The word “gospel” means goodnews. Not bad news…but good news!
Jesus told us to teach and “preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15).
Our Christian message to the world is ultimately one of goodnews. In fact, it’s the best news the world could ever hear.
An imperative aspect of the gospel message—according to Jesus Himself—is that forgiveness of sins is directly tied to biblical repentance. Therefore, the Great Commission gospel seed we are to sow among the soils of the nations, in order to make genuine disciples of Jesus Christ, is a goodnews message of biblical repentance.
As Christians, we are to be about the business of preaching and teaching the gospel, the whole gospel and nothing but the gospel. We are not given the liberty of adding anything to the gospel and we are certainly not permitted to leave bits and pieces out of it. The gospel is what it is. Period.
Jesus was not crucified on a watered-down cross and the cup that He drank on our behalf was not filled with watered-down wrath, either.
The gospel message is simple and straightforward. It is not blurry, fuzzy or open for debate as to its cultural relevance. The gospel of Jesus Christ contains the imperishable truth that if a person does not repent of their sin then they do not have forgiveness of sin.
Repentance is not a difficult doctrine to comprehend (even for young children) and Jesus was not speaking in parables when He insisted on it. Repentance is not a shameful dogma for sinners to hear, but it is certainly shameful for Christians to water it down or—worse yet—ignore it altogether.
Essentially, what many in contemporary Christianity have done is extract the medicinal qualities from the bottle of salvation and still label it the cure for sin. Churchgoers have been force-fed a steady diet of spiritual placebos packaged with “Just Believe!” and in doing so have been left to drink the same bitter dregs as before. Hearers who have not become doers of the Word have been forsaken in their belief that they’re saved merely because they believe a few facts about Jesus.
Scripture provides many warnings for all those who do not repent of their sin. For instance, the apostle Paul wrote, “because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (Romans 2:5). An unrepentant hearer not only does not have forgiveness of sins, but they are storing up God’s wrath for themselves in the day of their final judgment.
Since the obligation of repentance is the plain gospel truth, why do so many Christians insist on leaving it out of their gospel presentations and doctrinal statements of faith altogether? Apparently they do not believe that repentance is really all that necessary for the forgiveness of sins. Yet if that’s true then Jesus was either just plain ignorant or He was a liar, for He Himself commanded that, “repentance for the forgiveness of sin would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations” (Luke 24:47).
Because the biblical gospel message of repentance is goodnews, then to delete it from our message is to withhold that which is good, profitable and necessary for salvation. To assure people of salvation, while not commanding them to repent of their sin, is not being kind—it is heresy!
In reality, it is preaching a different gospel altogether.
The Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians, saying, “As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!” (Galatians 1:9)
And accursed heretics, if you did not already know, will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.
Very good!
Hey, thank you Jill.
Because we don’t want to upset unbelievers and some so called Christians. Sometimes it doesn’t occur to people to do so and many at times the burden or rather the job of spreading the gospel is preserved for just missionaries which shouldn’t even be. I’d say I don’t because I’m shy and I don’t want to argue and then just get lost, also not to seem like I’m proving to be infallible.
So true.
I also struggle at times to fight against the flesh as I should, when it comes to sharing my faith. People are dying all around us, going to hell, and we’re not lifting a finger to do anything about it. It’s easy “for us” to say nothing, but people need to hear and submit to the gospel!