The thing that I observe, though, is that many contemporary evangelical Christians tend to treat justification by grace as the end of the story. It is as if salvation is a simple “get out of hell free” card, some kind of club membership you attain and then that’s it. Much of the good works attitudes that I hear in this tradition are of the now-that-you’re-in-the-club-here’s-the-rules-we-follow variety. I have experienced that tending towards legalism, forgetting the very gospel we received.

I, personally, am passionate about viewing the gospel as the absolute central feature of all biblical discourse. The thing with the gospel, though, is that it leads somewhere. God doesn’t save us in order to make a fanclub, he saves us in order to create a People. As His People, our hearts should (hopefully) be transformed so that–because of the free gift of the gospel–we desire to find out what He loves, and act upon it. That’s the good works… and we do them because we love God, not because we feel enforced obligation.

To quote my former pastor, “Religion says ‘I obey therefore I am loved’ but the gospel says ‘I am loved therefore I obey’”. Being discipled by more mature Christians helps us to work our the implications of our salvation in our day-to-day lives: what does it look like to do things that God loves in this particular place/time/situation? We inherit the wisdom of how to be God’s People from those who have come before us. In that way, I think, the gospel marches forward as the unfolding story of God’s redemption and renewal of the world, until the day comes when He does so fully in His return.