This has come up in other discussions, so I want to make sure I understand what you're saying. Are you taking "God-Man-Christ-Response" as "the Gospel"? I ask because I preached a series entitled "Getting the Gospel Right" in which one of the messages addressed the necessity of repentance. A few pastor-friends said that I was confusing the response to the gospel with the gospel itself, which they boiled down to the historical facts of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ from I Cor. 15:3-4. Though that's a common idea, I believe that limiting "the Gospel" to those 3 points (and if that's your take, why not a 4th from verse 5 in order to be grammatically consistent?) is unnecessarily and unwisely narrow.

Would you include the response of faith and repentance in your "clear and sharp" definition of the gospel? And can you give a few examples of what you mean by "implications and entailments"? Perhaps after Sunday? :-)

Thanks!

Dear Mark,

You've been drinking the N. T. Wright Kool-aid! Just kidding, of course.

But I would point out, nevertheless, that Piper challenges Wright on precisely this point because Wright is so fond of saying things like "the gospel is not an account of how one gets saved." Wright makes such statements because he doesn't want the message of Christ's death and resurrection to be confused with its salvific implications and entailments (which is your point).

But I think the separation can actually turn into an overcorrection (which is what Wright has done and what Piper has reproved him for). We would agree that the gospel can't be reduced to mere subjectivism, but neither can it be reduced to the mere "narrative proclamation" of the cross events.

This fact is clear even in Paul's own proclamation in 1 Corinthians 15:3ff to which you refer. Note that Paul says "Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures" (emphasis mine). The the Pauline kerygma was more than just story-telling in the abstract. The meaning of Christ's death and its relation to the sinner was every bit as much a part of the proclamation as was the cross itself. In fact, the "news" of the latter was in no way "good" without the former. Without "for our sins" the message is just news. It's the "for our sins" that makes it good.

Well, there's my two cents. Blessings on you, brother!

Blessings,
Denny Burk

At the risk of speaking for Mark, I'm not sure you've fairly represented his point, Denny.

As I understand it, I don't think he's talking about divorcing the historical events of Christ from the hearer's response (he included 'Response'), but rather working out what the Gospel actually is - what someone needs to know to be saved - and making that the content of the 'Gospel presentation', rather than including all manner of other implications/entailments.

Have you been reading Wright lately? You just seemed very keen to get him in there, and I think you missed the point. ;)

Amen! Thanks for the post!

I'm sympathetic to Mark's position in terms of communicating salvation "by grace alone through faith alone" very clearly.

On the other hand, when I see the evangelism of the New Testament, with converts somehow undertstanding that a response to what they've heard somehow entails immediate baptism (and, consequently, some recognition of a call to discipleship), then I can't help but wonder if we've reduced the gospel too much.

I could say more, but I appreciated Don Carson's appeal at the Gospel Coalition to marry the two perspectives (God-man-Christ-grace-faith) and (Creation-Fall-Redemption-Restoration). We need to see that God deals with our guilt and its consequences in Christ on the cross, but we also need to know his sovereign rule over this world and one's life (not just that he loves me and has a wonderful plan for it).

People need to know that conversion is something more than an invisible transaction, but it involves regeneration, a change of ownership and obligation in one's life, etc. Thus, the cross is the core, the pivot point both of human history and my life personally, because it make life with God possible, apart from anything I've done (including making some sort of "decision for Christ").

I look forward to the continuation of this discussion.

I guess what I'm saying is, I agree completely that the God-man-Christ-grace-faith framework describes justification, but I'm wondering whether evangelism should involve a proclamation/explanation of justification set apart from the whole of salvation/redemption, or if the evangelist should lay out the full "implications" of the gospel.

Frankly, the implications and entailments include much more than our duties, but it seems that we can communicate all of the above in God-centered, grace-dependent ways that show that they all hinge on the work of Christ on the cross.

In response to Denny Burk:

I think Mark's explanation would fit with Piper's view in that Mark's "Response" element of the gospel is how one receives the benefits of Christ's work on the cross. Piper says it is not only good news that Christ died, but how that work is received by the sinner is also good news. That is in Mark's gospel summary and it is in distinction from N.T. Wright's view as I understand it from reading Piper's "The Future of Justification."

I know you don't think Mark and Wright agree, I just wanted to lovingly point out that in the "response" component of Mark's gospel summary, there is the safeguard against reducing the gospel to "narrative proclamation."

In Christ,
PJ

Isn't Mark's point, "Don't put the cart before the horse" when it comes to preaching the Gospel? In other words, don't preach particular RESPONSES to the Gospel AS PART OF THE GOSPEL - preach the Gospel. Divorce the source from it's many fruits, lest people complicate the simple message.

For instance, the Gospel will cause you to care for your neighbor who is an addict. (Nonbelievers will see that and applaud it, but when you tell them why - because of Christ - they'll become dismissive.) But the Gospel does not include you caring for your neighbor. That's not in 1 Cor 15. But it obviously IS an entailment, or consequence of the Gospel.

Maybe I'm misreading, but that's how Mark's point comes across to me.

You can obviously make into what ever meaning you want.

I am sympathetic with Mark's concern. However, the thesis statement, in my estimation, overstates the case, which is more properly tempered by a later statement.

To call for "divorce" (at least mentally) of "the gospel from its implications and entailments" seems overly strong. Saying "Do NOT divorce these in your life and practice" is good and right. Yet, I would not want to say that there should be any kind of divorce even mentally.

Better is the later statement that calls for us to "distinguish the unchangeable, essential Gospel--that news through which Christ can be received by faith as our Savior--from its many implications and entailments."

In my estimation, scholars, preachers, and teachers too infrequently distinguish between terms such as "divorce" and "distinguish" or between "separate" and "distinguish." Perhaps it is simply my own pet peeve not worth mentioning. Nevertheless, as I read and write theology, it seems to me that failure to use these terms with distinction regularly inclines us to advocate a less than biblically tempered and even-handed position that counters one extreme with another.

I just started this discussion at my own site and would appreciate any comments.

I infact begin with repentance, specifically with the convenient placing of the T in TULIP first. I am convinced that much of what passes as the Gospel fails to impress the desperate condition that we are in. We have soft-peddled sin as sins, without reaching down to the root, as one commenter here mentioned; the implications of the Fall. Do we understand Ephesians' view of our deadness? As often happens, it is only latter that a man is confronted with this desperation, see Isaiah, David or Peter. What Tom Ascol recognizes as unregenerate membership is connected with this lack of acknowledgement of our sin desperation, which should then lead us to repentence, and then the commitment that should flow out of a heart that loves with the measure by which it was forgiven.

I understood Mark's point the way Kenny T did. It seems that too many preachers want their hearers to get a running start on sanctification before they are even justified, just to make sure they don't end up being so-so Christians. These preachers see a lot of people who call themselves Christians not living out the implications of the gospel and end up writing books about getting the gospel right, assuming that must be the part we are getting wrong.

Pastor Mark:
I'm not certain as others have expressed here what exactly you are trying to say.

May I ask you: what is it you are really trying to say? Your brief post sounds confusing to me.

Any help you can give I would appreciate.

In His mercy,
Connie

Related to this I submit the following statement I recently heard from a Presbyterian lecturer/teacher/pastor: "We need to start evangelizing believers and discipling unbelievers."

With the first part of that quote, he simply means we need to keep the Gospel message of GRACE clearly before us lest we slide into legalism.

But I'm not sure what to make of the second part - "we need to start discipling unbelievers." When I asked him for clarification, he gave an example. Non-Christian woman struggling in her marriage. TEACH her how to deal with it from the Scripture. Then in time, count on the Lord opening her heart as she encounters Him and His teachings in His word.

To make the point clear, I'm somewhat troubled by what he DIDN'T say - "Preach the Gospel to her first, then disciple her." It begs the question: should we be very intentional in pursuing conversion before preaching Gospel "entailments"? Are we blurring the lines on how God works in saving and changing people? Is it not shooting for sanctification before justification? Any examples in the Scripture where we see that happening? I suppose we could say Jesus did it quite a bit... or so this lecturer said.