THE SIMPLE GOSPEL
Jesus christ came into the world to redeem men from sin. His teaching, his methods, his death, and his resurrection comprise a message of God’s love and redeeming power against the backdrop of his certain judgment on sin and the unrepentant sinner.
The Gospel is the story of God’s mercy made available to men by faith. It is designed to meet the universal need of men everywhere. The Apostle Paul condensed to two sentences the essence of the Gospel: “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures … and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”
Why, then, is the Gospel being made so complicated today? Why do so many church members not have the foggiest notion of what the Gospel is? Why does the average churchgoer often leave a church service without either hearing or understanding the message?
There are millions of souls today who would say, if only they knew how, “Sir, we would see Jesus.”
Many Christians mourn, saying: “They have taken away the Lord.… and we know not where they have laid him.”
This article is being written in love, not in anger. It is also being written with the firm conviction that somewhere along the line the simplicity of the Gospel has been lost and replaced by a multiplicity of words, opinions, questions, denials, and subterfuges.
This is also to affirm that the “strong meat” of Christian doctrine is necessary for Christian growth and maturity and no Christian has the right to live on spiritual “milk” the remainder of his life.
Nevertheless, the theological world is so cluttered up by speculative theories, philosophical presuppositions, conditioned biases against the supernatural and the miraculous, and a preference for human reasoning at the expense of divine revelation that the man in the street (and often in the pew) finds himself denied the spiritual food he so desperately needs.
There are many reasons for the present situation but the writer neither knows them all nor is he competent to make more than superficial observations about them. It is our hope that this discussion may cause some heart searching and make some persons candidly look at their own ministry.
One of our problems is sophistication.
Scientific achievements and cultural advances tend to make us feel that man eventually, if not now, knows all the answers. Christianity, based in the primary event of two millenniums ago, often seems irrelevant to our advanced age, and as a result the simplicity of the Gospel is discarded for a more modern approach to man’s needs.
Another problem is just plain conceit.
Human pride has been man’s downfall again and again. It is something which God both hates and resists. Nevertheless we are still prone to think that we know man’s problems and their cure better than God himself, and in so doing the simple Gospel is discarded in favor of a far more complicated form of religion which counterfeits godliness while denying the power from which true godliness stems.
An intellectual pride which gives precedence to man’s opinions when they are at variance with divine revelation has only too often caused disaster to those who have so indulged and to others who have followed their leading.
In this connection we are all confronted with the temptations which the Apostle Paul faced and met so conclusively, namely, his refusal to preach with “excellency of speech or wisdom,” or with the “enticing words of man’s wisdom,” in order that his hearers should become people of faith in and by the power of God and not in the wisdom of men.
Closely related to this problem is the innate desire to appear erudite. It is wonderfully impressive to show by voluminous quotes that one is well-read. But many are the sermons that are full of quotations from men’s writings while devoid of quotations from Holy Writ.
The simplicity of the Gospel is also lost when more credence is given to those who warp or deny the Scriptures than to the Scriptures themselves. In so doing the innate power of the Word of God to pierce into the conscience of man is lost and in its place there is substituted the opinions of men which are popular today but discarded tomorrow.
There are in our generation a number of brilliant theologians and philosophers. Most of them have two things in common: they do not agree with each other’s opinions, but they do agree on the untrustworthiness of the Bible and are amazingly adept in contriving clever excuses for their position.
What is the victim? The simple Gospel message, and those who should hear it. Victims also are those who follow these men out into the maze of speculative thought.
The simple Gospel is also lost by the insistent demand for fruits where no root of faith has taken place in Christ, nor surrender in the individual life to the work of the Holy Spirit. Men are confused when they are told what to do as Christians but never told how to become Christians.
Furthermore, the Gospel is lost when we refuse to recognize man’s natural state as a sinner and his need of redemption and a new nature. Washing of the outside of the cup was a favorite pastime of the Pharisees in our Lord’s time. But he made it clear that what he requires is a new heart, cleansed by the blood of Calvary and empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit.
And at the personal level we unquestionably obscure the Gospel when we become more concerned with the reformation of man than with his redemption—with the consequences of sin rather than sin itself.
Although the Gospel in all of its simplicity and beauty dates back to the Empty Tomb, neither its message nor man’s need have changed one whit in the ensuing years. Some of us are inclined to forget that Christ came not so much to preach the Gospel but that there might be a Gospel to preach. It is the Cross with its forgiveness and redemption and the Empty Tomb with its glorious home which continues to be the one thing needful.
Finally, we should be on guard lest we multiply words without knowledge, lest we speak peace when there is no peace, or interpose ourselves or others between the needy sinner and his willing Saviour.
There are depths of truth which none of us can fathom this side of eternity. There are implications inherent in the Christian faith which will continue to exhaust the minds and imaginations of reverent believers. There are many things which we see now only in part, as in a glass darkly. But among all these things the Gospel continues as a shining beacon. Why hide it? Why make it complicated?
