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In the future, the believer will be saved completely and eternally from the power and presence of sin. This final stage is commonly known as glorification and is as certain as the others because He who began a good work will perfect it.6
the greatest promise of the gospel is salvation.
the gospel is the power of God for salvation, and whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.8
God can give no greater gift and the believer can have no greater hope or motivation than that of final salvation through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
If everyone you have ever loved was taken from you, and your body lay rotting on a dung heap, and your name was slandered by friend and enemy alike, you should still find all the devotion you need to love, praise, and serve Him in this one thing: He shed His own blood for your soul. This one holy passion fuels pure and undefiled religion.
Why is it then that the promise of eternal salvation alone no longer seems to have as much power to attract men to Christ? Why is modern man more interested in how the gospel can help him in this present life? First, it is because preachers are
no longer preaching about the certainty of judgment and the dangers of hell. When preachers teach these things biblically and clearly, men begin to see that their greatest need is to be saved from eternal condemnation, and the more “practical” needs of this present age become trivial in comparison. Secondly, we must understand that the great majority of men on the street and in the pew are carnal, and carnally minded men cherish this world above the next. They have little interest in the things of God and eternity.14 Most would sooner attend a conference on self-esteem and self-realization
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Although it would be beyond radical in this modern age of evangelism, we would do well to cry out to the masses, “Jesus Christ promises you two things: an eternal salvation in which to hope and a cross on which to die.16 The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’”17
In the text at the beginning of the chapter, the apostle Paul writes, “You are saved, if you hold fast that word.” The word if introduces a conditional clause that we must not ignore and we cannot remove.
The logic is clear: a person is saved if he holds fast the gospel, but if he does not hold fast, he is not saved. This is not a denial of the doctrine of perseverance but rather an explanation of it. None of those who truly believe unto salvation will ever be lost to eternal destruction.
the evidence that they have truly believed is that they continue in the things of God and do not turn away from Him. Although they will still struggle against the flesh and be subject to many failings, the full course of their life will reveal a definite and notable progress in both faith and godliness. Their perseverance does not save them or make them ...
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the proof or validation of genuine conversion is that the one who professes faith in Christ perseveres in that faith and grows in sanctification throughout the full course of his life. If a person professes faith in Christ and yet falls away or makes no progress in godliness, it does not mean...
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Jesus taught that the one who endured in his faith until the end would be saved.20
“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.”22
The truly regenerate child of God will continue in the faith until the end because of the faithfulness and power of the One who began a good work in him.23
biblical assurance that a person has passed from death to life finds a basis not merely upon an examination of the moment of conversion but also upon an examination of his or her life from that moment on.
In the midst of great carnality, the apostle Paul did not ask the Corinthians to reevaluate their conversion experience in the past, but he admonished them to examine their lives in the present.27
They must know—and we must teach them—that the evidence of a genuine saving work of God in the past is the continuation of that work into the present and until that final day. We are saved if we hold fast to the word that was preached to us. We can have little or no assurance of salvation if such is not the case.
When will we realize that one of the greatest mission fields in the West is the pews of our churches every Sunday morning? When will we acknowledge that our superficial treatment of the gospel, our ignorance of the nature of true conversion, and our refusal to practice compassionate church discipline led to this great and deadly deception?
There is no word or truth of greater importance than the gospel of Jesus Christ.
comprehending the gospel should be our magnificent obsession. It is an impossible task but is worth every ounce of effort spent—for there we find all the riches of God and every true joy for the believer. It is worth shutting ourselves away from every lesser endeavor and inferior pleasure so that we might sound the depths of God’s grace revealed in this one message.
Like miners, we must be willing to push ourselves to the farthest limit, deprive ourselves of temporal joys, and burrow through countless hours of study and prayer in order to gain the prize of the knowledge of the gospel. Otherwise, we will always be a people dull of heart because of the ignorance that is in us.7 We must turn our eyes to the rock from which we were hewn.8 We must seek to rediscover the gospel of old, to be recaptured by it, and to preach it with passion like people who know their God and understand what He has done for them!9
The gospel is the “deep thing” of Christianity!
Eschatology and the book of Revelation will become clear at the second coming, but we will never master or fully comprehend the glory of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Remember this: you must always be growing in the gospel and your knowledge of it. It is not Christianity 101, but Christianity from A to Z. You have not mastered the gospel, nor will you master it, but it will master you!
The minister of Christ is above all a minister of Christ’s gospel. It is our great stewardship, privilege, and burden.14 Though we are earthen vessels, frail and broken, we carry the most precious treasure that heaven and earth has ever known.15 God has set us apart to dwell in His presence. He calls us to use the greater part of our days searching out His mysteries and revealing them to others through the preached word.
We who minister in Christ’s name are not called to be spiritual life coaches, facilitators, or motivational speakers—we are preachers! Just because the world mocks such a title, and just because there are countless charlatans who give them good reason to do so, this does not mean we should despise the mantle that Christ has placed upon us. We are preachers, and above all, we are gospel preachers.
Each generation of Christians must realize that an eternal gospel has been handed down to them.7 As stewards, it is our charge to preserve that gospel without additions, subtractions, or any sort of modification. To alter the gospel in any way is to bring a curse upon ourselves and to hand down a corrupt gospel to the following generations.
There is something worse than holding our silence while the lost of this world run headlong into hell: the crime of preaching to a different gospel than the one passed down to the saints. For this reason, we must shun the gospel of contemporary evangelicalism, for it is a watered-down, culturally carved, truncated gospel that allows men to hold to a form of godliness while denying its power, to profess to know God while denying Him with their deeds, and to call Jesus “Lord, Lord,” while not doing the Father’s will.15 Woe to us if we do not preach the gospel, but even greater woe is due us if
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In Paul’s own words, we learn that the gospel of Jesus Christ rests upon two great pillars: His death and resurrection.
Our bold proclamation of the death and resurrection of Christ must include a biblical, thoughtful, and clear explanation of exactly what these things mean!
First, gospel preaching requires that we boldly proclaim to men that Christ died for their sins.
Men cannot adequately understand the
significance of Christ’s death unless they also understand something of their own sin. Therefore, we must endeavor to make known to them not only the nature of sin and their own sinfulness, but we must also strive to teach them about the righteous character of God and His response to sin of every kind and magnitude.
This groundwork, or “plowing of the human heart,” is an absolute necessity in true gospel preaching.
Secondly, gospel preaching requires that we tell men that Christ died according to the Scriptures.
Christ died not only because of our sin but also because of God’s character—He is just and cannot justify or pardon the wicked without first satisfying the demands of His justice against them.25 Christ not only died, but He stood in the place of His people, bore their guilt, suffered God’s wrath, and shed His blood.26 Through His suffering, divine justice was satisfied and the wrath of God was appeased, that God might now be both just and the justifier of those who place their faith in Him.27
Thirdly, gospel preaching requires that we tell men that Christ was raised from the dead on the third day.
We must proclaim to men that the resurrection was God’s public vindication of Jesus’ divine sonship, and it was the sign that He has accepted Christ’s redemptive work on behalf of His people!28 We must explain how the resurrection lays the groundwork for Christ’s ascension, and it is the evidence that God has made this same Jesus whom we crucified to be both Lord and Christ.29
Finally, gospel preaching requires that we plead with men to come to Christ. However, our plea must be as biblical as our message. We must not reduce the great commands of repentance and faith to nothing more than the repetition of a sinner’s prayer. Our hearers must understand repentance as a change of mind that encompasses not only the intellect but also the will and emotions. They must understand the nature of saving faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” being fully assured that what God has promised in Jesus Christ, He is also able to perform.34
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The cross was not a minor theme for Paul. It was everything. It held him captive and constantly constrained him.25 The gospel of Jesus calls men to repent of their sins and believe.26 He promises those who obey the call will receive eternal life.27
In the gospel of Jesus, sincere and costly discipleship always accompanies genuine conversion.
The gospel of Jesus teaches men that a mere profession of faith alone is no sound evidence of salvation. Jesus warned that not everyone who says to Him, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of His Father in heaven.35 He was adamant that the fruit of one’s life is the proof of salvation, and that everyone who does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.36
The gospel of Paul contains the same solemn warnings. He admonished those who have professed faith in Christ to examine and test themselves to see if they are truly in the faith.37 He warned men about having a form of godliness but negating its power, and professing to know God but denying Him with their deeds.38
“The Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.”43
relativism—a belief system based upon the absolute certainty that there are no absolutes.
The Christian gospel is a scandal to
man and his culture because it does the one thing he most wants to avoid: it awakens him from his self-imposed slumber to the reality of his fallen and rebellious state, and it calls for him to reject autonomy and submit to God through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
pluralism—a belief system that puts an end to truth by declaring everything to be true, especia...
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The true gospel is radically exclusive. Jesus is not a way; He is the way, and all other ways are no way at all.
