Essentials of the Gospel and why Evangelicals have left them

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“It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.  The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.  It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.”(Lamentations 3:22-26)

 

We see around us utterly appalling wickedness, widespread hypocrisy and apostasy, blasphemy and fearful rebellion against Almighty God. We can but wonder at the mercy and grace of God that He does not destroy us out of hand, such is our degeneracy. We deserve nothing less. It is of God’s mercy that He withholds what is due to us as sinners. It of His grace that instead of immediate judgement, the offer of reconciliation through Christ, His Son, still remains. Were God not merciful and compassionate, where would any of us be today? His longsuffering with us is a matter of exceeding wonder.

In Luke 13 Jesus compares the slaughter of some Galileans by Pilate with the collapse of the Tower of Siloam that claimed eighteen lives. The first instance was a deliberate killing, the second was ‘accidental’. It appears that both incidents may have been interpreted as being a judgement of God on some particularly wicked people. Was one group greater sinners than the others? Jesus denies this and says: “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (v.5). Much the same applies today. Thousands are caught up in meaningless wars. More lose their lives in natural disasters, floods, earthquakes and the like. Is the sin of some greater than others? The whole point is this, that we are allsinners and face the judgement of God, no one is more deserving than another.

Today, the wrath of God is kindled but a little, and His mercy, grace and compassion is evident everywhere. It can be said that any expressions of His anger are to be seen as acts of mercy and goodness as well as of judgement. This is because they are intended to remind us of His stance towards sin and of yet more terrible judgement to come. Every storm that blows, every earthquake, every terrible catastrophe caused by nature or man ought to drive us to seek salvation. They remind us of our need of repentance and tell us that He is still willing to receive all who come to Him through Christ.

The conclusion we must draw from this second Psalm is much the same as that found in the previous Psalm:
“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.” (Psalm 1:1-2)
Blessed indeed are those who put their trust in the Son, in this human and yet divine King, as opposed to the confederacy of anti-Christian kings, whom the dragon and false prophet will seduce with the spirits of devils.
“For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.” (Revelation 16:14).

There are so many today who claim to be preaching the Gospel of Christ. They flood the airwaves, have their own TV channels and swamp the internet. Much of it is drivel and far removed from the truth as it is in Christ. Confusion reigns. ‘Evangelicalism’, such as it now is, left the biblical Gospel behind a long time ago. Neither the Early Church Fathers nor the Reformers or Puritans were in any sense of the word ‘evangelicals’. All would doubtless repudiate without hesitation the message so often peddled today in any of their names. But then, so many evangelicals today claim to have greater insight than the giants of the faith. They regard them as children of their day, the Reformation was a mistake and the Puritans as narrow-minded or even bigoted.

It is not that modern evangelicals lack followers, far from it. There exist ‘emerging’ mega-churches as varied as Joseph’s coat of many colours, charismatic, non-charismatic. These places are found in the USA, but also here in the UK, and they often boast thousands in their congregations. A police patrol is sometimes needed to chaperone parking. Virtually without exception, they are marked with superficiality, error and apostasy, fraudulent claims of spirituality and healing. What they get up to in their ‘worship services’ beggars belief. Punctuated by inane laughter and applause, music that is indistinguishable from godless rock bands, the singers screech and gyrate and bellow their songs of ‘worship’. For them to take upon their lips the precious name of our Saviour is demeaning, insulting and quasi-blasphemous.

Congregations no longer attend to hear the preaching of the pure Word of God. Using bibles re-written to suit their own particular teaching, preachers enthral their audience with flights of fancy parading as a message from God. Their hearers go to get their weekly euphoric ‘fix’ much as would a druggie on heroin. They go to get ‘healed’ or have their personal problems solved by a plethora of psycho-babble solutions that have nothing to do with Scripture, all methodology designed in hell not heaven. This poisonous river has flowed into many places where once the Bible was preached and into hearts that once professed to follow Christ. There is little or no mention of sin, repentance, or faith in any meaningful biblical sense. Their ‘Jesus’ it seems died to heal their ‘mistakes’ rather than to take away sin. There is no separation from the evil ways of this world for they are part of it. Theirs is a powerless religion, powerless to save, powerless to change anything for the better and certainly not transform the whole world.

Having laid aside the old Gospel, new ones have been concocted. One such is a ‘prosperity’ gospel that seems to be about the acquisition of wealth, money and a successful life. These preachers assume not only that they are well worthy of their hire, but also of a good rate of compound interest. It is all a deception of the deepest dye against which Scripture warns us. We must have no fear of opposing these deceivers. Of them we would say with Paul as he did of others:
“Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake”(Titus 1:11).

Yet, even this serves God’s ultimate purpose and cannot hinder what He yet has in mind. 
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.” (2 Timothy 4:3)
“Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God.” (2 John 9)
Because of the very widespread confusion, we need to be very clear ourselves as to what it is to preach the Gospel of Christ in truth.

Proclaiming the truth as it is in Christ is not something that will endear us to many. We have all by nature an inborn bent to reject the truth of the Gospel that only a thorough work of God can change. The first response of an unbeliever is to refuse Christ. A call to an unregenerate man to decide for Christ is simply asking him to refuse. Only a work of God as His Word is preached can grip the human heart and lead us to kneel before the cross in repentance and look there to Christ alone in faith for salvation, seeing Him dying in our place, going forward with a risen Lord committed to Him, to serve and glorify Him.

Listening to these preachers, they all sound like an inspirational life-coach, rather than preachers of the gospel. They preach about how people can improve their lives, be prosperous, and experience happiness. Absent is all mention of sin or repentance. The atonement of Christ provides us not with forgiveness of sin, but with healing and the abundant life. To receive forgiveness from a holy God and escape His wrath are not what is at all necessary.

Sin is at the heart of the human dilemma, yet it is the last thing anyone wants to hear about. Unless this is dealt with all else is of little avail. Those who bypass sin are leaving out that essential element that brings down upon our heads the wrath of God, that makes us children of wrath in the first place. Preachers who bypass sin are charlatans and imposters, who can know nothing of Christ nor of His Spirit. We do not need a self-improvement plan, but salvation from sin. Being cured of unhappiness and failure in life is all very well, but it is not even part of the Gospel, but being rescued from sin and God’s wrath and finding peace with Him is.

At the heart of all preaching of Christ must be the message that Jesus Christ, Son of God, came in the flesh and died on the Cross in our place that we who believe in Him might be reconciled to God by the forgiveness of sins and have eternal life. There is little point in preaching such a message if there is no acknowledgement of sin. What then shall we be saved from?

We see that modern evangelicals are distorting the biblical Gospel, preaching in effect another Gospel (Galatians 1:8). It used the be that it was liberal Churches who denied the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement calling it the ‘gospel of the slaughter house’. It now appears that prominent evangelical leaders have also joined the chorus. They stand with feminist theologians claiming that for the Father to punish His Son for sins that other people committed amounts to child abuse.

A new ‘gospel of inclusion’ is abroad teaching that rather than speaking about sin and its forgiveness, the Christian message is about membership of the Church. Paul speaks of Gentiles being accepted into the Church, now a community of Jews and Greeks, men and women, slaves and free. This links in very well with the church growth movement, for whom increasing church membership is central. It also ties in well with inclusion politics of gay rights. Homosexuals do not come to Christ for forgiveness of sins, but are to be accepted as they are, denying in reality their sinfulness. 

Not only must we insist on the substitutionary atonement for sin, we also need to insist that men can find peace with God only through Christ. Here again many evangelical preachers have let this doctrine go. The Bible could not be clearer: 
“Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

The Lord Jesus is the only way to God. 

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6) Sure, they like the first part of this verse, but not the second. There are many ways to God, we are led to believe. God can be found in nature even by heathens without them even knowing it. Billy Graham, the well-known evangelical preacher, once said in a television interview with respect to Jews, Muslims, they are in God’ hands ‘I don’t judge them’. He also stated publicly in a televised interview:

“I think there's the Body of Christ. This comes from all the Christian groups around the world, outside the Christian groups. I think everybody that loves Christ, or knows Christ, whether they're conscious of it or not, they're members of the Body of Christ. … whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ because they've been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don't have, and they turn to the only light that they have, and I think that they are saved, and that they're going to be with us in heaven.”

This is an outrageous distortion of the truth, serious error and apostasy coming from a man widely respected in conservative evangelical circles for many decades.

Another millionaire evangelist, again speaking on television, refused to assert clearly when challenged from the Bible, that Jesus Christ is the only way to God using the same get-out, “Let God be the Judge, I am not going to say who is going to heaven and who is not.” These men are blatant liars, devoid of the truth, propagators of a false gospel. It is all very straightforward:
“He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:18)
Only Christ can save, all else is falsehood of the worst kind.
“Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:   For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.” 
(2 John 9-11)

All religions are not equal. There is one Saviour, one Lord, therefore all others are false gods, no gods, whether in Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism. 
“But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him” (1 Corinthians 8:6).
There can be no more than one right, one truth, all else is falsehood.

Every religion has its own ethical system, each different from all the others. Plato’s morality held that some acts of gross perversion were acts of love. All systems of morality have a religious basis. It is a mistake to think that it is possible follow Christian ‘values’ as some claim, yet in the next breath deny Christ and God. Different systems cancel each other out. Christianity and Islam cannot co-exist. This would bring nothing but chaos and the eventual breakdown of law and order.

Christianity and humanism also exclude each other. Humanism preaches ‘freedom of individual choice’, so that many humanists murder babies in the womb. Abortion must be made illegal even if this restricts freedom of choice. The inconsistency with this position is that the baby in the womb is deprived of any choice. Humanism speaks of ‘human rights’. Yet in truth, the only ‘right’ we have really is the right to death: “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). We do not deserve, nor can we earn the right to life. Every second is a gift of God. The worship of other gods than the One true God cannot be permitted. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3) Christ as the only way of salvation is intrinsic to the Christian message.

One more essential upon which we must insist is that justification, being put in good standing with God, comes to us through faith alone in what Christ has done and nothing else, nothing that we can contribute ― even our faith is a gift of God! Indeed, “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). In the words of Augustus Montague Toplady (1740-1778) from his well-known hymn ‘Rock of Ages’:

Not the labours of my hands 
Can fulfil thy law's demands; 
Could my zeal no respite know, 
Could my tears forever flow, 
All for sin could not atone; 
Thou must save, and thou alone. 

Nothing in my hand I bring, 
Simply to the cross I cling; 
Naked, come to thee for dress; 
Helpless, look to thee for grace; 
Foul, I to the fountain fly; 
Wash me, Saviour, or I die. 

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:8-10)

“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3-5-7)

Many evangelicals have been all too eager to ditch the doctrine of justification by faith. Luther rightly maintained the doctrine of justification to be the article upon which the Church stands or falls. Justification it is now said is not the imputation of Christ’s righteousness on account of individual faith, but instead the accounting of one as righteous, forgiven, based on inclusion in the people of God and “the faith of Jesus Christ.” In other words, it has nothing whatever to do with the salvation of the individual at all. It is about the creation of God’s family and the extending of God’s purposes into the wider world. Right standing with God rests alone on what God has already done outside of us in the person of Jesus Christ, alone in His atoning work, nothing added, nothing removed. Only when God looks upon the righteousness of Christ can we be right with Him. It cannot be that any morsel of our own righteousness, even that produced by the Holy Spirit within us, should interpose itself.

Those know nothing of God or His salvation whose sins and judgement have not been borne by the Son of God and in exchange His righteousness imputed to us, bringing forgiveness, everlasting life and the power of the Holy Spirit through faith. The core of the Gospel message, saving grace, is not unintentionally, but deliberately set aside by the Church growth movement, ‘worship’ is reduced to entertainment with applause, the message is given by therapeutic life-style preachers.

The Council of Trent in the mid-16th century anathematised all who preached justification by faith alone and this has not since been rescinded. Yet among evangelicals all movement has been back towards Medieval Catholicism. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that justifying faith is not about the forgiveness of sins but the granting of a supernatural power to do good works and thereby to merit or earn salvation. Nothing could be further from the teaching of the Bible. However, it is now becoming increasingly clear that many modern evangelicals believe this falsehood. Salvation is after all by our good works.

“Evangelicals and Catholics Together” (1994) was an ecumenical document signed by noted evangelical and Roman Catholic theologians. There was agreement between them on this vital doctrine so that it can no longer be taken for granted that evangelicals believe in Christ’s justification of sinners by faith, apart from their own works and merit. Without doubt this has led to obnoxious moralism, legalism and self-righteousness.

It seems odd that one should have to re-emphasise the centrality of the Word of God in preaching and conversion, especially among those who have in the past sported oversize Bibles and declared, ‘the Bible says’. Barth and Brunner did their worst years ago, the Bible is the Word of God only when it speaks to me. The liberal mindset has set in, biblical authors were children of their day, guided by the ‘spirit of the age’, so that Scripture is only authoritative on spiritual matters. Let us be quite clear, without the Word of God no one comes to faith: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). It is from a Bible that is authoritative on everything of which it speaks that we preach, given power by God’s Spirit. Had Sodom and Gomorrah seen the Bible, heard the preaching from it that once was heard from pulpits in our lands, would they not have repented (cf. Matthew 11:23)? How much greater the condemnation upon our generation, ungrateful wretches that we are.

David W. Norris

 

 

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