Siglo XVIII

SOUTHWOOD
reflect
your gospel is too small
by Scotty Smith
One of my favorite things I get to do in ministry is to teach a course
at CTS (Covenant Theological Seminary) called The Disciplines of
Grace. This class exists as a mining excursion into the limitless
treasures and radical implications of the gospel of God’s grace.
Every time the seminary offers this class I show up as both adjunct
faculty member and hungry student. For to this day I still feel like
I’m standing at the base of the Swiss Alps of the gospel wearing
lederhosen, holding a gallon bucket in one hand and a teaspoon
in the other trying to take it all in. The gospel just seems to keep
on getting bigger and bigger.
I believe this expedition will continue with joy forever in the
new heaven and new earth. For it will be impossible to excavate
exhaustively “the unsearchable riches of Christ.” I understand
now, more than ever, why Paul tells us we need God’s power,
“together with all the saints, to grasp the width, length, height
and depth of the love of God,” revealed in the gospel (Eph.
3:18-19). Only the Holy Spirit can free us from the
ravaging disease of unbelief, and only in authentic
community, with brothers and sisters in Christ,
can we hope to know more of the love
“which surpasses knowledge.” What is
my gospel genealogy, and where is this
story currently taking me?
In the fall of 1968 I walked onto the campus of
The University of North Carolina a new man in Christ
toting very old baggage about God and his gospel. I was
given faith to trust in Jesus as God’s Messiah and my savior as a
senior in high school, at a viewing of a Billy Graham movie titled,
The Restless Ones. As a new believer, God relentlessly began
exposing and deconstructing many incomplete and outright
destructive notions I had about him. In fact the first book I read as a
new Christian was titled, Your God Is Too Small, by J. B. Phillips—a
masterful exposé of the ten most obvious false views of God
Phillips recognized among his contemporaries in Great Britain. I
wish I could say I immediately began replacing bad images of God
only with ones shaped by a good understanding of the gospel.
That didn’t happen for quite a while.
Like many Christians converted during the “Jesus Movement” of
the late 60’s and early 70’s, my understanding and experience of the
gospel was shaped primarily by three things: (1) do-more-try-harder
models of discipleship; (2) pragmatic campus ministries; and, (3) a
fear-based eschatology. Thankfully, during my last semester at UNC
God has a bigger
gospel agenda than
simply filling Heaven
with souls
I got my first clear glimpse of the gospel of God’s grace. Never
would I have dreamt that a three-hour class in Greek at a state
university would prove to be such a Trojan horse of redemption. My
teacher, Wright Doyle, a strong believer, was getting his doctorate
in Classics at the time. That one class freed me from a fear of
languages and opened the floodgates of gospel paradise.
After the semester was over, Wright invited me to read through
the Greek text of Ephesians with him. Moving through the first two
chapters of Ephesians at a snail’s pace was more than my proud
heart, man-centered theology and performance-based spirituality
could withstand. The Scriptures persuaded me that the gospel
is Jesus plus nothing—grace through faith sovereignly given to
people dead in their sins and trespasses by the God who chose
them in Christ even before the creation of the world. Because of
what Jesus accomplished by his life of perfect obedience and
his substitutionary death on the cross, my efforts at trying to
merit God’s favor were not only futile, they were fatal.
I was finally able to affirm the good news of
personal redemption as summarized and
celebrated in the 60th question and
answer of The Heidelberg Catechism:
Q. How are you righteous before God?
A. Only by true faith in Jesus Christ. Although my
conscience accuses me that I have grievously sinned
against all God’s commandments, have never kept any
of them, and am still inclined to all evil, yet God, without any
merit of my own, out of mere grace, imputes to me the perfect
satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ. He grants these
to me as if I had never had nor committed any sin, and as if I myself
had accomplished all the obedience which Christ has rendered for
me, if only I accept this gift with a believing heart.
Studying Ephesians with Wright, I became “Reformed” before I
had any clue what Reformed theology was. When I finally went to
Westminster Theological Seminary three years later, I learned the
words, but I already knew the wonder. Ever since, God continues
to write on my heart more chapters of a sequel to J. B. Phillips’
book. This one is called, Your Gospel Is Too Small. Though I was
satisfied for many years with just seeing and savoring the legal
rights and personal delights of the gospel for individual believers,
I’ve needed to see that there is so much more to the gospel
than the glory of personal redemption. God has a bigger gospel