Grace in the Postmodern World

God's Good News for Humanity - The Gospel

Galatians 1: ⁶ I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— ⁷ which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. ⁸ But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! ⁹ As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!

The average 21^st century American Christian has at least three primary gospels to choose from. There is the postmodern gospel, where felt needs are sovereign and God’s nature is determined by what we choose to believe about God at any given moment. These Christians might appear to be very pseudo-biblical, finding passages that affirm and support their particular understanding of the gospel. However, they often lack what we might call a “Biblical World View”. For example, a post modern minded Christian might say something like – “I am not being fed by the ministries offered in my church”. They may then quote a passage or two to support their method of evaluation, like: 1 Cor. 3, where Paul says that he had to feed them “milk instead of solid food” because of their immaturity, or, Hebrews 6, where the Author speaks of “tasting” the teachings of The Kingdom. In both of these cases the Scriptures are referring to signs of immaturity, not the need to be fed. It is a cosmic reach, by any stretch of the imagination, to attempt to make a case that the primary reason the local church exists and the Bible is studied is to “feed me”. Yet there are many who have embraced a post modern understanding of the church to such a degree that almost every choice made in relation to life and faith is evaluated through the lens of “felt need”. And this is quite readily applied to one’s understanding of the gospel as well, as Jesus conveniently becomes one who now exists to make our life comfortable, meaningful, secure, and fun, as if these were his priorities when he walked among us. If you buy this, please read the gospels again.

A second popular gospel which exists in our churches today is the “Gospel of Law” or the "gospel of good works". Almost every Christian is down with the teaching that Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins and give us everlasting life. This gospel is powerful when it comes to salvation and heaven, but often takes a back seat when speaking about the in between time of real life in the here and now. You might  hear some quote passages like: “work our your salvation with fear and trembling”. They will then set forth a teaching along these lines: "in spite of our shared belief that God does in fact save us through the cross of Christ, it is most certainly our obedience which keeps us and secures the “prize”."  Some will even suggest that the Law is the gracious gift of God which works daily to "keep us in line", thus baptizing the legal code of our choosing into the gospel itself. One need only to read the book of Galatians to get a feel for how Paul would react to such an interesting combination of doctrines. He mumbled something about wishing such Judiazers would go the full way and "emasculate themselves". 


Yes, we are certainly called to  “work out our salvation with fear and trembling”. But we are never working out a salvation that we have secured for ourselves, whether day one or day 1 million and 1. We are always working the gift, and it never ceases to be a gift. After all, who gets credit for the "work" we are able to do? Would we really make the case that Jesus did not do "enough" to secure us for all our days, that he was some how underscoring our accomplishments and our efforts to keep the Law when proclaiming "it is finished" with his final breath on the cross. Was it Jesus on the Cross on Friday, but let us return to the Temple on Monday.  Though most Christians I encounter are right down the middle and LONG when it comes to the Tee Box of salvation by grace, they will restate almost immediately the very gospel of Law I just outlined when it comes to the day to day playing out of the Christian life down this fairway we call life - where the blessings of God come only to the obedient, where grace is a great story to tell rather than a constant reality to be lived.  Within such a gospel, grace is undermined and the free gift of salvation is secondary to the earned wages of righteousness and sanctification. It’s ok for me to believe that I am saved from God’s justice through the death of Jesus on the cross, but this is not the same as being saved from God’s punishment for my sins committed yesterday and today. Salvation is dependant upon Christ, Holiness is at least somewhat dependant upon me. Heaven is a gift, my rewards are earned. God’s blessing, though beginning as unmerited favor, grows and prospers as an extension of our good works. God’s grace is sufficient to save, but in order to become all that God saves us to be we must travel the road of obedience and righteousness in order to experience God’s blessing. What ever shall we do with such a distortion of the gospel?

Several years ago, while working on my doctorate Thesis (the topic being the Grace of God and the Issue of Divorce in the Church), a woman communicated to me that she had major problems with my theology in my doctoral paper. She wondered how I could teach that God might actually be willing to bless people in second marriages, especially when the divorces came about by circumstances that violated God’s standards of obedience (insert adultery or abuse or alcoholism or whatever you choose here). My reply to her was that I had the theology I wrote of because I believe whole heartedly in the gospel of Jesus clearly revealed throughout the New Testament, as well as alluded to and demonstrated time and time again in the Old Testament. “Say what?”, she exclaimed. “What in the world does the gospel have to do with marriage and divorce? The gospel is about salvation, not marriage!!!” I thanked her for her thoughts, told her to read the story of David and Bethsheba, and see if she might be able to find the gospel in that story as it related to marriage……"then we can talk again". She returned a week later loaded with a gospel, only it was the "gospel of Law and punishment" she carried in her arms.  She began with passion: “I told you that God’s grace does not apply when adultery is present. Look what happened to their child. He died!”  I had expected as much. So I asked her, “why did the child die?” Was it punishment, or was it grace?” Was the child’s death an expression of the gospel of Law, or the gospel of grace?"  (more later,  peace/out).