The Fundamental Blog

We often-times hear the word, “Gospel,” thrown about as though it is universally understood by all. It is not! The Gospel of Jesus Christ is what we need to believe in order to be saved but to a dying world, a world that has not the slightest hint that they are in mortal danger, the term Gospel carries only slightly more meaning than Latin to a three year old.

Any Christian who has received the gift can tell you all about the Gospel, right? I struggle with the ability to even define the Gospel of Christ, in a way that is meaningful to anyone outside the church. There are a couple of things to consider when trying to witness to others about our faith. We need to know the message, understand the use of language and consider the ability of the hearer to receive the words we speak.

Most of us have little trouble with the language because we know all the words that are required to discuss Christendom - within Christendom. The problem comes when we attempt to discuss these things outside of Christendom. Perhaps a part of the reason that the world shuns our message is because we have so many, “shun-s,” in our message. We have salva-shun, justifica-shun, sanctifica-shun, redemp-shun, propitia-shun, resurrec-shun, ascen-shun, elect-shun and more, “shun-s,” besides! These words are used to convey lofty images and ideas and are extremely important for us to be able to discuss the workings of the kingdom of God, but they also can send our listener to the dictionary trying to decipher our meaning. If you have ever been on the receiving end of a discussion that was filled with language that you didn’t understand, you know that it doesn’t require too many trips to the dictionary before you decide that the message must not be meant for you. We need to try to be reasonably certain that what we say, and the way that we say it, is going to be able to actually be, “heard.”

Jesus never had to, “dumb-down,” the Gospel. He spoke the truth of God to everyone and those who were given the ability to hear it, did! “Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.” Where it seems that we have the most trouble is in distilling the message. We may only have one chance to get the Gospel out, and the person listening may not be able to afford you more than a few minutes; what is it that they must know in order to have any hope of being saved? It doesn’t sound like all that hard of a question, but can we answer it? Is it enough to walk around wearing a sandwich board that reads, “Repent! The End is Near!”? What, exactly, is the Gospel? Romans 1:16, “[The Gospel] is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth;…” Yeah, that ought to do it! What is this salvation thingy and, to everyone that believeth… WHAT? This is the part that can get sticky.

OK, we must believe in God, that’s a good place to start. Then we have to believe that we need to be saved. Saved from what? Why? What did I do? We must believe that Jesus died so that we can be saved, from something, and nobody else’s death could have done it for us because Jesus is the perfect Son of God; something else we must believe, or is that the main thing to believe? We need to understand that without intervention we were headed to Hell and that in order to get into Heaven we must have faith. Great! Heaven, Hell, faith - anything else we have to believe in? OK, so if I’ve got it straight: There’s this God guy who, because of some fruit that I didn’t personally eat, is blaming me vicariously of something called sin and is allowing me to go to a bad place called Hell that I’m not sure I understand but it’s alright because He had a Son, who He allowed to die this horrible death to pay the price of His wrath, again vicariously, to let me into a really nice place called Heaven, which I can’t quite understand either, and the only way I can get into the park is to believe something about this Son, Jesus, and everything will be fine, or not, in which case it won’t, right?

Doesn’t really make you all that anxious to sign up, does it? There has to be a better way, and there is. The Bible gives us reason to believe that the salvation of others will not be because of the degree of eloquence used in delivering the Christian precepts, nor the conclusiveness of our logical arguments; rather, the Gospel has within it, a sufficiency capable of melting the hardest hearts. For us to claim the victory of winning a soul to Christ is ridiculous. Even with perfect doctrine, it is impossible for any imperfect human to make a perfect discourse to convince another imperfect human. Matthew 19:26 tells us, in relation to the salvation of men, “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.” We need to get the Word out, and if it is the right time for that person to have their heart softened enough to receive the Word, then it is all to the glory of Christ.

But we do have the responsibility to speak the Word. Since we are trying to convey the message that we need to be saved, and that we can only be saved by faith, we can look to Scripture to provide our confidence. Romans 10:17, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Also, Isaiah 55:11, “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” Here we can see that we have assurance that faith is by the hearing of the Word and that the Word will do what it was sent to accomplish. Our job is to be faithful in giving out the Word of God and then let Him do the convicting by His power in the Holy Spirit. This leaves us with the initial problem though of determining how much information is required to be considered the, “Gospel of Christ.”

What does the word of God say? Well, for starters, it says that God is holy and we are sinful, and that because of this we are separated from him. It says that God must punish sin. We are told that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to die in our place on the cross at Calvary to pay our sin debt and give us a way back to Him. The Bible tells us that there is no way back to God, from our fallen state, except by faith in Jesus Christ. So long story short…

We are sinful by our human nature and before God deserve punishment.

Jesus Christ came as deity incarnate to serve that punishment for us.

All we need to restore our position with God is to believe that Christ did this.


The good news part of all of this is that God, having once punished our sins in the body of His Son Jesus Christ, can never punish again for those sins, forgiveness is ours! A just God could never punish twice for the same sin. Because Jesus was obedient to death on the cross by the will of God, the Father, our sin debt has been cancelled; we are truly free because the Son has set us free.

There is no shortage of doctrinal topics to explore, nuances to learn and divine nature to be understood, but there is time enough for all of that once the justification is accepted and the work of sanctification begins. We need to be Faithful to the message and let God determine who will be made able to receive it and direct their further growth. God may decide that we should mentor the new seeker and may allow him to ask us questions to better understand and take him deeper into the mysteries of God. God may decide to use us in some other capacity, but in either case, the grace which saves is entirely His own and directed by His will. Charles Spurgeon was fond of stating the Gospel thus… “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved; believe not and be ye damned.” There it is in a nutshell; clear, concise and as basic as I think I have ever heard.

We can make the best apologetic arguments on the planet and never win anyone to Christ. We can debate doctrine until we are blue in the face without affecting the cause of Christ for the kingdom of God. Nobody have ever been argued into the grace of God, nor have any come by losing a fight. The only time anyone ever accepts salvation in Christ is when God acts on them by His Holy Spirit and un-stops their ears, opens their hearts and shines the light of Christ into their lives.

We are mere farmers. We sow the seed that another may water, but we must never lose sight of the fact that only God causes the growth. The seed we sow is of the finest quality but unless the soil is prepared, (the providence of God), and unless the seed is actually placed in the ground, (our assignment from God), no growth is possible. We need to do our part and then get out of the way so that God can do His. The Gospel of Christ is simple, if we let it be simple. We must not encumber it with so many unnecessary trappings that it gets lost beneath the doctrine. The grace we have been freely given, we are commanded to freely give so let’s do just that. Let’s take our seed sacks and start sowing the good seed. But as we go, let’s also keep a smile on our face, a tune in our heart and a spring in our step because we know that this thing we do is…



All for the Glory of Christ

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