The Clarity of the Gospel

The Gospel is to be central. In Christian living and in ministry Jesus Christ and Him crucified is to be the center of everything. I hear many statements like this and I thank God for them.

However, I have recently been made aware of the importance not only of the centrality of the Gospel but of its clarity. Of course the Gospel is to be central, provided we have a clear understanding of what that Gospel is.

Getting the Gospel right was paramount to the apostle Paul even telling the Galatians that there is no other Gospel than the one he had preached unto them. There are no other true Gospels, nothing else is truly "good news" but there are many counterfeit gospels. The false gospel preached to the Galatians was a gospel of legalism. We have many forms of so called gospel today in America, including the prosperity gospel, the gospel of self esteem, and the Jesus will fix your life gospel.

If there is one thing, by the grace of God, that I want to strive for, it is keeping the Gospel pure. I want nothing more than to get the Gospel right and to be crystal clear when I proclaim it to others. All I am calling for is for a thoughtful presentation of the Gospel. When we throw out statements with no context like "You need Jesus in your life" we need to keep in mind that the unregenerate may think, "My neighbor is a Christian. He drives a BMW. Nice home. Nice family. Sure, I need Jesus in my life." We need to be clear that the Gospel is not salvation from financial difficulty, or a bad marriage, though He may do these things. It is salvation from the wrath of God against our sin. We need to be clear.

It seems that we have also reversed the role on who it is that is in need. I recently saw a church sign that read "Be an organ donor: give your heart to Jesus." Now having an American evangelical background I understood the message they were attempting to get across and I am not trying to split hairs but I couldn't help but think, "Why does Jesus need a new heart? The truth is that we need for Him to take out our heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh. We need a new heart, not Him."

One thing we need to ask ourselves when we have presented the Gospel is Have we made the Gospel clear? Have we made it clear what people need to be saved from when we tell them they need to be saved? Or does our Jesus sound like an aid to another self help plan? I understand that God must do the work in the hearts of men, no matter how clear we present the good news but the purity and clarity of the Gospel must be defended in every age. Paul stood even against Peter "when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the Gospel" (Gal. 2:14).

There is only one Gospel, God help us to keep it pure and clear. It needs no additives, nothing taken away. It is the simple message of Christ and Him crucified, buried, and risen again for our sins that we need to proclaim. The scandal of the cross is its beauty.