Apparently my 'yes it is' tweet regarding whether justification is a part of the gospel "wasn't nuanced enough" & "was mere assertion" & "told us literally nothing about either the debate or a possible answer to it".

You guys.

Fine. There are guys I respect and have gleaned from on both sides of this debate, and I want to be careful as the one thing that everyone seems to have agreed on is that almost all involved have misrepresented others and/or been misrepresented.

Here are the two statements I want to focus on from the CT article. Both were italicised by the author, so I think it fair to say they are headline statements, not throwaway remarks:

1) "Scripture never says our justification by faith is part of the gospel."

2)The gospel is fundamentally about how Jesus came to be enthroned as the saving king.

More parameters:
1) This debate is NOT about whether justification by faith happens, but whether it is a part of the essential gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.

2) This debate is about whether the ACCEPTANCE of salvation is part of the gospel, AS WELL as the offer of it.

3) Everyone in the debate says that the offer of salvation via substitutionary sacrifice is a part of the gospel; the debate is whether the personal 'transaction' is a part of it, or just a benefit of it.

Hopefully, by now the least generous thought you'll have is that people are arguing over mere semantics & nonsense and not that people are being heretical. This is good - I think it is more than 'mere' semantics, but I do not see heresy.

In generosity (and, for that matter, honesty), I must add that this debate comes in the context not of people trying to attack reformation principles... but in response to a perceived dearth in teaching centred around Jesus' kingship.

I have sympathy with this cause, and I think that the Christ's kingship IS at the heart of the gospel and should not be neglected - when the angels proclaim the good news in Luke 2, they draw attention to the fact that it was "in the city of David" that a saviour has been born.

But I want to skip a couple of chapters forward and see what Jesus declares at the start of his ministry - Luke 4:18&19.

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has annointed me to proclaim the gospel to the poor"

Now see what comes next

"He has sent me to PROCLAIM liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to SET AT LIBERTY those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour."

Here we see that BOTH promise and action are part of the gospel - both promise of salvation and delivery itself; promise of righteousness and declaration of righteousness.

The kingship of Jesus is good news because we can be counted among his people, we are brought into the covenant community (to use the language of many on the other side of this) and be a part of his kingdom.

We can only do that through justification by faith.

Because this argument wasn't about whether justification by faith is a biblical thing, for the sake of simplicity I haven't defended it in this thread - feel free to pick it up in the comments.

In short: to believe the gospel is not to believe you CAN be saved; nor even to believe you are saved, it is to BE saved. That's the good news.

Comments welcome.