Christianity is having a moment in the West. Influencers and thought leaders are going public with their Christian convictions in a way that seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. Ross Douthat is commending the faith in the pages of The New York Times in a robust and forthright way. Christians in the UK are actively entertaining the possibility of revival. New vistas for evangelism and engagement are opening up. There appears to be a genuine feeling of need for a transcendent God, a heavenly Father, particularly among younger generations. The claims of the Christian faith are receiving renewed and serious interest, praise God.
For many, this new attraction in Christianity is about its social utility and personal benefits. Podcaster Joe Rogan, for instance, has said that living according to the “principles of Christ” has proven good and satisfying. The writer Derek Thompson, an agnostic, has concluded that religion “works a bit like a retaining wall to hold back the destabilizing pressure of American hyper-individualism.” British journalist Louise Perry converted after considering Christian sexual ethics. “Observing quite how sociologically true [Christianity] is was very persuasive to me,” she said.
At one level, we can give a very clear amen to these impulses. Rogan’s sense of the usefulness of the principles Jesus taught is a recognition of Jesus’ wisdom and authority. The capacity of the faith to inform and shape our common life is real. The convictions of the Christian faith accord with reality. The law of the Lord is pleasing and useful; following Jesus makes us more human. That there are tangible, real-world benefits should not be surprising.
But as thinkers including sociologist Peter Berger have pointed out, historically, when the Christian faith is embraced as a useful commodity, the results are unavoidably self-liquidating. There is a risk, that is, in emphasizing the utility of Christianity. We might lose sight of a very simple truth about the Christian faith: The gospel is good news before it is good advice.
This pertains to both sequence and priority. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus begins his earthly ministry with the announcement “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (4:17). And in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus opens his public work by drawing on the language of Isaiah, describing his anointing specifically in terms of verbal proclamation (4:14–20). These episodes precede other teachings by Jesus and are the context in which those teachings are offered.
As many scholars have noted, the word we translate “gospel” has its etymological roots in the idea of a public announcement. In Greek, the term euangelion, or evangel, has to do with military victories. In Christian usage, it became a pronouncement of God’s triumph in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ announcement of the kingdom of God frames all his preaching, teaching, and deeds of power.
Rogan-style openness to the wisdom of Jesus is a step along the way. But that wisdom must be located—and kept—inside this complete sequence of events.
The crowds around Jesus often recognized his words as carrying weight, having authority. Yet their engagement with him was frequently fragile and ambiguous. It was often fleeting, connected only to the most tangible benefits of his presence: bread and miracles. It was not a step toward a more ultimate destination. It was not acceptance of Jesus’ overarching pronouncement or recognition of their own humility and desperate need. It was not a willingness to “count the cost,” to submit to the way of the Cross and the lordship of Jesus. It was not a reception of the whole euangelion.
And without that reception, we cannot live according to the “principles of Christ.” Without the gospel, we are unable to live in the way of Jesus, and any attempt to do so will prove unfruitful in our lives and societies. As a matter of sequence, then, the Good News comes before good advice.
This is also a matter of priority: It reflects the priority of grace in the gospel. Psalm 119 testifies of the blessedness of God’s law: Happy are those whose lives accord to it. Yet the pattern of Jesus’ own ministry, with his proclamation of the kingdom preceding his teaching and ministry generally, reflects Israel’s trajectory in the Old Testament. The law is given at Sinai only after God’s gracious deliverance in the Exodus. The law, by which the people of Israel are instructed in true freedom, comes only in the context of their freedom already won by Yahweh.
The law is a blessing and a life-giving thing as it arises in this context of God’s deliverance and Israel’s dependence upon him. But human beings, frail and weak as we are, are unable to live according to that blessing in and of ourselves. This is what Martin Luther identified as the pedagogical use of the law: While the law is a blessing and guides us in the way of wisdom, it also exposes our sin and our need for a savior. And only by that Savior’s rescue are we empowered to live into the law and lay hold of its tangible benefits.
Our reception of the Good News—our humble acceptance of Jesus as our Savior and embrace of him as the one who brings God’s kingdom near—is essential to our obedience to God’s law. The gospel is the means by which a “more complete subjection and affection towards our Liberator [has] been implanted within us,” to borrow a phrase from the early church father Irenaeus of Lyon. This implanted affection, the love of God poured out in our hearts, is a necessary element for us to benefit from the moral teachings of Jesus and the social advantages of our faith.
At the end of Douglas Coupland’s remarkable novel Life after God, the narrator realizes and reveals, “My secret is that I need God—that I am sick and can no longer make it alone.” It’s true that there are salutary practical benefits of the Christian worldview. But this very personal and vulnerable realization is what the church must, in participation with the Holy Spirit, continue to proclaim and seek to elicit from our hearers.
As we come in dependence, recognizing our lack and need (Matt. 5:3), we receive grace, God’s unmerited favor, such that the Spirit gives us the power to live according to the law (Titus 2:11–12; Eph. 2:8–10; Ezek. 36:26–27). Joy, gratitude, and love for our Savior are far more potent and sustaining forces for obedience than a dispassionate recognition of the tangible benefits of a particular system for moral order (John 14:15). It is only as we are empowered by gratitude, wonder, and praise for God that we can enter fully and sustainably into the good way of Christ.
People come to Jesus in all kinds of ways. If a fresh recognition that Christ teaches a better and more human way of life is drawing people to our faith, how wonderful. But the church must pray for—and insist upon—a deeper recognition of the gospel in its fullness. Jesus does teach and embody the good, true, and beautiful way to be human. More than that, though, as our Redeemer and Savior, he makes it possible for us to walk in that way.
Peter Coelho is the rector of Church of the Ascension, an Anglican parish in Pittsburgh.
