Originally Posted by DMcFadden

As Luther noted in his 1518 Heidelberg Disputation, the "theology of glory" was alive and well at the time of the Reformation. Unfortunately, broad evangelicalism has rediscovered it and found even more ways to glory in anything other than the "theology of the cross."

Today in Sunday school a woman kept challenging me about what is wrong with presenting the Gospel in terms of the "benefits" to our marriages, families, lives, etc. Well, for one, it is not the Gospel. The Gospel is not about how God helps me up over the last rung on the ladder to get to the top ("reach out to Jesus, he's reaching out to you"). The Gospel is about me having fallen to the bottom of the ladder with two broken legs and two broken arms, utterly unable to climb at all.

I tried one last analogy on her. If you want the Gospel of Santa Claus, beware!!! Last time I checked, Santa didn't just bring the presents, he was also "making a list, he's checking it twice, he's gonna find out who's naughty or nice." A Santa Claus Gospel depends on our being good and deserving his largesse = legalism.

It is no accident that the plank Luther tried to get his Augustinian colleagues to walk at Heidelberg was to face the fact that self-righteousness and my accumulated merit will lead in only two directions: to existential despair or to the foot of the cross.