The Gospel features all God has accomplished through the life, death, resurrection, ascension, lordship, and imminent return of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Son of God. We might well reckon the Gospel as good news, but what about it?
Those who had been with Jesus and bore witness to all God accomplished through Him expected their hearers who proved amenable to the story to believe it (cf. Acts 15:7). John the Evangelist wrote down his Gospel for this very purpose, so those who read might believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by believing have life in His name (John 20:30-31).
A basic understanding of belief involves giving mental assent to a proposition. Thus, to believe in the Gospel demands we give mental acceptance to its reality: Jesus actually and truly lived, died, was raised from the dead, ascended to the Father, reigns as Lord and Christ, and will return soon (e.g. Acts 16:31, 1 Timothy 3:16).
As a form of mental acceptance, belief cannot be perceived by anyone else. Therefore, it has always been expected for those who have come to believe in the Gospel to affirm and confirm that belief by means of oral confession before witnesses, declaring their confidence in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, and by doing so all it entails (Romans 10:9-10, 1 Timothy 6:12-13).
Paul understood how the information encoded within the proclamation of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension, lordship, and imminent return bore witness to God’s actual work in Jesus the Christ which provided the means of deliverance from bondage to sin and death, reconciliation with God, the reception of the Spirit of God, and the means by which one might become conformed to the image of Jesus (cf. Romans 1:16-17, 8:1-39, Colossians 2:15, etc.). As we have seen, we absolutely must give mental assent to the substantive, actual reality of all God has accomplished in Jesus with verbal confirmation thereof; and yet merely mentally accepting it and confirming it does not, in and of themselves, change much of anything. As James the Lord’s brother declared, the demons also believe, and shudder (James 2:19)! Demons would also confess Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God (e.g. Luke 8:28, Acts 16:17). Yet no one suggests demons have found salvation in Jesus because they believe Jesus is the Christ and confess Him in the presence of many witnesses.
Paul, James, and other early Christian witnesses would therefore have those who would believe in Jesus go well beyond mere mental acceptance with verbal confirmation: he would have them cultivate and develop greater confidence and trust in God in Christ through the Spirit. We tend to speak of that confidence and trust as “faith.”
In Romans 1:16-17, Paul well associated and connected the Gospel and faith:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith, just as it is written, “The righteous by faith will live.”
Paul considered God as having revealed, or made known, His justice/righteousness in the Gospel “from faith to faith” (Romans 1:17). God has worked powerfully in Christ and through the Spirit so those who would believe might be saved. He was under no obligation to do so; we have all sinned and fallen short of His glory, and all deserved condemnation for our transgressions (Romans 3:23, 6:23). God displayed His unimaginably immense love for us in Jesus’ life and death, especially since Jesus died to reconcile us while we were sinners (Romans 5:6-11, 1 John 4:7-21). We were unworthy in every respect; nevertheless, God found satisfaction for justice through what Jesus suffered so believers in Jesus could be reconciled and display His righteousness in them (cf. Romans 8:1-11).
In Romans 3:21-22, Paul spoke regarding how God’s righteousness was manifested apart from the Law of Moses through the “faith of Jesus Christ.” The interpretive challenge of Romans 3:22 involves how we understand what Paul meant by the “faith of Jesus Christ”: did he intend an “objective genitive,” and thus was speaking of the believer’s faith in Jesus Christ, or a “subjective genitive,” therefore speaking of the faith, or perhaps better faithfulness, of Jesus Christ Himself? Even though interpreters remain divided on the question, we can, and must, affirm how both options remain true and valid.
The Gospel bears witness to the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. To be “faithful” can be understood as “full of faith,” but really involves proving both trustworthy and comporting oneself fully according to one’s commitment and convictions. The Hebrews author testified to Jesus’ faithfulness as a Son in the house of His Father (Hebrews 3:6). Jesus came to do the will of His Father, and He did what God would have Him do; in this way He fulfilled all that which God had promised to Israel and to all regarding His Son, the Christ (Luke 24:44, John 17:4).
In this way we can understand how the Gospel reveals the righteousness of God “from faith” in Romans 1:17: God has been faithful and acted faithfully in Christ. Just as Israel was given every reason to maintain confidence in the authority, power, and covenant loyalty of God because God rescued them out of Egyptian slavery, sustained them in the wilderness, and gave them the land of Canaan, so those who would believe in Jesus today have been given every reason to maintain confidence in the authority, power, and covenant loyalty of God in Christ because Jesus lived, died, was raised, ascended to the Father, reigns as Lord and Christ, and will return soon, all of which fulfill all the promises God had made for generations.
And since Christ Jesus proved faithful, and has thus become the Pioneer of salvation for all who would follow Him, in Him believers can manifest God’s righteousness by faith. Such a manifestation must go well beyond mental acceptance of the propositions of the Gospel and the verbal affirmation thereof; as Paul cited from Habakkuk 2:4, the righteous ones will live by (their) faith.
To live by faith demands demonstrating full trust in Jesus as Lord and Christ. Plenty of people can say they believe Jesus is Lord and Christ and yet continue to think, feel, and act as if they are the ones in charge, or in ways completely consistent with their cultural context. To live by faith means we give more than mere lip service to Jesus Christ our Lord, the Son of God: it means we seek to follow Jesus and His ways.
We must therefore change our minds and hearts to no longer maintain those thoughts, feelings, and behaviors which work against what God has accomplished in Jesus so we can instead strive to maintain the thoughts, feelings, and actions which demonstrate our commitment to Jesus as Lord and to follow Him; the New Testament calls this change repentance (cf. Acts 2:38, 17:30-31). Believers are also called by Jesus to submit to immersion in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit for the remission of sin in order to put on Christ, be able to walk in newness of life, and to receive the Holy Spirit (cf. Matthew 28:18-20, Acts 2:38-39, Romans 6:1-11, Galatians 3:27). In this way Christians begin to prove faithful to the Gospel and its message.
And from then on Christians must persevere in following Jesus and His ways. What does it look like to follow Jesus and His ways? He has made them known in the Gospel (John 14:6, 20:30-31)! In short, the Way of Jesus looks like a humble life of faithful service, seeking the welfare of others and not merely our own, to prove willing to suffer evil without responding in kind, jointly participating and sharing in life with fellow believers in Jesus, and affirming our confession of Jesus as Lord despite any and all hostility, persecution, and punishment which may come from the authorities or others (cf. Romans 12:1-21, Hebrews 13:1-13, etc.).
Some aspects of what it means to follow Jesus might not prove terribly challenging for many to maintain, especially in those areas which do not conflict with the socio-cultural consensus of the day. Nevertheless, the demands of what it means to follow Jesus will always come into conflict, in some ways and forms, with any and every socio-cultural consensus, and it is at these points which the loyalty of any given person will be tested.
We must strive to prove faithful to God in Christ through the Spirit: God has given of His Spirit so His fruit might become manifest in us (cf. Galatians 5:22-24, 2 Thessalonians 2:13). We must cultivate thoughts, feelings, and actions which conform to what God has made known in Christ and thus prove faithful and obedient to Jesus; all such endeavors must, first and foremost, involve entrusting ourselves to God in Christ through the Spirit, and submitting our ways and will to Him (Romans 6:1-23, Galatians 2:20).
Therefore, we cannot imagine we have the capacity to prove faithful merely by our own unaided efforts, but we also cannot imagine we can prove faithful without involving anything of our own efforts, as Paul well explicated in his paradoxical affirmations of Philippians 2:12-13.
The Gospel, therefore, is inextricably bound up in matters of faith. We must display faith in the Gospel, which means we accept and affirm the reality of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension, lordship, and imminent return. The Gospel makes known God’s faithfulness in Christ, and Jesus’ own faithfulness: in Christ God fulfilled all He had promised, and Jesus lived and died trusting in God and fully manifesting His commitment and conviction in God through what He suffered. God thus bore witness to His justice and righteousness in faithfulness, providing a means of reconciliation despite our sinfulness and unworthiness. As a result, we have been given every reason to trust in God and His faithfulness in Jesus, and therefore should cultivate and develop trust in God in Christ through the Spirit, living according to the way and pattern of Jesus’ life and death so we might share in His resurrection. May we uphold the faith of God in Christ in the Gospel, live by faith according to what has been made known in the Gospel, and share in the resurrection of life promised by God in Christ when He returns!
Ethan R. Longhenry