Still going strong here. In chapter three of Gospel Allegiance: What Faith in Jesus Misses for Salvation in Christ Matthew Bates sets out his version of the gospel narrative as a sequence of ten events, somewhat in the manner of the Apostles’ Creed (86-104). (I had a similar go at writing a narrative-historical creed a few years back.) He then addresses some objections to his version from people like John Piper, and rounds it all off with a discussion of the “trinitarian shape” of this gospel of Jesus as saving king. Again, I am enthusiastic about the general tenor of Bates’ ten point creed, but I’m more critical than Scot McKnight appears to be. The devil, as always, is in the details.

The second part of chapter two of Matthew Bates’ important book Gospel Allegiance: What Faith in Jesus Misses for Salvation in Christ considers the means by which the “gospel of allegiance” saves people.

He sums up the argument so far: “The gospel in Romans 1:1–5 is about the incarnation and enthronement. It is purposed toward the allegiance of the nations to Jesus the king” (73).

Chapter two of Matthew Bates’ Gospel Allegiance: What Faith in Jesus Misses for Salvation in Christ sets out his understanding of the Greek word pistis. In the first part he explains why he thinks that “allegiance” is a better translation of the word than “faith”. In the second part he asks how “allegiance” saves people. I’ll just look at the first part here.

The argument of chapter one was that mainstream conservative-Reformed pastor-theologians have quite seriously misrepresented the gospel. The gospel is not that Jesus died for my sins but that Jesus is king.

I have spent way too much time finding fault with Matthew Bates’ argument that Paul alludes to the pre-existence of Jesus in Romans 1:3. Now to get on with the substance of Gospel Allegiance: What Faith in Jesus Misses for Salvation in Christ. It might be a bit ambitious to take this one chapter at a time, but let’s at least begin with the crucial first chapter on the gospel.

Well, we’re still not quite done with the purported incarnational christology of Romans 1:3. Matthew Bates makes the claim in a brief section of his excellent book Gospel Allegiance (51-52), and at greater length in a 2015 CBQ article (117-21), that in this verse the aorist participle genomenou means not simply that Jesus was “born” a descendant of David (for which Paul would have used the verb gennaō), but that he “came into being” in the flesh, having previously existed in heaven.

This is a rushed and rather technical addendum to the previous piece on the question of whether there is a reference to the incarnation in Romans 1:3.

There is much that is good about Matthew Bates’ Gospel Allegiance: What Faith in Jesus Misses for Salvation in Christ, which is the follow-up to his highly successful Salvation by Allegiance Alone. I plan to review it in some detail over the next few weeks, all being well, and hope to recommend it as a clear and accessible presentation of a workable narrative “gospel.” It seems to me that the “missional” church in Europe, and no doubt elsewhere, is crying out for a solid, coherent and properly biblical alternative to the mainstream conservative-evangelical salvationist “gospel.” Bates’ work is a significant contribution to the task.