What is God-Centered Christianity?
The central aim of Unashamed Truth as a ministry is to advance what I call “God-centered Christianity.” God-centered Christianity, as the name intuitively suggests, centers itself on the honor and glory of the triune God. In contrast, modern Christianity is not God-centered. It is man-centered. Modern Christianity, at least prevalent in American evangelicalism, is primarily motivated by gathering crowds and brand advancement. Over the past two hundred years, religious innovators have discovered that crowds are reached not by directly preaching the biblical message of the gospel, which includes a holy God and repentance, but through new and innovative strategies that seek to meet the sinner’s felt needs. Man-centered Christianity asks, “How can we get the most people here, and how can we speak to those people in the most palatable way?” As a result, the biblical gospel has largely been lost over time. So, there is a tremendous spiritual need globally to rediscover God-centered Christianity. But what is God-centered Christianity exactly? How should we define it?
God-Centered Christianity is Doxological
I was on a plane traveling to China on a mission trip. It was the summer between my junior and senior year in high school, and my youth group was traveling to China to minister in several orphanages. Before the plane took off from Houston, the mission trip leader dropped a book in my lap entitled The Pleasures of God by John Piper. Little did I know that my life was about to change, for in my lap sat a manifesto for God-centered Christianity. As the plane flew across the Pacific, my entire worldview shifted. In the book, Piper argues that God is primarily motivated to pursue His own glory. This is God’s highest pleasure. God’s highest pleasure is the exaltation of His own name. Jesus told the woman at the well that “the Father seeks worshippers” to worship Him “in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). Think about that reality for a moment. The “Father is seeking worshipers.” Worship is the chief end of God. Therefore, worship should be the chief end of man (Rom 11:36). And as Piper argues, man’s chief joy is in God. “Better is one day in His courts than thousands elsewhere” (Psalm 84:10)! Or, as David said in Psalm 27:4:
One thing I have asked from Yahweh, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of Yahweh
All the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of Yahweh
And to inquire in His temple.
God-Centered Christianity is Biblical
God-centered Christianity is biblical Christianity. It seeks to worship God in the “truth.” After all, Jesus is the truth (John 14:6). Therefore, the driving force in all God-centered Christianity throughout history is the Word of God. The belief that the Bible is inspired and inerrant is the non-negotiable foundation of our doctrine and our ethic (2 Tim 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21). As R. C. Sproul once said, “The Bible says it; that settles it!” Man-centered Christianity, by contrast, is culturally driven. To try to relate to the world, it follows whatever fads dominate the prevailing culture. It then seeks to find warrant for those ideologies and beliefs in the Bible, rather than allowing the Bible to critique culture.
God-centered Christianity transcends cultures, nationalities, and epochs of time because it is based on Scripture. The meaning of the Scripture does not change in time because its meaning is what God intended it to mean when it was written. Therefore, since we have the same Bible, God-centered Christians will have many similarities to other God-centered Christians throughout history, regardless of culture or time. In this way, God-centered Christianity prevails despite the culture. It functions as the Christianity that Jesus intended, as “the light of the world” (Matt 5:14). It is not a product of the culture; rather, God-centered Christianity convicts and acts as a witness to the culture.
God-Centered Christianity is Historical
Since God-centered Christianity is biblical, there has been continuity throughout history. This means that today’s Christians believe the same doctrines and hold to the same ethics as God-centered Christians of the past. Specifically, these beliefs are defined in the historic creeds of the faith. The Nicaean Creed, the Apostles Creed, the Chalcedonian Creed, and then the historic reformed confessions (the Belgic Confession, the Synod of Dort, the Westminster Confession, and as a Baptist, the 1689 London Baptist Confession, the New Hampshire Confession, and the Abstract of Principles). These early creeds are essential for an orthodox doctrine of God and an orthodox doctrine of the person and work of Christ. The reformed confessions are particularly important for their doctrines of Scripture, sin, salvation, the church, the end times, and their teaching on the Christian life.
It is not that the creeds function on the same level of Scripture. Instead, they reflect the orthodox and biblical position on doctrine and ethics handed down through the centuries. I have some differences with the historic reformed confessions (particularly on baptism), but by and large, my beliefs are reflected in what they teach and the worldview that they advance. I believe very similarly to a great crowd of witnesses in Heaven (Heb 12:1). Augustine’s doctrine is my doctrine. Calvin’s doctrine is my doctrine. Edwards’s doctrine is my doctrine. Spurgeon’s doctrine is my doctrine. Lloyd-Jones’s doctrine is my doctrine.
Regarding historic doctrine, man-centered Christianity always seeks to reinvent or discard doctrine to face the challenges of the day, as liberal Christianity did in the twentieth century and as progressive Christianity has done in the twenty-first. God-centered Christianity seeks to recover and hold fast to the doctrine that was “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Sound doctrine then grounds the Christian experience of the God-centered Christian. For this very reason, God-centered Christianity is creedal Christianity. It confesses the truth, which was heard “in the presence of many witnesses” (2 Tim 2:2). It holds up the church as the “pillar and support of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15).
God-centered Christianity is Reformed
The historic faith is the reformed faith, which was recovered in the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. It was not that these doctrines were innovated but that they were recovered. Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Bucer, and many others were essentially recovering the faith that the early church fathers had taught. They were championing the teaching of Saint Augustine and, through Augustine, the apostle Paul. The watchword slogans of reformation doctrine are sola Scriptura, sole fide, solus Christus, sola gratia, and soli Deo Gloria. These delineate the true gospel and the correct understanding of authority in the Christian life. Over and against Roman Catholicism and even shallow Protestantism, the Five Solas of the Reformation remind us that Scripture is our only ultimate authority, that salvation is solely a work of the grace of God, that faith is the only instrument by which Christ’s work is credited to the sinner, that Christ alone is the one who saves apart from our work, and all of this is ultimately for God’s glory alone and not the church’s or the saints’ glory.
In addition to the Five Solas, Reformed theology holds forth the “five points” of the Synod of Dort: total depravity, irresistible grace, unconditional election, particular redemption, and the perseverance of the saints. I remember reading Edward Spencer’s TULIP: The Five Points of Calvinism in Light of Scripture in high school. When I read that book, it confirmed what I had already come to believe in the Bible. That man is depraved and does not seek after God (Rom 3:10). That God irresistibly overcomes man’s resistance through the “new birth” (John 3:3). That God’s work of salvation is based on His sovereign choice of election (Ephesians 1:3-11; Romans 9: 1 Peter 1:2, 3). Christ accomplished the salvation of His sheep at the cross (John 10:11). God keeps all true saints and perseveres to the end without renouncing their faith (John 10:29).
These doctrines come nowhere near to exhausting God-centered theology, but they give us a foundational point of what every God-centered Christian should believe. Whenever these are compromised or hedged, you can bet that a man-centered ethos lies behind it.
God-Centered Christianity is Experiential
All God-centered Christianity begins with the correct doctrine, but then it must press further. All sound doctrine must express itself with proper experience. For that reason, God-centered Christians use the biblical means of experiencing God’s grace. These include the study of the Word of God, listening to the preaching of the Word of God, participating in the fellowship of the saints in a local church, intercessory prayer, and finally, communion with God through the two ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Through these “means of grace,” Christians experience the extraordinary grace of Christ mediated to them by the Holy Spirit (John 1:16; John 14:19). The end of all these things is great joy in the heart! The Christian experiences joy through the worship of God. The Christian experiences joy in knowing God’s divine revelation given through the Word of God. The Christian experiences the joy of being a part of the historic Christian faith, which has been advanced by the great saints who have gone before us. The Christian experiences joy in understanding the workings of God’s grace in their lives, and finally the Christian loves using the ways that God has provided that we have fellowship with Him.
For many Christians, this all sounds very new because they have cut their teeth on the shallow teaching of modern evangelicalism. But if God brings reformation and revival once again, it will be because there is a rediscovering of the truths taught in God-centered Christianity. So, I invite you to press further into these realities. Fan the flame of your curiosity as you embark deeper into knowing God as He truly is. This is the well of the greatest Christian experience.
