gospel—and doubtless a rich array of other adjectives. Some make a distinction between the gospel
of the cross and the gospel of the kingdom. Technical New Testament studies in recent years have
addressed the question of when “The Gospel According to Matthew [or Mark or Luke or John]” became
“The Gospel ''of'' Matthew [or Mark or Luke or John],” for the former presupposes that there was one
gospel with assorted witnesses, while the latter opens the possibility of having a distinct gospel for each
community labeled by one of the four canonical gospels—though this latter view, still dominant, has come
under severe criticism, not least in the light of Richard Bauckham’s edited volume ''The Gospels for All
Christians: Rethinking Gospel Audiences'' (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). Ironically, while Bauckham’s
title nicely captures something true and important—viz., that our four canonical Gospels were not
written for hermetically sealed off communities but for the widest circulation among Christians—it
uses the plural form of the noun, “Gospels,” in a way which, as far as I know, is frankly anachronistic,
for it does not seem to be duplicated anywhere else in the first century. A handful of other essays have
noted the instance where the gospel is not “good news” for certain people, but a promise of terrifying
judgment. The writers of these essays argue that εὐαγγέλιον may not mean “good news” but something
like “great and important news”: whether it is good or bad depends on those who hear it.

A couple of these questions I hope to address shortly elsewhere. For the moment, however, I’d like
to underscore another distinction that is still worth making. It was understood better in the past than
it is today. It is this: one must distinguish between, on the one hand, the gospel as what God has done
and what is the message to be announced and, on the other, what is demanded by God or effected by
the gospel in assorted human responses. If the gospel is the (good) news about what God has done in
Christ Jesus, there is ample place for including under “the gospel” the ways in which the kingdom has
dawned and is coming, for tying this kingdom to Jesus’ death and resurrection, for demonstrating that
the purpose of what God has done is to reconcile sinners to himself and finally to bring under one head
a renovated and transformed new heaven and new earth, for talking about God’s gift of the Holy Spirit,
consequent upon Christ’s resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Majesty on high, and
above all for focusing attention on what Paul (and others—though the language I’m using here reflects
Paul) sees as the matter “of first importance”: Christ crucified. All of this is what God has done; it is what
we proclaim; it is the news, the great news, the good news.

By contrast, the first two greatest commands—to love God with heart and soul and mind and
strength, and our neighbor as ourselves—do not constitute the gospel, or any part of it. We may well
argue that when the gospel is faithfully declared and rightly received, it will result in human beings more
closely aligned to these two commands. But they are not the gospel. Similarly, the gospel is not receiving
Christ or believing in him, or being converted, or joining a church; it is not the practice of discipleship.
Once again, the gospel faithfully declared and rightly received will result in people receiving Christ,
believing in Christ, being converted, and joining a local church; but such steps are not the gospel.
The Bible can exhort those who trust the living God to be concerned with issues of social justice (Isa
2; Amos); it can tell new covenant believers to do good to all human beings, especially to those of the
household of faith (Gal 6); it exhorts us to remember the poor and to ask, not “Who is my neighbor?”
but “Whom am I serving as neighbor?” We may even argue that some such list of moral commitments
is a ''necessary'' consequence of the gospel. But it is not the gospel. We may preach through the list,
reminding people that the Bible is concerned to tell us not only what to believe but how to live. But we
may not preach through that list and claim it encapsulates the gospel. The gospel is what ''God'' has done,
supremely in Christ, and especially focused on his cross and resurrection.

Failure to distinguish between the gospel and all the effects of the gospel tends, on the long haul, to
replace the good news as to what God has done with a moralism that is finally without the power and
the glory of Christ crucified, resurrected, ascended, and reigning.

Themelios Editorial 34.1 (2009) - Revision history

JoyaTeemer: moved Editorial to Themelios Editorial 34.1 (2009)

JoyaTeemer: Created page with '{{info}} In blogs, journal essays, and books, there has been quite a lot written recently about what “the gospel” is. In the hands of some, the question of what “the gospe...'