Back to Chapter 6 – What’s At Stake? The Character of God and the Truth of the Gospel
In Christian theology, two truths come to the fore in the matter of salvation. The first truth is the recognition of our need for special revelation from God to fully understand our situation before him. The second truth is that Jesus Christ is the final and ultimate revelation of God to us. We can only know God through His initiative to make Himself known and by how He has ultimately determined to do so “in Christ.”
What makes Christian theology Christian is that we can confidently say that, given the history of God’s revelation of himself to mankind, the purpose and fullness of that revelation culminates “in Christ.” Again, it must be emphasized that this is a revelation. As such, Jesus Christ fully reveals the heart and mind of God towards all of us as sinners, and that revelation focuses upon the cross and therefore what God has done in Christ to accomplish our salvation. As a revelation, it comes not only to some but not to others. As a revelation, its salvation is not only for some and not others. Hence, the gospel, or ‘good news’ of our salvation, has been revealed in Jesus. In the gospel of our salvation, therefore, we find God’s central and definitive revelation of himself to us as sinners, what he thinks about us as sinners, and what he has done for us as sinners.
“The issue of salvation is clearly at the heart of Christian theology…”
~ Jerry L. Walls and Joseph R. Dongell, Why I Am Not A Calvinist
God’s revelation of Himself in Jesus of Nazareth is the revelation of salvation. This saving purpose of God gives us insight into the nature of God and reveals his salvific thoughts and disposition towards us. God is our salvation. God desires that we be saved. He has planned and accomplished our salvation in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our Savior. Because of Christ’s death on our behalf on the cross, we can be saved. As sinners, any one of us can appropriate that salvation by faith in Christ. “For God so loved the world, he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” (Jn. 3:16-18, ESV) All this is encapsulated in the biblical term “gospel” (euangelion), which means “good news.” It is the word from which we get our designation “evangelical.”
Therefore, the content of the gospel message as revealed is of crucial importance. The content of the gospel as “good news” corresponds with a true knowledge of the thoughts of God towards us. God is made known to us in Christ. God’s love is demonstrated to us in the death of Christ on the cross (Rom. 5:8). Therefore, God’s thoughts towards us are thoughts of love, compassion, grace, goodness, and salvation. Jesus Christ is God’s Word to us, and it is He who is proclaimed as the Savior of sinners in the gospel. We therefore know God and his relationship to us “in Christ” through the gospel message. In the precise content of the gospel message, we learn and come to know what God wants us to know about our salvation. The content of that message is “good news,” therefore it is, and remains, “good news” for each and every sinner who hears it.
It is therefore imperative that the precise content of the gospel be delineated, understood, preserved, and proclaimed, because God reveals himself and his glory “in Christ” in relation to his plans and purposes for our salvation.[55] And the gospel of Christ is the essence of what God willed to speak and has therefore spoken to us.[56] He willed to speak ‘good news’ to us. That is, he spoke the ‘good news’ of our salvation. It is the grand theme of the Bible. In this sense, to understand and daily live out of the gospel is our greatest need and the essence of the hope of a restored relationship with God and others. The foundation for all of life’s meaning and purpose springs from this one unique message of “good news.” We can say with confidence that “God loves you” and “Jesus died for you,” giving hope and meaning to every sinner, including us who believe, for we all need to hear those words of hope and joy.
But we can see that in Calvinism, this ‘gospel’ is not ‘good news’ because it does not apply to every sinner. It does not apply to the non-elect. We do not know who they are, and they do not know who they are. Salvation may not be received by all sinners, for God did not intend, plan, or determine it to be so. On this soteriology, we leave God’s salvific will and disposition towards all of us in abeyance, thereby creating doubt and a lack of assurance of God’s love. We do not know who God will save. Hence, there is no good news in the Calvinist TULIP doctrines. These doctrines are contrary to the message of truly good news given above. And make no mistake about it, these doctrines are doctrines about “salvation.” They provide us with a full and final explanation regarding how and why a person is either saved or condemned. God, and God alone, predestined each of us to our eternal destiny in heaven or hell. It cannot be altered.
Therefore, we have to get the gospel right!
Read the next section – The Spirit as the Spirit of Truth Affirms the True Gospel
Back to Chapter 6 – What’s At Stake? The Character of God and the Truth of the Gospel
Footnotes
[55] See John 1:14; 12:23, 27-32; 13:31-32; 14:6-14; 16:14-15; 17:1-5, 10, 20-24; 21:19; Heb. 1:3.
[56] Heb. 1:1, 2.
The Truth of the Gospel 