What the Gospel is NOT?
"We should straighten up and fly right"
Some say that
the gospel is simply the message that I need to change my behavior. The good
news is seen as consisting in a set of virtues, biblical and otherwise. If
I am busily enough engaged in these virtues, I will be pleasing to God and
helpful to others.
If the gospel is just a change of outward behavior accomplished on my own, regardless of the state of my inner self - then the gospel is reduced to mere moralism. In other words, we've begun to think that the gospel penetrates no deeper than the level of outward moral renovation, when in reality the gospel penetrates to the level of inward spiritual transformation.
This tendency to moralism is often the danger of preaching that treats Scriptural texts and characters as mere examples to emulate or avoid instead of as integrated scenes and characters in the grand story of redemption writ large on the canvas of human history.
The gospel is not merely an additive that can make our already good lives better. Nor is it a commandment to live rightly that we can obey by digging down deep within ourselves. The gospel is not simply that we should live right.
