Our mission statement describes our commitment to defend, promote, and proclaim the gospel. So far, we’ve mostly talked about our approach: How do we defend the gospel? How do we promote the gospel? How do we proclaim the gospel? Now I want us to notice that this approach is focused on a specific set of truth claims. We are not defending, promoting, or proclaiming our own ideas, nor current trends or cutting-edge theories. Rather, we work to advance the gospel.
But what is the gospel? I’m thankful that the men who started this ministry were careful to describe the gospel it is dedicated to. We are committed to “the whole Gospel of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures.”
There’s a lot of spiritual gold packed into this phrase.
- The whole gospel, as opposed to the easy-believism of their day which promised Christ’s blessings to those who profess love for Christ but disregard His commands.
- The gospel, which is the good news (euangelion) that every person, though born a willful sinner in rebellion against God’s law, can be saved from hell and reconciled to God through Christ.
- Christ is both Savior and Lord. As Savior, He died to save us from our sins and was resurrected as the firstfruits of all who believe in Him. As Lord, He is the sovereign ruler over all kingdoms, and especially of His church and every believer included therein. This twin emphasis was especially necessary given the teaching of a century ago (that has continued in various forms since) that a person can be saved through Christ without submitting to Him.
- This is the gospel of Jesus. The historic figure, truly God yet born as a man in space and time, who was a true son of Adam, yet perfectly obeyed the Father, by His obedience winning God’s favor for all who are united to Him by faith, by His death atoning for our sins, and by His resurrection declaring that sin and death have been conquered.
- This is the gospel of Christ, the Jewish Messiah who came to fulfill “all things…which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning [Himself]” (Luke 24:44). Redemptive history did not begin in the first century. God had been planning, preparing, and prophesying of Christ for millenia beforehand. The title “Christ” invokes not only His law-fulfilling life and justice-satisfying death but also the entire unfolding of redemptive history from the earliest chapters of Genesis onward.
- This gospel is not something we have discovered for ourselves or something that we get to define, but rather it comes through divine revelation. This is the gospel that is revealed in the Holy Scriptures. We are unapologetically committed to the inspired, inerrant, authoritative word of God as the only means by which we can know the gospel. We hold close to Scripture, knowing that only the true gospel gives hope for eternal life. It is the gospel of Scripture, or no gospel.
These distinctions form a framework that we have sought to hold to through nearly 100 years of ministry. I aim to continue that trajectory of faithfulness as long as I have the privilege of serving as editor. Gospel-faithfulness and gospel-clarity are the heart of why we exist.
I think the emphasis of our mission statement remains relevant. I doubt I’m the only one who’s noticing the many challenges facing the conservative Anabaptist church today, both from the outside and from within. I would like to suggest one reason which I believe is at the bottom of these issues. It spins out of the last point enumerated above: our total dependance on divine revelation. Scripture is necessary for us to understand any of the truths of the gospel, and thus our understanding of it (or lack thereof) has seismic effects through the rest of our lives.
Too often, we are weak in our understanding of the gospel because we have neglected robust Bible study. We are content with trite, shallow views of God, sin, Christ, propitiation, justification, faith, sanctification, and so forth. As a result, many of our people (and pastors) have a fragile theology that is ill-suited to bear the weighty issues of life. I’m not saying we don’t use the Bible regularly, nor that we are unfamiliar with many of its verses. Rather, I’m saying that we don’t know how the various truths of the Bible fit together to build something much greater. We have not dug deep in order to build on the rock.
We are weak in a couple of areas: (1) knowing how the various concepts of Scripture fit together into one cohesive whole, and (2) knowing how that body of truth makes a difference in our daily lives. Behind the first weakness is the tendency to read the Bible in isolated segments, cherry-picking verses without realizing the big picture the author is intending to communicate. We treat the Bible like a collection of disconnected pithy maxims, nice nuggets that we try to appropriate without seeing the reality the biblical author intends us to see. Sometimes I think it would be good if we tried reading the Bible like a normal book, reading sequentially and in big enough sections that we can see the main point.
Behind the second weakness is, in part, a tendency to read the Bible merely to extract principles and commands, and not to see and know God. Or we could say, we read the Bible experientially (with our perspective and lives at the center) rather than theologically (with God and His glory at the center). We think reading the Bible “practically” means dismissing theological complexities and paying attention only to portions that tell us what we must do to live a better life today. As a result, we often miss those “impractical” portions which, in truth, are necessary to reorient us at the most fundamental level.
We need to ask questions like, “Why did God make me?” We can answer this in a variety of ways. Are we here to have a good time? To make a lot of money so we can be as comfortable as possible? To be good people and leave the world a better place? The Bible helps us understand that, most fundamentally, we exist to know God, enjoy Him, and glorify Him.
How we answer this question is important! Every decision you make today will be affected by what you believe is God’s purpose for you. This is not peripheral or optional. This will fundamentally change how you live in every area of your life. How can you live for Him if you don’t know true things about Him? How will you please Him if you don’t know what He loves and what He hates? If we don’t know who we are in our vertical relationship with God, we will waste our time trying to please Him horizontally in our daily lives. We need a vision of Christ—His goodness, His grace, His glory—before we can rightly work out the practical sections as He intends us to.
A right understanding of God is not a mere appendix. It is the main argument of the book, and everything else hangs on it.
My point is this. When we read the Bible merely to know God’s will, and not to know God, we miss God’s central purpose in revealing Himself to us. Too often the Bible is treated as a rulebook which must be followed if we want to stay out of hell. But God intends to communicate Himself to us through it. Yes, that includes commands, but those are God’s directions for how we can display our love for Him, not for how we earn it. Ultimately, He desires to be known. How can we know Him if we ignore what He says about who He is?
The gospel is known through the Bible. And that gospel is, above all else, about lost sinners being reconciled to God so that they can enjoy fellowship with Him and thereby glorify Him. In the gospel, we get God. Let’s not settle to know only what He wants us to do. Let’s dig deep into the word so we can know Him, and by knowing Him, can enjoy Him.