God is Enough
Feb 23rd, 2008 by Nathan White
I enjoyed the video below by John Piper (thanks to purgatorio, again). Check out below and then see a few of my follow-up comments:
Though Piper’s point is very true and well-taken, I believe a more insidious version of the same ‘gospel’ is also making huge waves in the church. Specifically, most of who we’d refer to as evangelicals don’t take this ‘health and wealth’ gospel quite to the money, riches, and happiness extreme. That is, anyone promising you money, riches, healings, etc., as a benefit to following Christ and/or speaking a word of faith is obviously lying, and it obviously a false teacher. Most of us can easily pick up on that.
But where this message hits home is in the self-fulfillment gospel, which has blanketed our land. Telling people that Jesus can make their life better by healing marriages, improving relationships at work, taking care of your needs financially (this is usually coupled with an unbiblical view on tithing), etc., is certainly not telling people the gospel. That’s health and wealth just as well, is it not?
Furthermore, another prominent aspect of this ‘health and wealth’ gospel is in how preachers use the Bible as kind of a road-map for fulfilled living. That is, they preach the law, like the golden rule of treating others as you would be treated, and present those laws as the secret to the good life. ‘Oh, as long as we love God and neighbor, strive to obey the commandments to the best of our ability, then God promises to bless us and/or fulfill our dreams.’
To use Piper’s words: That’s not gospel; that’s crap. It’s worthless, evil, and contrary to scripture.
The gospel has nothing to do with what we do or how we live; the gospel is about placing all of our hope and faith in what Someone else has done, and how Someone else has lived. It is only by the merits and finished work of Christ that we have any hope of escaping the last judgment. And if we are indeed in Christ, we have died to our own desires here on earth, given up our own plans, dreams, and wishes, and have laid ourselves before Him in submission to His will and the sufferings He has appointed for us, as we spend our lives adoring Him for His marvelous work and grace.
Amen and amen.
I know you’re not suggesting that how we live is meaningless, or that God is not concerned about any of that. But that when we speak of the Good News that is in Christ, the “main thing” is the only thing. It’s about having your sins nailed to the tree, and having your debt paid off in the life-blood of the Firstborn.
Let’s make sure we’ve got that done, and then we can start talking about practical transformation, but even then, it is fraudulent (like a doctor who fails to warn you about a medicine’s side-effects) to speak as if being remade in Christ’s image is a recipe for ever-increasing wonderfulness in this life. There is a reason why Paul said that if the core of the Gospel is not true, then we (who are trying to live as instructed) are most to be pitied in this life.
I heard RC Sproul yesterday say (paraphrased) “My life didn’t get complicated until I was converted. I was doing just fine until then.”
Thanks, man.
I might add that the self-fulfillment gospel people as you say, while using the law as the secret to living a good life, when confronted with the shallowness of their doctrine, they immediately resort to opposing the Law and Grace, such that teaching doctrine is teaching “the Law” and teaching their ethical “gospel” is teaching grace. There’s a certain irony to that.
I’ve often said that people really don’t take God seriously when we thank him for the “good” in our lives, but people pay attention when in the midst of the “bad things” in life we exhalt and glorify Him, simply because it is the direct opporsite of what the flesh wants to do, which is to blame God and lash out at Him. Praise God, for not only does He grant His children faith to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His name’s sake!