The Anti-Gospel

What if we're guilty of living out the opposite of our professed belief?

We're all familiar with the basic gospel. It's in that classic Sunday School verse: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). A good and holy God gives himself for a lost and sullied people. The black cloud of death burns up in the piercing light of love. We know this gospel well. But do we know the anti-gospel?

The Anti-Gospel

The anti-gospel is simply the reverse. But it takes a few moments to construct. "For God so loved the world" becomes a void, where no God exists to love the world and those lost in it. "That he gave his only Son" becomes a vapid expression. If there's no God of love, there's no God of giving. And then believing isn't a matter of putting faith in him; it's a matter of trusting ourselves. And whoever trusts most in himself won't get eternal life, since that's a fairytale. Instead, he'll get the best of this life. And then he will perish. We might put the anti-gospel this way:

For man so loves the world, that he takes whatever he can get. And whosoever believes in himself will get what he wants before he perishes.

It sounds wretched, doesn't it? But what if we're guilty of believing it sometimes? What if, without fully knowing it, we take up the anti-gospel?