The Gospel of Life

A slightly revised version of this discussion, with extensive notes and a bibliography, appeared in the book Reality According to the Scriptures: Initial Reflections

This has become the most significant theme in my understanding of the content of the gospel: life itself. I still agree with the psalmist that God's love is better than life (Ps 63:3). And in my universe, there's nothing better—no better news—than who God is. He's not only good, in a sense he's Goodness itself (Exod 33:18–23), and the gospel is good news first and foremost because it is his message. Nevertheless, at the heart of his message is an offer and that offer is life (e.g., John 6:68; 10:10; 20:31; Rom 6:23; 1 John 2:25).

This is the case both explicitly, as we find it in John 10:10 for example, and also implicitly, because God’s message is latent in creation itself and in more than one way (cf. Rom 1:18–20).

The Meaning of Life
There's an implicit message from God in the very fact of his creating us. Why did he make us? He made us because he wanted a family—intimate allies made in his image to care for this wonderful planet (e.g., Gen 1:26–28; cf. 5:1–3). And what is the point of life in this planet? To what end do we care for it? The point of our life is actually life itself, both because “life is an end in itself,” as Terry Eagleton rightly said, and because God made us precisely for life (e.g., Gen 1; Deut 30:19–20; Ps 104; John 1:1–4; 10:10; Acts 14:15–17; 17:24–28). Our call to “care for this wonderful planet,” in the context of life-giving relationships with God and one another, that’s all part of the gift of this life that we’re made for.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people (John 1:1–4 NRSV; cf. CEB).

What's more, this life God made us for is nothing less than his own life. We are children of God by design (Gen 1:26–28; 5:1–3), made in his image and likeness, precisely to share in his life. To think that we even share his breath (Gen 2:7)! And even his breath is “the breath of life.”

At Home in God's World
Now, when I bring my gospel project together, the metaphor of home/home-making is probably going to be the overarching theme, since home is the context of life and life is the content of home. The cosmos is God's temple-palace, his home and ours too. And it is first and foremost to be at home with him in this place that he made us. Talk about the content of the gospel, to me, is talk about the meaning of life.

The Good News of the Gospel
I’ll conclude by explaining the initial intuition that eventually led to the reflections above: that the gospel is good news because at bottom it is about life.

Now, the first thing you might notice is that I was actually asking the question! And yes, for me it wasn't self-evident why the Christian gospel is good news. In most of the proclamations I had heard, the actual good news was only evident from within the framework in which it was presented. It did sound like good news once I understood where they were coming from. But their message was good news to me not so much because their message had struck me as great news, but because those communities themselves were good news to me.

Too often, though, they seemed to be answering questions I wasn't asking. It just wasn't clear why this message should strike me as good news; which, if it was indeed for me, it should.

But when I read the book of Acts, this didn't seem to be the case at the beginning. The world was turned “upside down” with this message (Acts 17:6)! It had to be relevant to unbelievers from other nations. The message had to make sense to them. The reason why it is good news had to be evident to people, wherever they came from. So I kept digging, even as a Christian, out of existential necessity. And the most compelling reason that's emerging for me is also the most basic: life itself.

That is, I am finding in the gift of life, in the goodness of life, a fundamental and essential reason why the gospel is good news for all of God's creation. More fundamental to the gospel than the Story that explains it. And more fundamental to the gospel than any particular expression of it. Why? Because in the Christian gospel life is the offer. Life is the point, actually, in both creation and redemption (e.g., John 1:1–4; 10:10; Rom 6:23).

My sense is that the writers of Scripture presupposed this, but we no longer do. Notice the content of Paul's message when he speaks to Gentile unbelievers.

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth...” (Acts 17:22–28).

Here is a man who knows what he's talking about, and who's in touch with the needs of his audience (where they're coming from), and he goes straight to the point of it all: the very reason we exist, he says, is that we should inhabit the earth. We are made for life, plain and simple. The gospel is the message and the Story that announces and explains this wonderful reality—and Whose idea it was to bring it all about. Only then does it make sense as the message and the Story that explains why we need “salvation,” and what's the nature and the scope of God's redemptive agenda. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son (John 3:16), yes, but before that, God so loved the world that he made it (Gen 1)!

What is salvation but the outworking of God's love for his creation as he restores it from the bondage and effects of sin? Creation, then, although certainly not the central message of Scripture, is the underlying foundation. Indeed, without an understanding of the biblical view of creation our understanding of both sin and redemption will inevitably be distorted. In worldview terms, we cannot answer the questions "What's wrong?" and "What's the remedy?" unless we first address the issues of who we are and where we are. (Brian Walsh and Richard Middleton, The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian World View)

God's work in the world must be viewed in and through a universal frame of reference. That the Bible begins with Genesis, not Exodus, with creation, not redemption, is of immeasurable importance for understanding all that follows. (Terence Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation)

Let's go a bit deeper though. Not only is creation the beginning of our Story, in a temporal sense, so that we have to start there to get the picture and know what’s going on. We get even closer to what I have in mind when we realize that God's creation (the cosmos) is itself telling the Story. Creation is in fact part of the message. God's message. And we, our lives and our words, are part of it. Part of that larger, quieter reality that from the beginning speaks for itself about who God is. Psalm 19 and Romans 1:18–20 are part of that witness.

...our relationship to God is given in and with life itself... Man cannot live, without living from God... Whatever form it may take, man's relationship to God begins by being that of a creature who has been born, who lives, who never ceases to be created from first to last. As such he receives all that he has from the Creator, independently of what his attitude to the Creator may be, just as a son may receive from his natural father, even when he curses him. ...

For this relationship is given with life itself, and even when men have ceased to use the term "God" they do not cease to be related to Him, because He is, even though they deny him. (Gustaf Wingren, Creation and Law)

"We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. In the past, he let all nations go their own way. Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy" (Acts 14:15-17; cf. Ps 104).

All humans, believers or not, are already longing for God. We're all desperate for him, whether we know it or not. In the very love of life, we already know what he's all about, even if we haven't recognized him yet as the source of all we truly want. That's my sense. And it may well be what Paul is trying to tap here: “Just open your eyes!”

...in Genesis 1, a cue may be taken from God’s repeated judgment on his works that they are “good.” ...the Hebrew ṭôb can connote “beautiful” as well as “good” in a moral sense, and in this beginning of all things the divine assessment is essentially aesthetic. The world in its ordered profusion is beautiful. Since it is beautiful in the eyes of its maker, it reflects the thoughts of its maker, and so the maker himself. (Gordon McConville, Being Human in God's World)

If I'm going to be an evangelist (as Grandma used to say I would), this is the context and the framework within which I'd like to witness. In the common ground of God's creation. Of common grace. A message that is good news about reality. About human being. About life. A gospel that is as simple as it is beautiful. And as real as it is unlikely. Like life itself. A true miracle.