The Gospel of God is the good news of what God has done for man through Jesus Christ, His Son. The English word gospel (from the Anglo-Saxon, god-spell, "God-story") is used in the English New Testament to translate the Greek word euangelion, "good news, good tidings". In the New Testament the gospel is not just any item of good news but is always the good news of what God has done for man. These acts of God are historical events and the Gospel is a recital of these historical events. The Gospel is not an abstract and general theological argument, nor is it a system of morals. It is history; that is, a record of certain historical events in which God has acted. Of course, it involves and requires theology to understand it and to state its meaning; it also makes a radical moral demand and implies a system of morals. But the Gospel of God is first of all the story of God's acts in history.
The historical events in which God has acted are those in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The Gospel is therefore a recital of the events in the life of Jesus. He is the content of the Gospel and it is about him, what he did and who he is. The Gospel of God is therefore concerning God's Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord (Rom. 1:1, 3). [1] The crucial events in the life of Jesus are his death (with his burial) and his resurrection (with his appearances). These are the most important elements in the message of the Gospel (I Cor. 15:3-7). In these events God has acted.
What did God accomplish through these events in the life of Jesus? What did God do for man through him? The answer in one word is salvation. In these events God accomplished the salvation of man. The Gospel as the record and proclamation of what God has done for man is the good news of salvation (Eph. 1:13).
The gospel of our salvation is the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20:24). The salvation announced in the gospel of God is salvation by the grace of God. This stands in opposition to salvation by works; salvation is not by the works of the law (Rom. 3:20; Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:5; etc.). A salvation by works is earned; it is merited.
"To the one working the reward is reckoned not according to grace [as a gift]Thus salvation by grace and salvation by meritorious works are mutually exclusive and opposing ways of salvation.
but according to debt [something owed since it was earned]" (Rom. 4:4).
"But if it is by grace, it is no longer by works;Salvation by works is one aspect of legalism which attempts to understand the relationship between God and man in terms of the law. Legalism is not just having a lot of do's and don'ts, rules and regulations. It is a misunderstanding of the rules and regulations and of the law of God. The law of God is not legalism; it was the covenant relationship between God and the people of Israel. In the Old Testament Israel was not saved by meritorious works of the law; they were not under the law but in a covenant relationship to God (see the Greek of Romans 2:12 and 3:19). Legalism attempts to put all men under the law; that is, to define man's relationship to God in terms of the law. And in particular, legalism attempts to put the Christian under the law (contrary to Rom. 6:14).
otherwise grace would no longer be grace." (Rom. 11:6)
Legalism is the cause of many problems in the church. It is the cause of a dead orthodoxy and a cold, unloving Christianity. To correct these effects of legalism there have arisen in the church various movements such as pietism, the evangelical awakening, the deeper life movement, revivalism, etc. None of these movements went to the source of the deadness, coldness and unlovableness but often just reinforced the cause -- legalism. The great outpouring of the Spirit starting at the beginning of the twentieth century has been constantly burdened and limited by the frequent relapses into the same legalism. And the source of the legalism in practice is the legalism of the theology. Practical legalism is the result of theological legalism. The problem is not too much theology but bad theology, legalistic theology. This theological legalism has misunderstood the Gospel of our salvation. With the present move of the Spirit, the time has come to remove the cause of this practical legalism by clearing the theological legalism out of our theology and again recovering the Bibical understanding of the Gospel of our salvation. Such a theological renewal should be the natural accompaniment of the move of the Spirit of God today and could produce a reformation comparable to the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. This book is an attempt to contribute to such a theological renewal.
Before we examine more closely legalism and the legalistic misunderstanding of the Gospel, let us first try to understand non-legalistically the Gospel of our salvation, the Gospel of salvation by the grace of God. Then we will be better able to understand how legalism has misunderstood it.
[1] All quotations from the Scripture are taken from the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Holy Bible (1947-NT, 1952-OT) unless otherwise noted. The following symbols will be used to designate other translations.
KJV King James Version, 1611 RV English Revised Version, 1881-1885 ARV American Revised Version, 1901 GNB Good News Bible, 1976 NAS New American Standard, 1971 NEB New English Bible, 1961-1970 NIV New International Version, 1978 ERS My own translation from the Greek or Hebrew