“Gospel-Centered” Pitfalls Part 3- Jesus?

This is the 3rd post in an ongoing series. Be sure to catch up before going on!

Intro

Part 1- Defining Gospel Centrality

Part 2- Everything is Justification

Part 3- Jesus?

We could call this the “de-personalizing” error. In short, one pitfall that any truly Gospel-centered movement must watch out for is losing sight of Jesus in all the “gospel” talk. Some, in fact, would go back and push for a “Jesus-centered” movement in the very nomenclature just to avoid this. Let’s look at how Gospel-centrality might do this. Imagine the following being shared by someone with a friend after the worship service one Sunday:

“The Gospel is amazing! The Gospel frees me from my sins and restores my relationship with God. The Gospel humbles me so that I don’t look down on others. The Gospel is my life! The Gospel empowers my life! I need to learn more about the Gospel. Did you know that the Gospel speaks into that fight you’re having with your wife? The Gospel says that you are accepted and loved and can share that love with others.”

Wow. First of all, if Christian people are having these conversations with each other, then that may be a step up from where we are. But did you notice what got lost in all the “Gospel” talk? We forgot that the Gospel is all about Jesus! Most of that above could easily replace “Gospel” with “Jesus”.

And the point here is that we should never use “Gospel” as the subject of a sentence. The point is that our theological shorthands can sometimes get us into trouble. As one of my pastors has talked about before, when he lived in a predominately Catholic area, he talked about Jesus because that was something that opened more doors and was a fresher topic because of so much talk about “God” or “Christ” or “Mary.” And in Kansas City, everyone talks about Jesus, so that has become the cultural catch-all for the religious warm and fuzzies. So talking about “the Gospel” can be a shorthand way to teach them about Jesus subversively without directly assaulting people’s previous concepts. But when we overuse shorthands, we lose a bigger picture of the Triune God who has revealed Himself most fully in God the Son, Jesus Christ.

Remember in Galatians, a book where Paul talks about “Gospel” quite a bit, the most stirring part and rehearsal of the Gospel is 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” No mention of the word “gospel” but I’m hard-pressed to find a better Gospel-centered, Christ-centered text. And the impact of those verses comes when Paul doesn’t settle for an abstract theological concept of “Gospel” out there, but brings it down to “loved me and gave himself for me.“

So don’t abstract the Gospel so much that you lose the person of Jesus. Our speech matters because it trains our thought patterns. If we can talk about the Gospel without talking about the wonderful love of Jesus for us (for me!), we are headed into a soulless philosophical and religious exercise. Instead, thinking about the Gospel of Jesus should propel us to fall down and worship him, then rise up and follow him wherever he may lead.