Gospel Realization: Intro

"Holiness is nothing but the implanting, writing, and realizing of the Gospel in our souls.” —John Owen

This is the introduction to a book I have written called Gospel Realization: Appropriating the Beauty of Jesus in Everyday Life. I plan to release several of the chapters on Substack. And I pray that Gospel Realization empowers the church to live out what it means to be God’s saved people together (Cf Romans 1.16).

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It was a late fall day in 2008. I was riding home from work in my 1999 Volkswagen Jetta and put a burned audio sermon into my CD player. (The ones with a removable face plate.) I don't remember the sermon's title, but I definitely remember what I heard and how I felt. Tim Keller was preaching on the centrality of the Gospel, and I was shook.

He clearly articulated from Scripture how Paul and the NT writers employed the Gospel not only to become Christians but also to motivate the churches to grow in their holiness. For example, the Corinthians were committing sexual immorality, and Paul’s answer was the Gospel, which to me, at the time, was very surprising. He did not tell them to dig into their moral fortitude and stop committing immorality. He did not tell them to do more devotions from the book of Deuteronomy. He did not tell them to find an accountability partner. No, he told them the Gospel.

Specifically, he exhorted them to remember their union with Jesus to provide the power and motivation to change. In other words, the Corinthians were prostituting themselves because they did not believe and appropriate the reality of their union to the living and reigning Jesus! They were having sex with their father’s wife because they did not believe the Gospel!

I had already earned two master’s degrees in theology and was working on a third. I thought I knew the Gospel. The Gospel, I thought, was simple. It was a plan of how to become a Christian by turning to Jesus in free grace based on his death and resurrection. It was the Romans Road. I thought that I had the gospel pretty well mastered. There were a lot more profound theological doctrines I needed to dig into. I need to find out if I was an infralapsarian or a supralapsarian!

However, after that sermon, I realized I needed to change everything about the way I relate to God, the way I preach, and the way I counsel people. I parked my car in the driveway, walked into the house, and immediately told my wife, Chelle, that we had missed the central part of the Christian life! We had missed the Gospel! I told her we do not grow in our Christian life through discipline, moral fortitude, or more Bible studies. We grow in our walk with Jesus by deepening our commitment to the Gospel. All of our sin was, in effect, a failure to appropriate the Gospel in our everyday life. That day, I felt like I had become a Christian for the first time all over again. It was such a revolutionary doctrine that 17 years later, I am still on this Gospel journey. This book is a compilation of the truths I have learned along the way, which will be immensely helpful to you and your journey with Jesus.

1. Gospel Realization Is A Process

Gospel realization is the process of becoming more and more aware of the beauty of who Jesus is for us so that the power of sin over us becomes less and less. John Owen states, "Holiness is nothing but the implanting, writing, and realizing of the Gospel in our souls." This is why I call this doctrine Gospel Realization. GR (Gospel Realization) is becoming increasingly aware of the reality of the Good News of Jesus and how it affects every area of our lives. We will dig deeper into this later in this book, but our progressive sanctification is an everyday journey to become more aware of the beauty of the Gospel in our affections. It is best to visualize this journey in Christ not as a linear line from point A to point B but as concentric circles like tree rings. We are not necessarily seeking a specific destination. We are seeking a person. In this way, trees grow in diameter from the inside out as a new growth ring is produced yearly. Growth in Christian life is the same way. We are to build out from the center of the Gospel, such that our trust and commitment to the Gospel produces growth rings. The Gospel is to be the center of our lives; the more it takes root in our lives, the more growth rings we possess.

This understanding changes the direction of our motivations. Our motivation is not just to stop sinning. Sure, we want to stop, but that is a negative motivation. Our reason is to be more positive. We are to be seeking Jesus. Thomas Watson wrote, "Until sin is bitter, Christ will not be sweet." As accurate as that may be, I would like to reverse it. Until Christ is sweet, sin will not be bitter. The importance is the emphasis. I do not first seek to make my sin bitter; I need to seek the sweetness and beauty of Jesus. Once his beauty smites my heart, everything contrary to who He is will become unattractive. As the hymn writer states, "Turn my eyes upon Jesus, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim..."

Gospel realization must be set within the eschatological tension of the already and not yet. As Christians, we have already tasted the goodness of the Gospel. This means we do not possess a full taste; there is so much more to taste. Or as John states, “We [already] are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.” (1 John 3.2) When we became Christians, we truly believed the Good News of Jesus. It was just not complete. This means that, in some sense, all Christians remain unbelievers. We all possess areas in our lives where the Gospel has not become a reality. We cry out with the demon-possessed boy's father, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief! (Mark 9.24)"

If you are a follower of Jesus, then there is an initial realization of God's love and grace for you; however, there is still so much of his love that we will still do not realize. This may sound strange to you, but notice how Paul prays for the Ephesian church:

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or according to the power at work within us." (Ephesians 3.14-20)

Paul prays that the church would know this great love of God for them. In one sense, they must have experienced this great love, but in another, there was a need to deepen this understanding. They needed to know in their affection God's love for them in Christ even more. This is the same for us today, whether for the first or the thousandth time. We need to have our hearts realize this great love more and more. Notice also what Paul does not pray for. He doesn't pray they would try to do more "good" things. He does not pray that they would care less about their behavior. Why? Paul knew that if their hearts profoundly cherished God's love for them in Jesus, they would fight sin and do the good works that were prepared for them (Eph 2.10). This journey of believing the Gospel is an everyday journey that affects the everyday things of life. We must pursue faith in the Gospel every day of our lives.

2. Gospel Realization Affects Everything

The Gospel possesses a much greater scope than we initially realize. It is relatively commonplace to understand that the Gospel impacts my spiritual life and relationship with God. As protestants, we believe faith alone in the Gospel grounds our justification and renews our relationship with the triune God. Without the Gospel, we have no hope.

However, the Gospel touches and impacts every area of our lives. There is no arena of life where the Gospel does not apply. As Tim Keller writes, we need to understand that the Gospel is not simply the ABCs of Christianity; it is the A-Z (Tim Keller, "The Centrality of the Gospel"). It is not the diving board into the pool of Christianity but the pool itself (J.D. Greear, Gospel). It is the reality around which we orbit all of our lives.

The Gospel, then, informs my work, parenting, friendships, and hobbies. There is no area untouched by the Gospel. Gospel realization is the process of growing in one's awareness of how the Gospel impacts each aspect of one’s life. As we progress through this book, we will see how the Gospel impacts each arena of our lives.

3. Gospel Realization Produces Continual Spiritual Renewal

You may be reading this thinking you know the Gospel and its implications pretty well (and maybe you do), but if you do understand it, you also realize that you need it just as much as anyone else needs it. The default mode of the human heart is self-righteousness. Because of depravity, our hearts are prone to seek salvation in our abilities or works. We naturally forget the Gospel. Tim Keller writes, "Over time, all churches, no matter how sound their theology, tend to lose sight of the uniqueness of the gospel and fall into practices that conform more to other religions or to irreligion." (Tim Keller, Center Church)

To fight against religious and irreligious tendencies, we need to appropriate faith in the Good News of Jesus. Christians and non-Christians need the Gospel to renew their hearts in the beauty of Jesus. We need to fight for faith in the Gospel.

Some seek to grow in their Christian life by trying harder. They believe their moral fortitude is enough to help them stop sinning and become more holy. Although effort is required in our Christian life, this mentality leads to moralism—the one belief system that Jesus regularly condemned in the Gospels. Others tend to have a carefree attitude towards their sin. Their laissez-faire mentality breeds an antinomian lifestyle, whereby God’s grace frees us from having to obey. They believe God’s grace will cover them no matter what they do. As we unpack the Gospel in this book, we will see how both approaches miss the point! Because the call of the Christian life is not necessarily to try harder (self-righteousness) or to care less (antinomianism) but to fight for faith in the Gospel.

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