The Centrality of the Gospel

Really wise Christian leaders have moved strongly to stand between the "warring factions" -- political issues, morality issues, economic issues, etc. -- and seek to redirect our attention. You know, "Pay no attention to that man (political issue, morality issue, etc.) behind the curtain." Instead, they have pointed us to the centrality of the gospel. "Paul said," they rightly point out, "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." (1 Cor 2:2) They point us to "I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve." (1 Cor 15:3-5) So true. Thank you, brothers and sisters. So they aimed us away from politics and morality and such and urged us to focus on the gospel. The question they never addressed (because no one seemed to ask it) is "Central to what?" You know, if you have a town center, what is its purpose? It's not to be the sole focus, is it? No. It is supposed to be the center of the town. A "town center" that eliminates the rest of the town is not a good thing.

Paul, interestingly, wrote the entire epistle to the church at Rome on this precise topic.

I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith." (Rom 1:15-17)

From that introduction Paul launches into the rest of 16 chapters on the topic of the gospel as the righteousness of God, what that means, and how we should respond.

Now, that basic question -- the righteousness of God -- is a little misleading in our language. You might be aware of that if you're a King James fan and realized immediately that my translation above didn't say it "correctly." It's not "The righteous shall live by faith," but "The just shall live by faith," right? This simply illustrates my point. You see, "righteous" and "just" are the same concept. The word translated "righteousness" of God is δικαιοσύνη -- dikaiosunē -- and the word translated "just" or "righteous" after that is δίκαιος -- dikaios -- and it doesn't take a Greek scholar to see that the two are closely connected. The latter is contained in the former. The latter is the root of the former. Same concept -- "right" and "just". Thus, the point of the letter to Rome is the gospel and the point of the gospel is the righteousness or justice of God. Same thing.

Paul's exposition of the justice/righteousness of God is quite remarkable, even unexpected. He begins (on a dissertation on the righteousness of God) with the unrighteousness of Man. And it takes him two and a have chapters to do it (Rom 1:18-3:20). If you're following this, you might say, "Uh, Paul, hang on. What does any of this have to do with the righteousness or justice of God?" Well, Paul has laid out the problem. The big problem. We are sinners -- deep sinners -- without hope. If the justice of God is in view, we do not want God's justice at this point. We are not guilty of "crimes and misdemeanors," as it were. We are guilty of all manner of evil beginning with the intentional suppression of the truth about God (Rom 1:18-20) and subsequent overthrow of His authority (Rom 1:21-25). If we allow that Paul tells the truth about humans in this passage, we would never say "I demand justice!" to God. None of us could stand justice.

Paul's exposition of the gospel as the revelation of God's righteousness/justice, then, takes another stunning turn. Given Man's hopeless sin condition, God offers a solution. Having assured us that "by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight" (Rom 3:20), he goes on to tell us, "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law ..." (Rom 3:21). Good news! "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," Paul writes, but those who believe "are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." (Rom 3:24) Jesus was "put forward as a propitiation by His blood" (Rom 3:25). In layman's terms, by dying for us ("His blood") Jesus paid the price for us ("redemption") and appeased the righteous/just wrath of God ("propitiation") and God became "just and justifier of one who has faith in Jesus" (Rom 3:26).

That is the gospel in a nutshell. That is the good news about which Paul wrote. That was the central point to Paul's mission and our central message. The centrality of the gospel is a good principle because, after all, it's a biblical principle. Does it end there? Does "centrality" mean "Okay, that's it; we're done here"? No! In Paul's explanation of the gospel as the revelation of God's justice/righteousness, he goes on for 13 more chapters. The gospel is central, but it has long-reaching ramifications, doctrinally and practically. There are critical doctrines such as justification by faith (Rom 4:1-3) and dying with Christ to new life (Rom 6:3-7) and the ongoing problem of sin (Rom 7:7-25) and the work of the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:1-17) and on and on and on. There are practical outcomes such as sacrificing self (Rom 12:1), renewing our minds (Rom 12:2), love (Rom 12:9-10), submitting to authority (Rom 13:1-5), caring for the weaker in the faith (Rom 14:1-3), and more. "Central" means "central" and not "exclusive."

Of course, if we agree that the gospel is central to the Christian faith, it is important to get that right, isn't it? And if the gospel is indeed the revelation of the righteousness/justice of God, it would be important to get that right, wouldn't it? And I think you can begin to see that even distilling Christianity down to the gospel becomes a much, much bigger thing that it first appears, doesn't it? It includes the nature of God, the doctrines of God, and the practices that those generate, and we're finding a really big town built around this "center of town," aren't we?