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Part four of a series. Read part three.
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Many people are placing their faith in a half-way "gospel" because that is what many self-described evangelical churches are preaching - and thus they are not truly born again even though they are told that they are.
As we saw in our last article, in order to be saved, a sinner must have a "knowledge of sin" that goes beyond mere intellectual knowledge. It must be an understanding of sin that spurs repentance towards God and faith in Christ.
With that great fact in mind, I want to bring us back to the point that I stressed in my introduction. We live in a time of widespread lawlessness - in civil government, in society at large, in the government and ministry of the church, and in the lives of individual professing Christians.
The Only Cure for Lawlessness
What is the solution? It is the same in every case: to recognize, understand, and submit to the purpose of God's Law - a knowledge of the Law that results in "the knowledge of sin" spoken of in Romans 3:20.
This is not a mere intellectual knowledge of God's Law. Not a mere virtue-signaling, plaque-in-a-courtroom or monument-in-the-public-square knowledge of God's Law. That is totally inadequate. What is needed is the kind of an understanding of God's Law that produces what Romans chapter 3, verse 20 calls "the knowledge of sin" - an epignosis knowledge, the kind of knowledge that leads to repentance and faith in Christ, and a walk in the Spirit.
In other words, the only cure for lawlessness is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Dangers of a Half-Way "Gospel"
But it must be a complete Gospel, not a half-way gospel. The exposition and explanation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ does not begin with the Cross, or the empty tomb. The exposition and explanation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ does not even begin with Jesus.
Let me explain. You cannot truly preach the Gospel by preaching the Gospel only from the middle onwards. You cannot truly understand the Gospel by only understanding it from the middle onwards. You cannot truly believe the Gospel if your belief in the Gospel starts in the middle and not at the beginning. The beginning of the Gospel is the genuine knowledge of the absolute holiness of God and the utter sinfulness of our sin. "By the Law is the knowledge of sin."
The beginning of the Gospel is to understand that there was no need for Jesus Christ to come into this world as He did two thousand years ago, except for sin.
Believing the Gospel from the beginning means that you must understand that there was no need for God to take on human flesh and live the perfect life that we could not live, and there was no need for God in human flesh to die the death we deserved to die, except for the fact that we could not live that perfect life, and and as a result, we deserved to die that horrible death.
It is through the Law that we have the knowledge of these facts. "By the Law is the knowledge of sin" - knowledge of the Law and of sin revealed by the convicting power of God the Holy Spirit. He is the One who Jesus said would come to "convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment" (John 16:8).
By the Law is the knowledge of our hopelessness apart from Christ as individuals. By the Law is the knowledge of the total ineffectualness of the church, when it forgets God's Law, and stops preaching God's Law as an essential element of the Gospel.
By the Law is the knowledge of the total inability of civil government to deal with our nation's problems, unless we understand that the root of every problem is the violation of God's moral Law.
By the Law, through the convicting work of the Holy Spirit, is the knowledge of sin that leads to true repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. By the Law is the knowledge of sin that makes the difference between a psychological conversion, simply taking Jesus as your friend, example, mentor, or "life coach" and a genuine conversion that receives Jesus as Lord and Savior from sin.
By the Law is the knowledge of sin that makes the difference between a mere moral conversion, a mere decision to try to live a better life, and a genuine, Spirit-wrought conversion that understands and believes the Gospel from the beginning, from the point where we understand the condemnation of the Law, and not just from the middle.
Many people today are placing their faith in a half-way "gospel" because that is what many self-described evangelical churches are preaching - and thus they are not truly born again even though they are told that they are. I fear that many evangelical pastors have much blood on their hands, much for which they must answer to God, because they are preaching only a half-way "gospel." They are not preaching about the knowledge of sin that leads to true repentance and saving faith.
Dear friends, may we never proclaim a half-way gospel. Let us never fear to tell anyone that by God's Law comes true knowledge of sin. Let us never fear to call sin what God's Word calls it. Let us never fear to tell the world that it is only by the true knowledge of sin that God confronts us with the knowledge of our true need of the Savior, and that it is through His perfect obedience to the Law, both in His life and death, that the Lord Jesus Christ is our perfect Substitute. He alone, by His blood, by His righteousness, can provide full and final deliverance from the curse of the Law. He alone can give true newness of life to Hell-bound sinners.
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