The word "gospel" can hide the good news

"Gospel" is a churchy word. Occasionally I've heard a pastor or a Bible teacher ask people to explain the gospel, or how they would explain the gospel; the result is usually a theory about forgiveness and faith. Or when a theologian tries to explain the gospel, what follows is often a complicated explanation of a theory of how atonement works. Sometimes people will go to the word's roots and translate it: "gospel" means "good news." And from there, the conversation often heads back to an explanation of a theory of atonement. 

The good news is not a theory of atonement; the good news is the atonement itself, reconciliation with God. The good news is not a theory about forgiveness, it is the forgiveness itself. In some places the Bible describes "the good news of the kingdom of God": that where God is king, diseases are healed, the disabled are made whole, the dead are raised, and sins are forgiven. Tears are wiped away. All things are made new. A brother will forgive his brother even 70x7 times, just as God does with us. That is the good news. 

I'm a firm believer in understanding things correctly. I do not speak out against our desire to make theories to help us understand, but against our tendency to mistake our theories for the thing itself, and to set up the human understanding of our theories as if that were saving faith, turning our thoughts into a checkpoint at which people can fail. 

What is the good news? 

• The good news is of God (2 Corinthians 11:7, 1 Thessalonians 2:8-9)
• The good news is the kingdom of God. (Matthew 4:23, Matthew 9:35, Matthew 24:14, Mark 1:14, Mark 1:15)
• The good news is God's grace (Acts 20:24)
• The good news is peace (Romans 10:15, Ephesians 6:15)
• The good news is the blessing to all humankind, even as promised from ancient times (Galatians 3:8)
• The good news is our salvation (see prior post on who or what we're saved from) (Ephesians 1:13)
• The good news is Jesus Christ. (Mark 1:1, Romans 1:9, Romans 1:16, Romans 15:19, Romans 15:29, Romans 16:25, 1 Corinthians 9:12, 1 Corinthians 9:18, 2 Corinthians 2:12, 2 Corinthians 4:4, 2 Corinthians 9:13, 2 Corinthians 10:14, Galatians 1:7, Philippians 1:27, 1 Thessalonians 3:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:8)

There is a reason that the four beginning books of the New Testament are called gospels. When the  earliest church asked the disciples to explain: what is the good news? Those were their answers: the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Paul likewise resolved to know nothing but Christ (I Corinthians 2:2). If we tell the good news and the hearers believe what they hear, that is faith. 

When Jesus "saves" us, who or what does he save us from?

I have heard a few atheists -- and rarely, one or two Christians -- say that Jesus saves us from the Father. While it doesn't surprise me to hear an atheist cast the Father in the role of the bad guy, when I hear a Christian follow suit then I must speak up. I'm aware I don't have any particular claim to be heard, so I would encourage people to review what Jesus himself said on this matter. If we look at Jesus' prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, as he was on the brink of the events that would save us -- he was praying to the Father to spare him, but only if it were the Father's will. From the Father's answer to Jesus' prayer, we know clearly it is the Father's will to save us. 

For those who hold certain beliefs about the unity of Jesus and the Father, there's a shorter way to the same point: we know that Jesus and the Father are not at odds because we know that God and God's Word (Jesus) are not infighting amongst themselves.

It can help to touch base with Scripture on what we're saved from. Here is a short overview of Jesus' own words on the topic, as recorded in the four Biblical accounts of his life. These are not selected verses, but a word study based on times when words for save and salvation are used in the four gospels.* 

In this world: 

• We may be saved from untimely death or the fear of it (Matthew 8:25; Matthew 14:30, Mark 3:4, Mark 5:23, Luke 6:9, Luke 8:50, John 11:12)
• We may saved (healed) from certain worldly afflictions (Matthew 9:21, Mark 5:28, Mark 5:34, Mark 6:56, Mark 10:52, Luke 7:50, Luke 8:48, Luke 17:19, Luke 18:42)
• We may be saved from our enemies, from those who hate us (Luke 1:71)

In the eternal perspective: 

• We are saved from our own sins or sinfulness (Matthew 1:21, Matthew 19:25, Mark 10:26, Luke 1:77)
• We are saved from death (Matthew 10:22, Matthew 16:25, Matthew 24:13, Matthew 24:22, Mark 8:35, Mark 13:13, Mark 13:20, Luke 9:24, Luke 9:56, Luke 13:23, Luke 17:33, Luke 18:26, John 10:9)
• We are saved from the devil or powers of evil (Luke 8:12, Luke 8:36)
• We are saved from being lost (not home, not belonging, not safe) (Matthew 18:11, Luke 19:9-10)

Scripture's use of the words leaves us free to draw connections among these. For example, how different is it to be saved from our enemies and to be saved from the powers of evil, or from untimely death? How different is it to be saved from worldly afflictions -- especially disease -- and from untimely death? While there are clearly differences between being saved from untimely death and being saved from death altogether by resurrection, there is also some connection between the two. This quick list of what we're saved from still leaves us plenty of room to look more closely and expand our understanding.

What we do not have is anything that would lead us to say that Jesus saves us from the Father. Jesus does not give us precedent to say that we are saved from the Father. The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John likewise do not give us precedent to say that we are saved from the Father. The old Reformer's note that we are saved from "sin, death, and the devil" is close to the mark, though I might add that we are saved "from being lost." On that view, we're not only saved away from bad things such as sin, death, and the devil, but into good things: fellowship with God, and a home where we are safe and where we belong. The reason that being saved into fellowship with God is a good thing is because God is not the bad guy, but the good guy, in the story of this world. 

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* For those wanting details of the word study, it's a trace of Strong's numbers G4982, G4991, and G4992 in the four gospels, scoping it to times when Jesus is doing the saving, and times where either the verse states what we're saved from or nearby context clarifies that. 

"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory"

In the older English translation of the Lord's Prayer, the prayer typically closes, "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory." Those words are not in the version recorded in the gospels as coming from Jesus, as is well-known to Roman Catholics who do not include it when praying the Lord's Prayer. I'd never looked into its origins, on the view that as far as closing words to a prayer go, I don't see a problem with it, though it's helpful to know this part of the prayer is an addition to the original prayer. 

Then this week I stumbled across a prayer that is strikingly close: 

"Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all." (1 Chronicles 29:11) This was recorded as David's prayer at Solomon's coronation. 

A search turns up another similar phrase: "You, O King, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the might, and the glory ..." (Daniel 2:37). Though this latter is not addressed to God but to Nebuchadnezzar. 

So the extended version of the Lord's Prayer seems to have taken its additional materials from ancient Jewish prayers, possibly dating as far back as the time of King David. 

Tolkien's lever

"Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world." - Archimedes

Many people have wanted to move the world, and lacked that place to stand outside of it. J.R.R. Tolkien solved the problem with Middle Earth: a place outside this world but still near enough to touch it. And through that he moved our imaginations, where we can see civilizations that are beautiful and kind instead of merely efficient, civilizations that grow from compatibility with the natural surroundings. He built a world in which the forest-dwellers write with scripts shaped in the flowing lines of trees and leaves, where mountain-dwelling miners chisel writing with the crystalline angle of minerals, and where to all of them the beauty and integrity matter. Living among these peoples, even simply in our imaginations, gives us the place to stand to see our own world more clearly. 

Memory eternal to Professor Tolkien! 

d. 2 Sept 1973