StaffFebruary 24, 2010
According to the April 2009 census bureau report, "35.2 million Americans changed residences between March 2007 and March 2008, the fewest number to move in one year since 1962." Colin Hansen of Christianity Today reflects on the reality of mobility and how even the "time of transience is itself transient." In this article, Stephen Um recommends that we confront the idolatries, recognize the realities, and identify the opportunities. See how the Gospel is deployed.
Click here to view the article on Christianity Today.
StaffFebruary 23, 2010
This is the Center's definition of the Gospel.
by Stephen Um & Richard Lints
The gospel, which is robust and theologically thick, is more than simply the forgiveness of sins. The Center for Gospel Culture wants to be able to provide an inter-canonical, biblical-theological picture of what the gospel is on the grand redemptive story plotline of creation, fall, redemption, and the new creation. The gospel is not only the way one enters into the kingdom of God, but also the powerful dynamic of how an individual lives out the Christian life.
In brief the gospel is simply the “good news that God has redeemed us through Jesus”. But the realities lying beneath the surface of this summary are as important as the summary itself. And if we remain content with “surface realities” only, the depth and richness of these realities will be lost on us. It is when we reduce the gospel to its bare simplicity, that redemption becomes so thin as to be irrelevant to most of life.
The “good news” stretches from before the beginning of time all the way beyond the end of time. It is not a truth which begins with my conversion nor does it reach its fulfillment in any particular experience of my life. The gospel has everything to do with the “before and after” context of my life. It is a greater reality into which my entire life is embedded. It is a truth which owns me as opposed to an object I possess. It is larger than my life and is that by which my life makes sense. The gospel is not about “me”, but rather I am defined by the gospel.
God narrates the gospel as the story which begins at Genesis 1 and runs all the way through to Revelation 22. Important dimensions of the gospel are lost when any part of the story from Genesis to Revelation is omitted. When Luke records "And beginning with Moses and with all the prophets He [Jesus] explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures." the claim is being made that the story of Jesus is the story of the whole Bible. And the whole Bible is the whole gospel. The gospel is the glue which holds the Bible together even as Jesus is the glue which holds the whole story together.
The word gospel, euangelion, is stating that a formal declaration of victory has been made, and that sin has been overcome through Jesus’ perfect obedience in life and death on the cross. It is something that has been done in history, and we can only receive it by faith. The gospel is good news, rather than mere instruction. It is like a messenger who brings good news of a major historical event that has already happened. Therefore, there are major implications of this event in the life of an individual. In this sense, the gospel is the primacy of God’s work in Christ that changes the fallen condition of his creation, namely, individual sinners who are redeemed and restored in this new creational story.
The content of the message of Jesus is the gospel. He's not merely talking about the gospel or talking about ethical instruction, but he himself is at the heart of the gospel, reconciling broken, alienated, sinful people with their God. In other words, Jesus doesn’t just bring us good news, he is good news. God is the gospel in Jesus.
Jesus not only saves people in history, but also accomplishes redemption by providing grace for the weak. It is an upside-down, ironic, subversive paradigm of how grace comes to the powerless rather than the powerful, the strong, or the privileged. This is the reason why Luke emphasized that the gospel came to marginalized people; namely the weak, the poor, women, tax collectors, Gentiles, and the sick. It is a reversal of the values of what the world highly regards, namely, affluence, status, accumulation of wealth, and power. So it’s an alternative kingdom and a new humanity. The cross better than anything else shows us this great counter-cultural nature of the gospel which provides life through death, power through weakness, wisdom through foolishness, and leadership through service. Therefore, this authority of grace frees the individual from any enslavement to power, status or recognition.
The Gospel is a faith rather than one’s own merit. Paul teaches us that the gospel reveals a righteousness from God (Rom 1:17) and Paul in Gal 2 identifies the gospel with pardon and forgiveness and righteousness and perfection in Christ (2 Cor 5:21). And this can only be received by faith in the finished work of Christ, not by good works or one’s own performance, but by the performance of Christ. And because we are sinners, who have fallen short of the glory of God, and were dead in our trespasses and sin, we need a God who not only can initiate pardon and forgiveness, but also can transfer righteousness and perfection. Jesus came into the world through the Incarnation and saved sinners through redemption in order to renew all things through the new creation.
Furthermore, the Bible can use different word pictures to articulate the breadth and depth of the gospel. The language of the law court (justification, punishment, judgment) illuminates the fundamentally moral character of redemption. In Jesus, God substituted himself in the legal place of a sinner by taking the judgment he deserved so that he can receive the treatment Jesus deserved. The language of the temple (atonement, sacrifice, sanctification) highlights the mystery of the universal presence of God as creator interwoven into the local presence of God as redeemer. This image shows how Jesus was rejected, shamed, and excluded so that the sinner could be purified and cleansed from sin, therefore removing the barrier of shame. The language of the family (adoption, bride and bridegroom) explores the central relational quality of God’s dealing with His creatures. The cross removes the hostility barrier because Jesus removed God’s anger by standing in the sinner’s place as the great high priest and mediator, therefore providing reconciliation and adoption. The language of the marketplace (redemption and possession) captures the dynamic of God’s ownership of His people in all of life. These and many more word pictures help us to appreciate the all-encompassing character of the gospel. Reduce the gospel to any single word picture and something fundamental is lost. Omit any of the word pictures and the gospel loses its traction in our lives.
Here is the rub. The gospel sits light on our lives today by and large. There are too many distractions for many of us, and the gospel gets our attention only when the other distractions of life aren’t exploding on us. Even if we reach this conclusion, too often we then suppose that if we could get rid of the distractions, the gospel would become more important to us. It would have more bite in our lives. These are noble intentions indeed. However . . . the solution here is not a matter of exerting your will (or mine) over these distractions. Greater moral rigor or an increase in self-discipline ironically is one of the ways in which the gospel gets further sidelined. The gospel is about finding ourselves in an alternative universe, not simply rearranging the furniture in the old universe. No matter how much it may seem spiritually or aesthetically pleasing it will never satisfy our souls.
In the weeks to come we want to explore the theological character of the gospel, the pastoral dimensions of the gospel, the missional heart of the gospel and the communal nature of the gospel. There are too many thoughtful people of deep character that are no longer satisfied by gospel-lite. We hope this blog will stimulate these sorts of folk to engage more richly with the breath and the depth of the gospel.
Stephen UmFebruary 23, 2010
The Center highly recommends this book:
"Don Carson has provided a rich, thoughtful, and theologically honest introduction of the person and work of Jesus. With the biblical fidelity, clarity, and wisdom we have come to expect from his writings, Carson provides a treatment of the ironies of the cross not merely as a literary device but as a powerful analysis of the subversive, upside-down nature of the cross; namely, the powerful, redeeming, trusting king of the universe becoming a powerless, marginalized, and crucified savior. He believes that Jesus cried this cry, 'My God! I am forsaken?' so that for all eternity we will not have to be. This is a scandalous picture of Jesus' loving act of self-identification and self-donation for the godforsaken. We are grateful for his fruitful labors in showing us the irony of the mocked king who really is the king, not only for the Jews but also for the entire world."
—Stephen T. Um, Senior Minister, Citylife Presbyterian Church, Boston; President, Center for Gospel Culture
StaffFebruary 23, 2010
Looking for some extra resources by Stephen Um? Click here for more of his resources at The Gospel Coalition's site.
Topics include:
Assurance of Salvation | Doubt | The Myth of Self Creation | Cain and Abel: Differences and Similarities | Faith Cycle | Leadership Development: Being Priests to One Another
StaffFebruary 23, 2010
Stephen Um in his seminar at The Gospel Coalition 2009 conference provides a Gospel approach to ministry within urban mobility, addressing both realities and idolatries associated with urban influence and hyper-mobility- On Ministry and Revolving Doors: Practical Challenges and Ideas for Ministry in a Mobile Society.
Stephen UmFebruary 15, 2010
"I believe the greatest need for today's American church is for its individual members to make a radical commitment to the centrality of the Gospel as Christ's finished work for every aspect of their life and mission. We need to have the eyes of our hearts enlightened (Eph 1.18) in order to savor the supremacy of Christ in all things and to move away from anything that chokes or blinds our ability to value his worth and glory. Jesus perfectly lived the life that we should have lived by transferring his righteousness to his people so that our religious piety or social morality would be exposed for what it is, a form of self-salvation. The church needs to be aware of her tendency to focus on secondary, peripheral issues, that is addressing behavioristic symptoms, rather than on central issues of historic confessional Christianity, namely justification by faith alone on Jesus' perfect record which gives us a vital relationship with a Holy God. The crying need in our churches is for prophetic voices to expose the limitations of all other cultural worldviews (e.g. traditional, modern, or postmodern) while offering an ultimate satisfaction and substitutionary redemption which frees us from all kinds of enslavement. The confidence and humility which Christ's righteousness provides will enable us to embrace this incarnational responsibility to be secure with ourselves while loving God and others. This commitment to a contextualized gospel will cause the church to be missional and counter cultural, and therefore more relevant and theologically sensitive in deconstructing other philosophical paradigms while illuminating both religious and secular people to engage in an organic relationship with the person of Jesus."
