Mikels offer a summons: “It’s a call for my fellow evangelicals to embrace a gospel that is more than doctrine alone, a gospel that combines right thinking, personal holiness, and even social action; a gospel that changes us inside and out; a gospel that brings the good news of the kingdom into present-day living.” His progress from Jesus to the above definition of gospel takes these crucial steps:
“The good news for Jesus is tied to the now-and-future kingdom of God. It offers many benefits but also demands surrender and transformation.” (all italics in original)
“The good news includes the message of universal condemnation for sin, the sacrificial love of God, and eternal salvation available exclusively through Jesus.” (all italics in original)
“So, what does it mean to believe in the kingdom? It means to live like a subject of that King abiding by the ways of that kingdom.”
“The calling of the gospel is to follow Jesus, doing the work of Jesus, heeding the words of Jesus, expressing sacrificial love like Jesus, and reproducing others who also identify with Christ and obey his words.”
Mikels thinks Paul’s gospel was about Jesus. (Amen.) Here’s how he frames Paul’s gospel: “The gospel is the message that Jesus is Lord, through whom God graciously gives righteousness and salvation to any person who receives it with life-changing faith.” (all italics in original)
“Paul's explanations are certainly more complicated and detailed than anything we saw in the words of Jesus, but his point is clear. The gospel is a doctrine about how Jesus's death and resurrection prove his lordship, a promise that those who belong to him are given the righteousness of God, and a calling to respond in faithful obedience.”
“This is what the New Testament writers mean by ‘gospel.’ It is the entirety of the story of Jesus – who he is, what he is taught, and what he has done for us, what it means to join him, and what's ahead for the faithful.”
So, “It's time that we embrace an understanding of the gospel that isn't satisfied with the extremes of doctrinal accuracy or social progressivism but that embraces the same integration of faith in life that Jesus did.”
Jeff Mikels is to be commended for articulating a reality in some circles of evangelicalism. He confesses: “I'm ashamed to admit that I had to realize that, but once I realized that Paul and Jesus were talking about the same thing, that Paul was merely contextualizing the good news of Jesus for new audiences, I gave myself permission to let the words of Jesus shape and define my understanding of the good news.” He can sing this now: “I have decided to live and breathe a gospel that fully embraces the teaching of Jesus, the example of Jesus, and the didactic instructions from Paul and the other New Testament writers.”
That confession opens a window on far too many today who seem to have little place for Jesus other than as the agent of redemption in a systematic theology based on a Reformation reading of Romans.
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