ambassadors of reconciliation.

(this is the final post of a series.  click here for a series review.)

our current, traditional, ‘orthodox’ understanding of the overarching narrative of the scriptures (in most evangelical churches) is the gospel, and this ‘gospel’ is summed up in most circles by the simple ‘romans road’ tool used in evangelism (often called the ‘romans road to salvation’):

all have sinned [romans 3:23]; the wages of sin is death [romans 6:23a]; but the free gift of God is eternal life [romans 6:23b]; christ died for us [romans 5:8]; and all who call on the name of the lord jesus christ will be saved [romans 10:9,10,13].  (some even add a few more verses about being at peace with God and having no condemnation now that we’re found in christ [romans 5:1; 8:1; 8:38-39])

we call this the gospel.  the good news.  the point.

one prominent evangelical leader has said, “the only reason Jesus came was to save people from Hell… Jesus had no social agenda… [He didn’t come to eliminate poverty or slavery or to] fix something in somebody’s life for the little moment they live on this earth.”  in other words, God was going to do away with the whole lot of us and send us away to hell as punishment for our sin in fiery eternal conscious torment, but then jesus came and saved us.  that’s why he came.  and that’s why people need to become christians, so they can be saved from hell, too.  instead, we can all go to heaven.  and that’s the main story of the bible.

i fundamentally, wholeheartedly (and yes, even biblically) disagree.