A few stalwart defenders of Reformed theology have coined the term “Glawspel” to refer to the confusion of the law with the gospel. This is pithy, helpful, and infinitely better than any clever invention of my own. The coiners of this term have also made helpful observations about the various factors and tendencies which lead to this confusion (neo-nomianism, Lordship Salvation, etc.). My particular interest lies in the curious modern use of gospel as an adjective, and the ways in which it may also lead to a conflation of the law and the gospel.

At this point I can almost imagine the collective eyeroll of my broadly evangelical friends: “These Reformed iconoclasts . . . first they want to take away our pictures of Jesus, now they’re attacking adjectives?” Every week, in thousands of churches, pastors encourage their hearers to do “gospel work.” They are reminded to keep their “gospel vision” on their “gospel hope.” Parishioners are directed to fulfill their “gospel mission” through various forms of “gospel ministry.” At face value this may seem legitimate. The New Testament uses the word gospel (euangelion) seventy-six times. Should we not then expect to find the word used constantly in the Christian church? Should not our lives revolve around the gospel? Do churches not exist to promote the gospel? Is not a focus on the gospel necessary to keep the local church faithful to its Christ-given mandate? While the answer to these is yes, the use of gospel as an adjective does not best achieve these ends. Rather, I will argue that the word gospel should be used only in the way Scripture uses it in order to avoid confusion and to ensure its message is presented and applied clearly in the church. To get at the importance of this grammatical scruple, we will look at how Scripture uses the Word and the implications at stake.

The primary method to assess the validity of the adjectival use is to determine how the word is used in Scripture. According to Bauer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, the word refers to “God’s good news to humans, good news as a proclamation.”¹ In this sense, the New Testament uses gospel as the subject of a sentence (“This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed” Matt 24:14); the object (“teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel” Matt 4:23); the indirect object (“We will cause no hindrance to the gospel” 1 Cor 9:12 NASB); as a genitive (“the defense of the gospel” Phil 1:16); and modified by an adjective (“I saw another angel . . . with an eternal gospel” Rev 14:6). Yet the word gospel does not occur in the New Testament as an adjective. It is not used to modify or describe another noun or pronoun. This should give us pause before using the word adjectivally in corporate worship of the Triune God. It seems fitting that we only speak about the divine good news which comes to us from God in the way the author intended.

Moreover, inherent ambiguity accompanies the adjectival use of gospel. What, for example, does “gospel mission” mean? Does it mean a mission upon which I embark in order to preach the gospel? Does it refer to a mission which is wrapped up in the essence of the gospel? Does it mean the resulting work I undertake by virtue of having received the gospel? We could ask the same questions about “gospel speak,” “gospel vision,” “gospel work,” “gospel life,” and so forth. My point is that, for all the frequent use of gospel as an adjective, the speaker rarely qualifies his comments. The hearer is then left to fill in the meaning to the best of his or her ability. And lest ye Young, Restless, and Augustinian, Particular Baptist, or Confessionally Reformed folk boast, this also occurs in otherwise theologically-stringent churches.

The ambiguity which results in the use of gospel to modify another noun may manifest itself in at least two, non-mutually-exclusive ways: (1) speaking about the gospel without ever proclaiming its contents; (2) confusing the law with the gospel which results in a replacement of gospel with law. First, the frequent use of gospel as an adjective can lull us into a false sense of comfort that, having said the word fifteen times, we have done all we need to do. But advertising oneself as a gospel-centered church and talking incessantly about “gospel ministry” or “gospel focus” is not the proclamation of the gospel! It is as if I were to print posters advertising a conference in which I promise to tell the attendees the greatest news they will ever hear. They arrive and listen politely as I speak eloquently about the beauty of this great news and how they should receive it, but I never actually tell them the content of that good news. When the apostle Paul said the gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,” he meant the actual content of the gospel, the news itself (Rom 1:16). How can we believe in the message unless it is explained?

Second, the adjectival use of gospel often confuses the law with the gospel. Though the context of each individual use must be taken into consideration, I think it is safe to say that if the minister says he hopes the congregation will spend their week carrying out their “gospel mission” or their “gospel work,” it really means he hopes they will go out and perform good works. Yet, that is not the gospel—it is the law. That is not to deny the goodness or necessity of good works in the lives of Christians. We say “amen” along with the Psalmist when he writes, “Oh, how I love your law! (Ps 119:97)” Yet, the gospel is the good news about the accomplished work of Christ on our behalf. While we were dead in our sins and trespasses, Christ died for us. He has raised us from death to life and clothed us in his robes of righteousness. By all means, Christians should be exhorted to perform good works as fruit and evidence of their faith. Just do not call that “gospel.”

It does not take a leap of the imagination to envision how this confusion may lead the hearer to replace the gospel with the law. If the good news of Christ’s accomplished work on our behalf is not explicitly explained week in and week out, and if the law is implicitly classified under the rubric of gospel, the hearer may very well assume that the good news is “Do more!” or “Be good!” When the message of Jesus Christ becomes a sign which ultimately points to our own ethical improvement, we are heading down a dangerous path in the direction of a variety of errors.

This article is by no means a repudiation of the Westminster Confession of Faith, which states, “Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification: yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love (WCF 11.2).” This article is, however, an observation that Scripture exclusively uses gospel to refer to the good news about “Christ and his righteousness” in which we must have faith. Meanwhile, the modern adjectival use of the word typically refers to the accompanying “saving graces” which manifest themselves in the justified person’s life. Both are good and necessary—only one is the gospel.

In conclusion, I would venture to guess that most Christians who conflate the law and the gospel do not set out to do so purposefully. There are many—often well-intentioned—decisions and choices along the way which ultimately lead to the “Glawspel.” For this reason, we should be even more diligent to present the message about Christ’s work on our behalf in the clearest and most biblically-informed way possible. I have argued that using gospel as an adjective while neglecting the specific content the term denotes is both confusing and concerning—all too often our gospel rhetoric is a thin disguise for ethical improvement. Perhaps, then, we could coin a term for the natural outflow of using gospel as an adjective—“Gospel In Name Only,” or “GINO.”

Notes

1. Walter Bauer, ed. and trans. Frederick W. Danker, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), s.v. “gospel.”

©Paul Fine. All Rights Reserved.

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Post authored by:

• Paul Fine

  

  Paul C. Fine is pursuing a DPhil in the history of modern theology at Oxford University (Wolfson College) where he focuses on the development of American civil religion during the early Cold War. He previously served in the United States Marine Corps and as a contractor for the US Government. Paul holds an MA in Historical Theology from Westminster Seminary California and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania.

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