The Simple Gospel

by Pastor Jason Poling

The Gospel is simple: repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ who died, was buried, and rose again the 3rd day to forgive you of your sins and give you eternal life. But the Gospel is not simplistic. It is not shallow. It cannot be reduced to a formulaic prayer or mental acknowledgement. Rather, the Gospel involves a cataclysmic event in the human heart. The largest nuclear explosion or the unfathomably massive implosion of a star larger than our sun cannot compare in power or aftermath to the conversion of one human heart from darkness to light by the working of God the Holy Spirit. It is this incomprehensible and dramatic inner change that makes the Gospel “bigger” than a prayer or raised hand or census category change.

The Gospel makes one want to see beyond this life, beyond what can be seen. The true Christian longs to view ultimate reality: to see the Kingdom of God working within and overturning the Kingdom of Man. It is at this point the Gospel becomes offensive. How so?

To say, “God loves you, wants to save you and give you a wonderful plan for your life” is true and very attractive, but it is not the entire Gospel edifice. The rest of the story is the entire “house” of the Gospel, not just the “doorway” into the house. The rest of the story is this: God saves you to use you, to enlist you in His work...and it will cost you everything.

How does it cost you so much? God saves you to totally renew your mind so that you do not see things as they are but as they will be. For example, Marriage, Family, Money, Time and all the other things we fixate on here are seen in the Gospel-transformed mind and heart to be good things but not best things. Marriage to Christ, the family of God, the eternal riches and inheritance of the children of God, and eternality itself, become our ultimate fixations and longings instead. Interestingly, these earthly “good things” actually become better things because we have focused not on them but on the best things. An example of this logic makes it clear: one who is supremely in love with Christ becomes the greatest lover for his or her spouse!

But again, this call of the Gospel to put Christ and His mission first, even at the sacrifice of everything else we hold dear in this life...including our own life...is offensive. That was what Martin Luther was trying to communicate when he said: “The Gospel cannot truly be preached without offense and tumult.”

A simplistic, truncated Gospel that tells you God's love is only a rescuing love and not also a recruiting love is simply not offensive. It doesn't require anything of you. But when the whole Gospel is proclaimed - that God has saved you to “come and die” for the eternal Kingdom of God instead of merely to “kill time and die” in the passing distractions of the Kingdom of Man - it will cause tumult.

Jesus was willing to give up everything, including His own life. Why? Because He knew the fullness of the Gospel. He knew the sure promise of eternal joy on the other side of the suffering and shame of the cross. This faith in the Gospel of the Kingdom of God empowered His obedience unto death.

True Christians are called to the same obedience of faith. We must first believe the whole, radical, explosive, realitychanging Gospel so that we have the longing and divine power to obey the commands of the Gospel no matter what it costs us. The Gospel is simple. And controversial. And awesome.