My title for this post is an attempt at summarizing a current online debate, involving Greg Gilbert, Scott McKight and others, about the nature of the Gospel message in the New Testament.
Honestly, I don’t follow “theological debates” online for a variety of reasons that I won’t go into here, so I confess that I am only responding to a good post I read today at Patheos from Michael Bird. (This is a very old, very tired debate.)
Michael is an excellent New Testament scholar, and I recommend that you read his new post, especially if you have been following the debate online. Michael is spot on in his conclusions.
(As a side-note, I originally tried to hook my blog up with the Patheos blog site, but couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to do it. Given the site’s drift towards right-wing craziness, it was probably for the best.)
Michael’s post is entitled The Gospel of the King. Click on the title to read it all.
Or you can read an excerpt below:
“Gilbert wants to make the cross and a transaction within the atonement the centre of the gospel with kingdom and kingship as a kind of back story. McKnight and Bates emphasize Jesus’s kingship, Israel’s story, fulfilment of Scripture with justification and forgiveness as benefits of the gospel. Gilbert is not entirely absent of kingdom/kingship, but neither are McKnight and Bates arguing for ‘mere kingship.’
“Truth be told, I think that Bates and McKnight have the better end of the argument in terms of what the NT emphasizes. If one surveys Acts 2:29-36, 13:32-33, Rom 1:3-4, 1 Cor 15:3-4, and 2 Tim 2:8 then it is pretty hard to deny the fact that the gospel is a king Jesus gospel – it is a bit of slam dunk for my mind. The gospel is a royal summons to believe and obey Jesus as God’s messianic king, a king who has shown his might and power by laying down his life for his people to make them right, forgiven, and reconciled, etc. Or, as I define the gospel in my Evangelical Theology: ‘The gospel is the announcement that God’s kingdom has come in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord and Messiah, in fulfillment of Israel’s Scriptures. The gospel evokes faith, repentance, and discipleship; its accompanying effects include salvation and the gift of the Holy Spirit.’”
Further on in his post, Michael addresses the New Testament passages that explain “justification by faith,” the touchstone for evangelical orthodoxy in many people’s minds.
I would only add to Michael’s argument by pointing out something that is widely overlooked: the apostle Paul only talks about “justification by faith” in those letters where he is combating some sort of Judaizing influence within the church. “Judaizers” were the folks who insisted that Gentiles must become good Jews in order to become real disciples of Jesus. This meant circumcision and adherence to the Torah.
So, Paul’s argument for “justification by faith alone apart from works (signifying works of the law)” always (maybe I should say only) arose in a very specific polemical environment. That does not offer much of a basis for insisting on its “centrality.”
To my mind the conclusion is pretty obvious.
Justification by faith was not the irreducible, central component to Paul’s way of understanding the work of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
It was one important aspect of the gospel. But not its essence.
For both the root and the branch of the Good News, we must turn to Jesus of Nazareth. What was essential to him?
Read the New Testament Gospels and the answer becomes obvious: the Kingdom of God and the Lordship of Jesus over God’s kingdom.
I just happen to have written a book about it.
