The Simplicity, and Depth, of the Gospel

This post is not intended to be a major theological treatise, but rather, a reflection of my own journey to the Evangelical Catholic (Lutheran) faith. Granted, in my reflection there will be (and must be by necessity!) some theological statements and claims.

One of the most important facets of Lutheran theology is the distinction between Law and Gospel. The Law kills, whereas the Gospel brings life. The Law cannot bring life, for that is not its function. It can only tell us what to do. To lapse into finding life in obeying commands is to lapse into legalism, and to lapse into finding assurance in your works is to lapse into a perversion of the Gospel itself.

In Christianity, only the Confessional Lutheran Church upholds this proper distinction, although many Continental Reformed Churches are doing pretty good at it these days. Notice, I did not say all Reformed Churches. The Puritans did a horrible job of this, and their influence in Reformed circles is enormous, even today. Some of the Continental Reformed folks do OK here though. I think of Reformed scholars like Michael Horton, for example.

As I made my own journey to the Lutheran Church, I was confronted with all of these issues, especially I was a staunch Calvinist for many years; even flirting with Postmillennialism and Theonomy along the way. I still to this day have a high regard for the late Dr. Greg Bahnsen in the arena of apologetics. I think he is amazing in that regard. Yet I also think his theology is bunk in many ways.

The Law killed me. Absolutely, positively, killed me. In my journey, especially through Reformed Theology, I was constantly seeing the Law as a bad thing. Yes, I know, Reformed Theology does not see the Law as a bad thing - no Christian Church does. But allow me to explain. As a Calvinist, I was forced by necessity to judge my election based on my obedience to the commands of God. I can hear the howls of protest from my Reformed friends now...

Why is this so? Well, there are two doctrines in Reformed Theology that push a person in this direction. They are the doctrine of Reprobation and the doctrine of Limited Atonement. To put it simply, the doctrine of Reprobation (aka Double Predestination) says that a portion of humanity is predestined to burn in hell, for lack of a better explanation. Limited Atonement says that Christ only died for those who are elect and will be saved.

Here is the problem: If those two things are true, how can you know you are saved? Well, you can't know that you're not predestined for heaven. You might fall away or have a false faith. In that case, you were never saved in the first place. You also can't know for sure if Christ died for you, well, because you don't know if you're predestined for heaven and might fall away or have false faith.

So where does one look for assurance in Reformed Theology? To their own fruits. To be fair, many Reformed people would protest this, and rightly so. Much of Reformed Theology teaches people to look to Christ, and that is a good thing. Yet, how can you not help but to look to yourself if Christ only died for certain persons? To act a little Reformed here, it's an irresistible logic.

From our Lutheran perspective, this is a confusion of Law and Gospel. To look to anything you do (Law) to have assurance of salvation is going to drive you to despair. Or pride. In other words, the thing that is supposed to clearly show your election in Christ either kills you or makes you sin even more by presupposing something that is not a foregone conclusion (if Christ died for you), or leads a person to thump their chest in the name of humility to know and say they are elect.

All of these things mingle the Law into the Gospel. The Law does not give us assurance. It only causes despair or pride.

It's not that I don't think that Reformed churches (and Baptist, and...whatever else) don't have the Gospel. They certainly do. It's that they obscure it by allowing the Law to be mingled in with it. They don't allow the Gospel, and only the Gospel, to do all the heavy lifting.

The despair however, is where it led me. And, I would argue, the Law driving us to despair is precisely what it should do. And when the Law kills you, it also shows you that you are completely and utterly helpless. And screwed. Royally screwed.

That is where the simplicity, and depth, of the Gospel comes in. The Gospel is something outside of us that gives us Christ and His promises, benefits, and work, as a one-sided divine gift. Christ for you, outside of you, clothing you with His righteousness (2 Cor 5:21). He died for you (1 Jn 2:2).

And what's also awesome is that He gives Himself to us not only in His Incarnation, death, and resurrection, but also temporally, apart from ourselves. Not so much to make us better (although the Spirit comes in and the new man rises), but precisely because we suck and fall short. We fall short of everything. God demands perfection (Mat 5:48). We cannot meet it (Jam 2:10, Rom 3:23). We are sinful from conception (Ps 51, Rom 5:12-21).

The Law and the Gospel are both super important. Without the Law, we needn't be saved. Without the Gospel, we can't be saved. For it is the Gospel, not the Law, that is the power of God unto salvation (Rom 1:16).

Nor does God kill us with the Law to save us with the Gospel just to drive us back to the Law again (Gal 3:2-3).

Christ outside of us, for us, continually coming to us in Word and Sacrament for our salvation. Not because of what we have done, but because of what Christ alone has done.

Anything less than that rips the purity from the Word of God and strips the Gospel of its power to assure us that we are Christ's and He is ours.

Christ saves us. He says: I baptize you in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit (Mat 28:18-20). He says: Whoever believes in me is saved (Jn 3:16, Rom 10:9-13). He says, take and eat, take and drink, this is My body and blood, for you, for the forgiveness of your sins (Mat 26:28).

Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8), does it all, despite of us, not because of us. And because God's Word is sure and God never lies, we also locate our assurance in these promises given to us in Word and Sacrament outside of us, spoken by God.

He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. Titus 3:5

Amen