It's a Beautiful Gospel

The following was an article written by a Wheaton College student, Jeff Coners, in Wheaton College’s weekly newspaper. I think it’s terrific, and per his permission, wanted to pass it on…

…..

In Tim Keller’s book, The Prodigal God, he proposes that, “Careful obedience to God’s law may serve as a strategy for rebelling against God.” In essence, he is saying that doing all the ‘right things’ we think bring us closer to God, can separate us from Him instead. Is he suggesting that we curtail our Bible study and start sleeping till noon on Sundays? The answer is most definitely NO.

From the pulpit, we hear sermon after sermon emphasizing the obedience that God expects. Obedience can become synonymous with regular church attendance, involvement in a ministry, and following the community covenant. Often unknowingly, this emphasis on obedience leads to a performance oriented Christianity. It begins to place a huge burden on us, by telling us to try and achieve something we never can. In doing so, convincing us that our personal performance is what merits God’s favor.

There is nothing wrong with obeying Gods commands; nothing wrong with going to Church; nothing wrong with striving to live every day for Him. However, I want to pose two questions… ‘Why do we do all of these things?’ and ‘What is behind our motivations?’

Church attendance, pursuit of success in Jesus’ name, and service to others become our Christianity, and why we see ourselves as children of God. Furthermore, these ‘good’ things are what we build our identity around, and where we find rest and peace. As a result, our obedience becomes a means to an end; we obey in order to attain salvation, or we obey because it makes us feel content in living a good Christian life.

Consider this quote from the soon to be president of Wheaton College, Dr. Phil Ryken:

“Knowing our acceptance in Christ, we must understand that we cannot be any more loved by the Father or any more saved by the Son. It is much easier to practice and preach the law, but God’s plan is grace.”

In every other major religion, the emphasis is placed on what one does in order to attain salvation. The same holds true under the law, and as Dr. Ryken points out, it is convenient to turn our faith into following a set of rules. This type of Christianity can lead down a deadly spiritual path, and is what Jesus criticized the Pharisees for.

For many Christians, it seems as if we miss the point as to why we live our Christian lives. Wheaton students know about salvation, about the story of Christ, even about Church history. If you ask anyone on campus what Christianity is all about, you will almost certainly get an answer reflecting that we are sinners saved by grace through faith in Jesus. We’ve sung the hymns a thousand times and have been taught about Jesus since our Sunday school days. We’ve now moved on to more important things like developing our systematic theology or learning the intricacies of implementing our faith into economics, politics, or philosophy. Amongst all of this, we forget the message at the heart of our faith, and the freedom that comes with this “good news.”

I want to suggest that we go back to the basics and consider the value in being saved by grace alone. The concept of grace completely offends our pride, and is why we tend to shy away from it. In some form or another, we want to be able to point towards our service to others, our church attendance, and our moral résumés and think that our efforts had some part to play. If not, what were they all for? Our inclination is to keep trying to include ourselves as part of the salvation process. This happens when we begin to believe that it’s Jesus plus our own efforts that bring us into right relationship with Him, when in fact it’s just Jesus.

So why am I writing about the gospel message of Jesus Christ to a college that is “for Christ and His Kingdom?” The truth is that even believers need to be reminded of the Gospel. I feel like I need to hear it everyday. It’s far too easy to reduce our faith down to performance where our good behavior merits our salvation and favor in Gods eyes.

The gospel is not about what we do for God; it’s about what He has done for us. The gospel says, ‘I am loved and accepted unconditionally, and therefore I believe and obey.’ When we truly grasp that, we begin to be transformed. We start to act out of love that comes from the knowledge that we have truly been set free.

In the hymn, It is Finished, James Proctor records these words:

Lay your deadly “doing” down—

Down at Jesus’ feet;

Stand in Him, in Him alone,

Gloriously complete.