Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Can we 'live the gospel'?

Listening to: Nothing

Sometimes, it's suggested that speaking the gospel is a bit cheeky (or rude), and that the best way to witness is to 'promote' the gospel, or 'live' the gospel. Here's great quote on that from Graeme Goldsworthy:

The gospel is what we must believe in order to be saved. To believe the gospel is to put one’s trust and confidence in the person and work of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. To preach the gospel is faithfully to proclaim that historical event, along with the God-given interpretation of that event. It cannot be stressed too much that to confuse the gospel with certain important things that go hand in hand with it is to invite theological, hermeneutical and spiritual confusion. Such ingredients of preaching and teaching that we might want to link with the gospel would include the need for the gospel (sin and judgment), the means of receiving the benefits of the gospel (faith and repentance), the results or fruits of the gospel (regeneration, conversion, sanctification, glorification) and the results of rejecting it (wrath, judgment, hell). These, however we define and proclaim them, are not in themselves the gospel. If something is not what God did in and through the historical Jesus two thousand years ago, it is not the gospel. Thus Christians cannot ‘live the gospel’, as they are often exhorted to do. They can only believe it, proclaim it and seek to live consistently with it. Only Jesus lived (and died) the gospel. It is a once-for-all finished and perfected event done for us by another.

Live a life influenced by the gospel! Act in ways that commend the gospel to others! But for gsodness sake, speak about Jesus.

1 comments:

Dave K said...

Good quote.

I was just reading Luther yesterday where he commented on Phil 2:15-16 that it says that we shine like stars in the world, not on the basis of our holy lives, but because we hold fast to the word of life.