2
LOYALTY AND THE FULL GOSPEL
Several months ago my wife and I were surprised by a mid-afternoon knock on our front door. Our shaggy beast leaped to his feet, his full-throated bark careening off the coffee table and chandelier. A middle-aged woman stood on our threshold, nondescript apart from a do-good demeanor. After exchanging a few awkward commonplaces with us, she explained the reason for her sudden appearance on our stoop. She was walking door-to-door to invite folks to a new church that was being launched in the neighborhood.
We expressed appropriate Christian enthusiasm for the venture but informed our visitor that we were already attached to a local church body. She was pleased to learn that we were churchgoers, but with the irrepressible doggedness of a politician, she still pressed a small tract upon us. Undoubtedly she was aware that church attendance is often nominal and that our participation did not guarantee that we had grasped the good news about Jesus. Now I am hesitant to say this, for it may forever encourage solicitors to stop at my door, but after she left, I did a rare thing—I began to read the tract.
Jesus Died for Me—the Truncated Gospel
As the door closed, I glanced at the title of the tract: “How to Be 100% Sure of Heaven.”1 Since I was currently drafting the first chapter of this book, I was compelled to see precisely what program was being offered for attaining this certainty. The suggested procedure is unsurprising—indeed, it is the very procedure suggested in countless sermons throughout the world every week: to believe, repent, and then call on Christ to save. I was given a six-step program toward that end, after which I was instructed to repent and then to call on Christ in order to receive God’s one-hundred-percent-certain promise. Regarding this calling upon the Lord, I was somewhat strangely directed to Psalm 55:16 and Psalm 116:13 and then more helpfully pointed to Romans 10:13: “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (KJV). The tract seemed particularly eager to remind me that “only the Lord can save you, not the Lord plus your own efforts to ‘earn salvation’ by your good deeds!” I was then invited to pray a certain prayer in my heart. If I had completed this final step, then I was joyfully informed, “Dear friend, if you prayed this prayer and meant it, you can be one hundred percent sure you’re saved, based on God’s promises in these verses!”
Now, I am not seeking to pick on this particular tract nor the kind woman who brought it to our front door. For even sophisticated books penned by excellent scholars occasionally contain similar infelicities.2 Clearly the tract contains many truths that any sound Christian would be eager to affirm. Even if the message is slightly off the mark, many individuals can and do genuinely turn to the Christ through messages identical to the one that appears in this tract. Why then the fuss?
The errors in this tract are primarily a matter of framing, emphasis, definition, and aim, but the many small deviations compound, so that the result distorts both the gospel and the goal of salvation. In fact, rather than receiving the one-hundred-percent-certain promise of heaven, on the contrary, the tract’s reader might actually be placing himself or herself at a heightened spiritual risk. The reader might be tempted to think, “Now that I’ve prayed this prayer, I have satisfied God and am on the road to glory—so now I can cross that off my bucket list and get back to life.” Then, reflecting a little bit more, a reader might add, “I’ll try to live a little better now, but my works don’t really matter, and I certainly don’t want to fall into the trap of trusting in my own righteousness, so I won’t worry too much about it.”
Perhaps the reader of the tract who has prayed this prayer will embrace a journey of Christian discipleship, or perhaps not. The gospel message presented in the tract, however, certainly implies that discipleship is optional. Other than feeling a vague regret over ongoing sins, any long-term behavior changes, inasmuch as these are “deeds,” are not essential to the heavenly cake, but rather more like frosting. It might be rewardingly delicious to add some good deeds to the cake, but the cake is really terrific regardless—and so maybe it won’t be worth the effort. Yet the full Christian gospel both demands and gives much more.
Toward the True Gospel
As we assess the truncated gospel and seek to replace it with the true gospel, it should first be noted that the former presupposes a skewed plot to the cosmic drama. The plot in the abbreviated gospel is self-centered: I have a problem (sin) and I am currently on the road to perdition, but Jesus died for my sins, so now I have the opportunity to change roads—to go to heaven. All that is required is my personal faith that Jesus’s death completely saves me from my sins. But what if this gospel presentation were to begin not with me and my sin but with a story about Jesus? Or maybe something more primal like creation and new creation? Or perhaps with the fundamental human task of bearing God’s image? How might this change the tenor of the whole narrative? Moreover, this truncated gospel assumes that the ultimate goal for humanity is spiritual bliss in heaven rather than, as we shall discuss further in chapter 6, embodied participation in the new heavens and the new earth. The difference has radical implications for what salvation actually means. In short, the story into which the truncated gospel has been made to fit needs to be rethought, and we will undertake that task together at the appropriate juncture.3 Right now let’s focus on the core gospel message.
The Gospel Proper
In general terms, the word gospel means “good news.” It translates the Greek word euangelion, where the eu- prefix means “good” and angelion refers to a communicated message (it relates to the Greek word angelos, meaning “messenger,” from which the English angel is derived). Euangelion refers to glad tidings heralded forth, a happy message publically announced and proclaimed. Imagine you are an ancient queen or king. Your generals are away fighting a battle upon which the fate of your kingdom hinges. Suddenly a runner dashes into the royal court: “Good news! Good news! We have triumphed, and the army is marching back with the enemies as captives!” Or, closer to the point for our purposes, imagine another ancient scene: everyone in the surrounding regions knows that because of political turmoil the royal throne has been temporarily vacant—but then a herald passes through the town crying out, “Good news! Prince Theodorus has now become king!” Something similar is intended by euangelion when used in the New Testament with reference to Jesus. In seeking a more precise understanding of the gospel, we will move from the center outward. In this chapter we will begin with the earliest and clearest statements in the New Testament about the gospel, examining the apostle Paul’s descriptions, and then we will examine how these statements open wider contexts of meaning.
The most straightforward explanations of what the word “gospel” meant for the earliest Christians are found in three passages in Paul’s Letters, Romans 1:1–5, 1:16–17, and 1 Corinthians 15:1–5 (cf. 2 Tim. 2:8). Another passage that does not use the word euangelion but aligns closely with the above mentioned is Philippians 2:6–11, which can help fill out our understanding. We begin with Paul because he is our earliest extant Christian writer—his letter writing began about fifteen years after Jesus’s death—and also because there is evidence that Paul’s explanations of the gospel were not idiosyncratic but common to the early apostolic church as a whole. Anticipating my conclusions, the gospel is the power-releasing story of Jesus’s life, death for sins, resurrection, and installation as king, but that story only makes sense in the wider framework of the stories of Israel and creation. The gospel is not in the first instance a story about heaven, hell, making a decision, raising your hand after praying a certain prayer, justification by faith alone, trusting that Jesus’s righteousness is sufficient, or any putative human tendencies toward self-salvation through good works.4 It is, in the final analysis, most succinctly good news about the enthronement of Jesus the atoning king as he brings these wider stories to a climax.
Incarnation and Enthronement
The first gospel passage, Romans 1:1–5, fittingly stands at the head of Paul’s most famous and lengthy letter. Paul opens his letter to the churches in Rome—churches that he did not found but did desire to visit—by introducing himself and the gospel. And if Paul felt a summary of the gospel to be a suitable opening sally in seeking to win a hearing with the Romans, we already have good reason to suspect that this digest of the gospel would have been agreeable to the various Roman house churches.5 Notice also that Paul does not say that this gospel is “my gospel,” even though he is occasionally capable of that expression (Rom. 2:16; 16:25; 2 Tim. 2:8). Rather, since for Paul there is only one true gospel (cf. Gal. 1:6–7), he speaks in universal terms, calling it “the gospel of God”:
Paul, a slave of the Christ Jesus, a called apostle, having been set apart for the gospel of God—the gospel that he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures. (Rom. 1:1–2)
We discover an important truth about the nature of this one universal gospel. God has not merely predicted that this good news would emerge by sending prophets to declare it. God has done something more marvelous. This creator God, the only true God, the God whom not even the highest heavens can contain, has deliberately obligated himself to bring about the gospel through an advance promise. Even though he was under no compulsion, so Paul suggests, God chose to make himself beholden to his human creatures, and indeed to the whole creation, to accomplish a specific sort of good news in the future.
Continuing, Paul describes this good news in sparse but pregnant language for the Romans:
[the gospel] concerning his Son, who as it pertains to the flesh came into existence by means of the seed of David; who as it pertains to the Spirit of Holiness was appointed Son-of-God-in-Power by means of the resurrection from among the dead ones—Jesus the Christ our Lord. (Rom. 1:3–4)6
In reading Paul’s summary of the gospel, we quickly recognize that the gospel is not at its most basic level a tale about me and my quest for salvation (or even about “us” and “our” quest), but rather it is a grand, cosmic story about God’s Son and what he has done.
The first movement in this cosmic drama pertains to what later tradition would call the incarnation—the taking on of human flesh by Jesus. As the story opens, the Son preexists with God the Father, but the good news, the gospel proper, begins when Jesus is sent by the Father to assume human flesh.7 Thus, as we shall see in chapter 6, the good news in its widest scope intimately connects to another person, Adam, who similarly came into existence and took on human flesh. Jesus as the paradigm for humanity, the truly human one, corresponds to and parallels Adam. As such, the full good news relates to Adam’s role (and Eve’s role) with respect to creation, and hence in the final analysis the gospel’s associative context will prove to be as wide as creation itself. Yet the story of the “fall” of Adam and Eve in the garden and the resultant human plight is not part of the gospel proper; rather it is a necessary framing story without which the gospel cannot be fully understood. As will become increasingly clear as we continue, if we are to reframe faith, the gospel, and salvation accurately, precision about these details matters.
Given the compressed language Paul employs to outline the good news, it might be easy to pass by a second framing story: Jesus entered fleshly human existence not haphazardly, but his family line was carefully selected by God precisely to fulfill the promise God had made. Jesus, inasmuch as it pertains to the flesh, was not merely born into the family line of David but rather was brought into existence “by means of the seed of David.” In other words, the gospel cannot be holistically comprehended without seeing the manner in which the incarnation fulfills God’s promise to David, a promise God spoke shortly after David had secured the throne:
When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. (2 Sam. 7:12–14 NRSV)
So David was promised an offspring, literally a “seed,” who would be established as king over an unending kingdom. It is even stated that this king would enjoy a special filial relationship with God—metaphorical language that early Christians would see as anticipating a future reality: Jesus as the only begotten Son of God. This promissory language, however, echoes even earlier biblical narratives, that through Abraham and his seed “all nations on earth will be blessed” (Gen. 12:3; 22:18; cf. Gal. 3:16). And even earlier, that the serpent’s head would be crushed through the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15). So Paul’s spartan “by means of the seed of David” evokes numerous images. It probably intends Mary as the seed of David, emphasizing her instrumental role in bringing the preexistent Son into fleshly existence.8
Yet the gospel is not just about the Davidic promise; it is also about the resurrection. The most compact yet explicit articulation of the gospel, as found in Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy, makes this clear: “Remember Jesus the Christ, raised from among the dead ones, of the seed of David—that is my gospel” (2:8).9 And as we shall see, the resurrection in turn is intimately connected with the coronation of Jesus.
Enthroned as Son-of-God-in-Power
In Romans 1:3–4, the second movement in this sweeping cosmic narrative is the enthronement of the Son. Paul states that after the incarnation something quite astonishing happened. The Son of God died (implied in Paul’s description of the Christ’s preresurrection state, “from among the dead ones”). Yet he was raised to new bodily life by God. On the basis of this resurrection, Jesus was then installed in a new position of authority: he “was appointed Son-of-God-in-Power,” which is best construed as the informal description of the office into which the Son has been installed—a point that nearly all contemporary English translations and most scholars miss when they offer the less likely translation: “declared with power to be the Son of God.”10
The true thrust of Paul’s line of thought is that the resurrection served to trigger the exaltation of Jesus from his lowly status among the dead, so that he came to be installed in a position of sovereign authority. Previously he was the Son of God; now he is the Son-of-God-in-Power, actively reigning until all his enemies are made a footstool for his feet (1 Cor. 15:25). In other words, in his earthly life Jesus was the anointed one, the one chosen as the royal Davidic Messiah (the Christ), but during his earthly sojourn he had not yet received his throne, he had not yet begun to reign as king. But the resurrection (and ascension) changed all this, as Jesus has now been enthroned at the right hand of God and is reigning as the Lord of heaven and earth. In fact, in summing up his presentation of the basic content of the gospel, Paul concludes by calling this Son-of-God-in-Power by slightly different titles that Paul prefers, “Jesus the Christ our Lord” (Rom. 1:4).
And what is this Jesus as Son-of-God-in-Power or Lord seeking to accomplish? Paul goes on to speak of the purpose of the gospel in the next verse. This Lord Jesus is the one who has commissioned Paul and the other apostles in order that they might bring about the “obedience of faith” (hypakoēn pisteōs) among the nations, all of which will bring glory to the name of Jesus (Rom. 1:5; cf. 16:26). We might wonder what is meant by this “obedience of pistis.” If, as has traditionally been held by many since the Protestant Reformation, the gospel is all about faith alone, not faith plus works, then why doesn’t Paul just say that the gospel is purposed toward pistis? Does Paul perhaps simply mean that the gospel will promote obedience after the “faith” decision has been made (that is, to use the terminology preferred by systematic theologians, after justification has transpired)?
We should be wary of quick answers that harmonize the multiple images pertaining to salvation (and their complex past, present, and future aspects) by offering a rigid order of salvation: first justification, being declared innocent by God; then sanctification, increasing in holiness through God’s assistance; finally glorification, full transformation and attainment of heaven.11 Such tidy contemporary systems offer convenient prepackaged descriptions alleging to describe how salvation works, but they do not cohere sufficiently to the ancient thought structures on which such systems depend. I will have more to say about the relationship between obedience and pistis later.
The V Pattern
So, at the beginning of his most important letter, Romans, when Paul summarizes what he means by “the gospel,” he tells a V-shaped story about Jesus.12 Initially Jesus preexisted as Son of God, which seems to presuppose an exalted state, yet he moved downward, taking on human flesh and then reaching the very bottom—the abode of the dead. But once he reached bottom, the ascent began—he was raised from the dead and then installed in the heavenly sphere as Son-of-God-in-Power. Does this narrative sound suspiciously similar to several other famous passages in Paul’s Letters? For those familiar with Scripture, it should. Although, unlike in Romans 1:1–5, Paul does not use the term “gospel” in describing the Jesus story in Philippians 2:6–11, the basic shapes of the narratives are identical—and several other passages have a similar shape even if we cannot examine them all here: Galatians 4:4–5; Romans 10:6–8; 2 Corinthians 8:9.
Down, Then Up
But we do have space to briefly explore Philippians 2:6–11.13 In setting the context, Paul reminds his church, and hence all of us, that we are called to imitate the Messiah Jesus in our behavior. He then begins to narrate the V pattern, beginning with Jesus’s descent:
who, though he was in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, coming into existence in the likeness of humans. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Phil. 2:6–8)
The descent described here quite precisely parallels the movement downward in Romans 1:3, although it heightens the emphasis on Jesus’s intentionality as well as his preexistence, incarnation, and descent to the realm of the dead. In the movement down Jesus is described as taking the initiative. So Jesus’s personal agency even prior to his fleshly existence is stressed in this text. But then Paul tells the story of Jesus’s movement upward. And in this next stage in the story God (the Father) takes the initiative rather than Jesus:
Therefore God highly exalted him and granted to him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus the Christ is Lord, unto the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:9–11)
The upward-movement elements in Philippians 2:9–11 do not precisely parallel those found in Romans 1:4 (e.g., Philippians does not mention the resurrection), but the overall shape of the two narratives is the same. In both Romans and Philippians, Jesus is granted a heavenly office and he is explicitly called Lord—even if that lordship is further described somewhat differently in Romans and Philippians. In Romans it is described with the informal title “Son-of-God-in-Power” and in Philippians as entailing the receipt of a name and of homage that is otherwise appropriate to Yahweh alone.14
A Common Pattern
Furthermore, not only is the basic structure of the narratives the same in each, but there are even some odd yet illuminating details that align. For example, in both Romans 1:3 and Philippians 2:9 the normal verb for birth, gennaō, is passed over in favor of ginomai, a term that can mean ordinary birth but much more often stresses change in status or existence. In Romans 1:3 Paul speaks of the Son who, as it pertains to the flesh, “came into existence by means of the seed of David.” Similarly in Philippians 2:9 the Christ Jesus is the preexistent one who nonetheless “came into existence in the likeness of humans.” In other words, in both passages Paul (and whatever sources he used) neglected the ordinary word for birth and selected instead ginomai, the best word to describe the coming into fleshly human existence of a preexistent divine being through birth (cf. also Gal. 4:4).
Another odd detail suggests correspondence between the stories. In both, Jesus starts with an almost unimaginably lofty status. In Romans he is the “Son” of God (1:2), with it implied that he preexisted with the Father. Likewise in Philippians 2:6 he is described as “existing in the form of God” and as “equal to God.” Yet, although one might be pardoned for thinking it impossible to attain to a higher status than Son of God, surprisingly in both texts Jesus does take on an even more exalted role. In Romans he moves from Son to “Son-of-God-in-Power” and “Lord.” Meanwhile, in Philippians he is not just “exalted” so that he returns from his earthly sojourn to his prior heavenly status alongside God the Father; rather, as he returns he is “hyper-exalted” or “super-exalted” (hyperupsoō), so that he is stationed even higher—positioned to receive royal acclaim as the sovereign “Lord” both in heaven and on earth in a fashion that was previously unprecedented. The Son of God is now the enthroned and actively ruling Son of God, the cosmic Lord. Given the emphasis in both of these texts on Jesus’s exercised sovereignty, it is safe to conclude that this new super-exalted status as cosmic Lord is not peripheral to the good news about Jesus. It is at the very heart and center—the climax of the gospel. Jesus has been enthroned as the king. To him allegiance is owed.
The Transmitted Christ Story
Another gospel passage is found in 1 Corinthians 15, and it stands at the head of Paul’s justly famous defense and explanation of the resurrection of Jesus the Christ.15 In it Paul explicitly gives the basic content of the gospel, and the details are noteworthy. Paul begins by reminding the Corinthians that the gospel he proclaims (or the gospel he “gospels”) is something that he received from others. Not only had Paul received it in the past, but prior to penning 1 Corinthians he had already passed the gospel along to the Corinthians:
Now, brothers and sisters, I bring to your attention the gospel [euangelion] that I gospeled [euēngelisamēn] to you, which you received, on which you stand, and through which also you are being saved—that is, if you hold fast to the word that I gospeled to you, unless you have given pistis in vain. (1 Cor. 15:1–2)
Notice that the gospel does indeed pertain to salvation, here depicted as an ongoing process (“being saved”). But Paul does not say anything about one-hundred-percent certitude—he seems to demand that the Corinthians must cling to this gospel, otherwise they will have given pistis to no avail.16 Obviously more than intellectual assent or a one-time decision is required by this gospel; a certain amount of tenacity in adhering to the proclaimed message is also needed. But what is it about this proclaimed message that demands a holding fast? Paul goes on to spell out the content of the gospel, and we get some hints:
For as a matter of primary import I handed over to you that which also I received: that the Christ died in behalf of our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he has been raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter], then the Twelve . . . then last of all, as if to a miscarried fetus, he appeared also to me. . . . Therefore whether I or those ones, thus we are preaching, and thus you believed. (1 Cor. 15:3–5, 8, 11)
Here Paul is extraordinarily clear about what the word “gospel” intends. Four matters pertaining to the gospel are especially noteworthy in this passage.
Unpacking the Transmitted Christ Story
First, much as in Romans 1:1–5, in 1 Corinthians 15 the gospel proper is not in the first instance a story about me and my need for salvation—that is not the correct starting place or framework. Rather, again it is a story about Jesus—namely, that Jesus died, was buried, rose on the third day, and then appeared to witnesses. Here, not surprisingly given the pastoral needs of the Corinthian congregation, Paul places the most emphasis on the validity of the resurrection as a real historical event (cf. 1 Cor. 15:19–20)—an event that Paul affirms has been validated by Jesus’s postresurrection appearances to many witnesses (15:5–8). Yet it is important to observe that he does go on in the chapter to link the resurrection to Jesus’s reign at the right hand of God, saying emphatically, “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (15:25). So here, much as in Romans 1:1–5 and Philippians 2:6–11, the gospel is intimately connected with Jesus’s cosmic kingship.
Second, although we should not miss the Jesus-centered rather than self-centered starting point, the gospel does pertain to Jesus’s death “in behalf of our sins” or “for the sake of our sins.” The Greek phrase in question here, hyper tōn hamartiōn hēmōn, uses the preposition hyper, which in this type of context can range in meaning from notions of comparative reference (“with reference to” or “with respect to”) to benefit (“for the sake of”) to representation (“in behalf of”) to substitution (“in place of”). Thus, taking both extremes, the idea could merely be that Jesus died with reference to our sins, or it could entail the theologically richer idea that Jesus died on the cross as a substitute in place of our sins. Some of Paul’s more precise statements about Jesus’s death elsewhere suggest that, at the very least, here Paul (using his source) intends representation and in all likelihood also substitution (see Rom. 3:25; 8:3; 2 Cor. 5:15; cf. 1 John 2:2).17 Traditionally the latter has been termed “substitutionary atonement,” meaning that Jesus took upon himself the death sentence that we merited (as expressed in the covenant curses), bore it in our place, and in so doing atoned (covered over) our sins (see Gal. 3:13).
That Jesus died for our sins and, as a portion of that “our,” that he also died for my sins is truly part of the gospel—emphatically so!—but it is imperative to realize that it is only a small but vital portion of the gospel as properly understood, not the whole gospel. It is also critical to recognize that “faith” is not primarily aimed at trusting in the forgiveness-of-sins process. For Paul does not primarily call us to “faith” (“belief” or “trust”) in some sort of atonement system in order to be saved (although mental affirmation that Jesus died for our sins is necessary), but rather to “faith” (“allegiance”) unto Jesus as Lord. Abstracting this for-our-sins portion of the gospel from the full gospel and the larger narrative frameworks that control its meaning is risky, especially if over time this “Jesus died for our sins” portion is placed in a new, slightly different me-centered controlling narrative—as has happened in much of our contemporary Christian culture. For the wider narrative frameworks determine what “sins,” “my need for salvation,” and indeed what has traditionally been termed “faith” as it relates to the gospel might entail in the first place.
With respect to these wider narrative frameworks, third, Paul’s description of certain Jesus events as “in accordance with the Scriptures” implies that the gospel proper involves the way Jesus’s death for our sins and his resurrection on the third day have brought the Scriptures to a fulfilling climax. With regard to the meaning of “in accordance with the Scriptures,” we can feel a certain measure of confidence that Paul intends not a couple Old Testament texts but a prominent scriptural pattern found in a wide variety of texts. This can be shown as probable on the basis of a combination of factors: the language choice here (Scriptures rather than Scripture), Paul’s own wide-ranging use of Old Testament texts as evidence for the basic death-and-resurrection gospel pattern, and comparison with other early Christian interpreters.18 Isaiah 52:13–53:12 and Psalms 16, 22, 69, and 116, with their pattern of suffering-unto-death followed by vindication, are the type of texts, collectively considered, that seem to be in view. Thus, just as in Romans 1:2, where Paul affirms that the gospel was “promised in advance by the prophets in the holy Scriptures,” here Paul asserts that the gospel accords with the Old Testament. Thus, since this scriptural correlation is part and parcel of the gospel itself, the meaning of the gospel is both informed and constrained by the larger biblical story.
Fourth, the gospel that Paul received and delivered to the Corinthians is both universal and the common property of the apostolic church. Although Paul himself received the gospel from no human source but rather through divine revelation, as he is at pains to assert in his Letter to the Galatians (1:11–12), this is not to say that he received his entire gospel apart from the human-traditioning process. Paul was a witness to the resurrection and enthronement of Jesus, since the glorified Jesus had visually and audibly revealed himself to him (Acts 9:3–7; 22:6–10; 26:13–18; 1 Cor. 9:1; 2 Cor. 12:9; Gal. 1:16). Thus, Paul had received the cornerstone of the gospel, the reality of the resurrection and enthronement, from none other than the Christ himself. Yet he received other elements of the gospel, such as traditions about Jesus’s life, death, and burial, from others, as he makes clear in 1 Corinthians 15:1–2 and intimates in Galatians 1:18.
A Single Gospel for the Apostles
That this gospel was not idiosyncratic to Paul but the common property of the apostolic church is made evident in several ways. First, Paul includes a summary of it at the beginning of his Letter to the Romans (he had neither founded nor previously visited the Roman churches). Second, Paul also asserts that the gospel outlined in 1 Corinthians 15:3–5 was preached not only by him but also by the apostles (including specifically Peter, James, and the Twelve) when he says, “Whether I or those ones, thus we are preaching, and thus you believed” (15:11). And Paul is clearly not stretching the truth in this regard, because the Corinthians—who had previously hosted numerous important Christian leaders (almost certainly including Peter), received letters, and sent out ambassadors—would have been in a very good position to know if the facts were otherwise (Acts 18:18; 19:1; 1 Cor. 1:11–12; 3:6; 9:5; 16:17–19).
There is no evidence in the New Testament that any of those named as apostles—for example, Paul, James, or the Twelve—disagreed over any of the core constituent elements of the gospel that we have thus far explored (Jesus’s preexistence, incarnation, life, death for sins, resurrection from the dead, and enthronement as Lord). Thus, when Paul is compelled to speak disparagingly of others who preach a different gospel (e.g., Gal. 1:6–9; 2 Cor. 11:4), he speaks out of the absolute conviction that there can only and ever be one true gospel, and that this gospel is shared by all genuine apostles of Jesus the Messiah.
Unleashing God’s Saving Power
Now for the fourth and final gospel passage in Paul’s Letters to be examined, Romans 1:16–17. The point that I want to make about the gospel with respect to this text could be developed in detail, but that is not necessary at this time. Yet what we learn about the gospel from this text is essential for a full picture of the gospel. The gospel is not just a story about Jesus; it is a transformative story because the gospel unleashes God’s saving power for humanity. Paul describes this power-releasing feature of the gospel:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who gives pistis, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed by pistis for pistis, as it is written, “But the righteous shall live by pistis.” (Rom. 1:16–17, citing Hab. 2:4)
If we were to look at some specific texts in detail, it could be shown that the saving power let loose by the gospel has both an objective (factual) component and a subjective (personal) component—but the point is not controversial, so I’ll only say a brief word.19
The objective good news is that the power released through the cross was sufficient to decisively defeat sin, the covenant curses, death, and evil spiritual powers (Col. 2:13–15). The cross and resurrection are now in the past, and so the victory has already been won, but the effects of the victory are still being worked out, as Jesus must reign until all his defeated enemies are fully subjected (1 Cor. 15:20–28; Eph. 1:18–23). The world is genuinely different since Jesus defeated his enemies and started to rule actively. The subjective aspect of this good news is that for it to be personally effective, this saving power must be actualized by pistis—which is part of Paul’s point in Romans 1:16–17.
So the main idea in Romans 1:16–17 is that the gospel is a transformative story because it reveals “the righteousness of God”—that is, the resurrection-effecting verdict that God rendered over Jesus the king and that resulted in our ability to share his resurrection life as a gift from God.20 But notice that some things are difficult to understand about the passage. For instance, why does Paul say that the righteousness of God is revealed “by faith, for faith” (ek pisteōs eis pistin)? And why does he cite that brief text from Habakkuk 2:4, “But the righteous [one] will live by faith [ek pisteōs]”?
Allegiance unto Life
Tackling these questions in reverse order, the citation probably intends to refer to Jesus as the righteous one and to his fidelity to God, but beyond that also to all who give fidelity to Jesus as the Christ. In Habakkuk 2:4 the Hebrew form of the citation as found in the Old Testament reads, “But the righteous [man] will live by his faithfulness,” where the Hebrew word ʾemunah means faithfulness, trustworthiness, steadiness, reliability, and so forth, not faith or belief. Paul’s habit was to use Greek translations of the Hebrew, not the Hebrew itself. So the ancient Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible must be consulted as well in seeking after Paul’s thoughts. The translator of Habakkuk 2:4, in casting the Hebrew into Greek, substituted my in place of his as follows: “But the righteous one will live by my pistis,” referring to God’s own faithfulness rather than human faith in God or the faithfulness of the human agent. So, although we are left uncertain as to Paul’s exact meaning, faithfulness or loyalty rather than faith appears to be in view in any case.
The following seems most probable. Paul says, “The righteous one will live by pistis,” because Jesus, who was both human and divine, gave pistis (he acted in loyal obedience) to God the Father in accomplishing the divine plan through the crucifixion; so in judging him, God declared Jesus to be what he clearly already was, the righteous one par excellence (cf. Rom. 5:18–19). And God proved the reality of Jesus’s total innocence by raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand, so now he lives. For Paul, Habakkuk had announced this future reality: “The righteous one, Jesus the Christ, will live by pistis”—that is, by his faithful loyalty to God.21
But also for Paul, the prophet Habakkuk, in a like manner, announces the future reality of all who imitate the Christ pattern of faithful obedience to God through Jesus: “The righteous one will live by pistis.” That is, the person who gives pistis (yields allegiance) unto Jesus as the king is declared righteous by God and will live (participate in eternal life by being raised from the dead). So: “The righteous person will live by faithful loyalty.” How is this righteousness acquired? How this works for Paul will be spelled out later (see chap. 8), but in brief the righteous standing comes when we are declared righteous by pistis (allegiance) when we are found to be “in” Jesus the Messiah—that is, when we are joined to his righteousness by being incorporated into him.
Reconsidering “by Faith for Faith”
Notice that this solution helps explain the other riddle: Why, then, does Paul speak of the revelation of God’s righteousness “by pistis for pistis” (Rom. 1:17)? Paul is explaining in an ultracompressed fashion how the saving power of the gospel is actualized: (1) “by pistis” and (2) “for pistis.”22 The following is a plausible suggestion that I would particularly invite other scholars to weigh: (1) “By pistis” is instrumental in a specific way. It means “by the fidelity of Jesus,” as this fidelity was directed primarily to God. Jesus showed trusting allegiance to God and this ultimately resulted in his becoming the king of heaven and earth. (2) Meanwhile, “for pistis” means “for fidelity to Jesus as king.” That is, Jesus’s faithfulness to God was purposed toward facilitating our allegiance to Jesus as the king.
Rephrasing slightly, we might summarize Paul’s “by pistis for pistis” in this way: in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed (1) by Jesus’s allegiance to God that ultimately led to his enthronement, and (2) in order to bring about our allegiance-yielding response to Jesus as the king. The saving power that the gospel unleashes must be tapped by allegiance to Jesus as the Christ, when this allegiance is pledged and lived out through the power of the Holy Spirit. In brief, my proposal is that we can summarize Paul’s interpretation by paraphrasing as follows:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who gives allegiance to Jesus as the Christ, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed by means of Jesus’s allegiance to God; this righteousness becomes ours through our allegiance to Jesus the king. For both Jesus and us, all of this accords with the prophetic word, “But the righteous one shall live by allegiance.” (Rom. 1:16–17)
In describing how God’s saving power has been unleashed, Paul simultaneously stresses the allegiance of Jesus to God and our own allegiance to Jesus the king, connecting this with the “righteousness of God” and the attainment of life—topics that will be developed further in chapter 8.
In this chapter we have examined the most important descriptions of the gospel offered by the apostle Paul. We have noted that the gospel proper is not so much a story focused on “believing that Jesus died for my sins” or “trusting in Jesus’s righteousness alone” as it is a power-releasing story about Jesus, the one who is now ruling as the allegiance-demanding Lord of heaven and earth. The gospel centers on Jesus the king. He provides the transformative power associated with the gospel by dying an atoning death and by sending the Spirit that unites us to him. But are there certain nonnegotiable portions of the Jesus story and others that are more peripheral? Can the gospel story be organized and compactly described? And did Jesus himself proclaim the gospel? If so, in what sense? These are some of the questions that will occupy our attention in the next chapter.
FOR FURTHER THOUGHT
1. Can you describe an occasion when you heard the gospel presented in a “me”-centered fashion? What are the pluses and minuses to such a presentation?
2. When presenting the good news about Jesus, do you think issuing warnings about hell is a valid technique of persuasion? What about encouragement to gain heaven? Why or why not?
3. Why might it be important to recognize that God didn’t leave us just prophecies about a future Messiah, but also promises?
4. How does the gospel relate to the Old Testament? In what ways is it in continuity with the Old Testament story? How does it go beyond the Old Testament?
5. Why is it crucial to the gospel to recognize that although Jesus started out as the Son of God, after his resurrection and ascension he is now actively reigning as the Son of God?
6. What is the V pattern? Explain how several passages that we did not examine in detail (e.g., consider Rom. 10:6–8; 2 Cor. 8:9; Gal. 4:4–5) conform to the V pattern.
7. Why is it important to assess the degree to which the earliest church was in agreement regarding the origin and content of the gospel?
8. Which do you think is more important to grasp for those who are first hearing the good news: the content of the gospel or the power of the gospel? Why?
9. Paul says, “But the righteous [one] will live by pistis” (Rom. 1:17, citing Hab. 2:4). Can you explain how this was true for Jesus and how it could also be true for you?
10. If you were to combine Paul’s various statements about the gospel into a single statement about Jesus’s career, what elements would it contain?