The Decapitated Body

Very few "churches" preach the Good News. Since religion today is almost completely professionalized, "church" should be the one place you can go to hear the Gospel, but the "professionals" that even understand it enough to preach it are few and far between. 

The most prevalent form of preaching in "churches" today is what some have called Moral Therapeutic Deism. It is basically a form of self-help therapy that is supposed to teach you how to live a good, moral life, which for religious purposes is referred to as a "Godly" life. 

Sadly, this form of teaching has virtually nothing to do with Christianity. In fact, it bears a much closer resemblance to what Jesus repeatedly condemned in the empty, self-righteous, behavior-based religion of the Scribes and Pharisees of his day.

To those who taught that form of religion, Jesus had much to say!  His most scathing opinions of them are found in Matthew 23:13-35. It will make your toes curl!:

"13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath.’ 17 You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred? 18 And you say, ‘Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath.’ 19 How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; 21 and whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it; 22 and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it.

23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!

25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.

27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. 28 So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, 30 and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors. 33 You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell? 34 Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, 35 so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar."

Stunning, right?

Even if you don't quite get all of the "inside" historical references, you can pick up on the main idea. Their focus was on appearances. All that mattered was looking like good people on the outside, to those around them. The fact that they were putrid on the inside wasn't a troubling issue to them. 

Jesus didn't spare their feelings in telling them exactly how he felt about that! And, keep in mind, Jesus is God, so there's no doubt as to God's opinion on those trying to appear like model citizens, when they're really "full of the bones of the dead and other filth," which, as I said, is basically what most "churches" are teaching these days. 

So, if Moral Therapeutic Deism is not the  true Gospel, or Good News, what is?

Because the basis of all Morality is the Law, otherwise commonly known as The Ten Commandments, I will explain what the Gospel is by starting with the very misunderstood role of the Law and then proceed to the Gospel in light of the Law's actual purpose. 

Contrary to popular belief, the Law was not given for humanity to obey! 

The role of the Law is to wound and to kill. What do I mean by that?

Basically, the primary function of the Law is to show us our sin. It is like a mirror. The mirror may show us the mud that is on our faces, but that is all it can do. The mirror can only identify the problem. It has no ability to fix the problem. It cannot actually remove the mud. 

In real life, the Law is intended by God to hurt our pride--our trust in our own sufficiency. It is meant to show us the depth of our need as well as to show us our own absolute inability to "fix" ourselves. 

The purpose of the Law is not to show us what to do, it is to show us what we are not doing, and cannot do. It is intended to bring us to our knees until we cry out, "Woe is me!!! I cannot do it!!" 

That is the wounding God does through the law. But he never leaves us there! The very moment the Law has brought us to despair, the Gospel is ALWAYS to be immediately applied. 

The job of the Gospel is to point out that, indeed, we are correct, we cannot do it!!! And for that very reason Christ had to come and do it FOR us!! He did it all specifically BECAUSE we are incapable of ever doing it ourselves. 

He lived the life of perfect obedience and credited us with his record. He then took our messes, our failures and shame, that were only deserving of punishment, upon himself and he paid the penalty in our place. 

It has been called "The Great Exchange." 

The Law wounds us to show us our abject need of a savior and the Gospel heals us by giving us the joyous knowledge that we already have one, in Christ. 

The Law kills us by showing us that we are already dead in our trespasses and sins. The Gospel raises us to our new life "In Christ", where everything has already been satisfied, and there is no more condemnation. 

This is the Good News that has been all but lost in the "church." I dare say that some of you may never have heard the Gospel in your entire "church" life! 

It is utterly counterintuitive to anything else we have ever experienced. It seems ridiculous! Scandalous, even. That is the very reason the Bible refers to the scandal of the cross! 

The inability to accept the scandal of the cross is at the very heart of why people, like those who have zealously taught a false idea of the gospel, keep teaching those things. The Gospel is so counterintuitive to the way the world works that it seems wrong to them. Scandalously wrong. But it is the Truth. 

What I'm telling you is true. It is all there, in scripture, and it has virtually been buried by false teachers of a Christless message. The "church" has effectively all but decapitated the Head from the Body.