Welcome to Trouble in Paradise. Most Christians
are taught to understand the gospel by starting
with one central question. How am I forgiven?
Forgiveness is clearly central to the New Testament.
Again and again, you see that through Christ,
sins are forgiven, reconciliation with God is
possible, and humanity is offered mercy and restoration.
So, how am I forgiven feels like an obvious question.
Because we all know we've sinned. We all know
we need forgiveness. But that question assumes
something. And it's an assumption most of us
have never really questioned. Is forgiveness
the gospel? It's essential. Without it, there's
no gospel. But it is not the gospel itself. wasn't
invented by Christianity. The Greek word evangelion,
good news, was already used in the ancient world.
One of the clearest examples comes from an inscription
celebrating the birth of Augustus, dating to
around 9 BC, the Priene calendar inscription.
It calls his birth the beginning of the good
news for the world. His birth was proclaimed
as good news, a gospel. So when Mark the evangelist
opens with the beginning of the gospel, of Jesus
Christ, it is not neutral. It is a direct claim.
You have heard of the gospel of Caesar. This
is the real one. Because a king has been born,
a ruler who will bring peace, order, and stability.
In the Roman world, that kind of announcement
did not appear out of nowhere. It was preceded
by heralds, sent ahead to announce the arrival,
call people to prepare, and frame the message
so it would be properly received. The gospel
of Caesar came with its own forerunners. So when
John the Baptist appears, preaching repentance
and preparing the way, this is not random imagery.
It is a deliberate parallel. St. John the Baptist,
the forerunner, as the Orthodox still call him,
occupies the same role as the heralds of Caesar's
gospel. The difference is simple. What was propaganda
under Rome becomes truth in Christ. And in that
same world, there was a confession people were
expected to make. Caesar is Lord. And that wasn't
just political language. Caesar wasn't seen.
just as a ruler. He was honored as a divine figure,
the son of a God, one who carried authority that
was not just earthly but sacred. So to say Caesar
is Lord was not just loyalty to the empire, it
was participation in a religious reality. When
the first Christians began proclaiming the gospel,
they were stepping directly into that world.
I want this to sink in a bit. The gospel, then,
by definition, can't be reduced to forgiveness
for sins. It must include forgiveness for sins.
Because to live in the kingdom, you need to be
put right with God. You need the relationship
to be established or restored. But they were
not just offering a religious message or a formula
about justification or a method for getting people
saved. Not a moment you can reduce to a single
prayer. Not something you could wrap up and say,
now you're in. It wasn't a system you applied.
They were making a direct challenge. Because
their confession was just as simple and far more
dangerous, Jesus is Lord. not caesar and that
carried real consequences because to say jesus
is lord in a world where caesar was worshipped
as lord was to reject the entire structure of
authority around you it was denied that caesar
was divine to deny that his rule was ultimate
to deny that his gospel was actually good news
and that's why this wasn't just a private belief
it was a public declaration that a different
king had come that a different victory had been
won that a different kingdom had begun And that's
what the word gospel meant. Not a formula, an
announcement. This is what has happened. And
because this has happened, now you repent. Now
you believe. Now you live as a citizen of that
kingdom under that king. Because the gospel refers
to events, something that has taken place, a
victory. And forgiveness is part of that. But
it's part of something larger. The goal isn't
forgiveness in isolation. Forgiveness is caught
up in a much bigger movement. A restoration,
a reign, a victory over sin and death itself.
And once you see that, something else starts
to stand out. Because if the gospel is that big,
if it's about a king, a victory, the restoration
of humanity, then starting with the question,
how am I forgiven, might already be too small.
Not wrong, but incomplete. Because it narrows
the problem down to something I've done. But
the gospel seems to be addressing something larger.
Something about what humanity is. And that's
when another question begins to surface. Not
just, what have I done wrong? But what am I?
Because we don't just say, I've sinned. We say,
I'm a sinner. And that might sound like the same
thing, but it's not. One describes something
I've done. The other describes something I am.
And once you say, I am a sinner, you've made
a claim about your condition. So now the question
shifts. Am I someone who becomes a sinner because
I sin? Or someone who sins because I already
am one? If it's the second, then the problem
doesn't begin with my actions. It begins before
my actions, before I choose, before I act, before
I do anything at all. And once the problem is
located there, everything else starts to shift.
Because now the focus can no longer be on how
I live or what it means to live under the reign
of Christ. It has to move somewhere else. Now
the question becomes, how is that condition dealt
with? How is that guilt removed? And this is
where the emphasis of the gospel begins to narrow,
where what was once the announcement of a king
and a call to live under his rule becomes centered
almost entirely on personal sin, forgiveness,
and going to heaven. Because if my problem begins
before I'm born, if there's no meaningful distinction
between Adam and me, then everything has to resolve
around forgiveness and how that forgiveness is
applied to me. And before going any further,
I need to be clear. I'm not denying that we're
sinners. I'm not denying that we sin. I'm not
denying that we need forgiveness. That's not
the question. The question is, when did I become
a sinner? Did I become a sinner because I sinned?
Because I chose wrongly? Because I acted against
God? Or was I already a sinner before I ever
chose anything at all? This is where it stops
being abstract. Think about an infant. Not a
child who's grown. Not someone who's acted. An
infant. Before any decisions. Before any willful
actions. Before anything you would normally call
sin. What are they? Are they already guilty?
Already in need of forgiveness? Already under
something that has to be removed? Or are they
something else? A human being born into death,
into weakness, into a condition that will lead
to sin, but not yet guilty of anything? Because
however you answer that question, you've just
answered when you believe a person becomes a
sinner. And you can see how different traditions
have tried to answer that question. In Roman
Catholic theology, the answer is clear. The infant
is born with inherited guilt, which is why baptism
happens immediately, because something real has
to be removed. But confirmation is delayed, separated,
it's pushed later. So something must be done
immediately, but participation is still in the
future. And in many Protestant and evangelical
traditions, the shift goes even further. You
begin to hear a language like age of accountability.
Listen to that phrase, accountability. Because
right in the middle of it is another word, ability.
The ability to respond. The ability to choose.
The ability to be held responsible. So what does
that assume? It assumes there's a point where
that ability begins. A moment where someone becomes
capable, which means they were not before that.
And now you have two different answers to the
same question. The problem is already there from
the beginning. Guilt is present and must be removed.
And the other says the problem becomes real when
the person becomes capable, when the will is
able to respond. And this is the point. These
aren't just different practices. They're different
assumptions about what a human being is from
the beginning, what the will is, what it's capable
of. Because whether you say it explicitly or
not, you are answering the same question. Is
the human from the start already guilty and unable?
or wounded, but still capable of responding when
healed by grace. And you've also said something
about their will. Because if the problem is already
there before any action, then what can the will
actually do? Is it capable of turning toward
God? Or is it incapable, unable, something that
must be overridden? And this is where the idea
of original sin starts to look different. Because
in much of Western Christianity, original sin
is understood primarily in terms of guilt. something
inherited, something that needs to be removed,
something that places you under condemnation
from the get -go. But there's another way of
understanding it, not as inherited guilt, but
as inherited death. A humanity that has become
subject to corruption, to decay, to mortality,
and because of that, fear enters in, weakness
enters in, disorder enters in, and sin flows
out of that condition. Because when death reigns,
everything begins to bend around it. We grasp.
We fear. We protect ourselves. We turn inward.
And in doing that, we sin. So the problem isn't
just that we are guilty. It's that we are dying.
And sin is what that looks like over time. And
for many Protestants and Evangelicals, even hearing
that, that death drives depravity, can sound
like a downplaying of sin. But in reality, it's
the only way to understand it. Because if sin
is rooted in death, in corruption, in fear, in
a humanity that is unraveling, then it's not
smaller. It's deeper. It's something that runs
through everything. And this is where something
else becomes clear. In many evangelical settings,
you'll hear people say they don't believe in
original sin, at least not in the sense of inherited
guilt. And yet at the same time, the way salvation
is presented, the emphasis on a decisive moment,
the language of being saved or not saved, still
assumes something very close to it. Because even
if the language changes, the structure often
remains. The idea that something is fundamentally
wrong from the beginning, that a person stands
in need of a decisive change. And historically,
those ideas come from the same theological soil
as confessional Protestantism, which has been
very explicit about original sin, about the will
being bound, about humanity being unable to turn
toward God apart from grace. Because doctrines
don't disappear just because the language changes.
They continue to shape. how we understand the
human person, what we think is wrong, and what
we think needs to happen. And if that's the problem,
then everything begins to change. The will is
not something that has to be replaced. It's something
that has to be healed. And when I say wounded
or infer wounded, I don't mean lightly. I don't
mean slightly damaged. I mean something far more
serious. Orthodoxy is not Pelagian or semi -Pelagian.
The opposite of Pelagian isn't an ability. And
this is where another assumption starts to come
into view. We've been taught to think in extremes.
Either the human person is capable or completely
incapable. Either Pelagian or unable. But that's
not actually the historic Christian distinction.
Because the opposite of Pelagianism is an inability.
It's dependence. It's not a will that can save
itself. And it's also not a will that is completely
absent. But a will that is real, wounded, and
entirely dependent on God for its healing. A
will that can respond, but only because it is
being restored. The will can become so disordered,
so entangled, so turned in on itself, that it
can feel almost gone. Wounded in that sense can
mean mortally wounded, but not destroyed. But
so distorted that without healing, it cannot
function as it was meant to. And that healing
doesn't come from the will fixing itself. It
comes through union with Christ, through His
death and resurrection, through the power of
the Holy Spirit, through the breaking of what
binds us, and through a life that continues to
turn toward God, not as merit, but as trust.
If that's the problem, the cross becomes victory
over death. Salvation is no longer just forgiveness.
It becomes healing, restoration, participation
in life. And the will is not something God overrides,
but something He restores. So the question isn't
just, How am I forgiven? The deeper question
is, what kind of creature am I? And depending
on how you answer that, you don't just get different
doctrines, you get a different gospel.