Gospel-Centered Sanctification: August 2005 Archives

Scott Anderson e-mailed me the link to this gospel-centered article by Alfred J. Poirier. Here is an excerpt:

"In light of God's judgment and justification of the sinner in the cross of Christ, we can begin to discover how to deal with any and all criticism. By agreeing with God's criticism of me in Christ's cross, I can face any criticism man may lay against me. In other words, no one can criticize me more than the cross has. And the most devastating criticism turns out to be the finest mercy. If you thus know yourself as having been crucified with Christ, then you can respond to any criticism, even mistaken or hostile criticism, without bitterness, defensiveness, or blame shifting. Such responses typically exacerbate and intensify conflict, and lead to the rupture of relationships. You can learn to hear criticism as constructive and not condemnatory because God has justified you."

You can read the entire article here. It would be time well spent.

Periodically I will try to answer common questions that people ask regarding gospel-centeredness. Over the last several years of my journey toward gospel-centeredness my own mind has raised many questions (and it continues to do so) to which I have needed answers. Therefore, what I want to do with this category of posts is help others in their journey regardless of where they are on it. So here is the first question that was posed to me on another blog. If you have questions regarding the issue of gospel-centeredness, please ask them in the comment section. You may find them used in a future post.

How does your emphasis on the centrality of the gospel square with Scriptures’ emphasis on the centrality of love in texts like Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 22:37-39, and 1 Corinthians 13:13 among many others?

Deuteronomy 6:5 – You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Matthew 22:37-39 – And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

1 Corinthians 13:13 – So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I believe the Scriptures teach that the gospel is the very power of God unto loving God with all our heart and loving our neighbors as ourselves (Romans 1:16). The centrality of the gospel and the centrality of love are not at odds with one another. To be gospel-centered is to be love-centered because the gospel is God’s power unto the life of love to God and man. Without the gospel we will either live a life of overt enmity against God (i.e. the prodigal son who set his love on everything but the father – Luke 15) or a life of seeking to earn God’s favor (i.e. the elder brother who set his love on what he could get out of his father). In both cases love for God is absent. Only the gospel can free us from the inordinate love of lesser goods to love God, the Ultimate Good, without seeking to earn anything from Him. It is by the power of the gospel that we are put in right relationship with God and enabled to love Him for His own sake, for who He is in Himself. The gospel says that “God shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). One reason God set His love upon us in this way was so that we might eternally participate in the Communion of Love which the Holy Trinity is (2 Corinthians 8:9; 2 Corinthians 13:14). God’s breathtaking, all-satisfying love for us is the cause and impetus of our love for Him (1 John 4:19); and it is in the gospel that we savingly and sanctifyingly see the love of God most clearly and experience it most fully. The gospel frees us to love God not for what we can get out of Him but because of what He has already given us, namely, Himself.

The same basic thoughts apply to loving others. Only in the gospel are we freed to love others not for what we can get out of them but because of what we already have—the full acceptance of God Himself. The gospel is the only thing that frees us to love people without any strings attached. Without the gospel our love for others becomes either moralistic (we love primarily because it is what we MUST do in order to be blessed by God) or consumeristic (we love in order to get something out of the person we are “loving”). At the core the moralistic (i.e. elder brother mindset) and consumeristic (i.e. prodigal mindset) motives for loving are essentially the same. Both ways of loving are motivated by what can be received from the person(s) loved. Only the gospel frees us to love not for what can be received, but because of what has already been received, namely, acceptance with God and participation in the Trinity’s all-satisfying, God-glorifying Communion of Love.