Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
True Gospel
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Mark 1:15
Not only does Christ come to announce the soon-coming Kingdom of God, in particular to those whom God calls, but also to prepare the elect for their spiritual responsibilities now and in the Kingdom. Repentance is a prerequisite for belief. What is repentance? Its basic meaning is to change the mind. Once a person hears the gospel and is convicted that his way of life is wrong, he must alter his present behavior and "bear fruits worthy of repentance" (Matthew 3:8). The fruits of repentance are visible actions—often called "works"—that show that a person has indeed changed. When John the Baptist preached repentance to prepare the way for Jesus' ministry, his audience asked him what they should do to repent. He answered: Clothe the naked, feed the hungry, do not steal, do not use one's authority to oppress, do not lie or accuse falsely, and be content with one's wages (Luke 3:10-14). In general, these actions are either showing love for one's neighbor or obeying God's laws. Jesus says, "If you want to enter into [eternal] life, keep the commandments" (Matthew 19:17). Later, when asked what are the greatest commandments, Jesus answered, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart. . . .' And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'" (Matthew 22:36-40). When we put all these things together, bearing fruits worthy of repentance is simply living as God does! Believing the gospel is closely related to having faith. When one believes something, he has faith, trust, confidence, that it is true. This confidence leads him to begin to act in accordance with what he believes, and the result is obedience to it or following it. Notice how the apostle Paul shows this in Romans 10:8-10: But what does [Scripture] say? "The word is near you, even in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes to righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made to salvation. Verse 10 provides the balance to verse 9. It is not enough just to confess Jesus verbally and believe in the resurrection as an intellectual exercise. Paul explains that heartfelt belief leads to righteousness, which is simply right doing or godly behavior. Faith, then—living faith (II Corinthians 5:7)—is trusting God's Word and doing it, even in the face of hardship, sacrifice, the contrary opinions of friends and family, or even death. The author of Hebrews, likely Paul, commends the "Heroes of Faith" to us for just these reasons (Hebrews 11). Thus, Jesus' urgent command for us to repent and believe the gospel provides us with the negative and positive sides of a single, godly action. He tells us to rid ourselves of the evil we have been doing ("repent") and to begin doing what God expects of those to whom He has revealed His way of life ("believe"). This will lead to righteousness and salvation and—God promises—entrance into His Kingdom (II Peter 1:2-11)!
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The True Gospel (Part 5)
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Romans 1:16-17
These verses show that the gospel is the means or the vehicle that God uses to save us as long as we live by faith. We cannot let the idea of "power" slide by without comment. From this Greek word, dunamis, English derives the words "dynamite," "dynamo," and "dynamic"—all of which convey an idea of stored energy that is waiting for the cue to burst into action, sometimes explosively! The gospel Jesus Christ preached contains a dynamic message that is primed to propel a believer to eternal life! Notice, however, that the gospel is not universal in its application. John 6:44 says that the Father calls specific people to the choice of accepting Christ's gospel. In Romans 1:16, Paul makes this same distinction in the phrase "everyone who believes." The gospel will not save even those who profess Christ if they do not believe. As Christ's disciples, we must believe what He teaches us (compare John 6:28-29, 63). What is belief? Jesus answers in Matthew 7:21: "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven." Paul says in Romans 16:25-26: "Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now has been made manifest . . . for obedience to the faith. . . ." He also writes in Hebrews 5:9: "And having been perfected, [Christ] became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him." Simply put, belief is not just agreement with Christ, but also doing what He says. If a person truly believes Christ, he will live like Him. (Faith, belief, obedience, and doing God's will are all intricately related concepts.) This is why Paul continues as he does in Romans 1:17: "For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, 'The just shall live by faith.'" The gospel teaches us what righteousness—right doing—is. God reveals it to us by faith so that we can be faithful ourselves. Succinctly, the gospel instructs us in doing or living what is right, godly, and faithful. As he puts it in II Corinthians 5:7, "We walk by faith, not by sight." From this, we can see that the gospel is far more than "believe in name of Jesus, and you shall be saved" (an oversimplification of Acts 4:12).
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The True Gospel (Part 3)
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Galatians 1:6-7
The apostle Paul opens his epistle to the Galatian Christians with stern criticism. Written in the early AD 50s, this book describes a situation occurring in the church not even twenty years after Christ's death! In less than two decades, Jesus' message had been perverted to something that, to Paul, no longer announced "good tidings." The specifics of this Galatian perversion are not important in this context, but the principle that we can derive from it is: Any alteration, any shift of focus, from Jesus' original announcement changes the message from one of good to bad news. A change in the gospel changes its goal, which means believers will arrive some place other than the Kingdom of God! How vital it is that we follow the true gospel of God! The church of God has the same source of Christ's gospel as the rest of the "Christian" world, the Holy Bible. Why, then, is the gospel we preach so different from the Protestant and Catholic gospels? There could be many answers to this question, but every one boils down to one point, mentioned by Jesus in Mark 1:15: We "believe in the gospel" He preached. We believe time is short. We believe that Christ will establish the Kingdom of God soon. We believe that we should repent and do so as a way of life. We believe Christ's message by living it in faith. Other churches may say they also believe and live in faith. Do they? Jesus says in Matthew 7:16, "You will know them by their fruits." This is the easiest way to spot those who follow a false gospel: » Do they try to live by every word of God? » Do they tremble before God's Word? » Do they keep God's commandments (all of them)? » Do they repent of and strive to overcome their failings? » Do they show a steady growth in character? » Do they focus on the Kingdom of God? » Do they prioritize their lives with God first? » Do they focus their teaching on the message He proclaimed? » Do they exhibit genuine love for the brethren? Depending on our understanding and viewpoint, it is likely that no one person or group will pass or fail all of these questions. "For we all stumble in many things" (James 3:2). However, if we are to judge righteously in the matter of whom we choose to fellowship with, we ourselves need to have a thorough grasp of the true gospel.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The True Gospel (Part 1)
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Galatians 1:6
When the apostle Paul penned this epistle in the early AD 50s, only two decades had passed since the death and resurrection of Christ and the founding of the church. It took only twenty years before some had perverted the gospel into something so different that it was no longer good news (verse 7)! Paul continues in verses 11-12: "But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ." The glad tidings Jesus, Paul, and the other apostles proclaimed throughout the world is revealed—that is, it comes from God and can be learned only through supernatural disclosure (Romans 16:25-26; I Corinthians 2:10; Colossians 1:26). The true gospel message, then, is not readily available to all. In fact, a person cannot even pick up the Bible and find it there! One cannot stumble over or happen upon it. God must open one's mind to receive it (I Corinthians 2:7-16), "because the carnal mind is enmity against God" (Romans 8:7). Jesus says that He designed even His parables—seemingly simple stories with obvious lessons—to hide meaning rather than reveal it (Matthew 13:10-17)! In the first century, the apostles battled two pernicious false gospels: legalism and Gnosticism. Legalism grew primarily out of Judaism, holding that salvation came through works of the law rather than by grace. Paul preached against this deception repeatedly (e.g., Galatians 5:1-6; Ephesians 2:8-10, etc.), affirming that salvation is by grace, though good works form a necessary part of Christian growth and are indeed what God is working with us to accomplish. Gnosticism consists of a whole group of heresies, all with the central ideas that knowledge (gnosis) is the means to salvation and that spirit is good and flesh is evil. In practice, it soon devolved into the extremes of asceticism and hedonism, as well as peculiar ideas about the nature of God and Christ (e.g., Colossians 2:8, 18, 20-23; II Peter 2:4-22; I John 1:5-10; 2:18-23, etc.). Eventually, Gnostic ideas came to dominate "Christianity," and its modern descendants are proclaimed far and wide every Sunday. The most pervasive false gospel today is also quite deceptive: the gospel about Christ. Churches that preach this gospel teach about the Messenger rather than the Message He brought. Certainly, we are to study Christ's life, for He is our example of Christian living (I Peter 2:21; I John 2:6, etc.). However, when He preached the gospel, He did not trumpet His own virtues but revealed the way to the Kingdom of God. In commissioning His disciples, He says: "And as you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give" (Matthew 10:7-8). Nowhere does He tell them to "preach Jesus"; His concern is always in proclaiming God's Kingdom. Before His ascension, He tells them "that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in [My] name to all nations" (Luke 24:47). He was so fixated on preaching the gospel of the Kingdom—and ensuring that His disciples understood it before He sent them out to preach it—that it filled His conversation during His post-resurrection appearances to them (Acts 1:3). What gospel we learn is vitally important. We need to be sure that it is the true gospel Christ brought, the revelation of the imminent Kingdom of God. Paul's warning about false gospels should give us the proper perspective: "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 1:8).
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The True Gospel (Part 6)
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