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William D, Reviewer

Wow! Coming off his last book, Salvation by Allegiance Alone, Matthew W. Bates dives right back into the subject with momentum and augmented detail.

The specific focus found in Gospel Allegiance: What Faith in Jesus Misses for Salvation in Christ breaks down the walls, barriers, and misunderstandings behind centuries of gospel definitions and misinterpretations.

Bates has no trouble getting straight to the point, comparing Scripture to the teachings of some well-known theologians, and clearing the clutter from erroneous tradition.

This is a must-read for pastors, lay people, and anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of what “believing” in Christ Jesus truly means. You’ll walk away motivated, challenged, and with a refreshed outlook which will help grow your allegiance toward King Jesus.

Highly recommended!

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Lisa B, Reviewer

The gospel hasn’t changed. But maybe our view of it needs to. Matthew Bates writes that the heart of the gospel is not justification by faith. It’s not just trusting alone in Jesus’s death on the cross. He says that the cross is not presented in the Bible as the theological center of the gospel.

Rather, he says the crux of the gospel found in the Bible is that Jesus is the Christ, the king, and deserves our allegiance as such. In short, Jesus is the saving king.

Bates gives a 10-point gospel-allegiance model, set within a royal framework:

The gospel is that Jesus the king
1. preexisted as God the Son,
2. was sent by the Father,
3. took on human flesh in fulfillment of God’s promises to David,
4. died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,
5. was buried,
6. was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
7. appeared to many witnesses,
8. is enthroned at the right hand of God as the ruling Christ,
9. has sent the Holy Spirit to his people to effect his rule, and
10. will come again as final judge to rule.

Bates says the purpose of the gospel is allegiance to Jesus the king in all the nations. Our response is allegiance alone, expressed in repentance, trusting loyalty, and baptism.

"The gospel is the good news about Jesus the saving king. We are saved by allegiance alone. Jesus’s singularly effective allegiance comes first. Our imperfect allegiance follows and depends on his. The result is saving vindication, resurrection unto new life."

Overall the book is informative, if not heavy on detailed explanation and multiple scripture references, almost to the point of tedium. But Bates emphasizes his point that our view of the gospel must change because "nonbiblical versions of the gospel are wrongly splitting the one true church."

"Every knee will bow and every tongue confess, not that 'Jesus died for my sins,' but that 'Jesus the Messiah is Lord.'"

A quick reading of this book will get you the main point, but to really absorb it in its fullness, plan to read slowly.

My thanks to Net Galley for the review copy of this book.

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Christian W, Reviewer

My review of Matthew W. Bates’ new book “Gospel Allegiance: What Faith in Jesus Misses for Salvation in Christ”.

Goals of the book:
We’ve all probably heard something about the “centrality of the Gospel”. It’s almost a fad in a lot of Reformed circles at this rate to put “Gospel-centered” in front of new books and programs. And, for the most part, this is an admirable practice that captures the importance of the Gospel. Think, for example, about the introductions to both Mark and Romans, and how both frame the Gospel as one of the central elements of the Christian faith. Think about the long discussion of the Gospel that Paul writes in I Corinthians 15. Or think about how zealous Paul is to defend the central tenets of the Gospel in Galatians.

Because the Gospel deserves our central focus, and because it has become a sort of “marketing” term for some groups, it seems like it is extremely important for us to understand what the Bible actually teaches about the Gospel. Have we truly understood what the Gospel is about? Matthew W. Bates is concerned that we have misunderstood the Gospel. Not only have we missed the central message, he says, but we have made secondary matters primary matters. This book serves as a corrective to these misunderstandings. Bates hopes to break the fog that has clouded our vision of the Gospel and shine a bright light into the center of the Gospel, showing us what is truly of central importance.

What does this book offer the Church?:
One of the most important things that this book offers is its central vision of the Gospel. The book is very concerned with showing us that the Gospel is about Jesus becoming King in his resurrection. It’s paramount that we understand the Biblical storyline in the context of the Kingship of Jesus, not through other lenses that may obscure the point of what God is doing in the world with Jesus.

The book is popular level, but tries its best to help the average reader understand quite a few concepts. These definitions are never too difficult or scholarly, but don’t treat the reader like they are less intelligent. Some definitions that are explored in the book include “gospel” and “faith”. Bates has written previously on the concept of “faith as allegiance“, and readers who find the chapter in this book interested would be well-served to check out his previous book on the subject.

How successfully does this book meet its goals?:
For the most part, I think Bates succeeded in showing how important it is that we understand what the Gospel truly means. If there’s something that disappointed me in the book was how many times Bates aimed his discussion at specific people. Now, if someone is wrong, they’re wrong and that should be explained. But it seemed like there was quite a lot of ink spilled writing about specific authors that Bates disagreed with. He respectfully engages with their ideas, never resorting to name calling, but it felt weird to read about how many people were wrong when I would’ve probably liked to see more space dedicated to building up his own ideas. (This may also be my own sensitivity, reading far too much tension into a normal practice with no malicious intent behind it. But I should think that if I were uncomfortable at times, so might other readers be. Especially since most of these people fall within similar camps, it could alienate a section of readers.)

In general, I think this is an important book to work through and engage on a somewhat deeper level. Readers familiar with Scot McKnight’s King Jesus Gospel will find some familiar ideas here, but also may find themselves stretched as well. Readers outside of Bates’ camp might be turned off by the first few

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David S, Reviewer

I thought this book was one which provided support for a more holistic worldview. For me personally it provided detailed and nuanced support for my life as a Christian. The points he makes throughout this work are well argued and provides significant historical context throughout. It was an exciting experience to read this book and to share important parts with my wife and friends.

I have well over 3,000 books in my library and this book is definitely in the top ten. It should be used in Churches to educate parishioners on what the gopel is..The author expands the view of what the gospel is, wit an emphais on enthronement as follow:

The Gospel
The gospel is that Jesus the king

1. preexisted as God the Son,
2. was sent by the Father,
3. took on human flesh in fulfillment of God’s promises to David,
4. died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,
5. was buried,
6. was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
7. appeared to many witnesses,
8. is enthroned at the right hand of God as the ruling Christ,
9. has sent the Holy Spirit to his people to effect his rule, and
10. will come again as final judge to rule.

I highly reommend this book as it brought coherence and correspondence to my Christian worldview.

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Adam C, Media/Journalist

<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Gospel Allegiance: What Faith in Jesus Misses for Salvation in Christ. Matthew W. Bates. Brazos Press. Grand Rapids. 2019. 272 pages. ISBN 978-1587434297 (opens in a new tab)" href="https://amzn.to/2YKgIKV" target="_blank">Gospel Allegiance: What Faith in Jesus Misses for Salvation in Christ. Matthew W. Bates. Brazos Press. Grand Rapids. 2019. 272 pages. ISBN 978-1587434297</a> 




Matthew
W. Bates is Associate Professor of Theology at Quincy University in
Quincy, IL. He received his Ph. D. from the University of Notre Dame.
He earned his undergraduate degree in Physics and worked as an
electrical engineer and designed infrastructure for wind farms<a href="#sdendnote1sym">i</a>.
Personally, I prefer religious leaders, especially academics to have
“real world” experience. I feel that having a broader education
and experience outside of academia is vital for seasoning a person
for ministry.



<h3>An
Overview of Gospel Allegiance</h3>



Professor
Bates has stirred the hornet’s nest again. Gospel Allegiance
continues the debates that he began with Salvation
Allegiance. These are books
that most people either love or hate. If you love them, you are
probably excited to hear a Christian talking about Christ the King
and his coming kingdom. If you hate these books, you are probably
afraid that he is perverting the simple Gospel of Faith in Jesus.
Gospel Allegiance
is not the kind of book that will receive three stars on Amazon. You
are more likely
to
see rebuttals on the one
and five star reviews on
Amazon.



Gospel
Allegiance
is divided into three parts, “Part 1: Discovering the Gospel
Allegiance,” “Bridge: Gospel Clarified – Gospel Mobilized,”
and “Part 2: Advancing Gospel Allegiance.”




The
opening illustration of Chapter 1, “Getting the Gospel Right,”
sets the tone for the book and it will set the teeth of many on edge.
Bates tells the story of sharing the Gospel, “repent and believe
that Jesus died for his sins,” with a Chinese friend named Mao.
Bates says “that Mao heard only a rough approximation” of the
Gospel. For many readers that will be enough for them to close the
book and quit reading. Some
may make it a couple of pages further in and slam the book down when
Bates says, “Among biblically informed pastors and scholars, the is
the most common error: claiming that our justification by faith is
the gospel or its center.”



I
think that it would be a shame to quit reading so early. Much of what
Bates presents will be novel to many of his readers. I have been an
active Christian for forty years and a pastor/teacher for the last
thirty. In that time, I have been surprised at how little that I have
heard about Jesus as the Messiah/Christ and his coming kingdom. I
have heard some about Heaven, but not much.



Bates
continues his assault on the sensibilities of his readers that are
new to his ideas in Chapter 2, “Not Faith but Allegiance.” In
Chapter 2 Bates analyzes the meaning of “faith” and “believe”
through the Scriptures. He discusses the range of meanings that the
Greek words behind faith and believe had,
as well as the changes in the meaning of the
word faith in English.
Bates seems to be quite balanced in his presentation with
one caveat that I will go into in the Summation.
I found this chapter to be very useful. I would recommend this book
for this chapter and the next.



Bates
defines exactly what he means by “The Gospel” in Chapter 3, “The
Full Gospel of the King.” He includes 10 elements in his
definition.



“The
gospel is that Jesus the king



<ol><li>preexisted
as God the Son,
</li><li>was
sent by the Father,
</li><li>took
on human flesh in fulfillment of God’s promises to David,
</li><li>died
for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,
</li><li>was
buried,
</li><li>was
raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
</li><li>appeared
to many witness,
</li><li>is
enthroned at the right hand of God as the ruling Christ,
</li><li>has
sent the Holy Spirit to his people to effect his rule, and
</li><li>will
come again as final judge to rule.”
</li></ol>



In
his 10 item list, Bates emphasizes number 8 while most evangelicals
emphasize a variation of number 4. While some may disagree, I believe
that this places Bates within the mainstream of evangelical
Christianity. It is a matter of emphasis, but
this may be a charitable reading.





“The
Bridge: Gospel Clarified – Gospel Mobilized” will be difficult
for many evangelical readers. He asks and answers the question, “What
response to the gospel is required for salvation? Allegiance alone.”
By adding to the Reformation’s solas,
Bates will be going a bridge too far for many. Again,
some may put the book down without getting to Bates expansion of
Allegiance
Alone.
“This is expressed in terms of repentance from sins, trusting
allegiance (pistis)
to him as the king described in the message of the gospel, and
baptism.” Once again, Bates is back in the fold; yet,
for a second time, this may be a charitable reading.
I
will address these charitable readings
in the Summation.



Chapter
4,
“Grace in Six Dimensions,” Bates begins to show how the Christian
is to live by Allegiance
Alone.
The
first dimension of grace that Bates considers is merit. He shows that
the ancient Greeks believed in a merited grace. We do this when
considering a gift to a panhandler at an intersection. We ask
ourselves what will the spend the money on. Bates goes on to show the
Jesus and Paul overturned this idea of merited grace. The other
dimensions
of grace, as explained by Bates, will fuel your reflections and
meditations on Scripture.



In
Chapter
5, “Faith is Body Out,” Professor Bates begins examining the
implications (bodily works) of Gospel
Allegiance
on the believer. This is the place where Bates departs most
significantly “from other Protestant models,” and he is aware of
this departure. Traditionally,
faith is seen as “an inward confidence in God’s promises in
Christ, especially confidence that a person can be justified by
faith.” Under this view, works are an expression of sanctification,
rather than justification.



Dr.
Bates, however, sees “faith as outward facing.” It is an
expression of allegiance because it is allegiance. He then gives
examples of faith (pistis in Greek and fides in Latin) being used in
the sense of loyalty, fidelity, evidence, and allegiance. This is
followed by an examination of Scripture, including the faith of
Abraham. Personally, I feel like his emphasis on allegiance began to
break down at this point. I
will come back to this in the Summation section.



I
did find the emphasis on the physical in Chapter 5 interesting, and I
will devote some time to thinking about that.



Chapter
6, “How Works Are Saving,” opens with an illustration about
assurance of salvation. When he was young, Doug came to salvation
using the wordless book in a Vacation Bible School. Then later in
Bible college and seminary he began to experience doubts. Bates
implies that a proper understanding of gospel
allegiance
would rectify the lack of assurance, but he isn’t very specific.



At
this point, I struggled to follow Bates’s argument because I did
not recognize the “confusing love-hate relationship with good
deeds” of “Classic Protestant theology.” I admit that
Protestant theology has a strain of the tension that he talks about,
but I would not call it part of the mainstream of Protestant
theology. It seems to me that Bates confuses salvation and judgment.




In
the sub-section, “Good Works Are Saving,”Bates quotes Paul, “God
will render to each one according to his [her] works...” I am left
with the assumption that these are the good works that are saving.
However, it seems more natural to me to take these works as the basis
for determining the reward for a citizen of Heaven. Bates
does bring out “Judgment according to Works” later in the
chapter, but I really disagree with his implication connecting the
Lamb’s Book of Life to books containing our deeds in Revelation 20.



Chapter
7, “Taking the Allegiance Challenge,” contains Bates’s call to
action, to take the plunge. He
divides his challenge into three areas, doctrinal, pastoral, and
missional. Each of these areas has a corresponding question to guide
the reader in the Allegiance
Challenge.
Can we teach Gospel
Allegiance?
Is there such a thing as too much Gospel
Allegiance?
What does discipleship look like under Gospel
Allegiance?



<h3>Summation</h3>



I
found myself frustrated over and over as I read Gospel
Allegiance.
I absolutlely love Professor Bates’s emphasis on Jesus as the
Christ, as the King, as the one enthroned. I was fully prepared to
like this book at different points, but I just could not do it.



I
found Part 1, “Discovering Gospel Allegiance,” to be the most
useful. Professor Bates definitely spurred my thinking through this
section of the book. Even in this section, there were definitely
times that I had to give Bates a “charitable” reading. Based
on the rest of Gospel
Allegiance,
I feel that Dr. Bates intends to be delivering an understanding of
the Gospel that is a radical break that Traditional Protestant
Theology has taught for 500 years.



There
were many opportunities for Professor Bates to build a bridge to
Traditional Protestant Orthodoxy, but he never reach a hand across
the divide. Instead, he consistently phrased his arguments in ways
that seemed designed to emphasize the chasm.



Where
I would embrace the solas
of the Reformation for salvation which makes us fit citizens for the
Coming Kingdom of Christ, I think that Bates would see them as
hindrances to salvation by allegiance. There are definitely fault
lines between the Gospel
Allegiance
of Professor Bates and the theologians in the Reformation tradition.



In
all of the discussion on faith, I found it surprising that there was
not a single reference to Hebrews 11:1 – 3. This
is the most systematic exposition of what faith is in the entire
Bible.



Now
faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things
not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By
faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God,
so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.



(Heb
11:1-3)



Allegiance
just doesn’t seem to fit in the idea of faith found in Hebrews 11.



I
did not find Part 2, “Advancing Gospel Allegiance,” to be useful
in my pastoral ministry. So much of this section is based on the
idiosyncratic interpretation of faith. It works if the premise is
accepted, but I found the premise unconvincing. As I read through
Part 2, I couldn’t help thinking that the Pharisees would love
associating faith with allegiance.



I
would say that Professor Bates found a new beautiful color (sometimes
faith means allegiance) and he tried to paint the whole world that
one color. By using his one color, he reduces the beauty and wonder
of our salvation.




Overall,
while
I found parts of the books to be valuable, I
cannot recommend Gospel
Allegiance
by Matthew W. Bates to any but theologians and pastors who like to
keep abreast of the current theological debates. Bates
seems to have pushed too hard on a good idea.



<a href="#sdendnote1anc">i </a><a href="http://matthewwbates.com/matthewwbates/">http://matthewwbates.com/matthewwbates/</a> - Information retrieved 13 August 2019.

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Robert C, Reviewer

The title of this book is intriguing. I've written a book on the Lord's Prayer with the title "Ultimate Allegiance: The Subversive Nature of the Lord's Prayer". We are faced each day with calls to give allegiance to this or that power. It might be political/governmental. It might be social/cultural, or it could simply be consumeristic. In some ways, these are normal and appropriate. I'm a citizen of the United States, and thus I have a certain allegiance to be given to my country. I'm a fan of the San Francisco Giants, so they require a degree of allegiance. My wife requires it of me as well, but ultimately it is God who deserves my highest allegiance, one that transcends all others. This would seem to be the concern of this book by Matthew Bates, and it is.

Bates is a New Testament scholar and author of a previous book titled "Salvation by Allegiance Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and the Gospel of Jesus the King." I've not read it, but I was asked to read and comment on this follow up book. Bates notes that one need not have read the previous book to understand this one, so I'll take him at his word.

Bate's concern here is to gain a proper definition of the gospel, which he believes is focused on allegiance to Jesus Christ. To get there he defines the Greek word pistis as allegiance, though it is more commonly translated as faith and sometimes as trust. He affirms that these are possible translations, but contextually he believes Paul has allegiance in mind (this is a book focused on Paul). As part of this process, he wants us to take a broader view of the salvation process than is generally affirmed by evangelicals. That is, rather than focusing attention solely on the cross (defined in terms of penal substitutionary atonement), he wants to include the resurrection and subsequent enthronement of Jesus. This, he believes is the true gospel.

As I read I found myself struggling with what to do with the book. Bates' primary conversation partners -- the people he feels get this wrong -- are people like John Piper (who emphasizes faith alone) and John McArthur (lordship). In engaging with these folks, he seems to go back in time to the early 1990s when there was this big debate over "lordship salvation." I left that vision of salvation sometime ago, so that debate is not one in which I'm interested in working through. I've moved in a very different direction, one that Bates alludes to without engaging with in any depth (moderate/liberal views).

The biblical work is helpful. I agree that allegiance to Jesus is central to the Christian faith. I agree as well that the Protestant aversion to works is mistaken. Luther might not have liked James, but especially in this day and age, James is of great value. There seems to be something lacking here and that is the application to our times. When a large portion of white evangelicalism seems attracted to the message of Donald Trump, we need to hear more about what this allegiance entails. Perhaps he would have been wise to engage the Gospels a bit more. He takes note of Jesus's engagement with Isaiah in Luke 4, but what does this good news to the poor entail if the gospel is focused on allegiance?

Perhaps this will emerge in a later book. I hope so. I think it will find a ready audience within evangelical circles that find the Piper/McArthur debates less than appealing. As for me, I will find sustenance elsewhere.

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