We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded by your direct support for ReKnew and our vision. Please consider supporting this project.
The Good News That’s Really “Good”
Often we view our relationship with God in terms of a legal contract. For instance, people often ask questions about salvation in this way. They see God as the judge, we are defendants, and salvation is about staying out of prison. With this perspective, questions about salvation and the Gospel—which means “good news”—are about the specific terms of a contract between God and us that allow us to remain acquitted and thereby stay out of prison.
When our relationship with God gets framed in terms of a legal contract, people are inclined to treat the Bible like a confusing litigation manual, the purpose of which is to resolve technical theological disputes and clarify ambiguities surrounding the terms of our contractual acquittal before God. All of this presupposes a picture of God as a judge who leverages people’s eternal destinies on how well they can litigate theological disputes or at least how lucky they were to align themselves with a competent expert (a pastor/teach) who correctly interprets this legal manual.
Is this the “good news” Jesus and his earliest followers were so excited about proclaiming?
Not by a million light years! God isn’t interested in entering into a legal contract with us; he wants a profoundly interpersonal, covenantal relationship with us that is characterized by honesty, trust, and faithfulness. Along the same lines, salvation isn’t primarily about receiving an acquittal so we can avoid prison when we die. It’s about participating in the abundant life and ecstatic love of the Triune God, and doing so now, in this life.
If we understand it in biblical terms, faith isn’t primarily about our beliefs—as if God were an academic who was obsessive about whether you arrive at the right intellectual conclusions. Even less is faith about engaging in psychological gimmickry as you try to suppress doubt to convince yourself your beliefs are the right ones so that you can feel accepted, worthwhile, and secure before God.
Rather, faith is about trusting in the beautiful character of Christ, about being transformed from the inside out by the power of his unending love, and about learning how to live in the power of the Spirit, as a trustworthy partner who increasingly reflects his love and his will “on earth as it is in heaven.”
This is the real “good news.”
—Adapted from Benefit of the Doubt, pages 118-121
Image by Jordan McQueen
Related Reading
The Cross Above All Else
The way to know what a person or people group really believes is not to ask them but to watch them. Christians frequently say, “It’s all about Jesus,” but our actions betray us. Judging by the amount of time, energy, and emotion that many put into fighting a multitude of battles, ranging from the defense…
Paul Teaches Free Will, Not Determinism: Romans 9, Part 3
In this series of posts, I am challenging the deterministic reading of Romans 9, which interprets Paul’s teaching as saying that God chooses some to be saved and others to be damned. There are six arguments that I offer to challenge this popular view. Today, I will look at the fourth. Argument #4: Paul’s Summary and…
When does salvation happen?
Question: I grew up in a strict, fundamentalist community and our whole goal in life was to get people to pray “the sinners prayer.” Once they prayed this prayer, we believed, they were “saved.” But the vast majority of these people went on living like nothing happened. I’m now questioning if this is the right…
Changing Beliefs
Stephen Mattson is a follower of ReKnew and a member of Woodland Hills Church who posted a piece on Sojourners titled Christians: It’s NOT a Sin to Change Your Beliefs. He points out that doubt and questions are a natural and needed part of any Christian’s life, and our community needs to change the ways we…
Why Bart Ehrman Doesn’t Have to Ruin Your Christmas (Or Your Faith) Part 6
This is the sixth of several videos Greg put together to refute Bart Ehrman’s claims published in the article What Do We Really Know About Jesus? In this segment, Greg addresses the apparent discrepancies in the genealogies of Luke and Matthew and the implausibility of the idea that they were simply fabricated. We’ve been hearing that people are using…
Have You Taken a Gospel Immunization Shot?
Why does being “Christian” in America make so little difference in so many people’s lives, when the kingdom movement revealed in the New Testament revolutionized people’s lives? This drastic difference is hardly surprising when you consider that the gospel that people are often given today is little more than a contract of acquittal that is…