TANC 2014 Speaker Andy Young: Getting the Gospel Right
What is the Gospel? – Speaker: Andrew Young
“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;” ~ 1 Corinthians 15:1
It is a phrase with which everyone is familiar – “preach the gospel.” It is a mandate given to believers. Unfortunately, in modern Christianity, most professing believers do not really know what the word “gospel” actually means. In this session, we will define the word “gospel” in Biblical terms. We will answer the questions: Did Jesus preach the gospel? Who needs to hear the gospel? Must a typical Sunday sermon include “a gospel message?”
The Justified Believer – Speaker: Andrew Young
“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:” ~ Romans 5:1
The majority of Christians fail to recognize the reality of what their true state is as a child of God. “Religion” has only served to keep them in a state of perpetual and total “depravity”. A Biblical understanding of justification is the remedy. In this session we will examine what God calls a saved individual. We will answer the following questions: What is the basis for justification? Is a believer truly “righteous”? Why did James say that we are justified by works?
The Sanctified Believer – Speaker: Andrew Young
“But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, ‘Be ye holy; for I am holy.’” ~ 1 Peter 1:15-16
God saved us so that we could be like Him. He would not have told us to do something that we could not do. Yet failure in this area of the Christian life has become a source of discouragement for too many believers; even causing many to doubt their own salvation. In this session we will underscore the importance of keeping sanctification distinct from justification. We will answer the following questions: Why do believers still sin? Is there any merit in good works? Is an apple tree still an apple tree in the winter?
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
What is the gospel? Did Jesus preach the gospel? Is the gospel “Jesus died for your sins?
St. Andrew’s Expositional Commentary on Romans. R. C. Sproul ( Pages 28-29)
“When we come to the New Testament, we find three distinct ways in which the term gospel is used. First, we have four books in the New Testament that we call Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These books are biographical portraits of Jesus. Gospel in this sense describes a particular form of literature. During the earthly ministry of Jesus, the term gospel was linked not particularly with the person of Jesus but with the kingdom of God. John the Baptist is introduced as one who comes preaching the gospel, and his message is “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” ( Matt. 3:2). Jesus did the same in his parables, proclaiming, “the kingdom of God is like….” On the lips of Jesus, the gospel was about the dramatic moment in history when, through the long-awaited Messiah, the kingdom of God had broken through in time and space. The good news was the good news of the kingdom. By the time the epistles were written, particularly the Pauline epistles, the term gospel had taken on a new shade of understanding. It had become the gospel of Jesus Christ. Gospel had a clear context to it. At the heart of the gospel was the announcement of who Jesus was and what he had accomplished in his lifetime.
If we give out testimony to our neighbors, saying, “I became a Christian last year. I gave my heart to Jesus,” we are bearing witness about Jesus, but we are not telling them the gospel, because the gospel is not about us. The gospel is about Jesus—-what he did, his life of perfect obedience, his atoning death on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, his ascension into heaven, and his outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the church. We call those crucial elements the objective aspects of the New Testament gospel of Christ.
In addition to the person and work of Jesus, there is also in the New Testament use of the term gospel the question of how the benefits to the believer accomplished by the objective work of Jesus are subjectively appropriated to the believer. First, there is the question of who Jesus was and what he did. Second is the question of how that benefits you and me. That is why Paul conjoins the objective account of the person and work of Jesus ( particularly to the Galatians) with the doctrine of justification by faith alone, which is essential to the gospel. In preaching the gospel we preach about Jesus, and we preach about how we are brought into a saving relationship with him.
The gospel is under attack in the church today. I cannot stress enough how important it is to get the gospel right and to understand both the objective aspect of the person and work of Jesus and the subjective dimension of how we benefit from that by faith alone.
Recently, a Protestant seminary professor, supposedly evangelical, was quoted to me as having said that the doctrine of imputation—-by which our sins are transferred to Christ on the cross and his righteousness is transferred to us by faith—is of human invention and has nothing to do with the gospel. I wanted to weep when I heard that. It just underscored how delicate the preservation of the gospel is in our day and how careful the church has to be in every age to guard the precious good news that comes to us from God.”
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