- What is the Gospel?
- What did Jesus talk about?
- Does the word 'Good News' make you think of happiness and affection from Christ before considering anything else?
- What does the Gospel mean for YOUR life, RIGHT NOW?
Prosperity Gospel
Piper says in that video that we are "selling a bill of goods to the poorest of the poor: Believe this message and your pigs won't die, and your wife won't have miscarriages; and you'll have rings on your fingers and coats on your back." And later, "They'll say, 'Did Jesus give you that?' 'Yeah.' 'Well, I'll take Jesus.' That's idolatry, that's not the gospel." Maybe you're more pious than all that, a better missionary, a better neighbor. But what does the gospel sound like in your mouth? Like, 'Believe this message, and your wife will come back to you, and your kids will love you'; 'Believe this message, and you'll find a job, and have money again'; 'Believe this message, and you'll experience unending happiness because God loves you'; 'Believe this message, and you'll be saved from hell'; 'Believe this message, and you'll find a whole new community of friends at church'; 'Believe this message, and your life will be better'. Those are ultimatums, those messages are NOT the gospel. The form, the logic, there, is cause and effect but in reverse of the truth. God's love is the cause, our salvation is the effect. It is not our love as the cause with His blessings as the effect. God does not want us to love Him conditionally, He wants us to love Him for His own sake. The problem here is one of identification: we don't know who God is, and we don't spend time with Him personally, in relationship with Him. Thus instead we go to church and talk to friends and hear about all the things God represents in the world, and we choose one, or five, and make those our gods.
The people of Israel had a similar identity crisis with God. Exodus 3:13-14: "Then Moses said to God, 'Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they say to me, 'What is His name?' what shall I say to them?' And God replied to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM.'" "I AM WHO I AM" you say? God doesn't say, "I AM THE FEEDER OF THE HUNGRY," "I AM THE FIXER OF BROKEN HOMES," "I AM THE HEALER OF THE SICK," or even "I AM THE GIVER OF ETERNAL LIFE." God says, "I AM WHO I AM." The focus is all on God, God as Himself, for His own sake, simply as. To clarify the point here, God commanded the Israelites to follow Him, and they did simply because of who He was. In the essay "Religion Without Dogma?" C.S. Lewis explains that,
Judaism in its earlier stages had no belief in immortality, and for a long time no belief which was religiously relevant. The shadowy existence of the ghost in Sheol was one of which Jehovah took no account and which took no account of Jehovah...The religion was centred on the ritual and ethical demands of Jehovah in the present life...The Jew is athirst for the living God (Psalm xlii. 2.), he delights in His Laws as in honey or treasure (Psalm xix. 10.), he is conscious of himself in Jehovah's presence as unclean of lips and heart (Isaiah vi. 5.). The glory or splendour of God is worshipped for its own sake.Eternal life was not presented as some carrot to the donkey, just a good reason to follow God. A reader of the Scriptures will note that God did make the Israelites many earthly promises, and many blessings and gifts, but always as the outcome of following after the Holy One, and first worshiping Him, not His gifts. Likewise, even when Jesus comes and talks much of eternal life and being with Him in Heaven, His motif is still, "I am the way, the truth and the life," "I go to prepare a place for you"; Jesus may talk of Heaven, but He still starts with "I", He still wants us to realize that it is He who should be the object of our affection, and He who makes possible all the blessings of the Father for us. Jesus doesn't say, 'When you get to Heaven I'll be around waiting to greet you' but 'Come to me and I will bring you there!' Heaven is not the way, the truth, and the life; Money is not the way, the truth and the life; safety is not the way, the truth and the life; JESUS is the way, the truth and the life.
That is the gospel. Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Not that we follow Him perfectly, no. We can't go to our friends and say, "Look how well I follow Jesus, you should too!" But nor can we not go because we tell ourselves, "I can't talk to my neighbor, I don't follow Jesus perfectly." We forget the maxim, abusus non tollit usum ('the abuse does not abolish the use'). The gospel is neither that we follow Jesus perfectly nor that we should and don't and thus dare not speak of it to others. The gospel is that we are sinners - broken, failed, and unable to serve God - but that Jesus came and died for us anyway, that God loves us anyway and wants to restore us to Him. And the gospel is not that His love will make us happy and safe and carefree but that His love will break us, and pain us, and completely rework our lives so that we are more Him and less us. Proverbs 13:24 reads, "He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly." It is no love that leaves us as we are. The gospel is that God is holy. That God is holy and all powerful, and that we are sinful and inclined away from Him - unable to serve or love Him. The gospel is that Jesus Christ has provided salvation and through Him we are restored to God for God's sake! That we may be in relationship with the Father for who He is, not for what He can do for us! The gospel is that even when your wife is gone forever, and when someone else gets your job, and when tragedy befalls you, and when you're not happy, you are sufficiently comforted by the fact that God has said, "I AM WHO I AM."
Blessings will come, Jesus is clear on that. God loves us and provides and cares for us. But we must never worship the gifts, we must always love the Giver. Piper summarizes beautifully, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." I pray that we are not satisfied by safety, by material, by happiness, even by joy or love or life; but that our satisfaction comes from knowing God and being in direct relationship with Him, through the Son, by the Spirit.
Hate the gifts, love the Giver. That is the gospel.
Jason
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