What Is the Gospel (part 2)?
Last week I begin considering with you what we mean by “gospel.” I wrote that is the news of what God has done and will do through Jesus. This leads to a natural follow-up question: how do we describe what God has done and will do through Jesus? The answer to this question comes in focusing on two key terms: reconciliationand restoration.
God has reconciled us to himself through Jesus. Through the cross and resurrection, we are enabled to “come home” like the prodigal son. We change from being enemies of God, under his wrath, to beloved members of God’s family, completely forgiven. All this happens apart from anything we do–it is purely a work of Christ that we are called merely to receive by faith.
The Bible also speaks of Godrestoring, or redeeming, his world. Sin not only ruptured our relationship with God; it also ruined all that he made: nothing on earth is the way it’s supposed to be. Jesus’ death and resurrection stands as the beginning of the “new creation,” where not only our relationship with God, but also our entire lives and the created world around us are restored to the way that God meant them to be. We will experience this restoration in its fullness only when Jesus returns. However, the Spirit gives us a taste of our future. As the church together begins to live transformed lives, we both discover and display just a hint of what the world will be like when all is finished.
If we don’t keep both of these ideas together, we run into problems. Churches that only think about God’s work of restoration lose sight of our need to be forgiven and even of the completely undeserved grace of God. And churches that only focus on reconciliation miss how the gospel is good news for all of life, and how Jesus’ work leads to truly changed lives. Only by remembering both do we truly begin to understand the gospel.
Thanks for thinking through this with me. Next week we’ll start thinking about what it means to be a “gospel-centered” church.
