Understanding the Gospel, Part 1
As Christians, we hear about the Gospel, or Good News, quite a lot. It’s referenced nearly every Sunday from our pulpits and is the reason behind why we suggest people convert to the faith. But do we really even understand it ourselves? Do Christians even grasp the magnitude of how good the Good News is?
In my faith tradition, the Good News has become very simple and concise; God will forgive you of your sin (wrong doing) because Jesus took the punishment for them, so now you can go to heaven when you die. That’s the Good News. The problem is, if you spend more than a minute thinking about that statement and allow yourself to be honest with it, I think it raises more questions than answers. More fear than hope. More bad news than good news.
God (as we understand by implications and tradition)
Before you shout “heresy!” let’s look at the statement again, honestly, as I did when I was first wrestling with the Good News. It begins with God. God, the eternal, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful Good Creator who loves the world and loves perfection. We don’t voice that last part, not at all, but we imply it. In fact, part of the Gospel message in many churches is based upon it. God is perfect and wanted the world to be perfect in union with him. In fact anything less than perfect can’t be in his presence therefore he separated himself from imperfect humanity, put distance between us and Him. Again that is never really said verbatim, but is, in so many words. This God is the basis of Christian faith. A severe father in heaven, only made not terrifying by his Son Jesus, who for some reason isn’t scared of Him and goes so far as to convince us that He is Loving and Forgiving. An idea we have a hard time understanding when, Sunday after Sunday, we are told that God will punish everyone with eternal fiery torture and solitary confinement in hell for not believing that he is loving and forgiving, or for stealing post it notes from work. This God, who cannot look upon sinful people, for His eyes are too holy. Who wipes people off the map and destroys souls for failing. This is the God with who Good News begins. Yikes!
The Bad News
Next, let’s look at the next concept. Forgiveness of sin. To be forgiven is to be released of a debt, to have an offense settled by canceling the record of wrong. Can we understand forgiveness without understanding sin? No. Especially not when it comes to Gospel. In this scenario, every human is born into sin. But what is Sin? Sin is a church word. A bible word. A word we don’t use in everyday life and therefore has no everday meaning. Only church people know it, only people who have been to church and heard it used. In a nutshell, Sin is every bad thing you have and will ever do. Sin is what’s wrong with the world. And part of the Gospel message is that all sin is the same. If you did one bad thing, you might as well have done all bad things. Back to the stolen post note from work. You are a thief for using company property for your own uses. Stealing is a sin therefore you are a sinner. Murderers are sinners. Liars are sinners. Because Adam was the first sinner, all who are human are sinners. You are born sinful and you can’t help but be anything but sinful. In this scenario, you are bad and wrong by nature. You are a problem. All humans are inherently wrong.
I can’t even begin to say how much I disagree with this understanding of sin, let alone the implications it leads to in regard to God’s nature when you consider the paths it takes, but let’s continue. All have sinned and all have fallen short of the glory of God…or the perfection that is God (we believe it to read instead)… and that we believe he wants us to attain. That’s how that that verse is implied when gospel comes in. So, Sin is a big problem. Sin is bad news, but why? Because sinners can’t be near God. Sinners go to hell. Sinners need to be punished. After all, no one needs to tell you that there is something wrong with you. Anyone who is honest with themselves can look in the mirror and find innumerable flaws. The voice in our heads tells us we aren’t enough, we are no one, we deserve nothing. We are nothing. Of course God feels the same way about us. But now we know why…sin! God hates sin so of course God wouldn’t want to be with me in heaven. He can’t be with me in heaven. Of course I should be punished for the wrong I did and do. In life, we’ve been scolded, punished and put in time outs for a our bad behavior because that’s how you deal with bad behavior. The only way to deal with bad behavior is to punish it out of someone.Yikes again!
Sin indeed is bad news. But it gets worse. Because God is eternal and cosmically perfect, our sin can’t just be dealt with with time outs and slaps on the wrist. No. According to the traditional teaching of Gospel, because we offended such an eternally perfect being, our punishment must be eternally matched. This is where hell comes in. The only fitting punishment for offending an eternal and perfect God is death and eternal separation from him, forever. That’s really bad news. What are we going to do!
One might think that they will just be good, they won’t be a sinner and they will be righteous so they won’t offend God and they can live with him in heaven. Wrong. That, we are told, is impossible. No one is righteous, not even one. Remember it’s your nature to be sinful. You can’t help it and you can’t fix it. Now we are really at the lowest point. You are culpable of eternal punishment just because you are human, just for being born, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Good News?
But here is where the “Good News” comes in. Someone will tell you that God decided to be merciful and punish Jesus, his innocent Son with the worst death and abandonment possible, so that his punishment would take your place. The “Good” news is that Jesus’s blood covers you so that when God sees his blood on you, he doesn’t see you at all, he only sees Jesus; his obedience and righteousness. The “Good” news is that if you believe in Jesus and profess him as your savior, you can now go to heaven when you die because that blood, his presence, shields God from you, in so many words. The “Good” news says that you are still a sinner through and through, but now, you are a sinner saved by grace. Heaven isn’t full of perfect people, it’s full of sinners who have been redeemed.
That’s the Gospel as we know it today in the Modern West. This is what is taught in Sunday school to children packaged in bright colors and soft language. This is what is taught at universities. This is what is shouted on street corners by shabbily dressed men with backpacks and large signs.
God forgives you because Jesus changed His mind about you on the cross.
That, my friends, has been passed along as Good News for hundreds of years but it is barely good at all. Sure, there are aspects of the gospel message stated above that are absolutely true, they even have scriptures that seem like they corroborate, but the spirit of the message is twisted. That walk through the supposed good news is flawed and misaligned with the very nature and character of God, as well as the ample evidence, and glossed over truths in the Bible.
Getting to the Bottom of the Gospel is a Good Place to Start
My goal in this series of posts is to see exactly what they bible has to say about the Good News and how it has been maligned so subtly and so tragically by modern christianity. To do so, we will need to look at the scriptures that directly and indirectly reference the following concepts
the Good News or Gospel, in Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew.
The macro timeline of existence. The big picture. Why? To what end? To what purpose? Overarching Order and Meaning.
We will also need to understand the cosmology of the ancient writers. (How did they see and understand the world they lived in and what condition did they believe humanity and the world to be in?
What does the Bible say about Salvation across all its pages? What can we conclude from polarities of thought like the Calvinist Armenian debate regarding salvation? Predestination vs free will?
What of punishment? Are there any other forms of justice and atonement? Are there other ways to bring balance? Other language of justice?
What is Sin and how culpable is humanity?
What happened on the cross?
Who is God after all and what is He really like? How does He really feel about us?
What we “know” of God based on what we’ve been told or what we intuit and what the Bible tells us.
What do we know of heaven and hell and who belongs where? And why?
How did early church Fathers (and Mothers) see and interpret such things? How did they interpret the Bible and the apostolic teachings?
How and When did secular and false teachings pervade christianity, if they did?
How should the church handle the preaching of the Gospel message in light of what we find?
I look forward to seeing where truth and honest questions lead us and pray the Holy Spirit guides us in all wisdom and clarity.