There is a common problem among many churches today related to their understanding and presentation of the gospel. They often confuse the applications, implications, and wider scope of the gospel with the heart of the gospel. Their emphasis is slightly to widely off center. This inaccuracy is expressed in varying ways with varying degrees of consequences. Here are a couple of examples.

First, how many times have you heard someone say or read some evangelistic tract begin the gospel with “God has a great plan for your life.”? I may have cut my theological teeth on some gospel version that began with those very words. That introductory phrase is usually followed by God loves you, you are unique/special, he only desires your best, and your best is found in his Son, Jesus Christ. Then there is some explanation of what Christ did.

If you take the introductory comment by itself, there isn’t anything inherently unbiblical about it. Just read the promise given in 1 Peter 1:3-5 (cf. Eph. 1:3, 11):

(H)e has caused us to be born again to a living hope…to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power is being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

According to Peter, God, therefore, does have a great plan for those who are “born again.” And yet as amazing as this plan is, it isn’t the center of the gospel.

A second example are some of the focal points in what is commonly referred to as the New Perspective(s) on Paul (NPP).* N. T. Wright explains the “gospel” not as “how one gets saved” but as Jesus’ decisive victory over the powers of evil, his resurrection inaugurating the long-awaited time of Israel’s return from exile and the whole world under the rule of the creator, Israel’s Messiah, and, therefore, the Lord, the true king of the world (N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity?, 60). He grounds his explanation in passages like Romans 1:3-4 and Galatians 4:1-11. Here’s what he said: “(W)e have initial justification in saying that Romans 1:3-4 does indeed provide the thematic launching-pad for the letter’s deepest argument. Paul’s theology in Romans is, at its heart, royal. So, I suggest, is his theology in Galatians” (Ibid., 54, emphasis added).

Okay! There is nothing unbiblical there. As a matter a fact, Wright as alot of good things to say in his explanation of Jesus fulfilling Old Testament messianic prophecies. But upon further reflection, particularly his comment about the theme of Romans and Galatians, you actually find that Wright has missed the center of the gospel. For over 1500 years Reformed Christians have understood Paul not to explain the gospel “he was set apart for” (Rom. 1:1) primarily in kingly themes (Rom. 1:3-4) but in how an unrighteous sinner can be made righteous before a holy God. This is the gospel he’s “not ashamed” of “for it is the power of God…For in it the righteousness of God is being revealed” (Rom. 1:16-17).

So as you and your church teach, speak, think, and present the gospel, be sure you know clearly what is at the heart, what is at the very center.

*I mentioned earlier that there are varying degrees of consequences for when the emphasis is off center. Anyone familiar with NPP will know that there are significant consequences for NPP proponents’ line of reasoning. This post doesn’t afford the space to address those.

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