The Gospel and Social Justice
There’s much conversation, and really, confusion, in the church today over social justice - particularly, in how it relates to the gospel, or good news, of Jesus. Some have labeled it a distraction from the gospel or even a threat. Others have rightly called it a necessary aspect of what Jesus came to bring - along with what He calls His people to pursue. The solution is found in a broader, more biblical, understanding of the gospel of Jesus.
Cross and Kingdom
Justin Taylor, in this helpful article, quotes a work co-authored by Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert. They argue that the gospel is cast in the New Testament in two senses - a narrow sense that emphasizes the atonement of Jesus and a broader sense that emphasizes what Christ’s cross secured. The first they refer to as the “gospel of the cross,” while the second they call “the gospel of the kingdom.”
Taylor also summarizes scholar D.A. Carson’s interaction with Gilbert, a pastor, in another work. While Carson agrees with Gilbert and DeYoung that Christ’s death and resurrection are the heart of the gospel, and the fountainhead from which everything else flows, he, too, argues that both dimensions are needed. Writes Taylor, “These are not two gospels, but one gospel in two perspectives.”
Pastor and professor Jeremy Treat puts it this way in this clarifying article:
“The cross is central (the climactic mid-point of the story) and the kingdom is telic (the end-goal of the story). The glory of God’s wisdom, however, is displayed in the manner that the end-time kingdom has broken into the middle of history through the death of the messiah.
In short, the kingdom and the cross are held together by the Christ—Israel’s messiah—who brings God’s reign on earth through his atoning death on the cross. The kingdom is the ultimate goal of the cross, and the cross is the means by which the kingdom comes.”
Communion between humans and God, between humans and each other, and between humans and creation was disrupted by the fall. Christ came to set things right again - to reverse the curse and bring in shalom. Jesus brings a reign of perfect justice, a kingdom accomplished by His work on the cross. Yes, God sent His Son to die as a substitute for sinners, paying for sin and granting life for those who believe. Thanks be to God! But this isn’t the full extent of what Christ’s life, death, and resurrection accomplished. He came to “reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20). He came to restore full communion again - not just between humans and God but between heaven and earth.
Yet that day lies in the future. We now live in an overlap of the ages. During this time of already and not yet, while we wait for that day, we seek to bring some of that “there and then” into the “here and now.” We pray that Christ’s kingdom would come, that His will would be done, on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10). We pursue His kingdom here on earth, laboring for justice for all, while we ask all men and women to bow before the King.
Two Gospel Dimensions
The solution is a gospel that proclaims both the cross and the kingdom, that shares not just the means - the atoning work of Jesus, but the end - a restored creation. We must proclaim both God-sin-Christ-response AND creation-fall-redemption-restoration. We must proclaim the gospel from the ground and from the air.
From the ground, we consider truths from Scripture about who God is and what He came to do for us in Christ. Our holy God is Creator and Lord of all, and that includes us. However, fallen by nature, we have chosen to sin, spurning His rule and going our own way. We deserve death and judgment as a result. Yet God did not leave us in that state. He sent Christ, the eternal Son, God in the flesh, to live a perfect life and to die a cruel death on our behalf. Jesus rose from the dead, displaying that the payment was received, and that the age of eternal life had come. Our response is to repent of our sin and trust in Christ’s works alone, not ours. Through the gospel we can be reconciled to our God again. He is our Father. We are His children.
From the air, we see the flow of redemptive history, the grand story of what God is doing through Christ. God created all things, making man and woman in His image. Humans fell, rejecting their Lord, meriting death and judgment. However, God didn’t turn His back but redeemed that which He had made through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. One day He will return to earth in judgement and salvation. His creation will be restored. He will reign over His people in a New Heavens and New Earth forever.
From the ground, we look through eyes of faith and see the Lord paying our debt so He might restore us to Himself. From the air, we see the grand sweep of redemptive history. We understand the full breadth of what God in Christ came to accomplish.
Tim Keller, in an effort to maintain both dimensions, defines the good news of the gospel this way:
“Through the person and work of Jesus Christ, God fully accomplishes salvation for us, rescuing us from judgment for sin into fellowship with him, and then restores the creation in which we can enjoy our new life together with him forever.”
Our Struggles Today
Today, it’s common for professing believers to choose one vantage point to the exclusion of the other. As Carson explains, those who gravitate to two extremes tend to talk past one another. He writes,
“In Gilbert’s analysis, one group of believers, whom he designates Group A, rightly argues that ‘the gospel is the good news that God is reconciling sinners to himself through the substitutionary death of Jesus.’
A second group of believers, whom Gilbert designates Group B, rightly argues that ‘the gospel is the good news that God is going to renew and remake the whole world through Christ.’
When a Group A believer asks the question What is the gospel? and hears the answer provided by a Group B person, inevitably he or she feels the cross has been lost; when a Group B believer asks the question What is the gospel? and hears the answer provided by a Group A person, inevitably he or she feels the response is too individualistic, too constrained, not driven by the sweep of eschatological expectation and ultimate hope.”
Sound familiar? Especially in a day when a push for racial justice is front and center in our national conversation, the loud cry, “Stick to the gospel!” is more often than not the evangelical retort. But is preaching God’s heart for justice “another gospel”? Is calling Christians to stand for the weak and oppressed an abandonment of the good news?
Some Christians have feared a slide toward works-salvation. They want to stand against an unhelpful “social gospel” that meets only physical needs and fails to get to the heart - a message devoid of sin and repentance. Their desire to preserve salvation by grace and through faith is good and needed.
Others, however, point out that true conversion must result in works. Word and deed must go together. Our concern must be for whole persons, and not just for souls. This, too, is of critical importance. Beyond that, God doesn’t just transform individuals. Jesus came to renew the world. We need to understand the wideness and depth of God’s gospel.
Gospel Deep and Wide
Embracing a broader, more biblical understanding of the good news clears up our confusion. It explains why we’d persist in calling people to repent and believe as neighbors call us narrow-minded and out-dated. It makes clear why we’d demand an end to racial injustice, while being labeled as heretics by those we’ve long considered brothers. We make sense of the prophets’ call for God’s people to repent and seek justice, along with their warning of the justice coming from God upon those who don’t believe.
The good news is that Jesus absorbed God’s justice in our place on the cross. In so doing, He bought not only our salvation, but the restoration of all His creation. Therefore, we long for a new heavens and new earth where peace and justice reign. And we seek to see His reign displayed little by little in our churches and cities today.
As with so many issues, it’s not an either/or thing. It’s both/and. Satan wants to separate and divide friends - theological ones like the cross and the kingdom - along with redeemed men and women off-balance toward one direction or the other. May the Lord give us wisdom and grace to proclaim the big, beautiful news of the Bible. And that necessarily means we’ll care passionately about social justice.