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The gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest of all treasures given to the church and the individual Christian. It is not a message among many but the message above them all. It is the power of God for salvation and the greatest revelation of the manifold wisdom of God to men and angels.1 It is for this reason that the apostle Paul gave the gospel the first place in his preaching, endeavored with all his might to proclaim it clearly, and even pronounced a curse upon all those who would pervert its truth.2
Each generation of Christians is a steward of the gospel message, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, God calls upon us to guard this treasure that has been entrusted to us.3 If we are to be faithful stewards, we must be absorbed in the study of the gospel, take great pains to understand its truths, and pledge ourselves to guard its contents.4 In doing so, we will ensure salvation both for ourselves and for those who hear us.5
One of the greatest crimes committed by this present Christian generation is its neglect of the gospel, and it is from this neglect that all our other maladies spring forth. The lost world is not so much gospel hardened as it is gospel ignorant because many of those who proclaim the gospel are also ignorant of its most basic truths. The essential themes that make up the very core of the gospel—the justice of God, the radical depravity of man, the blood atonement, the nature of true conversion, and the biblical basis of assurance—are absent from too many pulpits.
The result of this gospel reductionism has been far-reaching. First, it further hardens the hearts of the unconverted. Few modern-day “converts” ever make their way into the fellowship of the church, and those who do often fall away or have lives marked by habitual carnality. Untold millions walk our streets and sit in our pews unchanged by the true gospel of Jesus Christ, and yet they are convinced of their salvation because one time in their life they raised a hand at an evangelistic campaign or repeated a prayer. This false sense of security creates a great barrier that often insulates such
individuals from ever hearing the true gospel.
Secondly, such a gospel deforms the church from a spiritual body of regenerated believers into a gathering of carnal men who profess to know ...
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When the church proclaims a lesser gospel, it fills up with carnal men who share little interest in the things of God, and the maintenance of such men is a heavy burden upon the church.16 The church then tones down the radical demands of the gospel to a convenient morality, and true devotion to Christ gives way to activities designed to meet the felt needs of its members.
Thirdly, such a gospel reduces evangelism and missions to little more than a humanistic endeavor driven by clever marketing strategies based upon a careful study of the latest trends in culture. After years of witnessing the impotence of an unbiblical gospel, many evangelicals seem convinced that the gospel will not work and that man has somehow become too complex a being to be saved and transformed by such a simple and scandalous message. There is now more emphasis
on understanding our fallen culture and its fads than on understanding and proclaiming the only message that has the power to save it. As a result, the gospel is constantly being repackaged to fit what contemporary culture deems most relevant. We have forgotten that the true gospel is always relevant to every culture because it is God’s eternal word to every man.
Fourthly, such a gospel brings reproach to the name of God. Through the proclamation of a lesser gospel, the carnal and unconverted come into the fellowship of the church, and through the almost total neglect of biblical church discipline, they are allowed to stay without correction or reproof. This soils the purity ...
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In the end, God is not glorified, the church is not edified, the unconverted church member is not saved, and the church has little or...
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon: In these days, I feel bound to go over the elementary truths of the gospel repeatedly. In peaceful times, we may feel free to make excursions into interesting districts of truth which lie far afield; but now we must stay at home, and guard the hearts and homes of the church by defending the first principles of the faith. In this age, there have risen up in the
church itself men who speak perverse things. There be many that trouble us with their philosophies and novel interpretations, whereby they deny the doctrines they profess to teach, and undermine the faith they are pledged to maintain. It is well that some of us, who know what we believe, and have no secret meanings for our words, should just put our foot down and maintain our standing, holding forth the word of life, and plainly declaring the foundation truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.19
The gospel is not merely an introductory message to Christianity—it is the message of Christianity, and the believer would do well to give his life in the pursuit of knowing its glory and making its glory known.
There are many
things to be known in this world and countless truths to be investigated within the realm of Christianity itself; nevertheless, the glorious gospel of our blessed God and H...
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Today, evangelicals design so many conferences, especially for our youth, with the intention of exciting the believer’s passion through fellowship, music, eloquent speakers, emotional stories, and impassioned pleas. Yet whatever excitement they create often quickly vanishes. In the end, these experiences build little fires in little hearts that burn out in a few days. We have forgotten that genuine, enduring passion is born out of one’s knowledge of the truth, and specifically the truth of the gospel. The more you know or comprehend its beauty, the more its power will apprehend you. One
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God calls all types of men to carry the burden of the gospel message. Some of them are more solemn and grave, while others are more lighthearted and jovial. Yet when the conversation turns to the gospel, a change comes upon a preacher’s countenance, and it seems as though an entirely different person is standing before us. Eternity is etched across his face, the veil has been removed, and the glory of the gospel shines forth with an unfabricated passion. Such a man has little time for quaint stories, moral antidotes, or sharing thoughts from his heart. He has come to preach, and preach he
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Although the gospel may be shared through many mediums, there is no medium so ordained by God as that of preaching. Therefore, those who are constantly seeking innovative means to communicate the gospel to a new generation of seekers would do well to begin and end their search in the Scriptures.
we must preach to carnal men the very message they do not want to hear, and the Spirit must work! Apart from this, sinners can no more see beauty in the gospel than a swine can find beauty in pearls, or a dog can show reverence toward sanctified meat, or a blind man can appreciate a Rembrandt.16 Preachers do no service to carnal men by giving them the very things their fallen hearts desire, but preachers do serve men by putting true food before them until, by the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, they recognize it for what it is and they taste and see that the Lord is good.17
True gospel preaching will always be foolishness to every culture. Any attempt to remove the offense and make preaching “appropriate” diminishes the power of the gospel. It also defeats the purpose for which God chose preaching as the means of saving men—that men’s hope might not rest in refinement, eloquence, or worldly wisdom, but in the power of God.18
For men to be saved, they must, by God’s grace, receive the gospel.
to receive the gospel is to reject the world. This demonstrates just how radical the act of receiving the gospel can be. To receive and follow the gospel call is to reject all that can be seen with the eye and held in the hand in exchange for what cannot be seen.1
To receive the gospel is not merely to pray a prayer asking Jesus to come into one’s heart, but it is to put away the world and embrace the fullness of the claims of Christ.
Secondly, a man who receives the gospel trusts exclusively in the person and work of Jesus Christ as the only way of right standing before God.
To receive Christ truly is to throw off every other hope in everything but Christ
alone.
A genuine receiving of the gospel not only involves a disdain for and turning from sin but also a disdain for and turning from any confidence other than Christ, especially a confidence in self. It is for this reason that a person who is truly converted will become almost nauseous at even the slightest suggestion that his right standing before God might be the product of his own virtue or merit.
Thirdly, to receive the gospel is to open or expose one’s life to the lordship of Jesus Christ.
Modern-day evangelism often teaches men that they should make Jesus the Lord of their lives. It would be better to tell them that Jesus is the Lord of their lives whether they presently bow their knee to Him in love or they clench their fist at Him in hatred. The Scriptures declare that God has made this Jesus whom we crucified both Lord and Christ.3
God does not call men to make Jesus Lord (as though they had such power), but to live in absolute submission to the Lord He has made. Therefore, the man who desires to receive the benefits of the gospel must first decide if he is willing to turn over all autonomy and self-government to the Lord of the gospel.
Fourthly, to receive the gospel is to receive an entirely different view of reality where Christ is the epicenter of all things.
The true convert does not receive the gospel as an addition to his previous life, but in exchange for it. To receive one is to lose the other. This is the clear teaching of Jesus: “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”9
Finally, to receive the gospel is to take Christ as the very source and sustenance of one’s life. Christ cannot be received as a part of one’s life or as an addition to all the other good things that one already possesses without Him. He is not some minor accessory that dresses up our life and makes it better. In receiving the gospel, He becomes our life.10
The unbeliever must see that he has no life, and that all his personal achievements prior to Christ are monuments to his own vanity: made of sand and quickly passing.
It should be the cry of the gospel preacher not only that men should repent but also that they should receive.
The first has to do with the believer’s position before God because of the gospel, and the second has to do with the believer’s conviction or resolution regarding the gospel.
The former is a great foundation stone upon which the Christian’s faith must rest: he is able to stand before God in Christ and the gospel. The latter is a powerful agent in shaping the Christian’s life: he has made his stand upon the gospel and will not be moved.
The Christian faith promises right standing before God through Christ alone. This being true, we must be resolute in holding to the gospel and standing upon it.
stand
hís...
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However, in the New Testament, it is often used to denote conviction, resoluteness, steadfastness, firmness, and the quality...
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We cannot become too extreme with the gospel.
This truth is seen in the fact that the gospel is the greatest revelation of God to man, and it is the only message by which men might be saved. Consequently, it is also the one message we must hold onto tenaciously. Although even the most minor departure from biblical truth is dangerous, we may misunderstand many things without putting our eternal destinies in jeopardy. However, to be wrong about the gospel is to be wrong about everything! Not giving the gospel preeminence is to misunderstand it altogether!
you are saved
“present process and a future reality.”1
“by which you are bei...
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salvation in three tenses—past, presen...
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In the past, God saved the believer from the condemnation of sin. This occurred at the moment of conversion, when the Christian believed God’s testimony concerning the gospel and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.2 Scripture commonly refers to this as justification.3
In the present, the believer is being saved from the power of sin. This is a gradual process known throughout the New Testament as progressive sanctification.
