The gospel of historic Christianity is cosmic. In Christ, God reconciles “to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:20). The gospel is also social, reconciling people with one another, and motivating them to care for human flourishing and human suffering. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is, first of all, personal. We love our fellow human beings, and serve them in their suffering, precisely because we believe that God loves not just “humanity” but individual humans, that Jesus died for persons, that God’s wrath is propitiated against
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