What do Protestants get wrong about the gospel? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
While working on my Master’s, part of the requirements for the scholarship I had were to go out and do evangelism on a weekly basis. (And if you would like to become a supporter for me on my PhD scholarship, go here.) You need to understand that for me, speaking behind a computer screen is super easy, but speaking face-to-face is horrid. Therefore, since we went out in pairs, the other person usually initiated the conversation.
I knew where that conversation would normally start. “If you died today, do you know if you would go to Heaven?” I hated it. Imagine that question. It doesn’t ask you anything about what you think about Jesus. It doesn’t ask you about God. It asks about you and you alone. It is all about you.
Now I know my fellow evangelicals mean well with this, but I inwardly cringed every time. Not only that, if you encounter someone who is in their 20’s, they’re thinking they won’t die for a long time and odds are, they’re right. It’s as if Christianity is only relevant when you die.
Bates says that Protestants do indeed get the gospel wrong. As he says, Protestants think that:
The gospel is primarily about how an individual person can get saved.
The gospel is that Jesus has done it all for you so that you don’t have to do anything yourself for salvation.
The gospel can be accurately summarized as Jesus died for your sins so that you can be forgiven when you die.
The gospel is the Romans Road: God is righteous, humans are sinners, Jesus Christ is the savior, so repent and believe.
The gospel is uniquely centered on the cross. The gospel is Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection. Period.
Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1027-1032). Kindle Edition.
I would want to be happy when I heard someone became a Christian through our efforts, but I am a cynic. I want to see this person a year later and see how they are doing. That is when I will be more assured that they did something serious when they made the decision.
Bates has two more errors he wants to add:
The gospel includes the personal receipt of justification by faith.
The gospel does not include social and political action.
Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1042-1044). Kindle Edition.
In other words, Bates says that how you respond to the gospel is not part of the gospel itself. Also, the typical view says becoming a Christian does not mean you are expected to do anything politically or socially. He argues, and I agree, that indeed you are expected to.
Not holding back, Bates says the problem goes all the way back to the beginning:
When Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation, he identified “justification by faith” as the essence of the gospel. Thereafter Protestants have tended to follow suit. For example, in various books John MacArthur, John Piper, and R. C. Sproul— the list could be multiplied— all claim that justification by faith is the heart of the gospel. MacArthur calls justification by faith “the core and touchstone of the gospel according to Paul” and summarizes, “Justification by faith is the linchpin of Paul’s teaching on the gospel.” R. C. Sproul states, “Justification by faith alone is essential to the gospel.” John Piper is even more effusive: “I am thrilled to call justification the heart of the gospel.”
Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1059-1064). Kindle Edition.
So to my Catholic and Orthodox friends, Bates isn’t holding back. I personally think there were a number of errors in Catholicism that needed to be dealt with and I suspect many Catholics today would say that there were indeed problems that Luther addressed. If you think people can buy their way into eternity by purchasing an indulgence, that is a problem. That being said, could it be that Protestantism and Catholicism were not really arguing about the gospel in reality but were differing over secondary issues?
Bates says that justification by faith is never described as the gospel in the Bible. Not even once. He also says that when the gospel is described as good news, it is communal good, not individual. To use an analogy again, the recent election outcome was good news to some people, bad news to others, but those who thought it good news thought it good news for everyone and vice-versa for those who thought it bad news.
This also means that when someone becomes a Christian, they enter into a community. The community exists prior. The gospel is there before they are. They are entering the group of those who swear allegiance to King Jesus. This gets us to where justification by faith comes in.
As part of the gospel, corporate justification has already been won by King Jesus for himself and whoever happens to be part of his church. The gospel itself does not include personal justification by faith but does include the promise that a person can be justified by faith if that person meets the condition of faith.
Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1208-1218). Kindle Edition.
Some might ask about the good news still. How is it good news if the person doesn’t become a Christian? Bates has in mind people like Greg Gilbert and John Piper. To them, he says:
Piper and Gilbert’s position inadvertently taints the gospel with our culture’s narcissistic individualism: the gospel can’t count as good news unless I personally get something out of it.
Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 1227-1229). Kindle Edition.
Even if no one ever became a Christian, Jesus would still be king. God would have still been on the throne. Of course, it is good when someone becomes a Christian, but the quality of the news does not change based on what we do with it.
What about issues of justice and political action? Those are worth their own coverage. We’ll deal with them next time.
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