The gospel tells us, thirdly, about Jesus Christ.
It speaks of his identity and action — who he is, what he did, what he is doing, and what he will do.
The gospel does not set forth the person of Jesus without his atoning and redeeming work.
The Whole Claim, in One Sentence
The Son of God and Son of Man, fully Divine and fully human, who came from heaven by God’s great love — a perfect example of human life and a perfect expression of God’s own nature — to assume the judgment due to us by dying in our place for our sins, to be raised from the dead, and who is alive and well, reigning at God’s right hand, Lord of lords and King of kings, who will come again in glory as Judge and Saviour.
That good news involves both the facts and events and the meaning of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and reign, requiring that we understand ‘the meaning and purpose of human life in terms of him.’1Packer, Collected Shorter Writings, 2:229.
Person and Work, Never Separated
To be clear: the message of the gospel is a message about Jesus that includes teaching about both his Divine-human identity and his saving work.
The gospel joins and combines Jesus’ Divine-human person with his reconciling work. It does not set forth the person and character of Jesus without his atoning and redeeming work.
That’s worth holding, because both halves can get detached in practice. A Jesus admired for his character but not trusted for his atonement is not the Jesus of the gospel. Neither is an atonement mechanism detached from a living person you can know.
Three Indispensable Aspects
The good news identifies three aspects:
(1) Incarnation. Jesus Christ is God the eternal Son incarnate, made human. He is the God-man who ‘came into the world to save sinners’ (1 Tim 1:15).
(2) Atonement. Jesus’ earthly life concluded with his sacrificial death for human beings. His judicial execution by crucifixion ‘was really his saving action of bearing away the world’s sins.’2Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, 73.
(3) Exaltation. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and his ascension into heaven to rule at God’s right hand as Saviour and Judge demonstrates, first and foremost, the value and effect of his death as substitutionary, saving, redeeming, atoning, reconciling.
Based on Jesus’ death being expiatory — bearing and removing our guilt — and propitiatory — turning away from us God’s punishment of our sins — ‘Jesus has been raised, and enthroned, and made King, and lives to save to the uttermost all who acknowledge his lordship.’3Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, 73.
A Theory Won’t Save You
Having said all that, a caution:
‘it is certainly true that a theory of atonement, however orthodox, is no substitute for the Saviour: it is the living Christ who saves, not any theory about him. But Jesus of Nazareth cannot be known as the living Christ unless we are clear that he was eternal God, and his passion was his redeeming action of bearing away humanity’s sins; nor shall we know how to approach him till we have learned that he is now God’s King on the throne of the universe. Not till we are aware of these things can we see what the response for which Christ calls really means.’4Packer, Collected Shorter Writings, 2:229; slightly amended.
Both halves of that matter. The doctrine isn’t the Saviour — but you can’t recognise the Saviour without it.
Nothing Less Will Do
The gospel tells us, fourthly, about forgiveness and eternal life.
Our condition as sinners in the hands of a God instinctively angry about sin is so serious that nothing less than full pardon for our own offences, combined with whole-scale supernatural renewal, can save us and bring us to eternal well-being in God’s kingdom.
The forgiveness of sins through Jesus’ suffering and rising is undoubtedly the most basic provision of the gospel (Luke 24:46-47; Acts 10:38-43). Through it comes true knowledge of salvation ‘because of the tender mercy of our God’ (Luke 1:77-78).
Forgiveness deals with our relational alienation from God. It is fundamental as the condition, basis and beginning of unceasing new life at peace with him.
In fact, with God’s forgiveness there is an entirely fresh start.
Born a Second Time
Through the power of the Holy Spirit — God’s un-bodily personal energy and action — applying the value of Jesus’ death and resurrection to individual persons, there comes an additional birth. A spiritual re-birth.
The new birth the New Testament speaks of is clearly distinct from natural physical birth. ‘The concept is of God renovating the heart, the core of a person’s being.’5J. I. Packer, Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs (Tyndale House Publishers, 1993), 157.
Being ‘born of God’ (John 1:13) is an inward change so powerful and deep that there is a regeneration — a generation of new life, ‘brought about by the direct influence of God upon the soul.’6Paul Helm, The Beginnings: Word and Spirit in Conversion (Banner of Truth Trust, 1986), 15.
Look at the scope. God creates new life in a person, granting a new nature, implanting a new mind with new beliefs, intentions, desires and values — bringing new identity, relationships, family, purpose, actions, and a wholly new future destiny.
We may not fathom how God does this. But we can grasp that he does — making a completely new beginning of an endless new life.
By God’s own immediate, powerful action upon us, we ‘become children of God’ (John 1:13). In the gospel, by bringing us to be ‘born again,’ God lovingly and graciously ‘shows his fatherly face,’7Calvin, Sermons on 1 Timothy, 239. becoming forever our Father who is in heaven.8The following material in the second part of this paragraph is also inserted into the 1999 statement, reproduced below. See the sections on ‘New Creation’ and ‘The Full Unveiling of the New Creation and Final Judgment.’ Thanks are due to Robert C. Doyle for development of this.
The Reversal of Eden
Paul’s description of salvation as a ‘new creation’ highlights the full reversal of the all-embracing disaster of Adam’s revolt and our participation in it (Gen 3:1-19; Rom 5:12-21).
In that primal sin, where we aspired to be our own gods, we see in Adam and Eve’s banishment from Eden a threefold spoiling of relationships.
First, our relationship with God is fully broken, for we are banished from his Good Presence.
Second, our relationship with each other is marred by competition for dominance. To be a ‘god’ is to assert sovereignty over all things — including the other ‘gods.’
Third, we can now only enjoy the benefits of material creation in painful struggle with it, in which our bodies are eventually consumed by it in death.
In Christ, however, ‘everything is new’ (2 Cor 5:17). It is ‘future in final completion,’ but ‘has already begun in the believer.’9Philip H. Towner, ‘New Creation,’ in Walter A. Elwell ed., Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology (Baker, 1996), 563.
Now in Christ we call upon God as ‘Father,’ and each other as brothers and sisters (Gal 6:1-16; Eph 2:11-22) — looking forward to the day when material creation is freed from the futility it suffers because of our sin (Rom 8:18-25).
Three relationships broken. Three being restored, in exactly the same order.
—
- 1Packer, Collected Shorter Writings, 2:229. ↩︎
- 2Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, 73. ↩︎
- 3Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, 73. ↩︎
- 4Packer, Collected Shorter Writings, 2:229; slightly amended. ↩︎
- 5J. I. Packer, Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs (Tyndale House Publishers, 1993), 157. ↩︎
- 6Paul Helm, The Beginnings: Word and Spirit in Conversion (Banner of Truth Trust, 1986), 15. ↩︎
- 7Calvin, Sermons on 1 Timothy, 239. ↩︎
- 8The following material in the second part of this paragraph is also inserted into the 1999 statement, reproduced below. See the sections on ‘New Creation’ and ‘The Full Unveiling of the New Creation and Final Judgment.’ Thanks are due to Robert C. Doyle for development of this. ↩︎
- 9Philip H. Towner, ‘New Creation,’ in Walter A. Elwell ed., Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology (Baker, 1996), 563. ↩︎