The gospel is a spiritual message for a world whose greatest need is spiritual: redemption from sin and new life in Christ. This is not to say, however, that the effects of the gospel do not have consequences for the world in which we live. Indeed, the effects of the gospel, when the church obeys the Great Commission and the gospel is taken worldwide, is that the nations, in the comprehensive obedience taught to the faithful, come to have among them those who both trust (fundamentally) and obey (consequentially); thus the Christian faith and its fruits do, in fact, profoundly change the world because those touched by the gospel are new creations and because that spiritual rebirth affects them and those around them.

The True Calling of the Church

The calling, or mission, of the church as the church is to proclaim the gospel to the ends of the earth, not to be another merely (or even chiefly) political, social, or economic institution. The church, in its full-orbed existence, may have political, economic, or social concerns that develop out of its mission, but those aspects are not what primarily mark and define it. Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is head and King of the church, made it clear in his marching orders to the church—what we’ve come to call the Great Commission—that he intended the church to go to every people group (often translated “nations”) and to evangelize and disciple them (Matt. 28:18–20), enfolding them into his kingdom, which is “not of this world” (John 18:36), a kingdom that does not have the transitory but the eternal at its heart (2 Cor. 4:18). It is Christ himself, our heavenly King—since he is with us even now by his Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45)—who gathers and perfects his church (Westminster Confession of Faith 25.3) through the appointed means.

The gospel is not about worldly success in any proper sense, then, but is rather about deliverance from the penalty, power, and ultimately the presence of sin, a message that comes to permeate the whole of the lives of those transformed by it. We can rightly say that the message of the church is a spiritual one, coming to people of every sort in every land to bring them here and hereafter into the spiritual reality of the kingdom of Christ. Therefore, Paul encourages the Christians in Corinth, “In whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God” (1 Cor. 7:24). Paul makes clear that the bondservant may and should avail himself of the opportunity of freedom (1 Cor. 7:21). He also makes clear, however, that whatever condition one finds himself in, even whether one is married or not, is not paramount: what is most important is not one’s vocation or life circumstance but being called by and coming to Christ, being a new man or woman in Christ. Paul’s concern is that his readers are Christians, whatever else may be true of their lives. His concern for them, to put it another way, is chiefly spiritual.

This is the spiritual message that the church is privileged to herald to the world (salvation by grace alone), the good news—the meaning of gospel—without which there is no good news. The story of the world after Adam’s fall is nothing but bad news since all is sin, darkness, and hopelessness without the good news of the gospel. The gospel of salvation in Christ, however, is the good news that transforms the worst into the best, seen particularly at the cross, where humanity at its worst not only fails to defeat God but where God uses humanity’s attempt to do so as the centerpiece of our salvation. Christ has overcome the world. This is the message that the church joyfully preaches to the world. It does not preach itself, nor does it promote some sort of political, social, economic, or cultural utopia to be achieved in this age.

The church preaches that we are to live in this age not for this age but for the coming age that has broken in on this age and beckons us to a new heavens and a new earth that await all who trust in Christ alone. This is no “superspirituality” and certainly not any form of gnosticism but simply the recognition of what is central—the spiritual message of the gospel—out of which all else radiates and from which the full-orbed Christian life, with all its consequences, emerges.

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