In my last full post I suggested that when the New Testament writers talked about “the gospel” they referred not so much to the Protestant doctrine of justification sola fide–the proposition that if we will stop trying to win God’s favor and only just believe that God has exchanged our sin for Christ’s perfect righteousness, then in God’s eyes we will have the perfect righteousness required both for salvation and for assuaging our guilty consciences–but rather they referred to the simple but explosive proposition Kyrios Christos, “Christ is Lord.” Saying this runs counter to a lot of what is being said about what “the gospel” is on the interwebs (as a quick Google search will show) and runs counter to a lot of evangelical “gospel” presentations, most of which are basically dumbed-down presentations of the doctrine of justification sola fide (e.g., “The Four Spiritual Laws,” “The Bridge Diagram,” “The Romans Road,” etc.).
The first reason I offered for thinking that “the gospel” of the New Testament is the proclamation of Christ’s kingship was that first century, Greco-Roman people typically used euangelion/euangelizomai language to refer to announcements of a regime’s coming to power, announcement that a new king had taken charge. Long-story short, we should expect the NT writers to be using their words in much the same way that their contemporaries were unless there is strong evidence that they weren’t. This week I want to offer up another line of evidence, namely, what the Gospels say about “the gospel.”
If you take “the gospel” to be the doctrine of justification sola fide, then you inevitably will be left with the rather awkward conclusion that the Gospels themselves do not really articulate “the gospel” very clearly and that if you really want a clear exposition of “the gospel,” then you need to read Paul’s letters to the Romans and the Galatians (and it ain’t so clear that even those teach that “the gospel” = sola fide, as we will see). Moreover, it leaves one with the equally awkward task of looking for “the gospel” in the Gospels, rather than seeing the Gospels (as the ancient Church saw them) as themselves being different apostolic articulations of the gospel, as being the gospel according to Matthew, according to Mark, according to Luke, and according to John.
So, then, to begin to get some clarity on these things I will look at what “the gospel” in the Gospels both is and isn’t, paying especial attention to how euangelion/euangelizomai language is and isn’t used therein. Next week we will look at the Gospels as articulations of the gospel:
2. ”The gospel” in the Gospels is “the gospel of the Kingdom,” not the doctrine of justification sola fide.
In trying to sort out what the Gospels took “the gospel” to be, it is natural to take the Gospel of Mark as our starting point, not only because it is the earliest of the canonical Gospels, but also because Mark uses the word to euangelion more than any of the other Gospels (Mark has 8 occurrences, Matthew 4, Luke only 2, and John has none). The first explicit reference to “the gospel” within the narrative of a Gospel thus comes in Mark 1:14-15:
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God (to euangelion tou theou), and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God (he basileia tou theou) is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel (pisteuete en to euangelio).”
These verses mark the beginning of Jesus’s preaching ministry in Mark’s Gospel and as in the biblical and extra-biblical Greco-Roman literature surveyed in my last post, here the association of “the gospel” with the advent of a new regime, the kingdom of God, is again loud and clear. ”The gospel of God” here appears to be shorthand for the announcement that the time of God’s rule had come.
If Mark’s association of :”the gospel” with the kingdom was loud and clear, Matthew’s is that much louder and that much clearer. Although to euangelion occurs in Matthew’s Gospel only four times (half as many times as in Mark), three of those four occurrences are the simple genitive construction, “the gospel of the kingdom” (to euangelion tes basileias; Matt 4:23; 9:35; 24:14). And the fourth? The fourth occurrence is in the scene of Jesus’ being unexpectedly anointed while supping in Bethany:
6 Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, 7 a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at table. 8 And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? 9 For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.” 10 But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. 11 For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. 12 In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. 13 Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel (to euangelion touto) is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.” (Matt 26:6-13)
The scene is lifted almost verbatim from Mark (Matthew has trimmed it down a bit, as was his custom) and is rather transparently an ironic coronation scene, patterned on the royal anointings of Saul, David, Solomon, etc. (see, e.g., 1 Sam 10:1; 16:1-13; 2 Sam 2:7; 5:1-4; 1 Kings 1:34, 35, etc.) Of course, this scene has a twist in that Jesus’ being anointed as king (“Messiah,” of course, just means “anointed one”) is simultaneously and surprisingly his being anointed for burial, a preparation for his death. Nevertheless, it is precisely because the scene is a parody of an Israelite coronation that the language of euangelion fits in verse 13. Thus the kingdom/gospel link is here in force as well. We will have more to say about this passage anon, but first we must look at Luke.
Luke has only two occurrences of to euangelion, 9:6 and 20:1, neither of which provides much context for determining the contents of “the gospel” being proclaimed. However, as I have already argued, unless there is strong evidence to the contrary (and here there clearly isn’t) we should assume that Luke’s usage of the word euangelion here matches that of his contemporaries. Thus, the natural thing to do is to take “the gospel” in these texts as a short-hand reference the announcement of the kingdom of God which has made up the substance of Jesus’ message throughout Luke’s Gospel. There’s just no good reason to take it as anything else here.
Here I must pause to point out how euangelion is not used in the Gospels, namely, as a reference to anything like the doctrine of justification sola fide. The passages that proponents of the sola fide = euangelion equation typically adduce as instances of “the gospel” (qua justification sola fide) within the Gospels are notable for the total absence of euangelion language anywhere in their vicinity. The parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Luke 18:9-14 is a key example: it comes as second in a series of miscellaneous anecdotes and parables on disparate topics, euangelion is used nowhere in the passage, the parable plays no major structural or thematic role in the Gospel–so why is it often cited as “the clearest illustration of the gospel in the Gospels”? The passage nicely illustrates Luther’s understanding of Paul’s doctrine of justification, but there just is no warrant for identifying this passage as Luke’s central summary of “the gospel.”
Similarly, Jesus’ words in Mark 10:45 are sometimes cited, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” That’s a nice bit of atonement theology (see Brant Pitre’s Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile for a great discussion of this logion), but here again the language of euangelion is absent from the passage.
Of course, the context of Mark 10 is Jesus’ addressing James’ and John’s request for elevated positions by turning their understanding of rule and honor and power–not least the rule of Jesus himself–on its head: “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” And here we begin to see how this passage does shed light on the gospel, at least if the gospel is God’s rule made manifest in the Messianic rule of Jesus: that rule is coming about not through Jesus wielding the sword against Israel’s enemies, but through Jesus’ dying on Israel’s behalf. No wonder Jesus’ royal anointing in Bethany is simultaneously his preparation for burial. God’s kingdom, made manifest in the messianic reign of Jesus, comes by way of Jesus’ death on the cross. This is a kingdom like none you’ve ever seen.
And if I’m right, if the NT gospel is the announcement of God’s ruling the world through Jesus Christ, then all Christians–Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox alike–believe in the NT gospel.
To be continued…
Hey David,
I’m enjoying these posts on the gospel – especially as I’m about to start preaching through Mark (it’s right there in the first line!). Wonder if you’ve seen this from Tim Keller – on seeing the multifaceted gospel presented in 3 major forms. (He’s summarizing an essay by Simon Gathercole.)
http://crupressgreen.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/The-Gospel-in-All-Its-Forms.pdf
This doesn’t exactly line up with Keller’s approach, but I’ve always liked thinking of 3 aspects of the Gospel we might call Cradle (incarnation), Cross (atonement), and Crown (kingdom/ renewal).
Posted by Tim | August 9, 2012, 2:46 pmThanks, Tim. As you know, I like Keller a lot and I am looking forward to reading this piece more closely when I get a chance. I think what I am coming to is something like this: The gospel proper is the announcement of the kingdom/rule of the God of Israel made manifest in the Messiah Jesus (Crown/Cradle/Incarnation). This Kingdom has come about through Jesus’s death on the cross and His defeat of death in the resurrection.
I’ve been greatly influenced by Robert W. Jenson on this. He argues, as I am arguing, that the gospel proper is the proclamation: Kyrios Christos, Jesus Christ is Lord. This proclamation would raise two obvious questions for most people in the ancient world: 1) “Uh, who the heck is this Jesus guy?” and 2) “How exactly is he ‘Lord’?” The Gospels themselves are extended answers to those questions: “Jesus is the one who…” and “When we say he is ‘Lord’ we mean….”
I think that’s roughly how the underlying logic of NT evangelical language works.
Posted by dmwilliams83 | August 9, 2012, 3:24 pmAs a seminary graduate, and a teacher at a classical I have appreciated the incorporation of the Greco-Roman context in the understanding of “the Gospel.”
I was curious if you could take your claim a step further, as NT Wright does in many of his translations and in stead of transliterating Christos, translate it as “King” Jesus? Is there an issue with doing that which I don’t understand? Or is it more a nod to convention? I am just curious what your thoughts were on that as a way to further emphasize your point. Thanks for your posts.
Posted by Charles Kim | August 10, 2012, 1:23 pmThanks for commenting, Charles. Sure, I don’t see much reason not to translate Christos as “King.” The main benefit of saying “Christ,” or better yet, “Messiah,” is that it reminds us that we are talking specifically about the King of Israel. Though, of course, “Christ” doesn’t really do that for us in our culture anymore since we are so used to thinking of “Christ” as though it were Jesus’s surname and not His title.
Posted by dmwilliams83 | August 10, 2012, 1:37 pmGreat article. I believe that justification by faith alone through grace alone is an important part of the gospel, and that it can be found in all the Gospels. However, I would never say that it is the whole gospel itself, and I think that you do a great job of presenting some arguments for why the equation of the gospel with the sola fide doctrine is badly mistaken. I think that the Reformed tradition has been greatly handicapped by accepting that equation; I hope that it will soon come to see its mistake and move on. Anyway, I think that you make some great observations about the Gospels, the gospel, and the relationship between them.
Posted by Leslie Wolf | August 11, 2012, 12:55 pmThanks, Les!
Posted by dmwilliams83 | August 12, 2012, 8:38 amCouple comments:
1. In speaking of the Gospel, Wright is saying that Jesus is “not merely ‘Lord’…but also King.” You are saying the Gospel is “Christ is Lord.” Peter says “God has made him both Lord and Christ.” Honestly, I had never ever thought about the difference between Lord and Christ. What distinction is Wright making and are you agreeing with him or making a slight distinction?
2. “Why are you telling me this?” There seems like there should always be a response to news, otherwise why tell anyone the news in the first place. Can’t the Gospel be the combination of the “news” and how one must “respond.” So when Peter finishes his gospel, the people ask “what shall we do?” The answer is “Repent and be Baptized,” (which you basically say above in your Mark quote) and a few verses later Peter continues his message; “Be Saved…”
I think you and Wright may be making a good corrective in taking the focus solely off the individual, but isn’t the message both that that the kingdom of heaven/God has come, and here’s how you enter in; OR Christ is Lord, and this is what it means to you. You are making a corrective, but doing a 180. Whether intentional or not, both you and Wright seem to be saying “justification by faith” or “how to be saved” is not at all part of the gospel message. Seems to me the gospel message is both/and. “Christ is Lord” and here is what you need to do about it. Otherwise, “Why are you telling me this?”
Here is one analogy, though not sure how good it is. If I have a business opportunity that I need to raise capital for, I give my presentation to investors on how wonderful this opportunity is, but then I also tell then how to invest. Both the worth of the business and how to partake are part of the presentation.
In God’s Kingdom, Christ is Lord and his followers are saints (holy ones). To get into that kingdom, one must know how to become a holy follower. The answer is through faith. It seems to me that repent, believe, be baptized, be saved, have faith and you will receive forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit, are all still part of the gospel message.
Posted by Craig H Robinson | August 11, 2012, 3:05 pmCraig, thanks for commenting. Welcome to the site.
1. I’m not sure that there is a distinction, but rather their identity would not have been obvious to most first century people (particularly Gentiles) and so it bears explicit statement. Think of Phosphorous and Hesperus. For centuries, humans thought these were two different heavenly bodies, the Morning Star and the Evening Star. We now know that they are both Venus. So there’s ultimately no difference between Phosphorous and Hesperus. But that wasn’t obvious to our ancestors and so it would have been news to them. Likewise, to a Gentile living in the first century, it would be far from obvious that the Jewish Messiah was the world’s true Lord (Caesar would have seemed a much liklier candidate for the latter office). And so the declaration that “Jesus the Messiah is Lord” would have been (good) news for them. Just because it’s not news to you (a 21st century, Western Christian), doesn’t mean that the identification of Jesus Christ as Kyrios would not have been news to just about everyone in the first century.
2. I completely agree that there is always at least an implicit (and frequently, as you noted, an explicit) call to repentance (metanoia) and faith/faithfulness/fidelity/allegiance(pistis). There would have been a similar such call in any euangelion. The announcement of a new regime always implied a call to “get with the program” or face the consequences–and that went for the announcement of Caesar’s rule as much as for the announcement of the Kingdom of God in Christ. But, yes, of course, the Christian gospel entails a few “action items” for it’s hearers: Repent and be baptized.
My goal is not to say that justification has nothing to do with the gospel. My goal is to sharpen up our understanding of the logical relationships between, say, Paul’s ideas about justification and the gospel. Entailment is not the same as identity. Saying that the gospel entails justification by faith, is not the same thing as saying that the gospel is the doctrine of justification by faith.
Anyways, “justification by faith” really has to be a discussion about Paul and I haven’t even finished my posts on the Gospels yet, much less started looking at Acts, Paul, and the rest of the NT. We’ll get there, but let’s take one thing at a time.
Thanks again for commenting. I hope we can keep the dialogue going.
Posted by dmwilliams83 | August 11, 2012, 11:12 pmWhen I was writing about this subject I found it helpful to use the categories of Speech-act theory as defined by Austin. Any speech-act [which the announcement of gospel certainly was] has a locutionary aspect [the words spoken], an illocutionary aspect [the function of the words e.g. an announcement, or a vow etc.] and a perlocutionary aspect [the intended response from the audience, essentially a rhetorical aspect]. Here David is talking about the illocutionary act. The question you are asking is what is the link between the illocutioanry act of announcing the reign of God and the perlocutionary act of convincing the listener to repent. I would like to think the Spirit has a big role in this, and here am influenced largely by Doug Campbell.
Also its interesting to note, as Wright does, that the announcement of good news was never ‘Hey guys theres a new King around, and if you want, you can choose to accept this new reality, otherwise carry on your day to day lives’. Actually the announcement itself introduced the new reality to the listeners. In some of the primary sources, you almost get the sense that the victory in battle was actually brought home and actualized by the announcement of the message!
Posted by Dan | August 14, 2012, 8:59 amInteresting post, David. I was wondering if you could flesh out the ‘entailments’ verbage in regards to sola fide. I think what you are arguing is that the gospel is the radical proclamation that ‘Jesus Chris is the lord’ and thus sola fide is subjugated to that. Are there other then other entailments under such proclamation?
My own tradition holds up sola fide as primary; the arguments against this are compelling, given the hackneyed way the Bridge diagram and the like cobble together 60 or so verses from all over the place,devoid of context, to make a case and a decision point. I am so used to the gospel being accompanied by the action point (eg put your faith in christ alone or not, at your own peril) that to say the gospel is ‘Jesus Christ is lord’ seems like a timid statement. I know in the cultural context of the time, this is radical and all-What I am getting at is that if I were to speak to someone steeped in my own tradition, and I articulated the gospel as that statement, I think their response would be “and?”, as in meaning ‘how then shall I live?’ or more likely ‘what do I do right now to delineate my acceptance of that reality?’. In other words, such statement seems to be lacking the action point the tradition demands.
One way to answer would be in terms of Enns and the incarnational analogy, and probably others. . However,a really powerful argument for sola fide is that the action point provides an assurance that is taken to be a form of irrevocable eternal insurance- this other way of viewing the gospel is compelling, quite possibly more correct, but doesn’t speak into to what someone of my tradition has been taught to value. I wonder, honestly, if making such case as you have above in my tradition would induce accusations of potentially Heresey or that i personally would be leading people away from eternal truth into damnation etc. sola fide has talons, and I would like to know how to approach or make an argument forstaid altnative view in such a way as not to get gored.
Posted by Tori Jameson | August 20, 2012, 11:32 amThanks for commenting, Tori. The sentiment you’ve expressed seems to be a common one. That fact notwithstanding, I really do not understand how “Jesus Christ is Lord (i.e., Sovereign, Lord of the universe, King of kings, etc.)” lacks an obvious “action point.” Repent and be baptized! Turn away from the way you used to live, join His people, and take up your cross:
Go read the Sermon on the Mount and do it. If you have been hating your enemies, start loving them. If you have been lusting after people, at all costs stop doing that. If you have been holding grudges, forgive your debtor and make peace. If you have been orienting your life around making money, stop doing that and start serving those in need. A whole new way of life is suggested by recognizing that the true and rightful king of all is Jesus and not Caesar or Mammon or safety or Allah.
To me this seems like it ought to be perfectly obvious. Is there something I’m missing here?
Posted by dmwilliams83 | August 20, 2012, 2:18 pmI think the point is that the “action point” is part of the Gospel and therefore must also be verbalized. Otherwise, the men celebrating Passover in Jerusalem would not have had to ask “what shall we do?” after Peter proclaimed that God made Jesus both Lord and Christ. The people must be told to “Repent, Believe, be Baptized,” or they don’t know what to do. The “action point” is part of the gospel message.
Posted by Craig H Robinson | August 20, 2012, 2:48 pmI see what you’re getting at, Craig. But isn’t it the other way around? The men celebrating the Passover had to ask “What shall we do?” precisely because the “action point” had not been verbalized.
I think Robert W. Jenson is extremely helpful here. The evangelical declaration that “Jesus is Lord” raises all sorts of questions: Who is Jesus? How is he ‘Lord’? What does this new ‘Lord’ require of me? and so on. Any full articulation of the gospel will involve unpacking the answers those questions: Jesus is the one who…. We know He is Lord because…. Jesus taught that we are to….
Posted by dmwilliams83 | August 20, 2012, 3:49 pmYes, quite honestly, you are. My post was an honest question and not from a place of hostility, and I poisted this with a lot more gravity than you gave it. So yah, ya missed it. Let me clarify, as the error may have been mine.
I come from a conservative evangelical background that believes in a whole host of specific conventions in regards to theology and, specific to this conversation, soteriology, including but not limited to inerrancy and sola fide, sola scriptura with a good dose of (limited) unlimited atonement and a whole bunch of other contestable concepts. I am in a place of theological shift as I have been stepping back from some of these ideas and looking at much wider, often older, thought.
Here is the problem, as I identified before, of identifying ‘the gospel’ as anything other than sola fide, from my perspective, for me as an agent in the local cultural context I exist in: to teach anything except sola fide as the gospel message invites accusations that this other message would lead people to eternal damnation. Let me say this very clearly: I think your point is compelling, and maybe even correct interpertation, but if I personally were to articulate it in the cultural context from whence I personally come, I would be accused of preaching a false gospel because I would have not argued for the primacy of personal faith as the salvrific act. At a particular conservative bible college who shall remain nameless that i have affiliation with, a paper on the secondary nature of sola fide would not be accepted; on a less scholarly level, if when my housemate tries to show me the four spiritual laws as memorized for a missions trip, I were to say that such presentation was missing the point and try to explain why, I would likely be told that such voice hinders the gospel and will send people to hell, and I would likely be sent an unwelcome pastoral visit and a bunch of tracts. A rearticulation of the gospel away from sola fide is a risky or even dangerous intellectual or spiritual position to hold in my current context, and so I asked questions here to establish on what grounds such other position can be held.
This looks dangerously like an info-bomb, but ts totally not, because info bombing is lame.
Posted by Tori j | August 20, 2012, 5:32 pmMea culpa, Tori. I didn’t read the last paragraph of your first comment very closely before dashing off my initial response. I wasn’t trying to be dismissive and I didn’t take your comment as hostile (I hope you didn’t take my response as hostile either). But I see I didn’t really address the concerns that arise from your specific theological background and context. So let me take another stab at this:
1. Last point first, the grounds for rearticulating the gospel in Kingdom terms are to be found in the NT writings themselves. I am still in the process of laying those grounds out, but it has to arise from careful exegesis of the NT texts. My task in this series of posts is to examine how the NT documents actually use euangelion/euangelizomai language. If the NT’s use of that language fits the “the gospel = sola fide” equation, then great. If not, then we might need to rethink how we talk about “the gospel” if we are really interested in preaching the same message as the apostles preached. So basically this whole series of posts is intended to lay out the grounds for my position in a systematic way. We’re only a few posts in and I still have to work my way through Acts, Paul’s letters, and the rest of the NT.
2. As for dealing with accusations that this is “another gospel,” a false gospel which will damn its hearers, well, that is really, really hard. On the one hand, you could say, “Look, you’re just begging the question. Let’s look at the way the NT actually uses the word euangelion and see if it makes sense to identify the apostolic euangelion with the Lutheran doctrine of justification.” But that’s not likely to get you very far. These are highly emotive subjects. And they should be. We are talking about spiritual realities and the stakes are about as high as they come. Moreover, when you or I start raising questions (especially good questions with lots of evidence behind them) about someone’s understanding of the gospel, we’re sometimes messing with their whole world. In my experience, unless someone’s really ready to start honestly asking themselves some hard questions, these conversations don’t ever go anywhere. That’s part of why I left the sorts of theological/ecclesial circles that you’ve been running in and have moved into more ecumenical, question-friendly spaces. In other words, I don’t know how to say these things in, say, a Southern Baptist context or an Orthodox Presbyterian context without being accused of heresy. That’s why I’m not a Southern Baptist or an Orthodox Presbyterian. I love those folks and am glad to talk about these things with them. They’re my siblings in Christ (whether they’d say the same about me or not). But I couldn’t help being disruptive in those denominations and so I moved on.
If you’re going to stay in those contexts and if you’re starting to agree with my take on what the gospel is, I’d say you either need to keep your head down or be prepared to be attacked. I wish I had something more encouraging to say, but I don’t really.
Except perhaps this: For Calvin justification was a benefit of union with Christ. For Luther it was the other way around: union with Christ was a benefit of justification. I’m a Calvin man on this point, as I think that his view fits much, much better with the way Paul actually talks. For Calvin, by faith we are united with Christ and via that union we receive all the benefits of salvation: sanctification, justification, adoption, etc.
And Richard Baxter, the 17th century English Puritan, taught that justification comes by our faith in Jesus Christ alone and not by our belief in the doctrine of justification-by-faith-alone. Thus he had a way of affirming the Protestant doctrine of justification in a way that didn’t condemn Catholics and Orthodox to hell.
Perhaps invoking some of those Protestant giants will help in these sorts of conversations.
Am I getting any closer to scratching where you itch?
Posted by dmwilliams83 | August 20, 2012, 6:34 pm