GospelMemes
Gospel — <a personal confession of belief>
By Peter Kress
The Gospel is not just an event it is a life — Christs life.
Christ, the risen cruciform incarnate God. Christs birth (incarnation), life and ministry, death, resurrection and promised return is the essential story of the universe. It is 42 [Douglas Adams](The meaning of life, the universe and everything LUE).
The Gospel is our (re)creation in Christ, our inclusion in his victory, our participation in his incarnation, ministry, death and resurrection, the meaning of our life in his life it is life in Christ. (union with Christ)
The Gospel is an unfinished story, Christ risen is the alpha/first fruits of the new creation, the new humanity, beauty/peace/justice/grace/hope realized. But we wait his return, and at his return expect a new presence, a new incarnation, heaven becomes one with the earth/universe.
God, the world and time. For God the Gospel (creation, providence, and redemption of LUE) is/are a single act/story expressed in and through all time from outside of time
Essentially, Gospel is the medium and message of revelation. It is inscripturated in the word and preserved in confession, it is incarnated in Christ, it is instantially expressed in all of creation, culture, and history through the work of the Holy Spirit. The foremost of these is Christ in whom the Gospel was, is and will be. In its consummation we, the new humanity become the fullness of the Gospel in Christ.
The uniqueness of humankind is that we are created by and for God, known by him, live before him, and are judged by him. This truth describes the center of our being, expressed as our heart. Our heart expresses our state, condition, story, relationship before God … and toward the place and work for which he made us — the human community, in the world.
The strategies of the heart are sacrament and idolatry. When we see and worship God/Christ experience gospel — through our relationships with creation, history, culture, and people we are living sacramentally. When we serve, worship, trust the created thing, person, event, group rather than the creator/redeemer we practice idolatry, we reject Gospel.
Sin describes the corruption of heart (worship corrupted idolatry, receiving corrupted by rejecting) with all its consequences for LUE. We are not the beginning of Sin, (we recognize Satan, the evil one, as the author of sin) but we are in a state of Sin. Every act, thought, consideration, emotion and intent expresses that corruption as sin, with consequences of death. This corruption evidences individually, communally, universally.
Grace is the work of the Spirit rooted in and expressing Gospel that restrains sin and the deaths it occasions, opposing evil, sustaining & renewing life, and the fruitfulness of our God-likeness, in order that the full work of the Gospel in LUE can be consummated, anticipating and expressing even now, but realized at Christ return the new humanity, heaven and earth one. The Spirit works individually, communally and universally.
The Gospel expresses essentially, dynamically, and oppositionally in every person and community, every moment and story, every place and every time. The Gospel does not coexist with other gospels, it demands (and secures) exclusive allegiance. When gospel instantiates, it impacts virally, transforming widening circles of impact/influence. Gospel coexists in tension with the corruption of evil (antithesis/opposition). This tension will only resolve in the consummation. Despite this tension, the Gospel declares, enacts, and enbodies a future hope realized now.
The heart responding to gospel (faith) repents/learns to love (obedience/good works) losing self for Kingdom, pre-expressing the beauty, justice, and grace of the new creation. The strategies of love are Prayer. The guide to love is wisdom.
Understanding Old Testament. OT revelation initially interpreted through Gospel proxies, fulfilled and consummated in Christ, reinterpreted by Christ (once Christ is revealed, he must replace proxy as first principle/lode stone for interpretation. Applied as wisdom re: how lives are lived before God by Gospel.
Wisdom for life. Our first wisdom is our renewal by the Spirit, anticipating new creation, by modeling Christ the new creation. By the spirit, in Christ, like Christ we embody beauty, peace, justice, grace, hope the fruits and excellences of the spirit. Our second wisdom is the example of Christ in the antithesis he lays aside his rights, even his life for us. So we suffer with Christ, laying aside our rights for the sake of the Gospel, for the sake of those God has given us to love. Our third wisdom is the testimony of the church responding to Gospel, first in the Old and New Testaments, then through the history of the church, and, of course, the living testimonies of church today in all its manifestations — the whole cloud of witnesses in every. Our fourth wisdom is the work of the spirit in all lives in all places in every age, in every place, all humanity receiving/rejecting gospel. Our final wisdom is the Gospel expressing, unfolding in all of creation (LUE) aspiring/groaning toward beauty, peace, justice, grace the seed/shadow of the new creation full circle. We are students of Gospel in all its expression, first of Christ himself in exaltation and in suffering, then of the church through the ages, then of men and women everywhere, then all of creation, becoming the new creation.
<Everything above is experienced individually, communally and universally. The center of gravity though is the community, the society of Christ, the vanguard of the new creation/humanity the church. This church is invisible. By faith we assemble with each other in manifestations of this invisible church despite the opposition/antithesis/corruption of institutions in this age. By faith we assemble to point each other to Gospel, to learn and practice wisdom, to anticipate the new creation.>
First Version – November 5, 2002
Posted Drafts
First posted online 7/26/2008, edits made