Galations 1:6-10

⁶ I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— ⁷ which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. ⁸ But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! ⁹ As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!

¹⁰ Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

For many years I had the responsibility of sitting on a committee of the Presbytery to interview prospective candidates for ministry.  Those interviews covered a wide range of topics, but one question was always asked in one form or another:  What is the gospel?  It never ceased to amaze me how often a very waffly answer was given.  On some occasions a patently wrong answer was given.  If men who felt they should be teaching the Bible to God’s people were confused, I was always left wondering how many other Christians lacked clarity on this basic matter.

The gospel is all about what Jesus has done for us in the historical events of his life, death, and resurrection.  Or, put simply, as Martin Luther liked to express it, “the gospel is outside of us.”  We accept it by faith, that is, entrusting ourselves to our saviour.  Our faith is not part of the gospel it is our response to it. So too, repentance is not part of the gospel it is response to it.  Being born again is not part of the gospel it is a result of it.  It is little, but staggeringly important, distinctions like this that allow Christians to live a stable and hence fruitful life before God.  Sadly, if we are unclear about the gospel, all is confusion.

David Johnston