Gospel - the antireligion November 24, 2005
Posted by Patrick in : Christianity , trackbackGood quote from Tim Keller (via cityblog):
The Bible’s purpose is not so much to show you how to live a good life. The Bible’s purpose is to show you how God’s grace breaks into your life against your will and saves you from the sin and brokenness otherwise you would never be able to overcome… religion is ‘if you obey, then you will be accepted’. But the Gospel is, ‘if you are absolutely accepted, and sure you’re accepted, only then will you ever begin to obey’. Those are two utterly different things. Every page of the Bible shows the difference.
This subject of gospel vs. religion has been on my mind lately. Most Christians today (myself included) seem to be saved by grace, but live the rest of life under the trappings of religion. They would change the words of Amazing Grace from “Tis’ grace has brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home” to “Tis’ grace has brought me safe thus far, and hard work & obedience will lead me home.”
And I’d venture to guess that this attitude springs from not believing the gospel. It really is just the life/death/resurrection of Jesus Christ that saves us. Nothing else. Unforutnately, we hardly hear the distinction between gospel and the sin of religion. Sin is usally portrayed as the prodigal son’s sin - licentiousness, lust, greed, etc. But we rarely hear that the elder brother son’s sin - demandingness, nose-snubbing, bitterness, joylessness - is just as evil and corrupt. We need to hear the gospel’s distinction against both of these attitudes more often, and with equal weight. If not, the church will grow up too many elder brothers in its midst.
Tim Keller, who’s been incredibly helpful, has a great article (pdf) that clearly unpacks the gospel as the third way.
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