This is the Gospel
An endless parade of Protestant celebrity pastors saturate the internet with their version of the gospel. Without exception, these presentations, whether a clip from a sermon or memes created and posted by man-worshipers are false representations of the gospel. The following is the gospel.
The gospel is, “You must be born again.” This is how Jesus replied to Nicodemus. Like religious leaders of that day, Protestants struggle with the idea of a literal rebirth. Jesus explained it as a spiritual rebirth.
Jesus came to make that rebirth possible. How did he do it? Jesus died and was resurrected so that we can follow Jesus in a one-time death and resurrection resulting in our justification as God’s literal children. He is the “firstborn of many brethren” (Romans 8:29) and the “first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1Corinthians 15:20). That’s the Gospel.
When we are born again, we have a spiritual death of the old man and a new birth making us a new creature.
Roman 6:6; What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
This is to be taken literally. Spiritually, we are born again by the Spirit through the death of the old us, and a literal rebirth into a new creature resulting in, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” At a later date, our natural bodies will be transformed.
On the cross, Christ endured the punishment for all sin, and sin is defined by the law. Per God’s plan, all sin is encapsulated within the law (Galatians 3:21-23). Hence, Christ didn’t die to create a way to ritualistically cover sin, but he died to end the law and subsequent sin: “…by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”
Grace is not a covering for remaining under law; “under grace” is the kingdom of light we have been translated into from the kingdom of darkness where the condemnation of the law exists. You cannot be under grace and under law both, you are one or the other. We are justified by the new birth, not the perfect keeping of the law by anyone. Christ was a manifestation of righteousness “apart from the law.”
This salvation changes our relationship to the law. This is the Spirit’s two uses of the law. The first use is to convict the world of sin and the judgment to come. The second use is for sanctification, which teaches us to control our natural bodies and fulfill the law by loving God and others (also note Romans 8:2). Sanctification progressively separates us from the commonality of the world. One great source of assurance is the knowledge that there is no longer a law that can condemn us, and “where there is no law, there is no sin.”
Hence, please note, the law does not serve to convict the believer of sin; that is the law’s purpose for the unbeliever. The purpose of the law for the believer is sanctification. And, the Protestant idea that “the same gospel that saves us sanctifies us” turns the true gospel completely upside down, and clearly defines the so-called believer as being under law. Grace, as defined by Protestantism, is a double imputation (double substitution) by Christ keeping the law perfectly for us in justification and sanctification. How is that a justification “apart from the law”? Furthermore, Protestant scholars constantly define justification as a “legal declaration.” How is a legal declaration apart from the law? And, how is Jesus a justification manifested apart from the law if he won our salvation through perfect law-keeping?
Jesus obtained our salvation by establishing the new birth, not law-keeping. Besides, according to Paul in his letter to the Galatians, the law cannot give life.
So, can a believer sin? No, not in a condemning way. A believer can fail to love in a way that brings chastisement by our loving Father (Hebrews 12).
We are justified by the fact that God’s seed is in us because of the new birth (1John 3). This is justification by new birth, not the Protestant justification by faith alone gospel, which is far from being a salvation by faith alone apart from works. Protestantism utilizes so-called faith-alone works that obtain a reapplication of Christ’s work on the cross (ongoing double imputation for “present sin”). One example of this is the Protestant doctrine of “The Ordinary Means of Grace” [read “grace” as “salvation”].
When a person believes the justification by new birth gospel (“You must be born again”) and calls on the Lord for salvation, the Spirit of God baptizes them into the death of Christ and resurrects their spirit to new creaturehood as the literal offspring of God.
That’s the gospel.
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
The ignorance of 1 John 5:18 has for 500 years been the proof that litigious liars, AKA Reformed Calvinists placed salvific emphasis (supposedly contained in TULIP) to shame.
If Christ had intended to teach the Gospel using a butchered acronym chock full of inconsistencies with the word used to describe the flower placed over corpses He would have done so. Find me a free will Baptist church that doesn’t use wild antics such as snake venom testing and I’ll at least sit and see if they truly understand the new birth, the ONLY Grace that determines our eternal destiny.
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Thanks Paul. I really appreciate your defense of the Gospel!
The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, convicts believers of our righteousness, and convicts satan of his judgement (John 16:7-11).
Sanctification is a state of being – it is presented as being accomplished for the believer in the Scriptures by faith in Christ ( Acts 20:32;26:18 / 1 Corinthians 1:2;6:11 / Hebrews 10:10;14;10:29 / Jude 1:1). Sanctification is also presented by the Scriptures as an ongoing process that occurs as we walk by the Spirit (1 Peter 1:2 / 2 Thessalonians 2:13 / Romans 15:16).
IF our salvation, our ‘right now righteousness’, which is by faith in Christ resulting in the new birth, IS “apart or without the law”, THEN why do you bring the law back into play:
“This is the Spirit’s two uses of the law. The first use is to convict the world of sin and the judgment to come. The second use is for sanctification, which teaches us to control our natural bodies and fulfill the law by loving God and others (also note Romans 8:2). Sanctification progressively separates us from the commonality of the world.”
According to the glorious gospel of our blessed God,
the law is not made for the righteous, but rather for the lawless and disobedient. The righteous can use the law lawfully to point the unrighteous to believe in Christ’s gospel (1 Timothy 1:8-11), but it is GRACE – not law – that teaches us to abstain from evil and to do good as we live in this world growing in his grace and knowledge (Titus 2:11-13).
Now, if by the Spirit’s 2nd use of the law, you mean the Spirit’s use of all of the Word of God / Scripture, then why leave out the Proverbs, Psalms, Prophets, etc. ? “ALL scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”
I understand the “righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us” in Romans 8:4 to refer to “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” and NOT “the law of sin and death” found in Romans 8:2.
I don’t believe our growing in grace and knowledge (what you may be referring to as ‘progressive sanctification’) is something mysterious that the Holy Spirit ‘zaps’ into us, but I believe it is brought about by the washing of the Word of God, walking by the Spirit, abstaining from evil and participating in good as laid out in all of Scripture.
I hope I am making sense and not picking hairs – I am just trying to understand and overcome my protestant upbringing and having come out of 20+ years of Calvinism about 4 years ago! Your writings have been very helpful to me. “Progressive sanctification” is a doctrine that Calvinists use along with their “already but not yet” ‘final justification’ system……. for example: “How do you know you are saved?” Their answer, “IF you are enduring to the end, progressively being sanctified, THEN, when you stand before Jesus and He says ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant, THEN will you know your initial justification was real, THEN and only THEN, can you have full assurance of salvation.” Of course, they wouldn’t word it that way.
I see us believers as not only justified now, with a ‘right now righteousness’, but also as being sanctified right now – set apart as holy vessels (saints) – to live out God’s Word in love by the Spirit, in whatsoever our hands find to do, continually growing in the grace and knowledge of God, being free to fail so to speak, because of our really real, right now righteousness apart from the law.
Then again….. maybe it’s just a matter of defined terminology or maybe not. Maybe I was just ‘triggered’ by the “progressive sanctification” terminology from my old calvinist days! Either way, I would appreciate your comments.
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The law, the word, the scriptures, the gospel, etc., are all used interchangeably in the Bible and certainly includes both testaments. The stumbling block seems to be the two uses of the law: one is a “ministry of death” and the other use fulfills the law through love. Clearly, per Romans 8:2, there are two laws. “Nomos” is used both times. One is a ministry of life while the other is a ministry of death. Indeed, someone needs to do a work on this…maybe I will when I get out of school.
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Yes your explanations have helped me greatly. I see it as the removal of being “under law” as in ‘under its condemnation’. But that does not mean it is altogether removed. Paul’s notion love fulfills the law carries on with the same view from OT times – the law is summed up in Love God with all that you are and love your neighbour as yourself. By doing this you fulfill torah/nomos. But as Paul points out there is that problem that so long as we are sinners, we are under its condemnation, so we need to be freed from being under it first. Having a righteousness apart from it gives us the freedom to as you say aggressively strive to fulfill it through love. This is the opposite of fear driven living. So Luther would have been right to see the law driving the sinner to Christ (though that isn’t the full picture as you also say – the positive is also possible). But Luther was very very very wrong to think the Christian is continually driven “back to Christ” by the law. Then as it were can “fall back on the Gospel … again”. That has to be fear driven. Perfect love drives out fear. Fear has to do with punishment. “Sinner while saint” is literally schizophrenic. This kind of mentality in turn has driven fear-based orthodoxy. Agree to the right propositions and you’re in and safe. That has to be so much fear driven and not love driven. To be sure I understand to some extent for the tendency to orthodoxy. When you believe in object Truth and you believe the Bible is the Word of God – I get why orthodoxy triumphs. But we have to own the fact we got this whole Christendom thing so backward.
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Yes, we are either under law or under grace, and each has a different relationship to the law. By the way, I would contend that “grace” should be defined as God’s active love whether administered by him or one of his children towards another person. Note that everywhere in the Bible, if you replace the word grace with love, it works in the sentence. Under law you have condemnation, fear, enslavement, and the empowerment of sin. Under grace you have love, freedom, and enslavement to righteousness.
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