what is the gospel?
if you asked most evangelical protestant christians the question, “what is the gospel?”, you’d hear something like “god loves the world, so he sent us his son jesus to save us. jesus did this by dying on the cross to atone for our sins. god raised him from the dead three days later to vindicate his victory over sin & death. if we believe these things, and repent from our sins, we will be saved, and therefore be rescued from an eternity in hell, and instead go to heaven when we die”. there’d be a few variations in there, but that would be the average understanding of the gospel.
in this model, salvation happens through believing a set of propositions. there is a certain degree of anxiety most christians have around making sure we have the right set of propositions to believe, so we don’t miss out. and in my experience most people hold a somewhat nervous confidence in these propositions because they’re not sure they actually understand what these propositions mean for real. and then it's even more complex to "share the gospel" because ... well, i think you know.
but when we turn to the gospels themselves, we do not find anything like that. instead, the gospel (good news) seems to simply be the proclamation & confident assurance that god is saving/reconciling all creation to himself in jesus. the good news, the gospel, is that god is doing it — saving, redeeming, reconciling, transforming — and will one day complete it. here's a bit from paul reflecting that gospel perspective:
Col 1:19-20 For in Jesus all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
and instead of being focused on saving us from the eternal hell that is the consequence of our sins, jesus seems focused on teaching us a way of life that he asserts will save us from the hell we’re busily creating for ourselves & others here on earth through our self-obsessed way of life. in other words, instead of asking us to believe in a set of propositions, jesus is inviting us to trust him, and follow him here & now.
so the way of life comes first — love your enemies; be radically generous; don’t judge; forgive one another; be merciful & compassionate; don’t get distracted by the wealth & pleasures of this life… and we don’t practice these things in order to earn or merit heaven one day; rather, we do this because this is what we were created for — and in so doing, we begin to experience the life of jesus, the kingdom of god, heaven — here & now. we begin to be recreated in the image of jesus, and so are becoming most fully ourselves.
there will be many propositions & theologies to create & discuss & reflect on… but all of that is secondary. this jesus way of life — most beautifully & provocatively summarized in the sermon on the mount — is primary.
it is all too common to define a christian as someone who believes a set of propositions, and participates in the activities of a church, and holds the right positions on various issues — abortion, immigration, capitalism, patriarchy, etc (no matter which side she/he falls). but all of that is somewhat peripheral in the viewpoint of jesus from the gospels. for him, its primarily a matter of practice, of a determined pursuit of a certain way of life — of love of enemy, radical generosity toward the poor, crazy compassion… these practices may move us toward certain positions on these issues listed above, but they will also deeply shape how we conduct ourselves toward those who disagree with us — and that is where our "christianity" is present or absent.
in other words, from the perspective of jesus in the gospels, it would be better to use the word “christian” as an adjective rather than a noun. so i am not christian BECAUSE i believe certain things — rather, i am christian WHEN i am practicing the jesus way in a particular situation.
these are not semantic differences, or nuances — they point to a radically different understanding of the gospel. you get a sense of this in the parable of the good samaritan in luke 10
Luke 10:25-37
An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”
He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.”
And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, leaving him half dead.
Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side.
So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
But a Samaritan while traveling came upon him, and when he saw him he was moved with compassion. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, treating them with oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him, and when I come back I will repay you whatever more you spend.’
Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”
He said, “The one who showed him mercy.”
Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
the common evangelical interpretation of this parable has jesus laying down the impossible weight of the law to the expert in the law. he’s demanding a "humanly impossible" standard of holiness, in order to bring the man to a place of desperation, where he can then actually hear the gospel of grace. this is a comprehensively wrong understanding of the parable. jesus is actually answering the man's question, explaining to the man how he can truly experience “eternal life” — the life of jesus, the life of the kingdom — here & now. love god, love your neighbor. if you pursue this way of life, says jesus, you will begin to experience my life, the life of god, the life you were created for, eternal life… here & now & forever.
but then the man tries to narrow it down — who is my neighbor? who do i not need to have compassion toward? illegal refugees? the radical left? the extreme right?
and then that brilliant parable. the samaritan has never even heard of jesus, and what he understands of israel's faith is corrupt (from the viewpoint of the expert in the law) but he is practicing the jesus way of compassionate self-giving generosity, and is therefore already experiencing the life that this expert in the law is seeking. to practice compassion is not the way to "earn" eternal life — it IS eternal life.
this samaritan who shows mercy & compassion is being christian — as jesus would use that term.
all this has profound implications for our own post-deconstruction faith, our communal life, and most critically, for how we parent our children. it is so much better for our children to learn from infancy that their parents are seeking to follow the jesus way, three steps forward, two steps back… and in transparent humility are being invited to follow jesus as their parents are seeking to do. the sermon on the mount would be a good framework, rather than stories about 6 day creation, and the plagues of egypt, and the genocide of jericho, or the violence of david & goliath.
so… much more on this in future times together — we’ll have to think through how this plays out in the three spaces we discussed last week — within ourselves, in our relationships from family to gaza, toward our creator. but i hope this provokes serious questions.
engaging with those questions will be the best way to understand & internalize the jesus that the gospels describe, in contrast to the jesus of much populist evangelicalism that most of us grew up with.
