First, a little history. I thought when I was "saved" that I understood the gospel. The gospel was encapsulated in a formula, in my case the Four Spiritual Laws, which told you how to be "saved," or how to "have a personal relationship with Jesus." In my view, and I think this is a common view in evangelical Christendom, the gospel was the means of entrance into the faith, but obedience was the means of continuance in the Christian faith.
Believing that, I became obedient, boy did I ever become obedient. I was very serious about obedience to Christ. I was faithful to Bible study and prayer, never missed a church service, did what I could to witness to people (or at least felt guilty for not witnessing!) and generally sought like crazy to live an obedient Christian life.
There were many things that stood in the way of that obedience. My own lazy flesh was a big hindrance, and living in a world full of temptation and trial didn't help. So, I began to withdraw from the world in order that the world might not stain me. I avoided "worldly entertainments" like movies and even went to a point of getting rid of the TV in the house. I read only Christian books and hung out only with Christian people. Of course I had to interact with some of those evil non-Christians at work on a daily basis but I dutifully made sure that I kept them at arms length and of coure never went to their parties where they would all be drinking the demon rum. My wife and I made plans to homeschool our kids and read all of the books on how to protect your kids from society by basically withdrawing from any and all contact with the "world."
I really had a good thing going and was quite proud of my obedience. I always knew that I was a better Chrstian than you - more committed and more serious about my faith. Of course I would never say that because obedience to Christ demanded humility and it was important that I be more humble than you, which was a challenge for a great Christian like myself.
As I say, I had a good thing going - the only fly in the ointment was that I had few friends and found, rather abruptly, that even those who were closest to me couldn't stand me. Apparently I had subtle ways of flaunting my spirituality that were obvious to others but not to me. If I came over to your house and you had the TV on and asked me if I liked the show you were watching I might say something like "oh no, never heard of it, we don't have a TV in our house." It was merely a statement of fact but one that conveyed the idea of spiritual superiority. Almost everyone I met was engaged in some kind of behavior which I wouldn't engage in because of my superior obedience to Christ.
It all came to a head when I was interviewing for a ministry position with Reformed University Fellowship, which is my denomination's college campus ministry. When my interviewer contacted some of the people who knew me to confirm the sterlingness of my Christian character they painted a very different picture of me than I would have painted of myself. They didn't tell him of a wonderfully committed Christian man who was serious about Christ and full of strong conviction. They told him of a guy who was arrogant and who basically ticked off most people he met. They suggested that my legalistic way of life would pretty much kill any influence I would have on college kids.
At this point, I need to rewind even further to an incident that occurred many years ago when I was in college. My best friend and I were driving around campus one day and we got into a discussion about what we would do after college. I told him I was thinking that I might be called to ministry. He nearly blew a gasket. He said "you've got to be kidding, there is no way you should ever even think about going into ministry - you are so opinionated and always think you are right about everything - no one will ever listen to what you have to say." That didn't sink in, but I did pray for him since he was obviously under the conviction that comes from such close fellowship with a spiritual giant like myself.
That conversation back in college began to come back to me during those days of my comeuppance. It was a difficult time for me and my wife, since we were two peas in a pod in these areas. Fortunately, I had a pastor at the time who loved me enough to confront me about those things but loved me enough to not reject me and to teach me the gospel.
He explained to me that salvation was all of grace but so was sanctification. In thinking that the gospel justifies, but obedience sanctifies I had gone down an inevitable road of legalism that was destined to ruin my relationships, sap my joy in following Christ and wear me out. In this little story I have only focused on the relational troubles my legalism produced, but the fact was that I wasn't all that joyful and burnout was always around the corner.
So, at that point I began a long process of understanding the gospel. I'm still not getting it to be honest. Of course I do get it intellectually, but intellectual comprehension is not enough. Understanding the gospel isn't a matter of getting a set of facts straight in your head, it is about believing and resting in Christ every moment of the day. This morning I read the following quote by Tim Keller from Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, which is about as good a summary of the ongoing impact of the gospel as I have seen:
At the heart of Redeemer's ministry and its philosophy of preaching to post-modern audiences is the conviction that "the gospel" is not just a way to be saved from the penalty of sin, but is the fundamental dynamic for living the whole Christian life--individually and corporately, privately and publicly. In other words, the gospel is not just for non-Christians, but also for Christians. This means the gospel is not just the A-B-C's but the A to Z of the Christian life. It is not accurate to think 'the gospel' is what saves non-Christians, and then, what matures Christians is trying hard to live according to Biblical principles. It is more accurate to say that we are saved by believing the gospel, and then we are transformed in every part of our mind, heart, and life by believing the gospel more and more deeply as our life goes on.It's the "believing more and more deeply as our life goes on" part that is difficult. In the article from which I got the quote Keller goes on to say that "religion" is our default mode. We gravitate to a religious "self-salvation" approach even after becoming a Christian where we rely on our own strength rather than relating every event and every circumstance in our lives back to the gospel. This is still a struggle for me, but it's a different kind of struggle. Whereas before there was a struggle to merely obey, the struggle now is to believe. Obedience is easy, at least for awhile, before legalism kills you and you just quit trying. But believing the gospel is more difficult because every day in every circumstance I am confronted with my unbelief and need for Christ. The gospel reminds me every day that I am still full of pride and self-sufficiency and this is hard to face, especially for such a fine Christian as myself ;-). Even coming to understand the things I just talked about presents its own struggle because there is now the temptation to think that I have a better understanding of my own sinfulness and need for Christ than you do. "Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death?"
In the end though, the gospel is more liberating. The gospel has the power to turn my attention away from myself to focus on Christ and it empowers the very obedience I was striving for before. So, the gospel is my only hope for eternal salvation, but it is also my only hope for daily growth and sanctification.
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