Book Review*: THE GOSPEL-DRIVEN LIFE by Michael Horton
Reviewed by Nathan Pitchford
What exactly is Christianity, and what are its proper and necessary effects on our daily lives? According to Horton, Christianity is not pietism, social activism, personal transformation, or religious experience, it is first and fundamentally gospel – “good news”. And really grasping that dramatically changes how we pursue the life of a Christian. What do people do when confronted with real news, that is really good? When the front page headlines announced “Victory in Europe” on May 8, 1945, people forgot themselves, embraced strangers for sheer joy, danced in the streets. They had been confronted by objectively true and external good news, and the effects were immediate and obvious. But Christianity, bringing the objectively true announcement of a historically-verifiable triumph over sin and Satan, is usually met with no such response. Why is this?
Horton’s response to this dilemma is sagacious, clear-sighted, and foundationally remedial. The basic problem of contemporary Christianity is that it is no longer defined by the objective gospel, which turns us away from ourselves to the Christ who really saves, but instead, in a myriad of ways, facilitates our natural bent to be “curved in on ourselves”. While touching upon the problems, which he has already diagnosed in more detail in his earlier book, Christless Christianity, he goes far beyond mere fault-finding, and serves up a well-thought-out and gospel-saturated cure.
The Gospel-Driven Life is divided into two major portions. The first, “Looking Up, Looking Out: Breaking News,” deals with just what the gospel is; and the second, “Looking Around, Looking Ahead: A Cross-Cultural Community,” deals with the impact of the gospel on the culture of the Church, as a Kingdom not of this world, but composed of citizens who are in this world and its kingdoms.
Throughout the book, Horton liberally employs the metaphor of the stories of the news media for the nature of the good news of Christianity; but the problem, as he makes clear from the beginning, is that today even the news media is not primarily conditioned upon what events are objectively true and important, but about “what I and a decent market share of my fellow consumers feel is important for our own lives today”. And this subjective, individualistic mentality is mirrored in the church as well as society at large. But Christianity is much bigger than individual perspectives and problems. It is a headline story that makes sense of all of world history, it is bigger than my own felt needs; when really grasped, it makes me forget my own troubles and rejoice with strangers over a victory much greater than the defeat of Hitler. Fixing our personal crises won’t be a big enough accomplishment to turn me away from myself, to where I can find true joy; and in fact, it won’t even be enough to fix my real problem, which is God and his wrath against sin. “We may have problems in our marriage, child-rearing, stress at work, low self-esteem, and worries about our health or the financial market. However,” Horton reminds us, “the ultimate crisis facing us is summarized in Romans 1:18: ‘For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth’” (Chap. 2, pg. 39). But without a real understanding of the problem, we will not respond appropriately to the announcement of the good news. “When the righteousness of God no longer disturbs (much less terrifies) us, we feel no need to cry out for the righteousness from God that is a gift in Christ Jesus” (Chap. 2).
In response to this real crisis of God’s judgment on the basis of our works, which is engrained upon everyone’s conscience but suppressed in unrighteousness, the gospel comes as an utterly unexpected word of good news “that is odd and far from familiar to our moral consciousness” (Chap. 2). This unexpected word is the heart of Christianity; and yet, “Protestants are just as likely today to assume that the gospel gives us something to do rather than an announcement of something that has already been fully, finally, and objectively accomplished for us by God in Jesus Christ” (Chap. 3).
In his fourth chapter, “Getting the Story Straight, Horton gives a stunning overview of the redemptive-historical accomplishment of the gospel, as the vicarious sacrifice of the Lamb of God, which was the means by which he triumphed over the devil, undid Adam’s transgression, displayed God’s righteousness and moral government, etc. But then, he goes on to say, “Although there are allusions to this remarkable story in popular preaching and evangelism today, one wonders if it can even be said that it forms the central content. Even in conservative Protestant circles today, the gospel is popularly summarized with formulas, definitions, and phrases that are not even implied in the New Testament. In fact, these phrases shift the focus from Christ back to us” (Chap. 4). Some of these phrases – “a personal relationship with God,” “asking Jesus into your heart,” and “making Jesus your personal Lord and Savior,” do much to minimize the objective, external accomplishment of the gospel – and yet they (and the mindset behind them) are nearly ubiquitous in Evangelicalism today.
Horton also has some very incisive things to say about the nature of saving faith, which looks away from oneself to Christ, and its common misapprehension as the one thing we do for salvation, or the power we unleash for our own subjective good. “Faith is therefore not a generic optimism; a positive outlook on life,” he explains. “It is not even a general trust in God and his promises to care for us. Saving faith is not merely ‘believing God for big things.’ Saving faith is very specific: clinging to God’s saving mercy in Jesus Christ as he is given to us in the gospel” (Chap. 5). “The gospel changes lives precisely because it is not about us – even our changed lives – but about Christ” (Chap. 5). “Faith does not create; it receives” (Chap. 6). But “our bent toward ‘law logic’ (ascending and attaining) encourages us to turn faith itself into the ‘one thing’ we do to achieve God’s blessings. If we could just believe enough, we could please God, or maybe claim healing or financial prosperity, fix our family, or really do something great for the Kingdom of God” (Chap. 6).
Of course, Horton does not condone antinomianism, nor suggest that faith does not work itself out in acts of love and godliness. But the pursuit of these works cannot be mere imitation of Christ, it cannot be striving to lead a “purpose-driven life”; on the contrary it is all about pursuing a promise-driven life, which rests on what Christ’s purpose-driven life objectively accomplished for us. The bottom line is, “Being in Christ is the perpetual source of our becoming like Christ, not vice versa” (Chap. 6).
Understanding the good-news character of Christianity has drastic and necessary implications for the life and culture of the Church, which Horton spends the entire second section of his book detailing. Church is not about creating an emotional experience of “worship”, it is where the community of those who live in this world but have their citizenship in another world yet to come gather together to hear the objective announcement of forgiveness and life in Christ, to partake of the firstfruits of the Feast that Christ has prepared for us, to be nourished and sustained by his grace in this time of our exile, and filled with hope at the triumphant announcement of the good news of his already accomplishment of our redemption and the soon-to-be consummation of his coming again. In a compelling argument, he contends that much of the problem of contemporary Evangelicalism comes from a commingling of two Kingdoms, the one of this world and the other a cross-cultural community of the inhabitants of Zion. Yes, this is a time of exile for God’s Kingdom, he concludes his work; but “the Mountain of Zion trumps all other hills, towers, and high places. No temporal government, cultural movement, or market niche can bring together a remnant ‘from every tribe, kindred, tongue, people, and nation’ and make them into a ‘kingdom of priests to our God’ who ‘will reign forever and ever’ (Rev. 5:9). We are building our earthly kingdoms, but Zion is the city that God is building” (Chap. 10). And in that kingdom-building work of God, my friends, is our only life-changing hope for today and forever.
(*) Original post of this book review can be accessed at Monergism.com
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