‘Love’ and the Message of the Gospel (Part 1)
By Dave Doveton.
A recently unveiled bronze statue of Billy Graham stands in a hall of the US Capitol in Washington. Inscribed at the base is a verse from John’s gospel – perhaps one of the most popular verses used by evangelists in recent times, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not die but have eternal life”. However, Graham would probably be aghast at many of the messages preached on the basis of that text, for it seems to have given a number of preachers the impression that “love” is the central message of the Gospel, despite the obvious fact that in the text, God’s ‘love’ for humanity is the motivation for the gospel message. Indeed, in some circles it seems to have formed an interpretative key to the whole of the New Testament and the basis for sexual ethics that are totally at variance with the plain teaching of scripture.
In the revised common lectionary used by the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, the collect for Pentecost Sunday asks that God may “send us out as witnesses to the wonder of your love”. A recent report from the ACSA Synod of Bishops speaks of “our mission to share the love of Jesus with everyone”. A search through the collects for the year finds only one collect explicitly referencing the Lord’s charge to preach a message (or kerygma). The commandment by Jesus regarding our attitude and behaviour towards others, while rightly important to obey, seems to have eclipsed his command to preach the gospel – the Kerygma. God’s motivation – his faithfulness and lovingkindness – has replaced his message. The Great Commandment has eclipsed the Great Commission and rendered it irrelevant. Mainline Western Protestantism has transformed the Gospel into a moralistic therapeutic deism.
This privileging of therapeutic anthropology has been the basis of decisions by bishops and other Western church leaders to approve same sex marriage and the blessing of same-sex partners. Consider this statement by an Australian Bishop:
“This is a long overdue recognition that if God is love, and faithful persons are living together in love, then the church ought to bless those persons in the name of God,” [i]
Furthermore, this message of unqualified love implies that God includes all in his embrace. Another collect in the Southern African Lectionary opens with the phrase, “God of the foreigner and the outcast, no one is excluded from your embrace….”[ii] Without qualification, this is a half-truth.
Gavin Ashenden has pointed out the subtle replacement of certain categories of Christian teaching with Marxist categories. For example, the sin/holiness dichotomy is being eclipsed by another – namely the dichotomy of alienation/inclusion. This affects the core of the message preached, so that it becomes a message based on the problem of the alienation of human beings from one another (be it according to class, colour, language, or race), and the solution being that of God showing his love for us by including everyone in his embrace. We are then expected to imitate God by accepting all without preconditions and to affirm them. Because it is seen as heretical to discriminate on the basis of group identity, it now follows we must affirm self-chosen identities such as LGBTQ+ – and not only that, also sanctify them through gay blessings.
In a similar vein, Carl Trueman notes the reframing of the discussion by people like Pope Francis and Andy Stanley: “… both Stanley and the Pope appear to share is a commitment to the therapeutic anthropology that pervades modern Western society and the implicit assumption that any significant challenge to this from a traditional Christian perspective is unloving or bigoted. Affirming people in their sexual and gender identities seems to be the order of the day and, as with the pope and Andy Stanley, pastoral strategy must therefore be developed in isolation from (and, arguably, in opposition to) traditional Christian teaching. The ethic of “love as feeling” rather than “love as directing to the truth” is strong.[iii]
Indeed “love as directing to the truth” is arguably the kernel of the John 3:16 verse. God’s love directs us to his saving message. He does NOT show his love by including us in his embrace, in which case he would be accepting us on our terms, that is affirming our self-chosen identities. He shows his love by offering us saving grace through identity in Christ – which are his terms, not ours.
But what does the scripture teach regarding the message of the Gospel?
John 3:16 is the only verse in John’s gospel that speaks of God’s love for all people. All other references to love pertain to the relationships within the Christian community and the relationships within the Holy Trinity. (for example, Jesus’ commands to love one another as he loves us).
The synoptic gospels have no mention whatsoever of God’s love as such. However, the parables of Jesus portray the nature of God as a loving father – for example in the parable of the widow searching for her lost coin, and in the parable of the prodigal son. In that parable, the father only embraces the lost son when he repents and turns back. God the Father embraces us when we repent and return. He is always willing to forgive and restore those who turn to him. That is the point at which he includes us, not before. Except to say that all are included in his invitation (1 John 2:2), and he seeks out the lost as seen in the parable of the wedding feast.
The synoptic gospel of Mark (as with Matthew and Luke) proclaims the good news – that in Jesus, God was fulfilling his promise to the prophets that he would deliver his people by overthrowing the idolatrous powers of this world to bring in his reign. Mark quotes Isaiah 41:3 to make the link and show how Jesus’ death and resurrection are the inauguration of his kingship. In the Greco-Roman world of that time, the term ‘good news’ or evangelion was a theological term pertaining to the Roman imperial cult[iv]. It was the good news of the emperors’ birth – who was both man and god, and saviour who would stop war and bring peace to the world – the pax romana. Over and against the peace that the emperor offered the world through the might of the Roman Empire, Jesus offered peace with God through repentance and forgiveness in his coming kingdom.
The gospel teaches that salvation is positional.
Paul in his portrayal of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 reiterates these themes, explaining how the proclamation of the cross and resurrection fulfils the Old Testament.
The metaphors used by St Paul to the Colossians describe a complete change of their position and destiny in a spiritual sense, “He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness into the Kingdom of his beloved son…” These phrases also describe the position of the sinner as one of hopelessness without responding to God’s grace in repentance and faith. Paul uses the Greek word echthros (enemy) to emphasise the severe situation of sinners – that they are at enmity with God, and thus deserving of his wrath.
Romans 5:8 restates and encapsulates the theme of John 3:16, “…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And it further elaborates – for we were enemies of God and Christ saves us from his wrath (Rom 5:9,10), which of course is implied (but rarely noted) in the phrase from 3:16, should not perish, meaning spiritual death.
The gospel teaches us that unregenerate people are enemies of God.
In Colossians 1:21 Paul repeats this description of our state before salvation – “And you who once were alienated and hostile (echthros) in mind, doing evil deeds….” The unregenerate person rebels against God in his thinking and his behaviour, hence he is an echthros (an enemy) in relation to God.
Importantly, for our current debate with revisionism, Paul assures us that:
- Those who reject God’s offer of salvation through Christ will suffer the wrath of God as his enemies and,
- Those in the church who continue in unrepentant lifestyle are also regarded as enemies of the cross of Christ and will endure the same fate. “For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies (echthros)of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame.” Phil 3:18.
Motyer explains the indivisibility of the attributes of God. He is love, he loves all creation, but his wrath against sin exists simultaneously. “The word of God’s grace and the word of God’s wrath are the same word: the word which promises life is but a savour of death and judgment to the rebel, and therefore a curse. When God’s curse falls on his disobedient people, it is not the abrogation but rather the implementation of his covenant.”[v]
John elaborates on the incarnation in the verses following 3:16, expressing the same truth in a slightly different way. God sent his son into the world to save the world, but those who reject his grace condemn themselves (verses 17,18). John concludes, “And this is the judgement: the light has come into the world, and the people loved the darkness rather than the light …”
In Part 2, I will explore the way in which the primitive church shared the gospel using several examples from the book of Acts.
[i] Bishop John Parkes speaking about the majority vote at the synod of the Diocese of Wangaratta which allows clergy to conduct same-sex blessings.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-02/same-sex-marriage-blessings-wangaratta-anglican-diocese/11468984
[ii] Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Lectionary Advent 2023-December 2024.
[iii] Carl Trueman, When Being Affirming Isn’t Loving, FIRST THINGS. https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/10/when-being-affirming-isnt-loving
[iv] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_gospel#Etymology
[v] Motyer, J. A. 1996. Curse. In New Bible Dictionary. Third Edition, edited by I. Howard Marshall, A. R. Millard, J. I. Parker, and D. J. Wiseman, 248–249. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
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