religion or the gospel

One of the books I read while off on holiday last week was "Death by love" by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears.

If you get the chance to do so, it's certainly worth a read. But I should warn you - it's not for the faint-hearted.

It's a book about the atonement, or, as Mark Driscoll puts it in the Preface, "simply, the accomplishments of Jesus' death on the cross."

Each chapter, exploring a different facet of Christ's death on the cross, is written as a pastoral letter, so it's strong, not only on exposition, but on application as well.

"By way of warning," writes the author, "this book takes the pain of human sin very seriously and, consequently, it may be brutally harsh to read at some points (perhaps because we have been inundated with fluffy Christian books about victorious living)."

As an illustration of just how brutally harsh some of it may be to read, how about this for the way in which one of the letters begins - "Dear John, You are a despicable human being..."

Among the 12 compelling chapters, there's one on the gift of God's righteousness which is secured for us in Christ by his death on the cross. And in the course of the letter he writes in this chapter to a man by the name of 'David', Mark Driscoll declares -

"Dave, you are a very religious man, but I'm not sure you are a Christian man."

He then goes on helpfully to set out "ten basic differences between religion and the gospel because I do not believe you functionally understand the difference."

My guess (and observation) is that Dave is not the only one who doesn't understand the difference. Here then are the 10 differences between 'religion' and the gospel, as outlined by Mark Driscoll -

1. "Religion says that God will not love me until I obey his rules enough to earn his love. .. The gospel says that because God has already loved me and expressed this through the person and work of Jesus on the cross, I am now free from sin to live a new obedient life by the power of his love given to me as a free gift."

2. "Religion says that the world is filled with good people and bad people. .. [The gospel says that] the world is not filled with good people and bad people but rather with sinners who are either repentant and trust in Jesus' death for their life, or .. who are unrepentant and remain spiritually dead and separated from God under his wrath."

3. "Religion is about what you do. .. Conversely, the gospel is about what Jesus has done - for you, in you, through you - by grace."

4. "Religion is about getting from God. ..But the real gospel is not about getting what we want from God. Rather the goal of the gospel is to get God himself, who is our greatest treasure, highest joy, and source of life, whether we are rich or poor, healthy or sick, living or dying, happy or sad."

5. "Religion sees hardship as unloving punishment rather than sanctifying discipline. .. The emphasis in God the Father's loving discipline is correcting us, which godly punishment does as well."

6. "Religion is about you. .. However, because Jesus has lovingly served us, and we love him, we are to lovingly serve people as Jesus has us."

7. "Religion focusses almost exclusively on the external, visible life of a person and overlooks the internal, invisible life of the heart where motives lie. .. The gospel is concerned first with the state of our internal self."

8. "Because reigion is about what we do, the end result is that we lack assurance regarding our standing before God. .. The gospel tells us that because our standing before God is contingent on Jesus alone, we can know with assurance that we are secure as redeemed people."

9. "Religion simply does not work, because it results in either pride or despair. .. Conversely, the gospel alone leads to a humbly confident, joyous obedience because it teaches us that our righteousness is not our own, but rather a gift from Jesus because of his work on the cross."

10. "The desire underlying your pursuit f religion is in fact a noble one. David, you simply want to have righteousness. But you have sinfully sought it by the power of your own righteousness and not the cross of Jesus, which enables gift righteousness. .. Let me point out three things about this gift righteousness. First, it is through faith, not rule keeping. ... Second, the righteousness God gives is a status that is imputed, reckoned, attributed, or granted to us. .. The gifted righteousness is, thirdly, imparted to us at the time of faith, at the same time as our justification. ..."

It's a powerful book, as I say, and well worth the effort required to read it.