True or False: The essence of the Christian message is that you are to love God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself.
The answer is…
FALSE!
This is not the message of the gospel but the message of the Law! When Jesus was asked about the sum of the Law, what did he say?
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Mat 22.37-40)
The gospel message is not a call for us to get busy doing the best we can to please God but rather a call to realize our sinfulness and to trust upon one who truly did please God. In other words, the essential message of Christianity is never about what you and I can do but about what God has done in Christ!
Sadly many professing Christians have unwittingly wandered to Sinai and tried to package it as good news. Do you not still see the bright lightening and the dreadful mountain wrapped in smoke? Do you not hear its trumpet blast, peals of thunder, and knocking of Moses’ knees? As God descends upon this Mountain to proclaim his inflexibly rigid standard of righteousness he is to be seen as holy, unapproachable, and worthy of awe.
This is devastating. If you ask Christians what we are all about many will give this summary of the Law. This should not be. After all, if it was all about what you do why would you need Jesus? A sinless substitute sounds kind of unnecessary if you have the ability to earn God’s favor. This is exactly what Paul wrote in Galatians:
I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. (Gal 2.21)
It is frighteningly alarming that we can so easily and quickly forget about our need for Christ’s righteousness. How in the world can a humbled sinner stand for one second clinging to self-righteousness before God almighty?
Romans 3 shows that the proper working of the Law brings about a posture of silent humiliation before God’s Law (Rom. 3.19). This is our disposition. We are lacking righteousness, turning away from ourselves, and looking for help. And there stands the beloved Son of God. He is not lacking righteousness. He has ‘fulfilled all righteousness’ for the sinner. In his life he perfectly obeyed the law of God, always doing what is pleasing to his Father (Jn. 8.29). Then he gave up his life to pay the due penalty for sinners (Rom. 6.23; 2 Cor. 5.21).
Please understand that if you answered this ‘true’ I am not trying to embarrass, insult or berate you. Instead I am trying to show you that such subtle carelessness with regard to the gospel leads you to wander far from Golgotha, all the way to Sinai.
The essence of the Christian message is that you can’t but Jesus Christ did. You can’t earn God’s favor, but Christ did perfectly through his life of obedience culminating with his sin atoning, guilt removing, wrath satisfying, death defeating sacrifice on the cross. It is with this reality fixed that the Christian then lives their life to love and honor God supremely while loving their neighbor as themselves. Christians obey God not to earn God’s favor but because Christ has earned the favor and we are now living lives controlled by the Spirit, in obedience to the Word.
Never get careless and sloppy with the gospel. It is far too precious and the consequences are far too perilous. We dangerously turn the gospel into law. This is unacceptable.
(note: Michael Horton beats this drum pretty hard in his book Christless Christianity. In particular he lights up the legalism of Joel Olsteen)