The Gospel – Good news that requires a response.
“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
– 1 Cor. 2:1-5
Can you believe that the Apostle Paul wrote these words? Paul, who was bold and faithful in the face of much suffering, wrote that he came to Corinth in weakness, fear, and trembling. Doesn’t make much sense, does it? Then you look at why he felt those things, it wasn’t because of his personality or the context of Corinth, it was because of the message he came to share with them. That message was the gospel, the good news of eternal life through Christ’s death. And Paul is right. While that message is wonderful news, it is not plausible to conventional and worldly wisdom. The gospel is a message so completely different than anything else in our world. On Reach Sundays, we take time to consider the gospel and the call to carry it to the ends of the earth. So, let’s look a little deeper at the gospel. To do that, we’ll turn to a helpful section from Evangelical Convictions.
“The gospel is a declaration of what God has done to rescue us, but it does not benefit us whether we want it to or not. No, God’s gospel requires a response. The gospel certainly proclaims something God has accomplished outside of us, without our help, but God’s saving work is not effective apart from our personal involvement. In any biblical understanding of the gospel, the objective work of God in Christ requires a subjective response, a response of faith. We are called, indeed we are commanded, to believe the gospel. By faith in Christ, and by faith alone, this gospel becomes ours. By faith we become recipients of God’s saving work.
God Commands Us to Respond
The gospel message comes to us as a declaration of fact—God has acted to save us through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection. But that declaration also issues in a command—we must repent and believe that good news. The New Testament presents the gospel not simply as a helpful suggestion to implement or even an invitation to accept, but as a command to obey (cf. 2 Thess. 1:8; Rom. 10:16-21; also Acts 5:32; Acts 6:7; Acts 17:30; Rom. 6:17; Heb. 5:9; 1 Pet. 1:22; 4:17). The proper response to this command, however, is faith, the sole means of receiving God’s saving grace (cf. John 6:29).
The Gospel Addresses Everyone Everywhere
In reference to the Athenians’ altar to “an unknown god,” the Apostle Paul declared to the pagan philosophers of Mars Hill, “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). The call of the gospel message is not limited to Jews or even to God-fearing Gentiles. It is universal in its scope, addressing everyone, everywhere. Jesus had authorized this world-wide reach of the gospel when he commissioned his followers to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19; cf. also Luke 24:46-47), acting as his witnesses “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The Book of Acts documents the extension of the gospel from the Jews of Jerusalem (Acts 2), to the Samaritans (Acts 8), and finally to the Gentile world (Acts 10). The gospel “is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile” (Rom. 1:16). “Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all” (Col. 3:11; cf. Gal. 3:28).
Regardless of the various views on the nature of God’s election, we affirm that it is not within our power to know who will respond to the gospel. We do know, however, that Christ has purchased people for God “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). Therefore, we are to proclaim the good news of God’s saving grace far and wide, calling everyone everywhere to respond. We now turn to look more closely at the response the gospel requires.
We Are to Believe the Gospel
As we have affirmed already, the one essential response to which we are called is faith—we are to believe in Jesus Christ as he is revealed in the gospel. The notion of faith, however, is often misunderstood. One skeptic described faith as “the illogical belief in the occurrence of the impossible.” Others see it as a vague positive attitude toward life, a form of “positive thinking.” But in considering the biblical conception of faith, it is important to notice the definite connection that Paul makes between faith and truth. He speaks, for example, of the Colossians’ faith in “the true message of the gospel,” that had come to them (Col. 1:5). This gospel, he says, was bearing fruit in them since the day they heard of it and “truly understood God’s grace” (v. 6). Faith, in Paul’s mind was not just a feeling; it involved a comprehension, an understanding, of truth.
Faith has content; it is faith in something. To believe, in a biblical sense, we must first understand the content of the gospel. This first aspect of faith is what the Reformers called in Latin notitia. It consists of the notions, the ideas, the conceptions that are to be believed. The early Christians sometimes called this “the faith”—the doctrines taught in the Bible about God and man and the revelation of God in a man, Jesus Christ. Paul speaks of the content of our faith in a passage like 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 (cf. also, e.g., 1 Tim. 3:9; 4:6; Titus 1:13). In this sense, faith involves knowledge—we must know who Christ is and what he has done before we can believe in him. “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ” (Rom. 10:17).
A second aspect of biblical faith is what the Reformers called assensus. We must not only understand the message, we must assent to it. To believe, in a biblical sense, we must come to a conviction about the truth of the gospel. Is there truly a God who created the universe? Did he really enter into our world in Jesus Christ? Did Jesus actually die on a cross for our sins? And did he rise from the dead? Is it true? Biblical faith involves an understanding of certain content—a body of claims about reality; and it involves a conviction about the truth of those claims.
But these two dimensions of faith are not enough. Understanding the message is crucial, believing that it is true is essential, but without a third dimension that faith is still deficient. James can speak of such faith as merely the faith of demons (cf. James 2:19). Faith, to be real, must pass from understanding, and even conviction, to personal commitment. This third dimension of faith is what the Reformers called fiducia. Christian faith requires a personal element of trust, reliance and allegiance.
Consider the analogy of marriage. A man and a woman may be attracted to one another and may get to know the content of each other’s character. They may become convinced that they would make good marriage partners. But marriage requires more than that. One’s faith must be put on the line; they must make a commitment to one another—a very personal commitment. Real faith comes only when they forsake all others and say, “I do.” For that reason the marriage vow is called “a pledge of faith.” The gospel calls us to make just such a “pledge of faith” to Jesus Christ. Such faith unites us to Christ, and in that union his saving work flows into our lives. Faith is not our contribution to the saving work of God any more than accepting a marriage proposal earns the love of the one who proposes. Faith is simply the means of receiving God’s saving grace in Christ.”[1]
[1] EFCA. Evangelical Convictions, 2nd Edition (pp. 292-296). Free Church Publications. Kindle Edition.