Why is the gospel message both the foundation and focus of this website?
The word gospel describes the good news that God has provided a way to transform our lives by meeting our deepest needs. He does this by bringing us into a right relationship with Him where He becomes our God and we His people. There are a number of reasons why the gospel message is especially critical today:
(1) The gospel is the single most important message we will ever hear. This has always been true, but the gospel message is especially important and urgent in our day. After all, we can’t change the past, but thankfully, God is still at work in the present transforming lives through His good news. The decisions we make today can last for all eternity. Left to ourselves, we are alienated by our sins from a gracious and glorious God. But God has provided a Way by which people can come to know Him personally as the God of this universe—and this Way is through a Person, His Son, Jesus Christ. There is nothing more precious than knowing Christ. Ask anyone who knows Him. This is why the Apostle Paul wrote, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2, ESV here and hereafter). The gospel had changed his life, and he wanted others to know both the wonder of this new life and how all the blessings he had experienced were made possible through Christ.
(2) The gospel is under special attack in the broader culture of our day. In many ways, this is nothing new. God’s character and the trustworthiness of His Word have been under attack from the very beginning of human history. We see this in the story of the Fall with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God. Then throughout history people have continued to rebel and resist the story of God’s goodness and grace. Yes, there have been a number of bright spots along the way, and even today God is still doing amazing things in different parts of our present world. But in the western world at least, we are living in an increasingly dark world. We are witnessing firsthand how the intensity of the present-day battle for the minds and hearts of people is focusing on the core truths of the gospel: the greatness and love of God, our desperate need of His help, the amazing story of God’s gracious provision for us in Christ, and the wonder of His plan to call out a people for Himself where He will be their God and they will be His people.
(3) The gospel is under special attack even in much of contemporary evangelicalism. We shouldn’t be surprised that this attack on the gospel is found even within the evangelical church. In 2012 Michael Horton wrote a book entitled Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of The American Church (Baker). More recently, Jonathan Tjarks wrote a December 4, 2019 article for The Gospel Coalition, “Your Neighbor Is Probably a Unitarian Universalist,” where he argues that “Unitarian Universalism is already the default option in American life.” Unitarianism involves, among other things, a flat denial of the deity of Christ and a rejection of any traditional understanding of the Trinity. Julius Kim, the recently installed President of The Gospel Coalition, warns about “a church in America that is ultimately Christless.” Still more recently (August 9, 2020), Joe Carter wrote The Gospel Coalition article, “Survey: Majority of American Christians Don’t Believe the Gospel.” Both Christ and the gospel have apparently fallen on hard times—at least to judge by the popular contemporary church around us. Sadly, a haze about the person and work of Christ has settled over the teaching and preaching in many churches leading to a number of faulty views on the nature of God. The tragedy is that this spiritual confusion is not limited to America.
(4) The gospel message is often counterfeited. In other words, there are many false gospels in the world today. In many ways this is nothing new. The common denominators for all false gospels are a rejection of God and His ways combined with an attempt to build our lives around ourselves, our self-centered desires and our own human understanding of things. False gospels also originate from the influence of other people in the world around us and ultimately from the spiritual forces of evil that are also present in the world. The Apostle Paul warns us numerous times about the danger of following “a different gospel” (2 Corinthians 11:4; Galatians 1:6). Our present condition as fallen human beings living in a fallen world order virtually guarantees it is far easier for us to be off track spiritually than on course. We need all the help we can get, and in particular, we need God’s help to open our eyes to the One who created us and is at work in the world all around us.
(5) Counterfeit gospels resemble the real thing but are inherently different. Imagine with me that for some reason someone decided to try to counterfeit some US currency, and they chose to make it triangular in shape (because that sounds creative to them), orange in color (because they thought that seems flashy), and in a $15.00 denomination (because that seems like a good amount to them). Chances are they would have difficulty passing it off as legitimate. So too with the gospel. False gospels have power to deceive only if they resemble the real thing. So, we can expect that false gospels will use God-words, Bible verses, theological language, and values that sound enticing to many people. Indeed, the Apostle Paul warns us that this very thing will take place: “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
(6) The key difference is that the true gospel focuses on God and His truths while the false ones are built around on human values and human opinions. Ultimately this is always the key issue: are we God-centered in our thinking or self-centered? A God-centered gospel begins with God, who He is, what He is like, His plans for His created world, His instructions in His Word, and what He says about how He wants us to approach Him and live lives pleasing to Him. A man-centered or self-centered approach to the gospel is built around ourselves and our own human logic and desires. The problem here is that we don’t naturally think the way God thinks or desire the things God desires. The Old Testament prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 55:9 reminds us how different God is from us: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Our only hope of discovering the true gospel is through God’s Word and the working of God’s Spirit in our lives. We need Him to open our eyes to see things as they really are.
(7) This spiritual deception will only grow worse and worse as time goes by. Jesus warns us that one of the signs of end times would be “many false prophets will arise and lead many astray” (Matthew 24:11). He even went so far as to say that “false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:24). The Apostle Peter gives us a similar warning in 2 Peter 2:1, “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.” The Apostle Paul warns us in 2 Corinthians 11:14 how “even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” Now we need to notice in Jesus’s warning about the subtlety of false teachers that He doesn’t say that any of the elect will actually be lost, but He does imply that the false teaching will be so subtle and hard to discern that even the elect will be almost taken in by it. The implication here is that all the non-elect will be deceived—and lost. Our only hope is that God’s Spirit will open our eyes through the gospel.
Bottom line: The two elements of hope in an otherwise grim scenario for the contemporary church are: (1) God remains the same. His power is not limited. His hand is not shortened. He is still in control accomplishing His purposes. (2) The true church composed of genuine believers—sometimes described as the invisible church—is at least as strong as ever. This is true even at the same time that cultural Christians may be leaving the church in record numbers, thus causing churches and other Christian ministries to shrink in size and power. Cultural Christians are people who have either grown up in the church or been attracted to the church for a variety of reasons, but never actually accepted the gospel or come to know the God of this universe. Pursuing the American dream of a comfortable life of health and wealth is something very different from a life of discipleship to Jesus Christ. Cultural pressure and increasing forms of persecution should actually strengthen the church by clarifying the true gospel from all the other cultural trappings that sometimes surround it.
So, we should be encouraged. Remember Jesus’ promise: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). And we need to remember that His strategy for building His church is through “those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:15).