The Gospel and Its Implications

What’s In a Name?

            You may be wondering what this blog is all about.  Why would someone call their blog The Gospel and Its Implications?  The answer is quite simple.  There is a lot of confusion in our day about what the gospel is.  Some confuse our response to the gospel with the gospel itself.  Others add to the simplicity of the gospel the various things Christians do in light of and because of the salvation they have received in Christ.  So we have the named this blog The Gospel and Its Implications.  Recently Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington D.C., reminded his listeners that the gospel is what God has done for us in Christ and that our response to the gospel is just that, our response.  So the goal of this blog is to unpack this truth over the next several weeks, months, and –Lord willing!-years.  In other words, in a world of confusion, our goal is to rightly understand the gospel and then to live our lives out of that reality.  The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing!

The Gospel

            There are many places we could turn to understand what the gospel is.  One of the best is to the great “resurrection chapter” of 1^st Corinthians 15, where we read in verses 1-4 the following:    

 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, [2] and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you— unless you believed in vain. [3] For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,  [4] that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…

So we see that the gospel is what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.  The gospel is the story of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection and the significance of that for our salvation.  In other words, Jesus died for our sins and was raised for our justification (Romans 4:25).  This is not something we do.  And when the Holy Spirit draws us to Christ by faith, this too is not something we do by ourselves.  God the Holy Spirit enables us to believe the gospel so that we will be saved.

Implications

            So the gospel is the message of Jesus’ death and resurrection for the salvation of his people.  What about the call to faith and repentance?  What about the call to a life of discipleship?  What about the call to take the gospel to a dying world?  What about demonstrating the love of Christ among fellow Christians and to a watching world?  These are all important, but they are implications of the gospel, not the gospel itself.  The gospel is not the call to faith and repentance.  That is a command that arises from the gospel.  What about the call to a life of following Jesus as a disciple?  Again, this is not the gospel itself, but it is a very important implication.  What about taking the gospel to a dying world?  Yes, Jesus commanded the church to take the gospel to the nations (Matthew 28:16-20).  But it is the gospel we are to take.  What about demonstrating Christ’s love to each other and the world?  Yes, these too grow out of the fact that we have embraced the gospel already.  Doing good to one another and to the world at large is commanded by Paul in Galatians 6:10:  So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. But doing good is not the gospel itself.  It is an implication.  Phil Ryken, senior minister at 10^th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia has said this about doing good to others, specifically helping the poor, “Helping the poor is not the gospel, but it is one necessary result of the gospel.”*  We are called to help the needy within the church and within the world, but that is the outgrowth of having believed the gospel.

            So what’s in a name?  By calling this blog The Gospel and Its Implications we hope keep the main thing the main thing.  May God the Father, Son, and Spirit be glorified!

*From Philip G. Ryken, Reformed Expository Commentary:  Galatians (Phillipsburg:  Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 2005), 48.