Somebody please explain the Gospel to Franklin Graham

The Reverend Franklin Graham, Billy's son and putative heir, says that for him "the definition of a Christian is whether we have given our life to Christ.”

No, it's not. At least not if one believes Christ and the Apostle Paul. The biblical "definition of a Christian," as Rev. Graham puts it, is whether- by God's grace, rather than by our own decision- we put our trust in Jesus having given His life for us. "Evangelicals" generally seem to have trouble with that distinction. Not only do they tend to make conversion our action rather than the monergistic  work of the Holy Spirit through the Word, but they have a strong tendency to preach justification by faith and works even while giving lip service to justification by faith alone.

I would refer them for clarification on both points to the Pauline Epistles.

I am not going to get into the question of whether or not President Obama is an authentic Christian. While Reverend Graham questions the genuineness of the president's faith, , I myself can't read Mr. Obama's heart- or anyone else's. In fact, I have trouble enough with my own.

Certainly Mr. Obama's past denominational affiliation with the United Church of Christ, a group which is marginally Christian in any real historic sense (UCC clergy, for example, are not required to believe in the doctrine of the Trinity), is nevertheless sufficient to provisionally safeguard him from the absurd and (as far as I can see) baseless and in fact malicious charges that he's somehow a Muslim. Mr. Obama's position on abortion and other issues are as dubious from the point of view of the Faith as the position of many of my fellow Missouri Synod Lutherans on matters of social justice. But in neither case do I presume to judge what only God has any business judging.

But I think that if Franklin Graham is going to make his living as a preacher of the Gospel, somebody ought to explain the Gospel to him- along with its proper and biblical distinction from the Law. It isn't about anything we do, as Paul was at great pains to point out; it's about what Jesus has done. And while realizing what Jesus has done on our behalf and putting our trust in it has unavoidable consequences for the way we live (the Council of Trent and mainline Protestantism to the contrary),  the two- as St. Paul rather pointedly argues in the Epistle to the Galatians- are very different things.

HT: Real Clear Religion