A True Church & Preaching the Gospel

The Protestant Reformers said a true church will preach the gospel faithfully.

What is the Gospel the Church must Proclaim?

If you had asked me to define that even 10 years ago, I would have said, fairly accurately that everybody knows what that is. But that is not the case today. Today, many are unable to make a distinction between
what the gospel is and how one would respond to it.

Many people use gospel words, but they do not mean the same thing. In theory, we believe we’re all talking about the gospel and saying how wonderful it is. But we mean very different things by those words today.

The gospel is, first and foremost, news. It’s good news, but it’s news. What do you do with news? You announce it!

The gospel is news about what God has done and is doing. In the Bible it’s first and foremost what God has done in Christ, supremely focused on Christ—His resurrection & all that springs from that. It’s what God has done and is doing.

Many people see the gospel as the little thing that tips us in and then all the life-transforming stuff comes along after: in our discipleship courses, marriage seminars, et al, and for the most part, the church seems to have bought into that.

However, the apostle Paul, who God called to write down much of the New Testament, does not see it that way. For him, the gospel is not the little category that gets you in, and then there’s discipleship, and the other areas are the important, big categories.

Instead, for Paul, THE GOSPEL is the big category.
It’s focused on Jesus and what He’s done, what God has done in Christ, supremely in Christ and the resurrection. The gospel is the big category that does all the transforming work. The gospel is “the power of God unto salvation,” not just the once upon a time little thing that tipped/tips us in.

There is a huge emphasis in Scripture on preaching, teaching, proclaiming, and bearing witness to the gospel. Because above all, it’s about God and what He has done.

Problems and solutions must fit together.

If you say, “My car won’t start,” the answer is not, “okay fine, let’s practice our guitars.” That’s ridiculous.
Problems and solutions must fit together. When we start asking what the gospel is and what it represents we must also ask what is the problem that it is addressing. That helps define it.

The Problem the Gospel Addresses is Sin

Romans 3:10-11 As it is written, There is none righteous,bno, not one: 11 There is none that understands,bthere is none that seeks after God.

All of the human race, people of Jewish and Gentile descent alike, those who have the Mosaic Law and those who do not, are all guilty before God. Mankind as a whole has rejected what God has disclosed of Himself in creation, and what God has disclosed of Himself in His own revelation. As a result of that rejection, mankind’s existence has been twisted morally, relationally, theologically, and existentially.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.

The way the Bible pictures sin in the beginning is something like this: In the beginning, there is God and there are human beings. Each human being is rightly related to God and therefore rightly related to other human beings. Then the rebellion begins in Genesis 3, and anarchy, where the human beings each start to say, “I am at the center of the universe. I will be God. No one is going to tell me what to do.”
That is the beginning of idolatry and fences, wounded and broken relationships, jealousy, hatred,
war, lust, pride and arrogance, and on and on, all because we begin by saying, I will be God.

The hardest thing by far to get across to non-Christians in today’s Western world is what sin is. So much effort has been invested in discounting sin and accountability, that there are now those who truly do not believe sin exists, or even if it does, that it really matters.

The Gospel Solution

Romans 3:25 Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.

But now, at this point in redemptive history, something new has happened. A “righteousness from God” has been made known. This redemption was achieved by God setting forth Christ Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement.

Christ’s death not only cancels our sin, but makes God favorable toward us. Since it is God Himself who provides the sacrifice, there is a profound sense in which God propitiates Himself. He graciously provides the sacrifice that pacifies His own wrath. Sin is real. When guilty sinners like us are reconciled to this God, inevitably we become reconciled to each other. Let’s be faithful to Proclaim the Gospel this year!