A full account of biblical teaching about God would cover a lot of ground: God’s identity (who he is), his character (what he’s like), his will (what he wants), his works (how he acts).1Scriptural teaching about God’s being, nature, and activity is often organized within headings such as ‘Trinity’ and ‘Attributes,’ or ‘God’ and ‘God’s works.’
But here’s a distinction worth making carefully.
‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ and ‘God is Father’ — the gospel’s two top-line assertions.
Assumed, But Not the Subject
Much of what the Bible teaches about God — his eternality, infinity, independence, knowledge of the future, changelessness — is essential and assumed in the gospel, without being its concentration.
All God’s perfections underpin the gospel, and the good news doesn’t merely assume but communicates the existence and nature of God. But while everything the Bible says about God is involved in the gospel, not everything it tells us about God is the dominant subject of the gospel.
Take some examples. The identity and character of God is, strictly speaking, not the gospel — yet the gospel certainly contains extensive teaching about God’s names and nature. What Scripture teaches about creation and providence is not the gospel — yet the gospel includes such truths. They’re part and parcel of the good news, entirely integral to it, but neither its heartbeat nor its essence.
Why Simplicity Matters Anyway
Here’s a case in point. The Bible’s God is simple — meaning the various qualities of his character are harmonious and integrated, so that whatever God is, he is that totally and entirely, through and through, without conflict or confusion.
‘God is simple in his being. He is all that he is in everything he is.’2Sinclair B. Ferguson, Some Pastors and Teachers (Banner of Truth, 2017), 544.
So in Scripture God is absolutely holy, absolutely loving, absolutely just, absolutely morally perfect. And that simplicity illuminates the gospel’s teaching about the cross expressing at the same time God’s holiness and love, judgment and mercy, wrath and grace. ‘In the gospel of the incarnate, crucified, and risen Savior, we are shown God acting freely and fully in perfect accord with his nature.’3Mark D. Thompson, ‘The Theology of Justification By Faith,’ in Matthew Barrett ed., The Doctrine on Which the Church Stands of Falls, page number to be supplied.
Critical though it is, though, the simplicity of God is hardly ‘the gospel of God’ (Rom 1:1).
But notice what it does give you. That simplicity gives Christian faith — our trust in God’s promises about what he has done and is doing for us in Christ — great strength and clarity.
The assured outcomes of Christian faith, that Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension have defeated sin, death and devil (1 Cor 15:50-58; Jas 4:7), don’t come from us. They come from God.
Which distinguishes Christian faith absolutely from magic — the belief that we can tap into or manipulate divine powers to get outcomes we want, like power, wealth, or the death of people we dislike. The assurance and outcome of our faith come from God himself, his own infinite being: absolutely holy, loving, just, morally perfect, powerful.
This God has promised and acted to bring about our salvation, our rescue from a pitiable fallen condition, the reversal of the corruption of his original creation by our rebellion, and the bringing in of the new heavens and new earth (Rev 20:11-21:8).
The simplicity of God is why the true model of Christian faith is that of a child (Mark 10:13-16).4Thanks to Rob Doyle for help developing this point.
So What Does the Gospel Say?
Very well. What does the gospel tell us about God? Who is he? What is he like? What does he want? How does he act? Where should we start?
In due course we’ll suggest something like this: that God is the one Lord in Three Persons, who speaks, creates, rules, judges, and saves.5Adapting the wording of Peter F. Jensen, who in one place (The Life of Faith, 93-94) writes that the gospel’s ‘very essence shows us that God is the one Lord in three persons, who speaks,’ and in another place says that ‘the gospel is a word from the God who speaks, creates, judges, and saves’ (The Revelation of God (IVP, 2000), 46).
But for now, start with two very straightforward top-line assertions:
- Jesus Christ is Lord
- God is Father
The Evidence Is Everywhere
Two observations before going further.
First, every individual document in the New Testament elaborates, at varying length and detail, on these two realities — Jesus the Lord and God the Father.
Second, every New Testament Letter opens either with the exact phrase ‘from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’ (Rom 1:7; 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:2), or with some variation — ‘the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (2 Cor 1:3; Eph 1:3), or ‘Jesus Christ and God the Father’ (Gal 1:1).
Every single one.
So while the gospel maintains that God is exactly ‘like’ the Lord Jesus, and that God is known and accessible to us exclusively ‘through’ Jesus, it’s equally true that through Jesus we know God — first and foremost — to be our Father.6‘Shifting the question from whether Jesus was like God to whether God is “like Jesus” becomes not only a valid argument for God’s existence, but even more pointedly it elucidates the character of God. Because Jesus was loving, kind, and wise, we know that God is. Where some might imagine God to be vindictive, cruel, and uncaring, Jesus reveals the opposite. As Archimedes said in days of old, “Give me a place to stand, and I can move the entire earth.” For the … believer, Jesus Christ becomes a solid point of certitude, turning the world back to God’s love and presence’ (D. Elton Trueblood; no reference).
In the gospel, the Lordship of Jesus and the Fatherhood of God belong together and are inseparable: ‘for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist’ (1 Cor 8:6).
Two Genuinely New Things
Jesus Christ the Lord and God the Father are two entirely new factors for approaching and knowing God, revealed by the gospel.
Each expresses an advance, a progression of understanding about God. When these claims originally emerged in the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles, they disturbed and confused many.
Yet together they totally transform our knowledge and love of God. Their combined impact proved unparalleled and historic.
That Jesus is Lord and God is Father pinpoints God’s identity, confirms his goodness and power, and defines his relation to us exactly. And like nothing else, these two teachings contribute confidence, closeness and comfort to trust in God.
Changing and reshaping the nature of belief in God, the dynamics of faith in God, and the heart of love for God, these combined claims have converted empires, shaped civilisations, shaken history, and touched the lives of billions.
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- 1Scriptural teaching about God’s being, nature, and activity is often organized within headings such as ‘Trinity’ and ‘Attributes,’ or ‘God’ and ‘God’s works.’ ↩︎
- 2Sinclair B. Ferguson, Some Pastors and Teachers (Banner of Truth, 2017), 544. ↩︎
- 3Mark D. Thompson, ‘The Theology of Justification By Faith,’ in Matthew Barrett ed., The Doctrine on Which the Church Stands of Falls, page number to be supplied. ↩︎
- 4Thanks to Rob Doyle for help developing this point. ↩︎
- 5Adapting the wording of Peter F. Jensen, who in one place (The Life of Faith, 93-94) writes that the gospel’s ‘very essence shows us that God is the one Lord in three persons, who speaks,’ and in another place says that ‘the gospel is a word from the God who speaks, creates, judges, and saves’ (The Revelation of God (IVP, 2000), 46). ↩︎
- 6‘Shifting the question from whether Jesus was like God to whether God is “like Jesus” becomes not only a valid argument for God’s existence, but even more pointedly it elucidates the character of God. Because Jesus was loving, kind, and wise, we know that God is. Where some might imagine God to be vindictive, cruel, and uncaring, Jesus reveals the opposite. As Archimedes said in days of old, “Give me a place to stand, and I can move the entire earth.” For the … believer, Jesus Christ becomes a solid point of certitude, turning the world back to God’s love and presence’ (D. Elton Trueblood; no reference). ↩︎