Gospel or Justice, Which?
Some evangelicals talk as though personal evangelism and public justice are contradictory concerns, or, at least, that one is part of the mission of the church and the other isn’t. I think otherwise, and I think the issue is one of the most important facing the church these days.
First of all, the mission of the church is the mission of Jesus. This mission doesn’t start with the giving of the Great Commission or at Pentecost. The Great Commission is when Jesus sends the church to the world with the authority He already has (Matthew 28:18), and Pentecost is when He bestows the power to carry this commission out (Acts 1:8).
The content of this mission is not just personal regeneration but disciple-making (Matthew 28:19). It is not just teaching, but teaching “them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20).
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This mission is not inconsistent with what we have seen already in the life of Jesus. His mission is defined by Old Testament expectations (for instance, Psalm 72), and in the gospel accounts in terms of redemptive love for the whole person, both body and soul. From the literally embryonic moments of the Incarnation, such terms are present in Mary’s prayer about the coming of her Messiah (Luke 1:46-55), and then in Jesus’ own inaugural words about his kingdom’s arrival (Luke 4:18-19).
This mission is summed up in the gospel as a message of reconciliation that is both vertical and horizontal, establishing peace with both God and neighbor. The Scripture tells us to love neighbor “as yourself” (Luke 10:27-28).
This is not simply a “spiritual” ministry, as the example Jesus gives us is of a holistic caring for physical and economic needs of a wounded person, not to mention the transcending of steep ethnic hostilities. As theologian Carl F.H. Henry reminded evangelicals a generation ago, one does not love oneself simply in “spiritual ways” but holistically.
Of course, Jesus’ ministry would be about such things. After all, the Bible shows us, from the beginning, that the scope of the curse is holistic in its destruction – personal, cosmic, social and vocational (Genesis 3 through Genesis 11) and that the gospel is holistic in its restoration – personal, cosmic, social and vocational (Revelation 21 through Revelation 22).
Moreover, the biblical prophetic witness consistently speaks in such terms. Is Ahab’s acquisition of Naboth’s land (1 Kings 21:1-19) a matter of personal sin or social injustice? Well, it was both. Was the sin of Sodom a conglomeration of personal sins or societal unrighteousness? It was both (Genesis 18:26; Ezekiel 16:49).
The prophets never divided up issues of righteousness as neatly as we do in the “personal” and the “social.” Isaiah speaks of God’s judgment both on personal pride and idolatry (Isaiah 2:11) and the “grinding” of the faces of the poor (Isaiah 3:14-15). Onward to Joel and Micah and Malachi, right through John the Baptist, the witness is the same.
The new covenant church continues this witness. Even after the public ministry of Jesus, his apostolic church continues a message of both personal justification and interpersonal justice. James directs the churches of the dispersion both in terms of their personal speech (James 3:1-12) and the unjust treatment of wage-earners (James 5:1-6).
James defines “pure and undefiled religion” as that which cares for the widows and orphans (James 1:27). Of course he does. His brother already has (Matthew 25:40).
For those who might seek to pit James against Paul, the New Testament allows no such skirmish, either on personal redemption or on ministry to the vulnerable. When they received Paul, the apostles were concerned, Paul said, that he proclaimed the correct gospel but also that he remembered the poor. This was, Paul testified, “the very thing I was eager to do” (Gal. 2:10).
So how does the church “balance” a concern for evangelism with a concern for justice? A church does so in the same way it “balances” the gospel with personal morality. Sure, there have been churches that have emphasized public justice without the call to personal conversion. Such churches have abandoned the gospel.
But there are also churches that have emphasized personal righteousness (sexual morality, for instance) without a clear emphasis on the gospel. And there are churches that have taught personal morality as a means of earning favor with God. This contradicts the gospel.
We do not, though, counteract legalism in the realm of personal morality with an antinomianism. And we do not react to the persistent “social gospels” (of both left and right) by pretending that Jesus does not call his churches to act on behalf of the poor, the sojourner, the fatherless, the vulnerable, the hungry, the sex-trafficked and the unborn. We act in the framework of the gospel, never apart from it, either in verbal proclamation or in active demonstration.
The short answer to how churches should “balance” such things is simple: follow Jesus. We are Christians. This means that as we grow in Christlikeness, we are concerned about the things that concern him. Jesus is the King of His Kingdom, and He loves whole persons, bodies as well as souls.
Christ Jesus never sends away the hungry with, “Be warmed and filled” (James 2:16). What He says, instead, as He points to the love of both God and neighbor, to the care of both body and soul, is: “You go, and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).
This column was originally posted at The Gospel Coalition site.
