Why "Jesus is Lord" is not the Gospel

I want to explain something about British evangelicals: Most conservative Bible-believing Church of England evangelicals are more or less "Reformed" in their theology. But sadly, I have my doubts as to how many of these men actually know the Gospel. If you ask the average British Christian who has gone through pastoral training nonetheless, what the Gospel is, they will say, "The Gospel is simply this: Jesus is Lord." I have a problem with this.

Okay, of course Jesus is Lord. And of course the Gospel says and proclaims from the mountain tops that Jesus is Lord. Of course if Jesus wasn't Lord the Gospel wouldn't be the Gospel. But the problem I have - the frustration that I have with British evangelicalism is when you define the Gospel as "Jesus is Lord" then that becomes to very motivation for everything you do.

What, then, is the implication of this? If your motivation for being a good Christian is "Jesus is Lord" then doesn't that mean the only reason you obey Jesus is because...well, he's Lord? And when you're telling others about Jesus you're doing it because he's Lord, and he commands you to. And you're telling the non-Christian to believe in Jesus not because Jesus lived the life they should have lived and died the death they should have died so that they could become children of God. We're telling non-Christians to believe in Jesus because Jesus is Lord and if you don't act accordingly (i.e. live a moral life) it's going to be a rough ride. If "Jesus is Lord" is you're very motivation for everything you do, you're motivation is not the free grace of Jesus, it is legalism.

What is the flip side of this? If "Jesus is Lord" is not an adequate definition of the Gospel, then how do we define it? Let's take a look at evangelism. Evangelism is a hard thing to do. It is often times uncomfortable and non-Christians usually don't like being "preached" to. Now, as we have seen, if our motivation for evangelism is "Jesus is Lord," then we're evangelising because he tells us so and we if we don't evangelise Jesus will be mad. In other words, we are trying to gain Jesus' approval by obey him. We are trying to save ourselves by being good Christians. BUT, if our motivation for evangelism is the Gospel it's going to look different. Let me explain: God is a missionary God. God longs for the nations to be saved. In Psalm 2 the Father says to the Son, "Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession." The Father radically sends his only Son into the most hostile mission field ever to die for the sins of those who rejected him. The Jesus sends the Holy Spirit as a missionary to the hearts of Christians everywhere. Yhwh is a missionary God! We evangelise - not so much because he commands us to - but because it's in his very character. We evangelise not because we should or have to, but because Jesus lived the life we couldn't live, and died the death we deserve to die. And he did all of this despite the fact that we rejected him, and despite the fact that we will remained only marginally faithful at best. He did all of this so that we could become sons and daughters of God - righteous in the eyes of the Father - perfectly accepted; perfectly loved. You see if that is your motivation then you don't have to feel like you "have to" share the Gospel - it's not a burden anymore. You share the Gospel simply because it's the best news in the world. There's nothing more exciting than it. There's nothing that will fulfill and satisfy the life of the non-believe like the Gospel does. You see, Jesus took the ultimate persecute for sharing the Gospel so that now we can face our little persecutions.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to expound on the Gospel a bit more. What exactly is the Gospel? How do we communicate the Gospel in the 21st century? And what are the reaches of the Gospel? I know the purpose of this blog isn't exactly to set up "themes" as such to cover in a period of time, but I believe we should lay some ground work. The Gospel is that ground work - the very basis of the Christian's faith, the very basis of the Christian's life.