Is Your Jesus Gospel-Centred?

The title of this next series of blogs will most likely appear ridiculous. To try and say that Jesus and the gospel can be somehow at odds with each other seems an outlandish statement. But recently I’ve become burdened by the fact that we can subtly perpetuate a Christianity that is functionally secular – a feel-good pick me up that fills us with a hollow passion – yet ignore the life changing message that the Bible has to offer mankind. In this post I’d like to talk through what I mean by the gospel, and following on from that in subsequent weeks, the impact it should have in our teaching, our musical worship and our lives.

The gospel is an epic drama that plays out in four acts: creation, fall, redemption and restoration.

Act 1: Creation

In eternity past, God and God alone exists. We see in Genesis 1:26 that God is a community made of three distinct persons that love, respect, and serve each other. Outside of this Trinity there is nothing . Then, by His sheer will, He commands the universe into existence. Genesis 1 is a poetical declaration that God “upholds the universe by the word of His power” (Hebrews 9:3) and asserts God is creator and all else is created. And while all creation sings of His magnificence in their beauty, humans are alone imparted with imago dei, the image of the living God, to uniquely reflect His glory. All is well.

Act 2: Fall

Adam and Eve are tempted and decide that life would be better if they were their own gods, not under divine authority. This selfish act leads to them facing the consequences – death and separation from the intimacy they shared with God. This sends fissures throughout creation, as it is “subjected to futility” (Romans 8:20), a constant reminder that all is not how it should be, due to the sin that has infected the human race and continues to linger.

Act 3: Redemption

God is faced with two options: wipe the slate clean, eradicate humanity and start afresh or restore it to its intended glory. It would be perfectly just for God to do either, His character and glory would be upheld completely. And yet, in a demonstration of absolute grace, God takes the initiative and sets out a plan of redemption. Sin has to be dealt with or else God is no longer good. So He literally says ‘I will pay the debt you have gotten yourself into’. Jesus, part of the Trinity, fully God and fully man, lives the perfect life and in return,suffers the agony of separation from the community he has enjoyed for an eternity. God offers salvation at a great and terrible personal cost.

Act 4: Restoration

Jesus’ death is the righteous wrath of God being satisfied. Jesus’ resurrection is the booming anthem that God is making all things new. Jesus’ miracles were not intended as novelty tricks to amaze people, but as pictures of the way things should be, without sin in the picture. And the transformation of our hearts as promised “I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts” (Hebrews 8:10) is a taster of the renewing of heaven and earth.

This is the great story of grace that should permeate throughout our lives. This is what we should daily focus on – not the ‘special-buddy Jesus’ that exists as a motivational figure with fortune cookie wisdom, but the man whose broken body hung on a splintered wooden cross, bringing us to our knees with the depth of our sin and then raising us up with him by the sufficiency of his love. That Jesus I can serve out of affection and not obligation. That’s what Jesus looks like through a gospel-centred lens.

Till next time…

Soli Deo Gloria

Jack