What is the gospel? - a little look at the Apostle Paul's definitions in 2 Corinthians and 1 Timothy

What is the gospel?

We talk a lot about the importance of the gospel. But what exactly is the gospel?  

I am not trying to pose a trick question, and others before me have sensed a need to define what we are talking about when we use the word 'gospel'. Some have been book-length answers such as 'What is the Gospel' by Greg Gilbert.

The simplest answer to that simple question is that, it is the 'good news' ….as that literally translates the meaning of the actual word 'gospel'.

But in Scriptural context, what is this good news about?  What is this news which we are told is good? 

How would you describe the 'good news' of the gospel?

In this 21st century when you want an answer to a question, (and in particular what people might give as a definition of the 'gospel')…what do we do?

… a 'google' search of course!

So I typed in 'What is the gospel' to Google, and here are some examples of short answers that came up:

GotQuestions

The gospel is, broadly speaking, the whole of Scripture; more narrowly, the gospel is the good news concerning Christ and the way of salvation.

Desiring God

The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for our sins and rose again, eternally triumphant over his enemies, so that there is now no condemnation for those who believe, but only everlasting joy. That's the gospel.

RC Sproul

In New Testament terms, the gospel is the proclamation of the person and work of Jesus Christ plus how the benefits of that work can be appropriated to us by faith and by faith alone.

So the gospel has a narrow definition: it's the message about Jesus. Now, there are other good tidings: the kingdom of God, all of that. But, specifically, if you look at what we call in the New Testament the kerygma, the apostolic proclamation of the gospel, it focuses on Christ: who He is, what He did, and how we receive His benefits.

Sinclair Ferguson

If a student asked me that question I would say, "Paul has told us in the first few verses of 1 Corinthians 15." He says, "These are the things that are of first importance." And he states facts with an interpretation: "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; the third day He rose again" (1 Cor. 15:3-4). And that is, in the New Testament, or at least in Paul's letters, the simplest foundation.

Evangelism group CRU 

It is the news about who Jesus Christ is, what He has done, and how that changes everything for all of us.

Greg Gilbert - author of the book 'What is the Gospel?'

It's a message from God saying, "Good news! Here is how you can be saved from my judgment!"

Answers in Genesis

The word 'gospel' means 'good news.' When Christians talk about the gospel, they are presenting the good news of Christ's death and resurrection.

9Marks

The gospel is the good news about what Jesus Christ has done to reconcile sinners to God.

Most of the above answers are essentially fairly similar, and most went on to explain it further after their initial short answers. And, these short answers are all excellent succinct answers and definitions. 

However, these answers all may nicely agree, and give us a neat 'spear-head' kind of consolidated and sharp definition. But do they clearly help us see what the real 'point' of the gospel spear-head is?

The gospel in 2 Corinthians 4

Recently I read 2 Corinthians 4 in the course of once again working through the Bible in a year, and one particular verse 'jumped' out at me, in a way I guess I hadn't 'seen' quite so clearly before.

Maybe 2 Corinthians 4:4 gives us the simplest and most profound answer to the 'gospel' question…and one we might easily overlook in weight and meaning…

It says:

'In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, 

to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.'

So, if we ask re the gospel, 'it is the good news of what?' ….the answer from this verse is: 'the glory of Christ'.

Now this might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about what could be a definition of the gospel….it certainly wasn't the way any of the above Christian leaders or groups defined it. At least not in those specific terms.

Maybe as you are reading you are grabbing your bible to check out that verse in 2 Corinthians which I just quoted, and your bible says it a bit differently:

The NIV says the 'gospel that displays the glory of God'

The NLT says 'the glorious light of the good news'

The KJV and NET say ' the glorious gospel of Christ' (although the NKJV changes it to 'the gospel of the glory of Christ')

The CEV says 'the good news about our glorious Christ'

So some translations of this verse adjust it slightly and turn the noun 'glory' into an adjective. But this seems to lessen its impact and importance.

Here is what a couple of commentators say as they pick up on  these words and the way some translations switch a noun for an adjective (emphases mine):

Ellicotts

Lest the light of the glorious gospel.—…. The English version "glorious," though a partial equivalent for the Greek idiom of the genitive of a characteristic attribute, lacks the vigour and emphasis of the original, which expresses the thought that the gospel is not only glorious itself, but shares in the glory of Christ, and has that for its theme and object.

Jamison-Faucet-Brown

light of the glorious gospel of Christ—Translate, "The illumination (enlightening: the propagation from those already enlightened, to others of the light) of the Gospel of the glory of Christ." "The glory of Christ" is not a mere quality (as "glorious" would express) of the Gospel; it is its very essence and subject matter.

The gospel is not just something glorious in that it is wonderful news, but it is news about glory that has come, like bringing light into darkness.

So here we have a definition of what the gospel good news is….in three words….'glory of Christ'. 

Now, let's look at another passage to see a bit more about this gospel of glory.

The Gospel in 1 Timothy 1

Some years after Paul the Apostle wrote the words to the Corinthian church and further toward the end of his life, he once again wrote a similar explanation and definition again to Timothy, his son in the faith. His understanding of the core essence of the gospel had not changed. Paul, in verse 1 of this passage is in the midst of warning about false teaching, and reiterates to Timothy that sound doctrine has to be:

in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.

So this way of describing the gospel, was no 'accident' or insignificant definition, but obviously one that Paul felt was important and was in the forefront of his mind when he thought about the core essence of the gospel he proclaimed.

He knew it was the good news about a glory that was supreme of which he did not need to be ashamed of (Romans 1:16).

This verse is also 'adjusted' in some translations to turn a noun into an adjective (glorious gospel) and I once again feel that slightly conceals the weight of the word and context of glory and honour.

But once again the Commentators explain that the turning of 'glory' into an adjective is not the intent of the text.

MacLaren's Expositions

the proper rendering is that which is given in the Revised Version--'the gospel of the glory,' not the 'glorious gospel.' The Apostle is not telling us what kind of thing the Gospel is, but what it is about. He is dealing not with its quality, but with its contents. It is a Gospel which reveals, has to do with, is the manifestation of, the glory of God.

Vincent's Word Studies

The glorious gospel of the blessed God (τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς δόξης τοῦ μακαρίου θεοῦ). More correctly, the gospel of the glory, etc.

The Gospel of Glory

The 'gospel of glory' almost seems too simple a way to describe the gospel….and yet it is maybe the most weighty and clear definition we have, and maybe we don't recognise its significance and importance because we have 'missed' the core of the gospel, because we have missed the core of Scripture being a story about glory - glory present, glory given, glory lost, glory won, and glory re-given.

Greg Gilbert's book above talks about how that to understand the gospel we have to understand the reality of sin, since the gospel is the good news coming to address the bad news about sin. Yet it is remarkably easy for us to miss the true nature or identity of sin…and thus miss the true nature of the gospel.

Remember Romans 3:23….'all have sinned', and what does it say next?….and 'come short of the glory of God'. In other words our sin is a 'lack of glory' problem. Therefore it makes perfect sense that the gospel is then the 'gift of glory' solution.

And what does Paul say in Colossians 1:27 about the mystery finally being revealed?

…'Christ in you the hope of glory'. 

If 'lack of glory' is the sin problem, then to be given the opportunity to have 'the glory restored' is the needed answer. 

How does that happen?  Christ.  He bears our 'lack of glory', ie shame, and if we repent of our own self-efforts of glory (our prideful seeking and desire for significance, acknowledgement, importance, value, worth, status, honour, acceptance, approval) for ourselves from others and our own efforts, and believe in Christ's provision of glory, God gives us the favour of the undeserved gift of His glory…and that's called grace. The chasm and separation between us and God is bridged and our relationship with Him is restored, and through His gift of glory He brings peace. Both the turmoil in our own hearts and the enmity with our Creator is resolved. The King of glory becomes to us, the Prince of Peace.

This is also thus a message to overcome shame - that sense at many levels that we feel we are not enough or accepted, or feel excluded or rejected in some way, or feel we are in 'imposter' in our success, or fear exposure of past or present sin and failures, or have been violated by the abuse of another and so feel worthless. All of these are just windows into awakening our awareness of the issue of shame, and then recognising the reality of our greater shame before a holy God. But the gospel is the good news because the whole of Scripture is about God making a way to bring us out of shame and estrangement that began in Genesis 3, and into glory and peace through Jesus.

In our 21st century world which is drowning in shame and desperately seeking honour and wanting to escape shame…and discovering that options to find true peace on the banquet table of the world are empty…the gospel truly is the best 'good news of glory' there could ever be both for now and eternity!

In this Christmas season, let's not forget this is the good news

 which begins with a baby entering the world in Bethlehem about 2000 years ago, 

when God became flesh

 in order to become our shame-bearing Saviour, 

so as to be the 'gift of glory' solution to our 'short of glory' problem.

Sin is more than law-breaking: Lessons about honour and shame from a Blue Crayon

Being grandparents is one of those special joys in life I will always treasure. 

One of the opportunities it brings is being involved in the teaching and training of precious young lives and watching them learn and grow. 

Recently discovering artistic blue crayon 'swirls' drawn on one of our white walls provided another of those teaching and training opportunities.

But as I thought about the 'crayon' event afterwards, I realised it not only taught a little four year old something about telling the truth, and being found out for her wrong doing, and confession of sin, and forgiveness, and how her efforts of cleaning it off were useless (she offered to get a cloth and wash it off and tried for all her worth) and only Grand-pa's Sugar-soap was able to scrub the wall clean…

…..but…..she also brought me the blessing of teaching and growing my alertness once again to the honour-shame dynamics of the nature of sin.

 

Blue Crayon Lesson 1 

- There is a non-disobedience, 'shame' kind of wrongdoing

I have lost count of how many times I have read that sin is defined as 'breaking the law' or 'disobedience'.

However, my little grand-daughter's artwork on the wall was not disobedience. No adult had specifically issued her with a command or instruction not to draw on walls in our house. 

However, as soon as I called her and pointed at the wall and asked in a very particular serious tone of disapproval 'who did this?', she went instantly silent and turned her head away and wouldn't look at me. 

She instantly knew she had done something wrong and unacceptable, just from my tone.

But what kind of wrong was it?

If it wasn't disobedience, what was it?

It was primarily dishonour and disrespect.

Eventually after I assured her that although Grandma (me) was not happy with what she had done and it was a bad thing to do that I would not be cross at her for telling the truth, she did honestly confess and tell me that she did it and we had a conversation about drawing on paper only and not walls. She also had a lesson on confession and forgiveness, but that there were still consequences to deal with. Like many situations in parenting, what appeared to be first a 'bad' situation was actually a 'good' opportunity for God to use as a teaching moment in which we thought about what God would want us to learn from it, and be prompted to turn our hearts to him…and thus glorify him.

Blue Crayon Lesson 2 

- Looking for what we can easily miss about shame

But also, what seemed a 'mundane' and 'normal' parenting (or grand-parenting ) event was yet another occasion where I am learning to see and consider 'with new eyes', and be more alert to, the honour-shame dynamics which were 'shouting' out at me, but where I could have easily missed their reality.

As the 'crayon artist' was questioned about the situation, she acknowledged and agreed that it is paper that she should be drawing on (and later I further explained to her only her paper not just any paper she finds in the house!). But there had been no direct disobedience to a previously defined house 'rule'.

But I noticed some further dynamics play out….

• She came to the very real awareness that amidst her behaviour that was unacceptable, she felt unacceptable. 

• Her normal desire to face me and tell me some new discovery or run and hug me had suddenly changed. 

• She went totally silent and seemed to withdraw instantly into herself (even holding her arms close to her body as she stood in front of me as I crouched in front of her). 

• Her head was turned away and even when I moved her and told her to look at me, her face was toward me but her eyes were looking off to the side.

All honour of close relationship with her Grandma had suddenly been destroyed. And though she knew I wasn't happy, even with my arm around her, she still couldn't bring herself to face me.

Blue Crayon Lesson 3 

- Learn from what we observe and interpret it from more than just a guilt-law-disobedience lens

Some of what this event highlighted to me was:

• Wrongdoing is more than disobedience and law-breaking.

• Wrongdoing is rooted in an awareness of not measuring up, and thus not being acceptable to the one you meant to please. Because the word in Scripture translated as 'sin' means to miss the mark, the real meaning and reality of sin is more related to unacceptability than to specifically disobedience and lawbreaking.

• Behaviour exposed as unacceptable is felt as personal unacceptability and is instinctively felt and intrinsically linked to a sense of shame.

• Shame brings an automatic and untaught response. Guilt from disobedience only comes about as a result of transgressing a known itemised, explained and taught law. Shame comes about with no teaching, training or even with no transgression, but by simply 'feeling' a short-coming in the expectations and 'eyes' of the one we desire to please.

• Shame brings separation and a break in relationship. Joy in closeness and togetherness is gone, peace and relaxedness and freedom to converse is also destroyed.

• Shame brings an instinctive desire to withdraw and pull away, to hide, especially from the gaze of the one we have dishonoured.

• Shame brings a fear to even look upon the one who we should otherwise love, and should otherwise enjoy the eyes of joy and approval of.

Blue Crayon Lesson 4 

- Understanding the shame context of sin helps us bring the rightly explained biblical solutions to the problem

The good news was that when she confessed and was forgiven suddenly the reconciliation was instantaneous. Separation and hiding ceased, fear disappeared, the experience of love and closeness and joy returned. Honour of relationship as it was meant to be was restored. 

As we bring others the good news of how Jesus deals with our sin, we need to understand how sin works, not just in the context of guilt but in the context of shame. We need to be careful not to only see and understand wrongdoing in the context of law-breaking and disobedience. We need to recognise how sin is far more deeply and intrinsically tied to shame and how it causes a person to respond in relation to shame, right from a very small child.

As you and I learn more of the dynamics of sin in relation to shame, there comes the opportunity and need to bring the message of the gospel into such situations. We don't need to wait till disobedience occurs to lead someone to recognise wrongdoing or sin…we should not only use the context of disobedience to teach about sin. Jesus didn't come just to deal with the guilt of our disobeying but with the shame of our dishonouring. We need to not overlook the context and opportunities that shame brings to teach us about sin and how Jesus conquers sin and brings reconciliation and restored honour to shame shattered hearts.

Blue Crayon Lesson 5 

- We need to parent and disciple more from a base first of instinctive and inherent honour-shame realities and not skip this only teaching sin in relation to guilt-law-disobedience.

Foundations are built from physical birth and from spiritual birth and habits and perspectives and understandings are formed. Life is full of observation, interpretation and application. We take in what we are exposed to, we then try to make sense of it (consciously or unconsciously) and then we try to fit it into how we see and what we believe about life and thus it emerges in how we then live.

I would like to suggest that we miss the most foundational parts of the human soul when we overlook shame or over-emphasise guilt to the neglect or mis-understanding about shame.

To conclude…

Let's be gospel-honour hope bringers 

to a world deep in the mire 

of sin-shame hopelessness.

Whether you are a parent or a friend or in ministry or looking at your own life, the shame-roots of how sin is and how it functions, is imperative to understand and understand well. In reality it is nothing new, and it doesn't become less important just because we fail to prioritise its importance in our thinking. Right from a very young age a child is responding to awareness of unrighteousness through a lens of honour or the loss of honour (shame). 

While the law was given to taught about what we should do, living in honour is how we were made to be. Before the law, there was honour. Under any law-breaking issue is a more foundational honour-loss issue. Before a person, including children learn about law-breaking they already know that honour-losing is a place of fear, anxiety, separation, ruined relationship, isolation, unacceptability and shame. Our world is filled with awareness and fear of honour-losing, so let us maximise that awareness and bring the good news of how Jesus made a way to overcome that very thing that we have feared from before we ever learnt about laws and law-breaking. Let's be gospel-honour hope bringers to a world deep in the mire of sin-shame hopelessness.

It's 'pride month': Thinking more about the world's problem of pride and the how the church needs to do more to address our human hunger for honour.

photo credit - screenshot

It's the end of June….

…when much of the world has been awash in 'Pride month'….. meaning 'Gay Pride' — to promote anything related to those who identify as LGBTIQ+. 

This year, even large mainline shops such as Target in the USA and Woolworths in the UK and South Africa have chosen to stock a whole range of clothing promoting the month and put huge posters on walls of their stores to promote it. At first glance it is sickening, and at a deeper look it is evil…since evil is the opposite of good, and this is the opposite of good. Here in Africa it is a hotly debated issue since Uganda has recently made homosexuality a punishable crime, yet Botswana recently de-criminalised homosexuality. But many Africans are voicing their concerns on platforms like TikTok that the whole LGBTIQ+ push is a modern Western colonisation attempt to destroy African culture (which traditionally doesn't allow homosexuality) and as an effort to curb reproduction and reduce the African population. 

And in the midst of it all, my heart is just sad for all those walking a road of soul destruction. Any lifestyles that flout God's design, cheat the person of abundant life now, and blind them to the need for, and surpassing joy of, eternal life forever.

BUT 

…the issues of this year's 'pride month' have not arrived overnight  but it seems to have finally 'awoken' some Christians at least to another more subtle but sinister underlying problem in our world….regarding the use of the word 'pride.

What do you think of when you hear the word 'pride'?  How do you use the word 'pride'?

Have you ever said to your child 'I'm proud of you'  or maybe 'you should take pride in your work'?

Or have you ever heard someone speak of school, family, cultural, or national pride?

THE PROBLEM OF PRIDE

Christina Fox, writing over at the Ligonier blog has this month raised this issue of the word 'pride'.  She says:

While our culture might view pride on a continuum, in the Bible, it is equated with sin.

Biblical Counsellor and Psychologist Ed Welch has also raised the issue in a CCEF blog post back in 2020, noting that:

Pride might help us feel strong and attractive in our own eyes, at least for a moment. But in reality, it is a gross violation of our created design.

He goes on to say in the same blogpost that:

Pride is one of the foremost ways of describing sin. It is wrong. It is against God and other people. 

C.S. Lewis has said in his book Mere Christianity that Pride is the great sin:

According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere flea bites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: 

Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind…… it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began

This is not a new way to think of pride as the great 1st Century theologian, Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (in present day Algeria),  points out…

"Pride is a great evil; it is even the foremost evil, the beginning, root and cause of all sin. It was pride that overthrew the angel and made the devil. And even when overthrown, he passed on the cup of pride to upright humanity. He aroused pride in the human being who had been created in the image of God, and that pride made humanity shameful. The devil entered humanity and persuaded Eve to defy God's law and use her own power. … 'If you eat, he said, you will be like gods' (Gen 3:5). Consider, then, whether it was not pride that persuaded her. The two who had been created human wanted to be gods. They assumed what they were not and lost what they were; they did not lose their human nature, but they lost blessedness, both present and future. They lost the place to which they were to be raised, deceived by the one who had been thrown down from there"

  

In commenting on 'pride month', Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis highlighted in a blogpost a short while ago, that the prophet Ezekiel pronounced pride as the root of all sin when he said the kingdom of Judah had sinned like the people of Sodom and that the first sin of Sodom was pride. I also recently heard Martyn Iles of 'Answers in Genesis' raising this problem of pride being a promoted idea yet in Scripture is clearly sin. 

BUT mostly, the fact that 'having pride' is accepted in the world as ok and yet in Scripture it is sinful, has somehow flown 'under the radar'. It was in 2019, after being concerned about this for several years that I raised the issue in a blog post  I've often talked to people about it, but the response I get seems to be more in the range of 'oh I think you might be taking that too far, people don't mean anything bad by it'.

Maybe the reason we have been more concerned with the homosexuality (and other associated sexual 'orientations') than the pride label that is attached to it in our 21st century world, is that we have not addressed our prior cultural mis-use of the word. Furthermore, it has been in a context where we have not well-addressed the honour issue that sits underneath the pride issue.

We are apt to use the word 'pride' because the culture uses it in place of the word 'honour'. 

And we in the 21st century church have not well understood what our Bible says about honour, nor have we developed a biblically robust, theology of honour. We have sadly taken a mis-step in letting the world shape our vocabulary and our thinking.

Pride has now gained a foothold in our globalised world as being understood as something 'good' and positive to achieve, and even 'needed' for being human. Yet Scripture says something different and the church didn't really notice. Somehow Satan managed to use a word that the Christians overlooked and even used themselves. Maybe we stand guilty of Romans 1:21-23?

Now that June 'pride month' is suddenly in everyone's faces because of places like Target and Woolworths, we have been forced to notice.

Some gays and lesbians would argue that they don't want the issue of their sexual lifestyle linked to the issue of identity or even of 'pride' parades or 'pride' month, but the problem of 'pride' in our global Western influenced society is emerging as inextricably linked to issues of identity and dignity. And this puts us in danger of another mis-step.

Our problem is to think that because 'pride is wrong', then 'identity' is wrong because the world is obsessed with pride of identity. And in our modern world the two words and issues are tightly held together.

However, I believe, what we have maybe failed to do as 21st century Christians, is recognise that while a desire for pride is wrong and is the product of a sinful heart, the desire for honour is not. Psalm 8 tells us that humans as created by God, have been given a unique level of honour and glory, thus we are meant to desire and find our satisfaction and fulfilment of honour in God. John Piper talks at length about this in his book Desiring God. 

Pride is simply (but yes also fatally), a mis-placed desire for honour. 

Thus, as Christians, in our zeal to confront pride as sinful, we are at risk of being understood by the society as opposing honour and dignity. 

This has led us to say that because the world has linked pride with identity, then a desire for identity is also wrong. We are at risk of not realising that desire for identity is not wrong, but is also mis-placed as part of a mis-placed desire for honour. It is trying to find our sense of self and worth in the creature (us or others around us), rather than in the Creator. As Christians, we may then also get busy wanting to confront the desire for identity and thus be mis-understood by others (whether consciously or not) as eroding or being against a person's most fundamental human honour and dignity.

THE HUMAN HUNGER FOR HONOUR

We recoil in the horror of blatant sexual sin and the hopeless obsessions with false identity and now the prominent positive use of the word 'pride', but I fear we may be still missing the underlying cries of the lost sinner's heart. The desire for honour and efforts to gain and maintain it, fill our world. In fact British gay political commentator and author Douglas Murray has said that the whole problem of businesses trying to look visible in their gay pride support, started after the financial disaster of 2008 in the effort of banks and corporations—who he says should have been on the line for almost completely destroying the world economy—discovered the 'cheaper and easier way to improve their image' was to go 'big on all the identity politics stuff'. 

In other words they were trying to do what I would call some 'honour compensation diversionary tactics' in another area, in the hope it would make up for the honour they believed they lost.

The further problem, is that we observe all this, and then think that the answer and correction to pride is simply to teach humility. It is true that humility is in a way the opposite of pride. But maybe we need to look at it like this:

Pride is the way of a lie as to how to gain honour.

Humility is the way of the Truth as to how to gain honour.

You see, separate of the use of the word 'pride' in 'gay pride', maybe over recent decades or more, the church in its zealousness to biblically oppose pride has focused on being humble. But the only reason we can promote humility is that as Christians we already have a confidence in our God-given honour as his firstly created and then redeemed people, and that God has already taught us that the way to true honour is via the road of humility as Proverbs 18:12 says:

'Before destruction a man's heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor'

I fear we may have rightly understood humility as being God's way to live and the opposite to pride being the world's way, but we have done so without understanding that such an understanding is only part of the story. Even if we are ready to recognise that pride is related to a desire for honour, we may not be alert to realise that Scripture also holds out to us the desire and hunger for honour, in order to motivate us to pursue humility. 

Even the warning that 'pride comes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall' assumes a person will not want destruction and a fall (Proverbs 16:18) and would rather have honour of success than shame of failure (fall). No-one wants to 'fall from grace'…in other words, lose honour. When Jesus, during the Sermon on the Mount, says 'blessed are the poor in spirit', there is an assumption that people will want to be in a state of blessing, which is a state of favour and honour, and will thus be challenged that it is worth being 'poor in spirit' in order to find blessing (Matthew 5:3).

The challenge to lose our life so as to find it….assumes a person has a desire to first want to 'find' life (Matthew 10:39).

At its core, the anticipation of rewards and crowns in eternity has the assumption that we will actually desire to have rewards and crowns (Matthew 6:5-6, 2 Timothy 4:8). The Apostle Paul presses on so as to obtain the prize (Philippians 3:14) and seeks to be faithful so as to not disqualify himself from the prize (1 Corinthians 9:27).

We talk about this and read these verses and yet somehow miss the connection between what Scripture is saying and our own human desires. Many evangelical Christians may feel uncomfortable with such a concept. We have been taught to seek humility and that any desire for honour is wrong. Yet, we can only truly embrace humility if we have first embraced right honour. 

The biblical challenge is that God offers us right and true and satisfying honour which will bring us deeper happiness than anything the world offers, but that it sits in the irony of only becoming ours when we first let go of our own efforts and ideas of how to achieve it and our our efforts of keeping it to ourselves. Honour that we seek our way, for self-satisfaction, ignores God and deprives others and ultimately keeps us in the bondage and pressure of forever trying but never fully achieving, a gaining and maintaining of that honour. Honour that we seek God's way, for His glory, acknowledges God and blesses others, and also in the end satisfies us…and gives us that satisfaction and rest and peace and joy and happiness in abundance.

The road to true honour is humility, not pride, and thus the road to true identity is not via finding something by which we can gain 'pride' in ourselves, but finding that we have the offer of honour given to us that comes via humility not pride. And thus this issue of 'identity' that pastor and author the late Tim Keller has said is the 'core' of our culture.

And as we think about this, the reason the world is searching for identity in the hope they will find it in sexuality, race, or gender, is the result of:

A SLIDE….

That began with….

A Western world in recent centuries in which a majority claimed to be Christians and found their ascribed and achieved and associated honour in God (ascribed/inherent honour in being created by God, their achieved and associated honour not in their own achievement but in Christ's redemption and then through His Spirit's gifting and sanctification enabling them to live for God's glory which in turn further gave them the honour of growing more and more into the people that God designed and desired them to be).

Then...

We had a Western world that began to think they existed physically apart from God….via evolution, and could function emotionally apart from God psychologically….while still thinking they could 'acknowledge' God's existence and hope for his benefits.

Then... 

We had a Western world that began to gain their main sense of honour, not from God, but from their own personal achievements. Alongside this, culturally America didn't want any sense of ascribed/inherited/inherent honour such as exemplified in the British Monarchy and so further emphasised and rewarded those who did bigger and better in their achievements. Honour of identity had shifted to obtaining it through human achievement of wealth or position.

But...

Deep down this couldn't last because it would not satisfy. It was realised that achievement actually wasn't the road to assureness of life satisfaction and identity or dignity. Yes, you will have noticed that the word dignity has started popping up in all kinds of ways in our modern world…'dying with dignity' is just one of those ways. But because achievement is not satisfying an honour hunger that people live by but don't recognise what it is…..they have gone looking beneath the 'achievement' inately knowing there is something deeper to life than just acheivement.  And they are right…who they 'are' is more important than what they 'do' and we were never meant to gain our identity by what we 'do'. What we 'do' has always meant to be a result of who we 'are'.

So...

Our current world is desperately searching for the water that will quench a thirst for who they 'are'…their identity. With their life compass no longer set toward God and just flailing all over the place…they are totally vulnerable lies from the Father of Lies and in their own separation from God and unrestrained pleasing of self and reliance on self. So no wonder they are trying to find their identity in such warped and wicked ways as we are seeing…ways that will  delude them and ultimately destroy them….Unless they find

THE SOLUTION 

I once had someone attending a seminar I was teaching, challenge me to further explain a statement that I made that our hunger for honour and avoidance of shame lies at the very core of every human being. Such a statement had felt to them as a bit of a bold statement.

Yet, if pride is the core or root of all sin, and pride is a mis-placed hunger for honour, then it stands to reason that it is the hunger for honour that is actually at the core and root of all sin.

Christians need to understand what is going on and learn how to bring biblical good news to the core problem of the lost souls of our world who are wandering aimlessly, looking for something they sense but have no clue as to how to find the true answer. 

But while we need to recognise the broken cisterns of dirty, muddy, putrid, death-delivering water they are drinking from, and the lies that abound which make them believe it is life-giving water….the greater need is for us to actually realise what they are looking for and to help them see that rather than God being quiet on their deepest longings, God says a lot about his right way to find what they are looking for. They need to discover that Jesus himself is their source of identity, dignity and honour. Yes, his road (both commanded and exemplified) to the fulfilment of those longings requires us to first do what humanly seems the opposite, and let go of our honour and pursue humility. 

BUT, if a mis-placed honour yearning is the core of all sin, a rightly placed honour hunger and thirst (for righteousness  found only in Christ and not ourselves) is then the core of all that will please God and satisfy us…..because ….by Jesus Christ we were made, and by him we can be re-made, born again to a new satisfying identity and honour.

The Cross Solution to our Sin Problem is Rooted in an Honour-shame Answer in Genesis

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Ken Ham of the organisation 'Answers in Genesis' has often stated how that all the issues of life have their answers rooted in Genesis 1-11

So when we might wonder what these issues of honour and shame are all about, or if they are critical to making disciples and having a right gospel understanding of salvation and sanctification, or if they might have a vital part to play in solving the problems of our world, we will not go wrong to look in Genesis.

We don't have to go far into that first book of the Bible to discover God's great honourable plan of creation, and then the entry of shameful sin into our world. And in the midst of the story we also begin to see the first glimpses of what would be required to provide a solution to the sin problem which damaged God's honourable creation.  Let me summarise in 3 points.

Honour in the beginning

1. In the beginning God…

- that's the first statement of honour….God's holy and honourable presence is the foundational setting for the entire universe, including us

2. God created…and it was good

- all that God created was good - God's good creation gives glory (honour) to God because it reflects Him and fulfils the creator's purpose and carries out His will

3. In His image

- God created human beings 'in his image'. Human beings were created with an honourable status above all other creation - of being in God's image. Human beings were the crowning glory of God displaying His glory. Humans were created in his glory for his glory.

4. Unashamed

The final word of chapter 2 is 'unashamed'. The final word of how God describes his pre-fall sin-free world in Scripture, is 'unashamed'. To be without shame is to be in a place of full honour. People were able to live as God created them with no barriers between them and God and between each other as humans. They were free to live in the honour in which they were created.

Shame enters the story

1. The Situation Changes

The serpent comes with the temptation to eat the fruit. Some will say it was a temptation of disobedience to God's command. And that certainly was part of it. But a temptation to disobey a command is just a result of something else happening prior to this…and that is a disregard or 'dishonouring' of the command-giver. 

Adam and Eve failed to enquire of the Lord first (in other words 'pray'), to think about God first in their situation. Honouring God as God, their Creator and life-giver somehow vanished from their radar.  In commenting on this another blogger noted that 'man doesn't account for God because he believes he doesn't need God'. So underneath the disobedience was a mind that aleady didn't adequately prioritise God or factor God in, and underneath that was a belief that God was not needed for and irrelevant to the situation. 

Now all this can happen in our mind and thinking in a fraction of a second, like it probably did for Adam and Eve.  But it happened because Eve had somehow been more pre-occupied with, and already moved closer to the tree that God had prohibited, rather than staying in what God had gifted. Without realising she had already increased her opportunity for temptation. 

Maybe she had already allowed the eyes of her heart to wander away from thankfulness (honouring) and satisfaction in the sufficiency that God would provide for her, to dishonouring God by elevating/honouring her own opinions/assessments which in turn fed thoughts of dis-satisfaction that God was with-holding something from her.  

I don't say this just from supposition, but also because in 2 Corinthians 11:3 Paul uses the context of Eve succumbing to the deceptive cunning of the serpent in the garden in Genesis to explain that we as Christians can be easily 'led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ'. He doesn't say anything about actions of disobedience but being 'corrupted' from a heart attitude of sincerity and purity in Christ. And that word 'corrupted' comes from the Greek phtheiró whose root meaning according to Helps Word Studies is a 'moving down from a higher level (quality, status) to a lower form'…in other words a loss of honour. Eve's problem, like ours, is a temptation to move away from God being the one to whom we give honour, and from whom we seek our honour.

Ken Ham in a message at an Easter conference in 2019 proposed what he calls the 'Genesis 3 Attack' and that Eve's problem was that she fell for the same temptation that we can all have to question the word of God. This I would suggest is simply another way of saying we have a temptation to not honour God and His Word as we should (Romans 1:21; 2 Thessalonians 3:1). So again, we have emerging in Genesis a context of 'dishonour' that enters the world and underlies the fruit of disobedience.

So by Genesis chapter 3 verse 10….just 10 verses later, Adam and Eve are in a vastly different situation. Honour is lost and shame enters.

Now, Adam and Eve are suddenly aware of something new (nakedness) they had never felt before. They felt vulnerable and exposed for the first time, and they instinctively wanted to cover themselves and hide in fear. No-one had yet explained why they felt this way…but it was such an overwhelming awareness and feeling that it dramatically changed how they acted toward God and his creation and toward each other. It was so powerful it consumed their focus and guided their decision making. 

2. Alienation and fearful Separation emerges in place of Fellowship and Joyful Togetherness

What was joyful open relationship with God suddenly altered and they felt pulled away from the freedom of walking with God. We can only imagine what it must have felt like to suddenly sense shameful separation after only knowing the joy and honour of full fellowship with God.

3. Human efforts to cover our shame don't work 

- Rev Clive  …. the preacher at St Andrew's Cathedral in Sydney last week (as I watched online), interestingly did not emphasise guilt in this Genesis story, but repeatedly emphasised shame. Maybe his Indian ethnic background and ministry focus helps him to recognise the presence and significance of shame in the 'Fall' story, and makes him less vulnerable to the Western presumptions of guilt as the main factor. His observation, I would suggest is 'spot-on'. The issue is primarily about shame. 

Shame makes us want to hide and to cover. We can feel shame long before we understand any guilt-law association. Evidence of a law-breaking is helpful not because it is the critical factor, but because it reveals to us what God already knows before we know it, and shows us what we need to know. Disobeying a law simply reveals a heart that had moved to a place of dishonouring the law-giver. Adam and Eve ate the fruit because they first listened to and believed the lie of the tempter that it might be nice to have the honour of becoming what they were told was 'wise'. They were attracted to an idea that they could be 'more' or 'greater', and thus made a choice to try to access that potential higher status and power. But of course the lie only brought the opposite of honour….and they suddenly felt shame.

Salvation's picture presented

Genesis goes on to show us more of the honour-shame context of sin, and its remedy:

1. Only God Can Cover Our Shame

After his statement that 'human effort to cover our shame just won't work', Rev Clive in his sermon also then said 'human religion never works, God himself must cover our shame'.. 

there are two interesting issues to note here…

a. he insightfully equates 'human religion' with 'human effort to cover our shame'. 

Let's think about this a little more….

Whatever the 'brand' or 'style' or 'cultural requirements', at the heart he recognises that any human religious effort is an effort to find a way to overcome, or outweigh, or cover-up or hide from our shame. Whether that is finding fig-leaves, or re-defining adultery to just being 'consensual sex' or denying that homosexuality is outside of God's plan, or lying to protect a risk of shame to our reputation, or avoiding showing up at a food van or homeless shelter even though we need help because we feel ashamed, or committing suicide rather than go home and face the family after being fired from a job, we are seeking ways to avoid or deny or rid ourselves of shame. 

Religion in its various forms offers ways to join a group or embrace an ideology or do good works or find absolution or redefine what is shameful and not shameful…and becomes a 'way' in which we follow and try to find peace, acceptance, and welcome for our hearts that at the deepest level are aware of some kind of inadequacy - a 'falling short'.

b. The skin's covering was to cover shame

Rev Clive then read chapter 3 verse 21: 'the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them', and pointed out that God got the 'skin' from somewhere and it wasn't like animal skins were just lying around. The skin had to come from an animal. This is something that most Christians are fully aware of, but we often don't make the honour-shame connection. He goes on to unhesitantly say that 'the first sacrifice in the bible is actually performed by God, to cover the sin of humanity, to cover our shame'. He then later points out that this was just a small glimpse of the eternal plan of God to 'send His only Son Jesus to be the perfect sacrifice to cover the sins of the whole world'.

He said:

 'God's ways are higher than our ways, our ways are to grasp at being like God and to blame others to justify ourselves and try to cover our shame, but when the Son of God came into the world, he didn't grasp at being equal with God but humbled himself and made himself nothing'…'he didn't blame others but instead died to take the blame for all of our sins and cover our shame'

2.The Curse Foretells a Coming Honour Restoration 

The curse given to the snake - of permanently travelling on his belly down in the dust, and the promise given that the woman's seed would have his heel bruised but Satan would have his head bruised (Genesis 3:14-15) are also a picture of a future hope of punishment and remedy for our sin-shame condition. Satan would not get away with his deception, but shame would be his lot, and ultimate victory honour would belong to a Saviour to come, who would conquer Satan. Satan may have thought he succeeded in messing up God's design and succeeded in separating humans from God and from each other and having them ejected and rejected from the garden. But in another garden the Saviour said 'not my will but yours be done' and became our shame-bearer, and then in yet another garden he rose victorious over the final shame-separation of death….so that we could join him in honour in a new garden one day in a new heavens and earth (Revelation 21:1; 22:2).

To Conclude…..

Verses like Romans 4:7 remind us that the gospel is not just about lawless deeds being forgiven but about sins being covered, so that as we are told in Romans 9:33 'whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame'.

Romans 8:21,30 and Colossians 1:27 remind us that the gospel is about restoring glory that was lost.

The gospel is the 'honour' answer to the 'shame' problem. It is the grace given to us in Christ - the second Adam (the one who would bruise the head of Satan and provide the perfect covering for sin) that provides undeserved honour in place of the shame (that began with the first Adam in the Garden of Eden).

Sin is inherently a shame problem. 

Guilt is not meant to be the core of the story, guilt from disobedience is just the signpost that reveals and points us to the deeper issue, the deeper need and the deeper remedy. 

Once again Genesis shows us the foundation of what we need to know….don't miss it!