The Present-Tense of the Gospel

Tamed Cynic is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and all content, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

“If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord…you will be saved”

- Romans 10.9-10

As Matthew Bates points out in his book, Salvation by Allegiance Alone, the word Paul uses for confess is homologeo. It means “a public declaration of fealty.” In other words, what Paul says will save you for God is the equal and opposite expression of what Rome said would save you from its wrath by confessing, "Caesar is Lord."

Notice—

Paul doesn’t say “If you confess that Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise to David (or Abraham), then you will be saved.” Paul doesn’t write that if you confess that Jesus is God incarnate then you will be saved. Nor does Paul say that in order to be saved you must confess that Jesus died for your sins.

When it comes to salvation and the necessary confession of faith for it, Paul focuses squarely on one specific stage of the gospel: The Lordship of Jesus.Why?

Why does Paul fix our participation in God’s salvation to the confession of Jesus as Lord? Why not confess that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself; believe and be saved? Why not while we were yet sinners…put your faith in what he’s done for you and you will be saved?

Why does Paul say that in order to be saved we must confess Jesus not as Savior or Substitute or Sacrifice, not as Son of Man or Son of God, but as Lord?

Because, for Paul, the incarnation and crucifixion, the resurrection and reconciliation are all past perfect events.

The present Lordship of Christ is the stage of the gospel we now occupy.

What Paul summarizes as the gospel in Romans 1 he spells out in 1 Corinthians 15. The gospel he received which he in turn handed to the Church in Corinth has 8 parts to it or stages. 

Paul’s gospel is that Jesus:

Preexisted with the Father.

Took on human flesh, fulfilling God’s promise to David.

Died for sins in accordance with the scriptures.

Was buried.

Was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.

Appeared to many.

Is seated at the right hand of God as Lord.

And will come again as judge.

Note the shift. Both in Paul’s gospel and in the Apostles Creed, from the past tense to the present tense. Paul says that in order to be saved you must confess that Jesus is Lord because that’s where we are all at in the story.

It’s a non-negotiable part of the gospel:Jesus is Lord right now, currently in residence as Lord and King to whom God has given dominion over heaven and earth.

To accept that present-tense point in the gospel is to acknowledge the other parts of the gospel that preceded it; likewise, to deny Jesus’ Lordship is to devalue the gospel that precedes it. The enthronement of the crucified and risen Jesus to the right hand of God to be Lord isn’t ancillary to Paul’s gospel but is the climax of it. The cross and resurrection aren’t ends in themselves; they are the means by which God establishes Jesus as the Earth’s true and rightful Lord.

As Abraham Kuyper said:

“There is not a square inch now in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ who is Sovereign over all, does not cry “Mine!””

When we deemphasize the Ascension of Jesus, we immediately neuter the gospel of the only present-tense element to it.

All that remains is the gospel’s past and the future tenses. We demote Jesus from Lord of the cosmos to Secretary of Afterlife Affairs, which produces a false distinction between Jesus as a personal lord and Jesus as Lord of the Cosmos.

Salvation then becomes the promise of a future reality we access by agreeing to propositions about what Jesus did in the past rather than salvation being a present reality into which we’re incorporated by baptism and in which we participate already as subjects of the Lord who reigns now.

If this sounds like a picayune grammatical distinction, then consider the qualitative difference for discipleship:

“Jesus taught 2,000 years that we should love our enemies.”

   Versus:

“The one who taught us to love our enemies 2,000 years ago is, this very moment, Lord of heaven and earth.”

Without Ascension, the Sermon on Mount can remain safely in the past, leaving us free to argue with it or agreed to it. If the Preacher on the Mount is right now Lord, suddenly his sermon becomes less about assent and more a matter of obedience.

Leave a comment

Share

Give a gift subscription

Read Tamed Cynic in the Substack appAvailable for iOS and AndroidGet the app