What is Gospel Centeredness

Within modern day evangelicalism, and especially within reformed circles, one is going to come across the term, “Gospel-centered” or other language which intends to communicate the centrality of the gospel. What is going on with all this and what does it mean?

From my perspective, as one who is “growing up” within this movement, what I see is a push to make the redemptive act of Christ’s death and resurrection (the gospel) the fundamental emphasis in a Christian’s life.

The reason being is that the former air that these evangelicals, and myself, breathed was one of legalism and moralism. Legalism is a belief that one’s acceptance to God is based on his or her’s obedience to God’s commandments. The thought and lifestyle being one of, “if I am good enough God will consider me His own.” Moralism, how I use the term, is a bit different but related. Moralism would be a focus on keeping the commandments. The difference from legalism is that moralism doesn’t have to relate to God. An atheist can be a moralist. A legalist is a moralist but uses that moralism in relating to God. His focus is keeping the rules (moralist) so that he will be accepted by God (legalist). Hopefully that distinction is clear.

There were the two emphasis, all the while the gospel was assumed.  Moralism was rampant because sermons usually focused entirely one the “3 three things one needs to do.” I remember sitting through a sermon on Isaiah 53 and all the preacher had to give was three morals we need to live out in out lives. Now legalism was never openly proclaimed but it was the undeclared mindset. When you have a culture that is focused on morals legalism is the natural way the people start relating to God.

Both of these are easy snares to Christians. Obedience is a very important aspect of the Christian life. Without obedience one cannot be a Christian, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15). But in this air obedience became the central, fundamental aspect of the Christian life in teaching and emphasis. Because of this a proper understanding of obedience morphed into moralism and legalism. One did not seek to do right out of a love for Christ, but in an attempt to earn Christ’s love. And hard, cold terms were use to communicate how one understood the pursuit of Christ: duty, obligation, and debt. The Christian life was one of guilt for failure while trying to pay back the debt of what Christ did for us. The gospel was something one did and then moved on to more important things. For the Christian the gospel was to be assumed while they pursued obedience.

Now, what I just described is the bleak side of things. It was not that every church and Christian lived in the pool of despair. But it does communicate the problem which existed and which spurred on the new gospel movement. No longer did believers want the gospel to be assumed, they wanted it front and center.

That is where this movement and emphasis comes from.

Now the question can be asked, “what does it mean?” I want to be clear how I understand and communicate “gospel-centeredness” to my readers. To be gospel centered is for a Christian to view, understand, and live their life of obedience and their relationship to God baptized/immersed/encapsulated/identified in Christ’s historic work of salvation which was the accomplished mission of God’s entire salvific plan. A mouth full, with which you may have to trace with a pencil, but I think it is accurate to what I think about how the bible communicates this.

Two sections of scripture are the bases of this understanding,

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life…

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:4, 8-14 ESV)

and

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. (Colossians 3:3-8 ESV)

I get the term “baptized” from the Roman 6 passage. The Christian life of obedience is baptized in the death and resurrection of Christ. The command to “let not sin reign therefore in your mortal body” and “put to death therefore what is earthly in you” come from the understanding that one is identified with the salvific work of Christ. “you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” and “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” As believer’s we are identified, and are to identify ourselves, with Christ’s work. We are to construct our identity in the gospel.

C. J. Mahaney helpfully illustrates,

The Gospel isn’t one class among many that you’ll attend as a Christian—the gospel is the whole building that all the classes take place in! Rightly approached, all the topics you’ll study and focus on as a believer will be offered to you ‘within the walls’ of the glorious gospel. (The Cross-Centered Life, 75-76)

Biology is not the school, it is a class in the school. Thus, putting away anger is not the gospel, it a part of maturity in the gospel. For as Paul puts it,

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. (Ephesians 5:1 ESV)

Being an imitator of God doesn’t make you a beloved child. You don’t think to yourself, “I am a person who imitates God well, thus I am a child.” No, the identity is not found in the work. You ARE a beloved child, therefore imitate God. You have been adopted by God through the sacrificed blood of Christ. The defiled rebel was washed clean in the blood of the Lamb, justified, and reconciled to the Father. By faith in Christ that is who you are—a beloved child! Sanctification, becoming more like God, is part of what it means to be a beloved child. It is not the child.

This is what I mean by gospel centeredness. The mindset of the Christ is that they are identified with the work of Christ. They are righteous, because He is righteous. They are accepted because He is accepted. They are dead to sin because He is dead to sin.  Sinclair Ferguson gives a great commentary on Romans 6:10-11 about this point,

All that [Christ] accomplished for us in our human nature is, through union with him, true for us and, in a sense, of us. He died to sin once; he lives to God (6:10). He came under the dominion of sin in death, but death could not master him. He rose and broke the power of both sin and death. Now He lives forever in the resurrection life of God. The same is as true of us as if we had been with him on the cross, in the tomb and on the resurrection morning!

We miss the radical nature of Paul’s teaching here to our great loss. So startling is it that we need to find a startling manner of expressing it. For what Paul is saying is that sanctification means this: in relationship both to sin and to God, the determining factor of my existence is no longer my past. It is Christ’s past. The basic frame work of my new existence in Christ is that I have become a “dead man brought to life” and must think of myself in those terms: dead to sin and alive to God in union with Jesus Christ our Lord. (Sinclair B. Ferguson, Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification, p. 57)

That is the mindset, that is the way the Christian views things, that is the “frame work of my new existence.” It it telling myself, even when I look at myself and don’t see it, that I am a dead man brought to life through Christ. I have already entered into the new life in Christ! And with that new life comes all the benefits: sonship, reconciliation, justification, imputation, Fatherly love, glorious inheritance, freedom from sin, Fatherly care and protection. They are all mine! I possess all those because I am possessed by Christ! This is the frame work, the mind set that I cal myself to have when living in this world. That is what I mean if I call people to gospel centeredness. A call for Christians to identify themselves with Jesus Christ and all that He is for them. Their relationship with God and their obedience flows out of this mindset.

Where My Focus Should Be

Do I hate sin because of its offense to God, or the offense it does to me? The answer to that question is massive. In contemplating over that answer I was reminded of this quote,

We are transformed into Christ’s image—that’s what sanctification is—by steadfast seeing and savoring of the glory of Christ…The work of the Holy Spirit in changing us is not to work directly on our bad habits but to make us admire Jesus Christ so much that sinful habits feel foreign and distasteful.

-John Piper, God is the Gospel, p 91-92.

The needed focus of my eyes and heart is clear—Jesus Christ. Not my sins. Focusing on my sins puts me in the center where the central thing I worry about is sin consequences to me. Instead, my central focus should be the glory of Christ so that He is center. And with that focus comes the killing of sin.

I Lose and Give God the Glory

With the success of Christian athletes such as Tim Tebow and Jeremy Lin we can become glad that God’s name is getting proclaimed because of their success.

This video, however, is a testimony from another athlete who’s end was not as successful. But I don’t think that it is wrong to say that this one makes God look more glorious than the other stories.  This is a video of Colt McCoy being interviewed by his pastor Matt Carter reflecting on the 2009 National Football Championship Game which McCoy aimed to win.

A Christian Psychology of and Response to Homosexuality

Venturing into topic of homosexuality is wondering into a land of mine fields. The topic is an extremely heated one with the whole culture going one way and Christians facing the exact opposite. Because of our direction we are cast as out of date bigots.

Then, sadly, Christians can come at this topic very uniformed and self-righteously. Homosexuality is treated as a special class of sin which makes a person weird.

But this is a issue that we need to respond to with humility and knowledge.

First there is the biblical witness that clearly communicates that homosexuality is a sin. If you want a through defense of this claim many have referenced Robert Gagnon work. I have not read the book but I have read other things Dr. Gagnon has written and have found them to be a thorough defense of this biblical claim.

But then there is the other arena where we understand homosexual desire to help those who are tempted with it. I have watched the below video and found it to be a excellent introduction to this. Professor Sam Williams does an excellent job discussing causes and how the gospel works into counseling someone struggling with these desires. I would encourage you to take the time to listen to the message in full.

HT: Justin Taylor

Our Perfection in His Perfection

By His death, Christ purchased all the grace and glory that the God of all grace had designed for us. That is clear in Scripture: “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Heb. 9:14). Alas for us poor creatures! For a long time after we are sanctified, we remain imperfect, lacking all and everything in comparison. How, then, are we perfected? Because Jesus Christ, by that one offering, perfectly purchased all that ever shall make up our perfection. It is finished in that sense. He so abundantly procured all by His death that He needed to offer Himself but once. If there were anything necessary to perfect a saint that Christ did not purchase, His offering must have been imperfect. 

-Thomas Goodwin, Ephesians; Works 1:170, 173 quoted in A Habitual Sight of Him by Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, 91.

Where have I Been?

Sorry for the absence. Like always school and work pull me away from posting for a little while. I will be back when I can.