"The Explicit Gospel" Book Review

Back in May when we had a graduation celebration at our church, our Student Ministry Pastor gave each of the graduates a book. I had never heard of “The Explicit Gospel” by Matt Chandler, but it certainly looked like a good book and held a lot of great endorsements. I didn’t actually pick up the book until our missions trip to Guatemala.

Once I did, I was drawn in. Although it took me awhile to finish it (I would only read a portion of a chapter at a time, so I could “digest” it a bit better), it is one that I believe I will be re-reading periodically. And that is coming from someone who almost never has time to reread books anymore!

Chandler’s main premise is that Christians hear the gospel so often, that most of us have become desensitized to its meaning and power. His book is broken into three simple sections: The Gospel on the Ground, The Gospel in the Air, and Implications and Applications.

In the first section, the chapters are about God, Man, Christ, and Response. Chandler goes through each of these topics methodically and meticulously, clearly explaining each of them in a way that is fresh even to the person who was raised in church. One of my favorite quotes from this section is found in the “Response” chapter: “Am I stirred up toward obedience, or is Jesus becoming cliché to me? Am I becoming inoculated to Jesus, or do I find myself being more and more stirred up to worship him, to let other people know him, to submit my life fully to him?”

The second part of the book talks about Creation, the Fall, Reconciliation, and Consummation. This is known as the gospel in the air. Basically, it is the gospel on the cosmic level. This is probably the best-marked section of the book for me. It was an excellent reminder that the gospel is so much bigger than me. God is reconciling ALL things to Himself. One of my favorite quotes is this: “The scope of Christ’s reconciling work on the cross spans the brokenness between man and God and the brokenness between earth and heaven.”

Part three deals with the dangers in a gospel on the ground too long, the dangers in the air too long, and moralism and the cross. We must guard against an extreme focus on either facet of the gospel. If we focus on the gospel on the ground too much, it can become “me” focused, because we lose the big picture of God’s reconciling power over all creation. But if we focus on the gospel in the air too much, the gospel becomes less personal. We must strike a balance between these two, as well as not fall into the trap of focusing on moralism over the cross.

One of my favorite quotes from the third section—and from the book in general—is this: “Sealed in my heart that day was the truth that unless the gospel is made explicit, unless we clearly articulate that our righteousness is imputed to us by Jesus Christ, that on the cross He absorbed the wrath of God aimed at us and washed us clean—even if we preach biblical words on obeying God—people will believe that Jesus’ message is that he has come to condemn the world not save it.”

The gospel is central to the life of a Christian. It’s absolutely critical that our understanding of it is accurate! This is a book that I truly believe every Christian needs to read. It is so dead on, so theologically sound.

It is also chock full of scripture references! That is one of the reasons it took me so long to read it (I wanted to look up all of them.) I also spent a good amount of time underlining, circling, and starring passages of the book. J This is definitely a book I plan to reread in the future!