Here’s one of Jared Wilson’s posts from the Wayback Machine: The new legalism is dissatisfied with Jesus. “The Bible is concerned, however, with our finding joy and peace and satisfaction in Jesus Christ. The Gospel is about living being Christ and dying being gain. The new legalism says living is gain and Christ is for after death. The real Gospel just isn’t sexy.“
Is it perhaps because ‘sexy’ is all wrapped up in self image? Whereas the real Gospel is about sacrificing our perceived self-importance in favor of the one true person worthy of worship. It isn’t anything new, Satan has been preaching the worship of the creation rather than the Creator since Eden.
That sounds good. It can be hard to let go of ourselves enough to love God wholeheartedly, because there’s no slight flattery in it for us. There’s no chance of personal promotion. The gospel is so selfless it hurts.