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Part 2 of a series. Read part 1.
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We need to understand the one true Gospel. We need to understand it thoroughly. We need to believe it unreservedly. We need to guard it faithfully.
At the end of our last article, we observed that if we are to believe the Gospel, if we are to proclaim the Gospel, we must be clear on the content of the Gospel. We live in a time when much is unclear. Many of the essentials of the Gospel are being confused, and even denied, in churches that call themselves "evangelical" today. Such confusion is not a minor matter. It is soul-damning. For the Gospel to be preached well and effectively is must be preached accurately.
What are some of the false gospels to be found in the church today? How do they differ from the true? Why are they false? Where do they lead?
The social gospel spreads the falsehood that improving man's social, physical, or moral condition in this life will lead to blessedness in the next life. Today we hear much about this in the form of so-called "social justice" preaching and activism. One writer has gone so far as to say that the absence of social justice preaching is, according to the title of his book, The Hole in the Gospel. But Scripture makes it clear that man's problem is not the condition of his environment, but the fact that his soul is "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1). Under the curse of sin, injustice will always exist. It is only in the New Heavens and New Earth that perfect righteousness will dwell (2 Peter 3:13).
The works gospel teaches the lie that as long as I am doing the best I can, as long as I live by the Sermon on the Mount or some other moral standard, that effort will get me to Heaven. But in the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus taught the impossibility of law-keeping. The Holy Spirit declared through the Apostle Paul that it is "not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior" (Titus 3:5-6).
The sacramental gospel teaches the false doctrine that baptism, or the mass, or the communion table can save a soul, or contribute to salvation. But Scripture repeatedly declares that baptism and the observance of the Lord's Supper are the testimony of those who have been saved, not ways or means of salvation.
The humanistic gospel proclaims the lie that man is his own god, that this life is all there is, that we just need to make the best of it, and that it does not really matter whether we choose to spend our time in hedonistic pleasures or in a frantic striving for human achievement. But Scripture sets forth Moses as the example of true faith in contradiction to such ideas:
By faith Moses, when he became of age [having been raised in Pharaoh's household and educated in all the wisdom of Egypt], refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.
By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them. (Hebrews 11:24-28)
The syncretistic gospel is the false gospel that says that all roads, all religions, lead to God. But God's Word declares, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death" (Proverbs 14:12, 16:25). Jesus declared, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6).
The universalistic gospel teaches that falsehood that all will be saved, somehow, because a loving God would never condemn anyone to Hell. But Jesus gave this warning: "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult [more accurately, confined] is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it" (Matthew 7:13-14).
All those gospels are false gospels. They masquerade as good news, but they are not good news at all. But it is easy for sinful man to fall into them. It can happen quickly. The Apostle Paul said this to the church at Galatia:
I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the Gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed (Galatians 1:6-8).
We need to understand the one true Gospel. We need to understand it thoroughly. We need to believe it unreservedly. We need to guard it faithfully.
We must do so for the sake of our own souls; for the sake of our families and loved ones; for the sake of those to whom we bear witness. Do we know the truth of the Gospel ourselves? Are we holding onto it? And are we telling the truth to others when we talk to them about the Gospel? To be able to honestly answer "Yes" to all of these questions, we need to understand the essence of the Gospel.
What is the essence? We have it in the passage on which we are focusing in this series, 1st Corinthians 15:3-6 -
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve...
That is the essence of the Gospel. The Apostle Paul by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit builds the case for us. As we continue this series, we shall see how the Spirit through Paul defines the essential elements of the Gospel. We shall consider each one individually, and then the sum of them together.
Next: The Essence of the Gospel Is to be Found in Jesus Christ
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