The Mystery of Christ: And Why We Don't Get It

Capon uses a variety of exchanges to drive home his point that salvation can be achieved not just through faith, but by active works. Along the way, he explores guilt, forgiveness, love, anger, romance, grief, spiritual contentment, the Incarnation, reincarnation, resurrection, and more--managing, in the process, to make salvation something fresh and new.

Suppose someone buries a million dollars in your backyard and then tells you it s yours for the taking—a free gift with no strings attached. If you trust that the money is there, you will no doubt search for it and, sooner or later, find it. But your trust does not earn you the money, nor does it have any effect on whether or not the money exists—in fact, the gift existed before you even knew anything about it.

So it is, says Robert Farrar Capon, with God s gift of salvation. The Bible talks about this gift of God—peace, forgiveness, grace, reconciliation—as a Mystery, as something already present, though hidden, in all of creation. "This Mystery, as the New Testament presents it," explains Capon, "is not at all a transaction poked into a universe that previously didn t have the benefit of it. Rather, it is a cosmic dispensation that has been present at all times and in all places but was kept secret for long ages (Rom. 16:25)...until it could finally be revealed in Jesus."

Yet, writes Capon, while the church pays lip service to the idea that salvation comes through faith and not works, it has in practice often acted as if only those who live right and somehow earn their salvation will receive the gifts of God in Christ.

This "good behavior" model of salvation turns us into rule-watchers, God into a score-keeping parent whom we are bound to disappoint, and redemption into a transaction—and this is simply bad news that has nothing to do with the gospel. "That is why," says Capon, "the church needs perpetually to recover its grip on the Gospel, the Good News of grace and forgiveness, and to protest in every age against theological models that blow the Gospel out of the water."

Capon uses a variety of exchanges—fictionalized sessions with counselees, cocktail-party conversation, a verbal tennis match with his wife, and a series of question-and-answer sessions in which he is grilled by a representative range of religious "types"—to drive home his point that "there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Along the way he explores guilt, forgiveness, love, anger, romance, grief, spiritual contentment, the Incarnation, reincarnation, resurrection, and more—and manages to make salvation something fresh and new in the process.

The Clergy Journal

"Robert Capon...has composed a wonderful book that is so full of God's grace that the reader, even those who affirm solo gratis, will be compelled to comment, "Hey, we do get it now!" In a simple and enjoyable manner, Capon clarifies the mystery of Christ, namely, that God's grace is free and sufficient to encompass every situation."