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Faith Is Not the Gospel

Faith Is Not the Gospel

Last updated on: July 28, 2016 at 1:35 pm by G. Shane Morris

Faith Is Not the Gospel 2016-07-28T13:35:27-04:00 G. Shane Morris

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When I was growing up, I thought that Romans 10:9 was the Gospel:

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Excepting the bit about the Resurrection, that is not the Gospel. That is the Apostle Paul telling a convert what to do in light of the Gospel. Believing is not the Gospel, either. Nor is justification by faith. And contrary to what many churches from the high tradition might tell you, Acts 2:38 (“repent and be baptized for the remission of your sins”) is not the Gospel, either. It’s another command *in light* of the Gospel.

This is what I think numerous conservative evangelicals (especially some who call themselves “Reformed”) misunderstand, and why they can be so cantankerous at times. They think (as I did) that the Gospel is something we do–a set of cognitive steps you walk through–a formula you’ve got to perform exactly right, or you’re doomed. But that’s not true at all, and the Gospel isn’t so rarefied that only the Baptist Faith and Message accurately expresses it. It’s a formula, alright. But it’s got nothing to do with our actions or responses. Paul gives it in 1 Corinthians 15:1-9:

“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”

Jef_Leempoels_Morning_prayers The Gospel is Jesus, and what He’s done, not what we do in response (though that part is important, and shows whether or not we understand the Gospel). I remember thinking of the Nicene Creed as sort of weird and esoteric. Where on earth was the clause about justification by faith alone? Why did it talk about “baptism for the remission of sins”? Where, for heaven’s sake, was the Sinner’s Prayer?

But now I realize that it’s all there: “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ…who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures.”

Believing in these historical facts and resting on them for all you’re worth is what justification looks like, precisely because your responsive belief is not the Gospel. What Jesus did 2,000 years ago is the Gospel–the “good news.”

This has huge implications for ecumenism, especially for Reformed Protestants. As Steve writes at Triablogue:

“There’s a difference between faith in Christ alone and faith in faith alone. Faith in Christ alone may be theologically unreflective. It is not, in the first instance, what we believe about faith but what we believe about ourselves in relation to what we believe about our Savior. Sola fide is theologically self-reflective. There’s a necessary place for that in orthodox theology. But it’s not the essence of saving faith. Faith is not its own object.”

And that unreflective faith is placed in a Person, and His historical accomplishments, and their theological significance for His people. J. Gresham Machen summarizes this objective understanding of the Gospel in “Christianity and Liberalism”:

“What is it that forms the content of that primitive [Christian] teaching? Is it a general principle of the fatherliness of God or the brotherliness of man? Is it a vague admiration for the character of Jesus such as that which prevails in the modern Church? Nothing could be further from the fact. ‘Christ died for our sins,’ said the primitive disciples, ‘according to the Scriptures; he was buried; he has been raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.’ From the beginning, the Christian gospel, as indeed the name ‘gospel’ or ‘good news’ implies, consisted in an account of something that had happened. And from the beginning, the meaning of the happening was set forth; and when the meaning of the happening was set forth then there was Christian doctrine. ‘Christ died’—that is history; ‘Christ died for our sins’—that is doctrine. Without these two elements, joined in an absolutely indissoluble union, there is no Christianity.”

The only right response to these facts and their significance is to say with the billions who have confessed the Creed down through the centuries, “I believe.” But it is the facts and the Man behind them, not our belief, that constitutes the “good news”–the Gospel.

Image: Jef Leempoels – Morning prayers, Wikimedia Commons

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