Teaching the Broader Gospel: The Fall
Editor’s Intro: This is the second installment in a month-long series about Teaching the Broader Gospel and will trace the gospel-thread from Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Glorification. If you’re not familiar with YPT’s emphasis on the “Narrow and Broad Gospel” please read the linked article.
I believe something that is lacking in many youth ministries is a biblical understanding of the nature and consequences of sin. Often, most people’s knowledge of this doctrine is either too superficial or reductionistic, either lessening the depth to which our sin runs, or downplaying the impact sin has in the world around us. But a right understanding of sin and its effects is essential to understanding the broader gospel. I want to propose that youth leaders recover a more comprehensive view of sin. That is, we must understand that because of the fall, our students face three painful realities: a bad record, a bad heart and a bad world. (1)
A Bad Record
In Mexico, where I live, many employers require those applying for a job to supply what’s called a “non-criminal record letter.” This is a legal document that proves the person applying for the job has not been convicted of a crime. Although this is important for finding earthly work, being able to present a similar kind of record is also required for entrance to heaven. God demands from everyone a clean legal status, a kind of spiritual non-criminal record. For anyone hoping to spend eternity with God, they need proof that they are not, in legal terms, guilty of breaking God’s law.
The Apostle John says that everyone who sins breaks God’s law (1 Jn 3:4). Likewise, the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it this way: “Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.” Because all of us have sinned (Rom 3:23), the first problem we face is the reality of a bad legal record; we are guilty before a holy God.
The Bible says that all of our thoughts and actions are being registered in spiritual record books in heaven that will, one day, be opened. Everyone will be judged by what is written in the books, according to what they have done, whether righteous or unrighteous (Rev 20:12-13). In other words, our lives will be measured by the state of our spiritual, legal record before God. The problem every human faces is that we are guilty of sin; we stand condemned and deserving of God´s righteous judgment.
But the good news of the gospel is that God freely gives us what He justly demands of us. Paul says, in the gospel, “the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith” (Rom 1:17). That is, the perfect righteousness that God requires is given to us as a gift that is received by faith in Jesus.
To redeem humans, Jesus had to live a life of perfect obedience to God´s law. And from his conception to his death “he committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth” (1 Pe 2:22). Jesus is the only human who perfectly kept God´s commandments, and because of that, He is the only one who has “a non-criminal record letter” in God’s eyes, a righteous human life.
And the Bible says that for our sake, God was willing to give that righteousness to us. Paul says: “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21). God took our bad record and treated Jesus as if it belonged to Him. He bore our guilt on the cross and was punished despite being innocent. And when we repent of our sins and trust in Him alone, God takes Jesus´s perfect legal record and gifts it to us, treating us as if we had lived Jesus’s life. Now, when we stand before God, it is Jesus´s perfect record and not ours that will be recorded by God.
A Bad Heart
The second reality we face as fallen people is the condition of our hearts. Because of sin, our hearts are “deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (Jer. 17:9). We have inside of us a corrupted heart from where evil thoughts, actions, and desires flow. Since the fall, the human heart is a twisted mess; our sin comes from within us.
These same hearts are also in the words of John Calvin, “a perpetual idol-making factory.” That is, we take God´s good gifts and turn them into idols, rival gods. An idol could be anyone or anything that takes the central place in our lives that should belong to God. We don’t just struggle with sin; we invent new things to use for sin.
However, the gospel offers a solution to this as well. The Lord promised through the prophet Ezekiel: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (36:25-27). In the gospel, we are promised a new heart through the Holy Spirit´s work. Although we can make external improvements in our lives, we will never be able to change our hearts, and that is exactly what God offers to do for us.
A Bad World
The fall has not only left us with a guilty record and a twisted heart, but a broken world. When God created the world, everything was the way God intended it to be, perfect. But when sin entered the world and vandalized the original shalom of Eden, we were left with a broken world, one where illnesses, natural disasters, human violence, and numerous other burdens are commonplace. We know this is not the world we were supposed to live in. We long for Eden, and because of that, we often try to escape the harsh reality we see through either attempting to fix the world ourselves or self-medicating to help us cope with it.
However, the only hope for a better world is the gospel. Paul writes that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17). Those who are united to Christ through faith now are promised that they will live in a new world one day. This new humanity began with Jesus’s work on the earth and will culminate in His return, when “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore…” (Rev 21:4) The restoration promised in the gospel is the final remedy to the broken world we inhabit.
Gospel Applications from the Fall
These three realities of sin affect our students every day and reveal their ongoing need for the gospel. Therefore, in our youth ministries, we would do well to discuss them consistently, which will help us avoid three incomplete but common approaches to sin:
Sin as ONLY Legal
We want to avoid seeing sin as merely a legal problem, only focusing on justification as we teach. Remember the gospel unites us with the love of God. It is deeply personal.
Sin as ONLY Moral
We also want to avoid focusing only on moral correction, equating sanctification with the whole gospel. The good news is that the Christian life is daily walking in the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Sin as ONLY Societal
Finally, we ought to remember that even once students are justified and begin to experience sanctification, they are not yet glorified. They live in a bad world that will remain broken, and we want to make sure that we avoid elevating societal reforms to an unhealthy place. This is where the reality of sin in this world fuels our longing for the New Heavens and New Earth.
Our discussion of sin should be balanced, relevant, and comprehensive. The three-fold problem we face as the result of the fall finds its solution in the gospel alone, which is why the gospel, both narrow and broad, should remain the center of our ministry to the next generation.
(1) I thank Dr. Steven Childers for opening my eyes to this truth.