A shift has taken place in the Evangelical church with regard to the way we think about the gospel and it’s far from simply an ivory tower conversation. This shift affects us on the ground of everyday life.

In his book Paul: An Outline of His Theology, famed Dutch Theologian Herman Ridderbos (1909 – 2007) summarizes this shift which took place following Calvin and Luther. It was a sizable but subtle shift which turned the focus of "the gospel" from Christ’s external accomplishment to our internal appropriation:

While in Calvin and Luther all the emphasis fell on the redemptive event that took place with Christ’s death and resurrection, later under the influence of pietism and moralism, the emphasis shifted to the individual appropriation of the salvation given in Christ and to its and moral effect in the life of the believer. Accordingly, in the history of the interpretation of the epistles of Paul the center of gravity shifted more and more from the forensic to the pneumatic and ethical aspects of his preaching, and there arose an entirely different conception of the structures that lay at the foundation of Paul’s preaching.

Donald Bloesch made a similar observation when he wrote, “Among the Evangelicals, it is not the justification of the ungodly (which formed the basic motif in the Reformation) but the sanctification of the righteous that is given the most attention.”

With this shift came a renewed focus on the internal life of the individual. The subjective question, “How am I doing?” became a more dominant feature than the objective question, “What did Jesus do?” As a result, generations of Christians have been taught that Christianity is primarily a life-style; that the essence of our faith centers on “how to live”; that real Christianity is demonstrated foremost in the moral change that takes place inside those who have a “personal relationship with Jesus.” Our ongoing performance for Jesus, therefore, not Jesus’ finished performance for us, has become the focus of sermons, books, and conferences. What I need to do and who I need to become is now the end game. Christianity, in other words, has become defined by its fruit, rather than its root.

To be sure, the Bible has plenty to say about our becoming like Jesus. But our transformation is not the foundation of the Christian faith. The foundation of the Christian faith (the root) is Christ’s substitution—the fact that Jesus became like us. The modern church has sadly reversed the order. The focus of the Christian faith has now become the life of the Christian.

Believe it or not, this shift in focus from “the forensic to the pneumatic”, from the external to the internal, has enslaving practical consequences.

When you’re on the brink of despair--looking into the abyss of darkness, experiencing a dark-night of the soul--turning to the internal quality of your faith will bring you no hope, no rescue, no relief. Too much preaching and counseling these days is the equivalent of giving a drowning man swimming lessons: “Paddle harder, kick faster.” We assume that people possess the internal power to get things right so we turn them in to themselves. But, as many already know, every internal answer will collapse underneath you. Martin Luther had a term for the debilitating danger that comes from locating our hope and certainty in anything inside us: monstrum incertitudinis (the monster of uncertainty). Therefore, turning to the external object of your faith, namely Christ and his finished work on your behalf, is the only place to find peace, re-orientation, and help.

The gospel always directs you to something, Someone, outside you instead of to something inside you for the assurance you crave and need in seasons of desperation and doubt. The surety you long for when everything seems to be falling apart won’t come from discovering the dedicated “hero within” but only from the realization that no matter how you feel or what you’re going through, you’ve already been discovered by the “Hero without.” For certainty of faith, the believer must look outside himself to that word of the gospel: the promise of forgiveness of sins and justification because of Christ.

As Sinclair Ferguson writes in his book The Christian Life:

True faith takes its character and quality from its object and not from itself. Faith gets a man out of himself and into Christ. Its strength therefore depends on the character of Christ. Even those of us who have weak faith have the same strong Christ as others!

By his Spirit, Jesus’ continuing subjective work in me consists of his constant, daily driving me back to his completed objective work for me. Sanctification feeds on justification, not the other way around. The gospel is the good news announcing Christ’s infallible devotion to us in spite of our lack of devotion to him. The gospel is not a command to hang onto Jesus. Rather, it’s a promise that no matter how weak your faith may be, Jesus is always holding on to you.

Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is a bonafide peace that’s built on a real change in status before God—from standing guilty before God the judge to standing righteous before God our Father. This is the objective custody of even the weakest believer. It’s a peace that rests squarely on the fact that we’ve already been “reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (v. 10), justified before God once and for all through faith in Christ’s finished work. It will surely produce real feelings and robust action, but this peace with God that Paul describes rests squarely on the work of Christ for us, outside of us.

The truth is, that the more I look into my own heart for peace, the less I find. On the other hand, the more I look to Christ and his promises for peace, the more I find. So, when pressed in on every side, look up. In God’s economy, the only way out is always up, not in.