God is very kind to us all, and His gospel of grace is presented to us in any number of ways. But there are three methods of gospel presentation which are very common according to Scripture. Remember that the word gospel translates a word which in Greek simply means “good news.” But we need to keep in mind the fact that there are two kinds of good news. One would simply be a pleasant surprise from out of the blue—an unexpected promotion, an unanticipated inheritance, things like that. However, there is another sort of good news, and this sort requires an antecedent understanding of some bad news. There was a mistake at the lab and it turns out that you don’t have cancer. A characteristic note that follows a reception of this kind of good news is the note of relief.
The gospel is good news of this second kind. We are all of us sinners, and we live in a world that is riddled with fear, guilt and shame. And on top of everything else, it is our fault that we live this way, and we all deserve it. The gospel is God’s message of deliverance from the despotism of sin. And to hear this message with faith is to be relieved, which is to say, forgiven.
Now I said that there are three common methods that God has given us for communicating this message of spiritual relief.
The first is, obviously, the active preaching and proclamation of the Word of life—where preachers are sent out in order to verbally proclaim the fact that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again from the dead (Acts 15:35; 1 Cor. 15:1-4; Rom. 10:15). This sort of gospel preaching is propositional—a man stands before you and declares that Christ died and Christ rose, and therefore it is possible for you to die and rise in Him.
The second method is what is presented to us through the two sacraments, those sacraments being water baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Paul tells us that when we are baptized, we are baptized into Christ’s death—which is the gospel (Rom. 6:3-5). And Paul also tells us that as often as we eat the bread and drink the cup, we are proclaiming Christ’s death until He comes (1 Cor. 11:26). So the two sacraments are instruments chosen by God to bring good news to us.
But the third method for communicating the gospel in this broken and messed up world is why we are here today. This third method is called Christian marriage. Paul tells us that husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her (Eph. 5:25). Paul tells wives to respond to their husbands as the church does to Christ, thus becoming a symbol of justification by faith alone (Eph. 5:22). A husband’s love is supposed to be modeled after Christ’s saving love, and a wife’s submission and respect is supposed to be modeled after saving faith.
Now we all realize that the married state is an ordinary state. Most of us marry. And this means that this third method of gospel communication is not limited to ministers or priests. This is an everyman sort of thing. We are not talking about trained professionals. Ordinary Christian households are supposed to be places where unbelievers can not only see Christ at work, but they can also see the structure of how Christ works. He takes the initiative in love, just as the husband does. We respond to Him with gratitude and submission, just as the wife does. Now we all know that in the give and take of ordinary life together, this is easy to forget.
But in Scripture, forgetting is not really an excuse for sinning, but rather is an additional sin. And so the duty and responsibility of ordinary Christian couples is this—remember the goodness of God. Remember where you would be if not for His grace. Remember His kindness to you in giving you a spouse. And remember the honor and dignity that He has granted to the two of you. You are privileged to live out, the presence of others, the way God has dealt with us. And that is gospel truth.
And so Konrad, as the head of this home, it is your assigned responsibility to see to it that Scripture is never neglected in your home. Everything is to be connected to these realities that God has revealed to us. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And we can take away from this the fact that married man does not live by bread alone either. So take your family to worship, to a church where the Word is proclaimed. Read the Word aloud to your wife and family. And then, crucially, model for your wife and family the authority of that the Word has in your life, and do this through careful and joyful obedience. Be a man of the Book, and if you are a man of the Book, your wife will be able to truly delight in honoring and respecting you.
Rachel, your husband has been charged to do this, but he will not always do this perfectly. So there will be times when you think you have been given an excuse not to honor and not to respect as the church does to Christ. Resist this as a real temptation. Your respect for Konrad will not be perfect either. This method of gospel communication requires the two of you learning how to communicate it together. This requires patience and forbearance. In order for you to understand the beauty and simplicity of all this means that you will have to be a woman of the Word. So follow your husband, as he follows Christ through the Word.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.