Following Jesus Is Not the Gospel | Theocast

Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, we are talking about the fact that following Jesus is not the gospel. And if you're reading the title of the episode, you might be thinking, come on, guys. You're just trying to be shock jocks.

You're just trying to split hairs. And our response to that is, no, we're not. We are gonna have a really important conversation about the gospel and the nature of justification. We're gonna talk about the order of salvation and how there are things that flow out of the new birth.

There are things that are fruits of the gospel that are not the good news and how this has everything to do with our peace before God now and in the future. So we're gonna pound the desk today for justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

And then we continue that conversation over in Semper Reformanda and maybe get a little bit more specific about ways that justification is under attack in our present day. We hope that you enjoy the conversation.

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The Gospel, Justification, and the Order of Salvation

Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. Conversations about the Christian life from a confessional reformed and pastoral perspective. Your hosts today are John Moffitt, who is pastor of Grace Reform Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

And I'm Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina. We have met again today to podcast, John. Our title today is a punchy one. People have probably seen this title. If they know us well, they're probably okay.

But if they don't know us that well, they're like, who in the world are these guys? And what are they gonna talk?

Antinomians.

Or are they a bunch of shock jocks who are just trying to like, get out of here, guy.

Get out of here. Well, it's good to be here and it's good to talk about this. My heart is already been warmed. My spirit has already been encouraged. Justin and I have already pre-podcast had the opportunity to bear each other's burdens and then point each other to Christ.

And as we often try to do, we spent some time praying before the podcast to prepare our hearts for this. And I can tell you, I'm excited to talk about Jesus once again this morning or whenever you're listening to it, but we record it in the mornings.

Yes, Justin, this is definitely an interesting subject. It came up recently in a class I was teaching on how to study the Bible. We were covering law gospel. If you've not heard our episodes, we'll put them in the notes.

There's a few episodes we've done on law gospel. We did one called recently called, what must I do to be saved? And we were dealing with some law gospel passages that often are confusing. Another particular one is in Matthew when he says, when Jesus says, pick up your cross and follow me.

And the question I posed was, is that law or is that gospel to follow Jesus? And it's interesting because most people say it's gospel. So Justin, what I'd like to do is define the gospel. And then we're gonna explain before we drop on what we think this is, what really Jesus is describing here and what he says, follow me, isn't gospel, but it's connected to the gospel.

And we'll explain what it is in a minute. But to understand the gospel, it is in shorthand, it's the declaration of things past. It's called news, right? When we say, when we go to watch the news or read the news, we're not reading what people project might happen.

We're reading what has happened as events, as history facts, right? So when Paul declares the gospel, I declared to you the gospel, he is talking about the birth, life, death, resurrection of Jesus Christ on the behalf of sinners.

He is talking about what Christ accomplished, the work of Christ. Jesus says this himself, I've come to do the work of the father. The gospel is the life and work accomplished by Jesus Christ. It is all past events.

There's no potential to the gospel. If there's a potential to the gospel, that means you can be involved in it. You cannot be involved in the gospel. You can receive it as a gift, that's it. You cannot be involved in it.

The law, the law is, I love this phrase. You have gospel is done and the law is due. Law is all potential. Law is all potential. And what that means is, as Jesus told the lawyer, do this and live. Perfectly obey the law, do that and live.

As Paul says, the second Adam, where the first Adam failed, the second Adam succeeded and brought many sons to glory. We fall short of the glory of God because of our sins. Christ obeyed the law and earned for us glory.

That's what the law does. The law earns you righteousness before God so that you might earn yourself glory or the presence of the father. So that's the difference between the law and the gospel. When Jesus then says, take up your cross and follow me, that's not good news.

That is a command to do something. And with the results of obedience comes the promises. So Justin, when we hear this phrase, follow me or following Jesus, how would you describe that in relation to the gospel and why is that not the gospel?

So much that could be commented on right now, man. Gosh, I'm opening my Bible. I'm looking at the confessions. I just wanna talk about the gospel, but I'm gonna save some of that because I think we're gonna come in on the back end and clarify even more and double down on what the gospel really is.

So the way that I would respond initially to your question, follow Jesus, how does that relate to the gospel? Is it the good news?

No.

I just wanna be super clear. We're not trying to be shock jocks. We're not trying to split hairs here. We're not trying to

No, but this matters.

This matters a lot. And I think that's gonna become more clear as we unpack this and have this conversation. What we are trying to pound the desk for here at Theocast is what the confessionally reformed people have been pounding the desk over for hundreds of years now.

And that's the good news. It's the nature of justification. Like, how does it happen?

Go ahead.

Can I just interject?

Yeah.

For the person that might be new to Reformed theology, when Justin says that, that the confessionally reformed have been pounding the desk, you see, what most people understand about the Reformation is that the Reformation and confessions recovered what was lost.

Yes.

So we aren't adding, we're not saying this is a new theology.

No.

We're saying this is a recovered theology, and this is why we appreciate it so much.

Go ahead.

Yeah, this theology is biblical, and this theology, what the Reformers were doing was recovering biblical theology that had existed from the mouths of various people, the pens of various people, and in various streams throughout the history of the church, but had largely been obscured in the medieval church of their time, and they're recovering these things.

And so for the last 500 years, confessional Reformed Christians have been articulating these same things and pounding the desk over and over again, because as we've alluded to before, every generation has to come to grips with the gospel.

That's right.

And every generation must defend justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, because it is always under assault, always. It's just hard for us as humans. We don't do well with this receiving thing.

We do well in thinking about how we can achieve something and earn something, but when you tell me that I'm gonna show up to a party, you know, and everybody's brought gifts, but I wasn't told to bring one, and you're just gonna give me stuff, I'm uncomfortable.

That's right.

Right?

Right.

So anyway, I

Which is, so that's the point, that's

I digress.

Yeah, no, we're kicking back against this idea that following Jesus is the gospel, because historically, the Christianity has kicked back against that.

Right.

What I would say, and I know you're gonna agree, John, because we talked about this beforehand, follow me, following Jesus is a fruit of regeneration, and we could even say a fruit of the good news. It is not the good news itself.

That distinction really matters. As you already said,.

The good news

The results of the effects of the gospel.

Correct.

The good news itself has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with us, in terms of anything we would do. Our response to the gospel is not the gospel.

That's right.

That's critical that we understand these things. The gospel has only to do with the person and work of Jesus Christ as our substitute and as our mediator, and it's all about what he has done that we then simply receive by faith.

Yeah, can I even add, even to Ephesians chapter two, when Paul is describing the good news of the gospel, he says, and these good works that were predestined before the world that you should walk in them, meaning that it is a part of the outflow of the gospel.

So the moment you add to the gospel an action that's required, in other words, you can receive the good news. If this happens, that is no longer good news. That's law.

Yeah, I mean, Ephesians two, faith is a gift. All of salvation is a gift. Acts 11, God grants repentance. I mean, all of this is the gift of God, and so what we're contending for here is clarity on the good news, and then let's talk biblically and accurately about outflows of or fruits of regeneration, and when you hear us say regeneration, what we mean by that is the new birth affected by God via the proclamation of Christ in our place.

Because Romans 10, 17, right? Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of Christ. How is it that we are born again? We hear the proclamation of the Lord Jesus. We are told of Christ, who he is and what he's done for us, and the Lord, through that, by his spirit, effects the new birth, and then from regeneration flow a number of things, and so when we start to talk in these terms, John, I'm gonna use some theological language here, and we're gonna unpack this.

Inevitably, in having this conversation, we're talking about something theologically known as the order of salutis, the order of salvation, and regeneration is what starts that thing, and then from regeneration, we see produced in the believer faith, repentance, obedience, good works, all of those things, but they flow from this sovereign work of God that's grounded in the work of Christ.

That's right.

Yeah, so this is, order of salutis is an old Latin word. It's important.

The order of salvation or redemption.

This is what Justin and I are gonna try and do is we want to educate you on theology and history as we work through different confusing parts of the Bible. So certain phrases and theological terms come to life because of bad theology or confusing theology.

The simple word trinity is a great example of this. We use the word trinity because there was a confusion on the nature of the triune God. There was confusion on the nature of Christ, and so we started using trinitarian language or the word trinity came to be.

Yeah, God is one in three. He is three and yet one.

Right, so this debate, you could even go back to the Canons of Dorrit, but this debate about what happens when became important because if you do not get this order correctly, you're going to lack assurance, and you're going to be adding works back into the gospel.

So this order became a fight, and the fight was necessary because it keeps the gospel in its place. A passage I would use to go back and argue for this would be one like Romans chapter eight, and it says, those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he also called, he also justified, and those whom he also justified, he also glorified.

Well, what do you have there? It's also known as the golden chain of redemption, right? You have a progression of what happens. If you go back to Paul's writings in Ephesians chapter two, you were dead in your trespasses and sins.

He made you alive. And then where does good works come? Later down the chain. The good works come after he makes you alive. So you see this progression in writing. You see, another great passage would be second Peter chapter one, right?

Everything that we need for life and godliness has been granted to us by the sovereignty of God. Then what comes? He says, now add to your faith what? These good works. So you always see that it's death, regeneration, faith, repentance, obedience.

You see this over and over and over in scripture, and it's important that we keep it in that line because if we don't, we can get confused. Like when we were even going back to the passage in Matthew where Jesus says, pick up your cross and follow me, that whole capacity to do so has to be granted to you.

This is why Paul says it's a gift of godliness any man should boast. I do wanna go back and just, before we kind of go back to the fruit of the gospel thing, I just wanna make one reference to this whole follow me thing and specifically here.

Jesus throughout his whole ministry, and I'll let you riff on this, Justin. Jesus throughout his whole ministry is attacking primarily one issue, and it's self-righteousness, right? The Pharisees and the Jews were trying to earn God's favor through the law.

This is why you have two separate stories of a lawyer and a rich man walking up to Jesus saying, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

And we dealt with those passages a couple, two, three weeks ago, however many, as it airs. I mean, anyway, I'm not gonna try to figure out the timeline on all of it.

We did an entire episode on the cross as well, but I wanna make it into a relationship here in that the cross, sorry, go ahead.

I'm happy to riff on this for a minute in terms of what Jesus is confronting throughout his ministry, and I'll go ahead and double down on that and say what the apostle Paul is confronting too. So both of them, and so I'm gonna be really clear.

I've been, just for teaching I'm doing in my own church, been doing a lot of reading on justification, but then also ways in which in our day, justification is under assault. So I've been reading on things like the federal vision or final justification, been doing a decent amount of reading on the new perspectives on Paul, and so I'm gonna go ahead and say this.

I think it is an inaccurate representation of Second Temple Judaism, and by that I mean the Judaism that was existing when Jesus was on earth. I of course agree, John does too, that there was grace in it.

I mean, you even hear the Pharisees' prayer in Luke 18, where he's thanking God that he's not like other men. I mean, it's not as though these people thought that it was just pure, crass legalism and righteousness of their own with no help from God, with no grace whatsoever.

Of course, there was understanding that God in grace had chosen Israel as his people, and that God in grace was their covenant God, but then once in the covenant, they were then to keep the law. It was this kind of covenant gnomism, right?

We're in the covenant and now we are all about law keeping before the Lord, and it has something to do with our standing before him, this keeping of the law. So that's what Jesus is blowing up. If anything, it makes Christ and Paul more pointed to understand that there is absolutely grace in Judaism, right?

It's not just crass legalism they're exploding. They're exploding a grace plus theology.

That's right.

So the fact that you have a first century Jew thinking, okay, I'm part of the covenant by grace and God has been gracious to us, and now we need to keep the law to remain in good standing with God. We need to keep the law so that we will be finally saved.

Christ comes into that context and says, no, you will not find your standing before the Lord by keeping the law unless you keep it perfectly. And so he explodes that notion of, I can either achieve righteousness through my obedience to the law, or I am already there because I've been doing this well enough already a la the rich young man.

I've done all these things since my youth. Christ confronts that, blows that up, and makes it plain that you will not keep the law adequately to be the ground of your standing before God. You need something else.

You need grace. You need righteousness that you don't have. It needs to be given to you, not earned by you. Paul's doing the same thing, most pointedly maybe in his letter to the Galatians, but also in Romans and elsewhere.

He's confronting this kind of grace plus ideology, this Jesus plus thing, and he says, no, it's all or nothing. It is either you keeping the whole law, or you are trusting Christ for everything. There is nothing you contribute.

That's right. So going back, Jesus in this section is dealing with men who are presenting themselves as being acceptable. So this is where we miss the point of the cross. The cross is not an affectionate thing for Jews.

Jesus hasn't died yet. This is not a good thing. It's the most crass and cruel way of death for the worst of criminals. And so let me rephrase it to modern day language. What's the most brutal way we can think of that the human in modern day world has found a way to murder somebody, or sorry, take their life out of justice?

And I would say the electric chair is pretty brutal. And that would be as if we were to rephrase it, and Jesus says, you need to understand how to perceive yourself. You need to go sit in an electric chair.

That's how you should see yourself. And then come follow me. The point of it was you need to understand how bad this situation is. You're the criminal against God. And at that moment, then you'll find why you need me.

It's at that moment you'll understand why I am your only hope. I am your only solution. Because then he says, if you die, you'll have life. But if you try and save your life, you're going to lose it. Saving your life means you're trying to hold on to your own righteousness.

You're trying to hold on to your own deeds. So that whole idea is Jesus is just squashing self-righteousness right in front of them. And the whole concept of being able to follow Jesus, but being even aware of your own sin is a gift from God.

So to be clear, Jesus isn't giving them an ultimatum as a means or a way in which they have a capacity to follow him. He isn't, he's just trying to show them how dire straight their situation is. So we have to be clear in that the order must always be, I was dead, he made me alive.

I repented and I believed, right? And so all of those, this order is so important because I do believe a lot of writers write in such a way where they are assuming this, they understand this to be the truth.

So going back to this concept of following Jesus, I believe that if you're going to be a true disciple of Jesus, you must follow him, but it's the fruit of what God has done inside of you.

If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called Faith Versus Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest. And if you've struggled with legalism, a lack of assurance, or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone, we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a reformed confessional perspective.

You can get your free copy at theocast .org slash primer.

Regeneration, Faith, and the Outflow of the Gospel

And I think what we have to say too, I at least want to say this, and you can redirect us, John, if you want, when I'm done. Not only is it following Jesus in this example, or fill in the blank, repentance, obedience, good works, not only are those things fruit of regeneration, and in one sense, fruit of the good news, the fruit of the work of Christ for us that we receive, what this means though, if we understand the gospel correctly, and if we understand justification correctly, there is no potential anything.

It's all accomplished. Present justification and union with Christ guarantees final salvation. And that ought to influence and affect, needless to say, how we talk about the Christian life in obedience and good works and following Jesus.

We ought not make it sound like a trip to the DMV. We ought not make it sound hard in the way that we often make it sound hard. Of course it's hard in that we are battling the corruption of our flesh.

Of course it's hard. We live in a fallen world. I mean, we're groaning, man. It's really difficult. And you're mindful, I'm mindful of the ways that I'm battling against my flesh and my fallen nature right now.

I mean, and have been this morning, and am doing throughout the course of my days. Everybody listening to the sound of my voice is doing the same thing. Of course it's hard. But we ought not talk about good works and obedience and following Jesus as though it's just this brutally difficult thing.

We ought to talk about it as the good thing that it is. We've been brought from death to life. We've been united to Christ. We've been brought from darkness, the kingdom of darkness, and have now been given an inheritance in the kingdom of God's beloved son.

And now here's how we live in him. And let's talk about it with the certainty of our final salvation that's real. Romans 5, one, right? Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And he's gonna go on to say that we rejoice. We literally, we boast in the hope of the glory of God.

Why?

Because of what Jesus has accomplished that's now been given to us. There's no potential. This is certain. He goes on to say that literally we have hope because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who's been given to us.

And that's not our love to God. It's God's love for us has been poured into our hearts by the Spirit. Romans 5, six to 11, right? It's so obvious that we have nothing to do with this. It has everything to do with who our mediator is because we were enemies, we were weak, we were sinners.

And at that time, Christ died for us. And now, right, if while we were enemies, well, verse nine, excuse me, since therefore we've now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

We've been justified, we will be saved from God's wrath.

Certain.

Verse 10, if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Through whom we have now received reconciliation. This is certain stuff, bro.

Amen. Well, going back to following Jesus, adding to what you're saying about the certainty, that one means, so like if every disciple that followed Jesus they could say, I am saved because I followed Jesus, that would be the good news.

The problem with that is that they actually have now reasons to boast because everyone who did not decide to follow Jesus is basically it's their own fault. Judas decided to follow Jesus. Judas proved to not be a believer.

So the act of following Jesus is not the good news of regeneration. I think it's so important for us to understand that. When it says so that no one may boast, you need to understand, you're going to stand before the God of the universe.

And as you stand there, you're going to be worshiping him saying, you saved me. You rescued me. You caused me to come to life. You put your spirit in me. You caused me to obey you. As frail and as weak as I am, all of that glory and all that praise goes to you.

I followed Jesus because you rescued me and you adopted me and you made me his brother. I mean, all of these kinds of things, it's important that we wrestle with all of these passages of scripture and we look at them all at once.

You know, the problem, Justin, when we look at passages and say, well, this is Jesus talking about eternal life and he says, follow me. That's biblicism. To not look at the context, not look at what other passages say in the Bible.

That's biblicism and it's not good. You think biblicism is a good word? It's not, it's a bad word because it detaches, it detaches all of scripture from itself and it also detaches theology. And it's important that we understand this debate is not new and this mistake is dangerous because the moment you add action into the gospel, I will relieve one pressure point.

Help me out in the passage, I'll have to look it up here in a second. But Paul says, blessed are those who obeyed the gospel. Well, I think the point in that is what he mean is, is that they believed the gospel.

Those who believed the gospel.

What's the obedience of faith?

Right, the obedience of faith.

Romans one, Romans 16, right?

Right, right.

When he says obey the gospel, that's what I think Paul means.

Oh, I totally agree.

It means you're trusting Christ. I know you agree. Really briefly on biblicism while we're here, this bears repeating. Biblicism is, like you said, people go to passages in the Bible and just read it and say, well, see, it says this.

But what you're doing there is you're going to a passage, you're reading it in isolation, apart from any kind of coherent theological framework. And what you're doing is you're, with the best of intentions, you're pitting one passage against another and you're introducing mystery and confusion into a situation that the Bible has not put that mystery there.

There is mystery in the plan of God. There is mystery in how all of these things hang together. We only know what's been revealed to us. So there is mystery, but we want to put mystery in the right place.

We don't want to introduce mystery where there is no mystery, and biblicism does that all the time. Exhibit A, Jesus, like you were just saying. Jesus says a number of things about eternal life during his earthly ministry as recorded by the evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

He'll, on the one hand, this is what biblicists will do. They'll say, you know, over here, Jesus, when people ask him about eternal life, he tells them to keep the law. Over here, when Jesus is asked about eternal life, he talks about believing in him.

And, you know, it's mysterious. We don't know how these things go together. So, clearly, we need to believe in Jesus, and we need to keep the law. That's what the biblicists will say, to which we would say, well, you can either do that and kind of create this tension and mystery that don't exist and kind of pit the two against each other, or you can understand that one actually provides the other.

Namely, faith in Christ imputed righteousness. His obedience as a human born under the law in your place is how you would be counted as a law keeper. And that's good theology. That's biblical, whole Bible theology that makes sense, man.

And it's tried and true. It's what the Christians have been confessing this for two millennia. And then we come in and start introducing all these things into the situation and create this just disastrous situation where we're literally confused about the heart of the gospel, how it is that we're justified.

Before a holy God.

Christ's Self-Righteousness, the Cross, and the Rich Young Ruler

Yeah, well, going back, and I failed to reference the passage, so I'll do it now, for those of you that are probably wondering, it's Matthew 16, like 20 through 27, that issue of the pick up your cross.

So, Justin, this is not a trick question, but I think you'll understand the sentiment. If we do believe that following Jesus is the gospel, what does it mean to follow Jesus then? That is the absolute most important question in the universe.

If the gospel means follow Jesus, what does that mean?

I think what most people mean when they say follow Jesus, assumed in it is belief in him, absolutely true. But then also alongside that, it's living in the way that Jesus taught us to live. That's what I think people mean.

I do.

That we are a disciple, right? We are being taught not only what to believe, but how to live, and it's our adequate doing of that that would deem us worthy to be called a follower of Jesus. And so I think it's entirely good to use that language of follower of Christ.

I'm a Christ follower, amen. But that, to follow Christ is not the good news. Jesus is the good news, man. I'm receiving what Christ has done for me, and now, now, so you understand, I'm using sequential language.

And now, having received the merits and righteousness of Christ, the holiness, the righteousness, the satisfaction of Christ, use the language of Heidelberg question 60, now I go about following him. Now I go about learning his law.

I go about learning his ethic, and I seek to conform myself to that by the spirit. But that is not the good news. It's an outflow.

Here's an illustration of just what I told you. In order for you to gain eternal life, you must fly from here to Germany. You must fly. You're going, well, I can't. And then I provided you a jet, and I put you into the jet.

And now you're being, you're flying as a, you see, that's what's going on here. It's that you, here's what you need for eternal life. You need righteousness. Well, I don't have that right. And then you were brought into that righteousness by grace, through faith alone, through Christ alone.

And now you are being transported by Christ, and you now follow him as your guide and lead. That's what we're talking about.

Edward Fisher, in his book, The Marrow of Modern Divinity, footnotes by Thomas Boston. There's a beautiful footnote. It's really Boston's footnote that makes this most plain. He'll talk about how we will, we will make our way back to God via the way in which we failed him.

Like we failed to keep the covenant of works. We will make our way back to God via keeping a covenant of works. But here's the thing. God, the son incarnate, carries us the entire way. That's what he says.

It's right.

We will return to God the same way that we fell from him. It's just that Christ carries us the whole way. We don't do it. He is the one. So that, your jet analogy is beautiful. Because it's like, okay, keep the law.

You need to fulfill this covenant obligation of life before the Lord this way. But here's the thing. None of you can do it.

You can't do it.

Christ, as a man, came and did it, and he carries us. Brief interjection, if I can. I just want to say this. And this is related. When we talk about the righteousness that we receive from Christ, sometimes people object to the reformed understanding of justification by saying that it makes no sense for God to give his own righteousness to us.

And we want to say, all right, now look. You need to understand what we're saying. The righteousness that we are given is the righteousness of Jesus Christ as a human being. So God the son.

Right.

God the son was incarnate and made a man via his miraculous conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Now, I know that Roman Catholics use miraculous conception in a different way, but I'm just saying it was miraculous.

He was conceived of the Holy Spirit. The power of the most high overshadowed her, and God the son became a man for our salvation. This is what we confess in the Nicene Creed. It's what we confess in the Apostles' Creed, et cetera.