What is the "Gospel"?
by Keith Comparetto
Table of Contents
Part One: Preface & Introduction
Part Two: The Lessons of Church History
Part Three: A Closer Look at Scripture
Part Four: Seeing, but not Perceiving
Part 2: The Lessons of Church History
Church Creeds, the Reformation, & the Puritans
The unbelieving world has often asked the question, "How do we know which "Christianity" to believe if Christians cannot even agree with each other?" This may be a reasonable question to the casual observer, but a careful study of the creeds (basic statements of faith also called confessions) and founding documents of most branches of Christianity, indicate that in times of spiritual vitality there have been very few differences among Bible-believing Christians. The great differences arose as the various branches and denominations began to decline and cast off the once broadly-accepted creeds that grounded the church in the teachings of Scripture.
With the coming of the Reformation, a long period of decline came to an end, and many of the great doctrines of the faith which had been lost or clouded by the corrupt establishment church of the Middle Ages were expounded once again. These included truths such as "effectual calling" and “the perseverance of the saints,” in which the saved individual is truly a new creation, with a new mind, a new heart, and the power to persevere in the faith, and without which the authenticity of his faith should be questioned. Proverbs 4:18 illustrates this wonderful salvation and perseverance, in words which are a precious promise to the true believer: “But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.”
In an earlier age, the above view was found in the writings of virtually all the great Christian writers. For example, Martin Luther wrote, in the 1500’s,
I believe that there is upon earth a little holy group and congregation of pure saints…brought to it and incorporated into it by the Holy Ghost by having heard and continuing to hear the Word of God… Thus, until the last day, the Holy Ghost abides with the holy congregation or Christendom, by means of which He fetches us to Christ and…whereby He works and promotes sanctification, causing [this community] daily to grow and become strong in the faith and its fruits which He produces.
In the 1600's, the Westminster Confession of 1646, which one Baptist historian calls “the noblest of all Evangelical creeds,” likewise recognized the power of true salvation:
To all those for whom Christ hath purchased redemption, He doth certainly and effectually apply and communicate the same… effectually persuading them by His Spirit to believe and obey, and governing their hearts by His Word and Spirit….When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, He freeth him from his natural bondage under sin; and, by His grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good…enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and, by His almighty power determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ: yet so, as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace.
These very biblical concepts were not found merely in Reformed and Presbyterian thought. The Baptists in England voiced their solidarity on those doctrines with their Presbyterian and Congregationalist brethren when they retained the above words almost verbatim in their London Baptist Confession of 1689. "The 1689," as it is often called, was so respected and received by Baptists in general that it was taken to America and, with few changes, published as Philadelphia Baptist Confession of 1742, and referred to as "the Baptist Confession." As such, it helped provide a foundation for Baptist faith in early America, including being foundational in framing the popular New Hampshire Confession of 1833. The 1689 was updated and republished again by C.H. Spurgeon in 1855, and, in fact, its doctrines were not seriously opposed until a great falling away began to occur in the mid-19th century.
Other great writings in the remarkable 17th century were the works of John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress, for many years the most popular book in the English language other than the Bible itself. Bunyan, who spent many years of his life in a prison cell with nothing but a Bible and God, found it completely compatible with Scripture that those who don’t tend to examining their own profession of faith are likely to miss heaven, for the gate is narrow, and the Savior told us to “strive” to enter it. John Owen, also in the 1600’s, wrote on this topic in Evidences of the Faith of God’s Elect, as well as in other works, and Thomas Shepherd, the first president of Harvard, preached a series entitled “The Ten Virgins” over an entire school year, challenging his hearers to examine their professions of faith. Richard Baxter wrote a manual for young preachers and spent much of the book advising ministerial candidates to be sure of their salvation:
Take heed to yourselves, lest you be void of that saving grace of God which you offer to others, and be strangers to the effectual working of that gospel which you preach; and lest, while you proclaim to the world the necessity of a Savior, your own hearts should neglect him, and you should miss of an interest in him and his saving benefits.
In fact, nearly all the preachers of the Puritan era made calls to self-examination a regular part of their preaching – some perhaps to excess, but they held that it is better to be duly warned and lack assurance than to be falsely assured and lack saving grace. A backslider was not a sinning Christian who could still be assured he was on his way to heaven; rather, he was one in danger of losing his soul if he did not repent. Those who fell short on the “marks,” or evidences, of saving grace, regardless of what they professed to believe, were considered unregenerate and lost.
Revivals and "Revivalism"
During the remarkable years of the revival known as the Great Awakening, George Whitefield and John Wesley preached a similar message in their evangelistic efforts. Jonathan Edwards, who was perhaps the greatest theologian during the time of that revival, looked back on the results of those years which resulted in thousands of new “converts,” and was so grieved at what he saw in many of those people that he wrote a book entitled A treatise on Religious Affections. In the book, he examined what he believed to be the biblical evidences of salvation, and, by contrast, which supposed evidences were false and deceiving ones. In his introduction, Edwards wrote, “It is no new thing that much false religion should prevail, at a time of great reviving of true religion, and that at such a time multitudes of hypocrites should spring up among true saints.” One of his main themes throughout the book is that the affections – love for God, for His Word, for His people, etc. – are a necessary ingredient of true saving grace. Edwards’ conclusion strikes at the heart of what we consider to be a false test of salvation today: a continual appeal for people to remember their “experience” of salvation, as if that memory had more value in gauging the truth of their conversion than whether their life has evidenced the fruits of salvation.
I have met many who were counseled to pray a salvation prayer to gain the assurance of a time and place “experience,” despite the fact that nowhere is this called for in Scripture. Edwards wrote, “Christian practice is the chief evidence to ourselves, much to be preferred to the method of the first convictions [i.e., the initial “experience”], enlightenings, comforts, or any immanent discoveries or exercises of grace whatsoever.” Edwards wrote this work as a mature servant of Christ, and his advice would be well-heeded in our day – yet how few today seem interested in what he had to say.
After Edwards, in the early 1800’s came evangelist Charles Finney's "New Methods," new evangelistic practices such as the “gospel invitation” which seemed effective but had the unintended result of bringing many false converts into the fold. (One writer refers to the use of such methods as revivalism, to distinguish it from the straightforward and unadorned preaching style that characterized the earlier revivals.) It has been noted that another evangelist, Asahel Nettleton, who was one of the great preachers of the Second Great Awakening which had been occurring for twenty years prior to Finney's arrival, was noted for the fact that such a large percentage of his converts, brought to the faith under solid doctrine with no human additions, were still persevering in the faith many years after their conversions. On the other hand, the "faith" of Finney's converts, who were brought to a decision using the emotionally manipulative methods which are still used today, was most often short-lived. Even Finney himself, later in his ministry, bemoaned the fact that many of his “converts” did not retain evidences of grace, and wrote, in Lectures to Professing Christians:
Of what use would it be to have a thousand members added to the church, to be just such as are now in it? Would religion be any more honored by it, in the estimation of ungodly men? One holy church, that are really crucified to the world, and the world crucified to them, would do more to recommend Christianity, than all the churches in the country, living as they now do. O, if I had strength of body, to go through the churches again, instead of preaching to convert sinners, I would preach to bring up the churches to the gospel standard of holy living. Of what use is it to convert sinners, and make them such Christians as these?
It should be noted that Finney was confronted regarding his unorthodox doctrine and evangelistic practices, but he would not hear. The damage of Finney, including the practices which were adopted because they insured dramatic "results," may be incalculable, because it filled churches with people who were "Christians" in their words but often counterfeit saints.
C.H. Spurgeon was one of many who, in addition to opposing the New Methods including invitations, often commented on the large numbers of people settled into the churches who did not seem to evidence true salvation:
A man does not have salvation until he comes by the power of God’s Spirit through faith to a living, personal, vital, intimate union with Christ as the Lord. A man is not a Christian until he has a vital union with Christ. A man is not a Christian until he is inseparably joined — personally joined to Jesus Christ. A man is not a Christian until Christ becomes his life. A man is not a Christian unless you can cut into his heart and find love for Christ; cut into his mind and find thoughts of Christ; and cut into his soul and find a panting after Christ.
Spurgeon was also troubled at the growing trend in his day, due primarily to Finney's ground-breaking influence, to use programs and entertainment to bring the unsaved masses into the preaching arena, pointing out its damaging effects:
The mission of amusements fails to effect the end desired. It works havoc among the young converts. Let the careless and scoffers, who thank God because the church met them halfway, speak and testify. Let the heavy laden who found peace through the concert not keep silent! Let the drunkard to whom the dramatic entertainment had been God's link in the chain of their conversion, stand up! There are none to answer. The mission of amusement produces no converts. The need of the hour for today's ministry is believing scholarship joined with earnest spirituality, the one springing from the other as fruit from the root. The need is biblical doctrine, so understood and felt, that it sets men on fire.
Unfortunately, the trend which Spurgeon decried has continued unabated into our day, and continues to weaken the church.
The Views of Older Bible Commentators
One need not read much from the great authors of our religious heritage to realize that most of our most revered preachers and writers of the past, until at least the late 19th century, took the above positions as a matter of fact – they assumed Christians loved God and His Word, did not love the vices and idols of the world, and lived in a general pattern of obedience to His commandments and victory over sin, and if they weren’t, they probably were not in the faith and needed to examine themselves. This was the view of virtually all older Bible commentators, including the beloved Matthew Henry, who wrote,
It is the great duty of all who call themselves Christians to examine themselves concerning their spiritual state. We should examine whether we be in the faith, because it is a matter in which we may be easily deceived, and wherein a deceit is highly dangerous: we are therefore concerned to prove our own selves, to put the question to our own souls, whether Christ be in us, or not.
Even into the 19th century, most commentators were hesitant to take professing converts at their word but pointed out from Scripture the fruit of the genuine Christian. Albert Barnes, author of Barnes Notes on the whole Bible, and Charles Hodge, commentator from the old Princeton school and best noted for his Systematic Theology and his superb exposition on Paul's epistles, are two examples of commentators who held faithfully to the biblical orthodoxy of the earlier divines.
But by the early 20th century, this important truth was almost dead, replaced by a heresy that turns salvation into little more than a ticket to heaven, and sanctification into little more than an act of human will which we may or may not choose to exercise. Accordingly, the church became populated by masses of helpless "believers" who could not make it in the Christian life without the guidance of their leaders – and thus, a hierarchy of spiritual and non-spiritual "Christians," in which the greatest losers were those who were not true Christians at all, but were left trying to do that which, without the aid of the Holy Spirit, they do not have the power to do! "For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live" (Romans 8:13).
In contrast, the truth is that, as God’s elect, all who have been effectually called and are persevering in the faith, despite differences of office and calling, are a true brotherhood, all equal in God’s eyes, and not one of us has attained anything that we have not received from God's gracious hand: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us,” (2 Corinthians 4:7).
Bible Conferences and the Keswick Movement
A reasonable question to ask is, What brought about the monumental change in doctrine from the old to the new? It seems that a major shift in opinion took place in the late 19th century when the Bible conference movement, an outgrowth of the Keswick (or Higher Life) holiness conferences in England, took hold in America. These Bible conferences were designed to promote greater holiness among Christians, which is certainly a worthy enterprise, but the great error of the holiness conferences, despite all good intentions, was its skewing of the very definition of saving faith, which originally included as an essential element the inner working of the Holy Spirit in bringing about the sanctification of every true believer.
D.L. Moody, despite his personal piety and sober demeanor which were by all outward indications admirable, took up the holiness banner along with others in his influential Bible conferences at Northfield, Massachusetts. But his theology was seen as deficient by a number of his contemporaries, including the English preacher J.K. Popham. If Moody's theology were orthodox, Popham implied in a tract entitled "Moody and Sankey's Errors Versus the Scriptures of Truth," he would not have failed to rely on God's ability to keep His own converts in the faith through the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit. Writes Popham,
Nor could he have made a pedestal of the weakness of his converts, and, standing above them in conscious superiority, lugubriously telling them that he could foresee many of them would be tempted to fall away when he departed! Pity he could not see it needful and right for him to remain with these helpless "converts" of his, to charm the evil spirit who would tempt many of them to fall away when he was no longer there to protect them!
With the sanctifying power of saving faith thus glossed over, holiness increasingly became primarily the result of one’s dedication or surrender, a mere act of the will. The essential holy nature of a true Christian became less important than what a person must do to become holy. In time, the great “perseverance of the saints” doctrine began to fade, being replaced by “eternal security,” which offered confidence of heaven without the necessary evidences of salvation that are God's appointed means of making our hope secure. Those who rightly opposed this presumptuous eternal security were said to be teaching the heresy of many declining churches at that time: the idea that assurance is not possible to the Christian in this life. It must be pointed out, however, that Reformed Christian orthodoxy has always taught, as the Bible does, that true Christians are eternally secure; yet one is assured of it only as he perseveres in the faith: “Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father,” 1 John 2:24.)
The New Century
The evolved holiness doctrine described above became even more prevalent in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. In fact, as the holiness doctrine became commonplace and the old truths were forgotten, the very notion of what constitutes a Christian – i.e., the baseline – was defined downward at the same time the Bible conference movement was transforming itself into the age of mass evangelism led by popular evangelists such as Sam Jones, Billy Sunday, Gypsy Smith, Bob Jones and others – all of whom embraced the newer and more "easy-believe" theology. Likewise did the new and instantly-popular Scofield reference Bible, one of the first of its kind which boldly placed the author’s own notes between the verses of the Scriptural text, in violation of the policy of all well-known Bible societies of the day. Scofield himself was a lawyer who was converted as an adult, yet one writer points out how this heretofore unknown Bible teacher, by taking the King James Bible and adding his own notes to it, “assured himself a place in the memory of all who read that version of the Bible.” Scofield was perhaps not even aware how out of the mainstream his ideas were as he made a “Biblical” case, whether intentionally or not, for saying that one who merely accepted the facts of Christianity could be considered positionally saved, even though his or her life showed little evidence to back up that testimony.
This idea was not new. It is always interesting how, throughout church history, the same heresies reappear under different names – for example, the old Arian heresy of the 4th century reappeared in the theology of Jehovah's witnesses in the 19th century. Likewise, the theology proposed by Scofield above was simply warmed-over antinomianism [or "anti-law"], a teaching which was determined by the early church and every subsequent age to be heretical. It nevertheless surfaced a number of times throughout history, including its appearance in the teachings of Robert Sandeman in Scotland in the 18th century. It was Andrew Fuller, the early Baptist missionary and theologian, who dissected "Sandemanianism" and definitively exposed it for the error that it was. Consequently, Sandeman's heresy, as a serious theological position, would not rear its ugly head again for nearly 100 years. When it it did, it would find its way again into mainstream Christian thought through the writings of Scofield and his most prominent disciple, Lewis Sperry Chafer.
Chafer came under the influence of Scofield at the Northfield Bible conference in Massachusetts. Eventually he became co-founder of Dallas Theological Seminary and a prolific writer, facts which helped to disseminate Scofield's ideas at the seminary leve. His massive, 8-volume Systematic Theology, in fact, is still in influential to this day. Conservative theologian B.B. Warfield of Princeton, in the early 20th century, attempted to expose Chafer's heterodoxy by commenting on Chafer's book, He that is Spiritual. Writing in 1919, Warfield said,
Mr. Chafer is in the unfortunate and, one would think, very uncomfortable condition of having two inconsistent systems of religion struggling together in his mind. He was bred an Evangelical, and ... stands committed to Evangelicalism of the purest water. But he has been long associated in his work with a coterie of "Evangelists" and "Bible Teachers," among whom there flourishes that curious religious system (at once curiously pretentious and curiously shallow) which the Higher Life leaders of the middle of the last century brought into vogue; and he has not been immune to its infection. These two religious systems are quite incompatible. The one is the product of the Protestant Reformation and knows no determining power in the religious life but the grace of God; the other ... in all its forms, modifications and mitigations alike, remains incurably Arminian subjecting all gracious workings of God to human determining. The two can unite as little as fire and water.
In our times, a number of prominent theologians of the old school have commented on Chafer's theology and the damage it has wrought in the modern church. An example is this comment from J.I. Packer:
If, ten years ago, you had told me that I would live to see literate evangelicals, some with doctorates and a seminary teaching record, arguing for the reality of an eternal salvation, divinely guaranteed, that may have in it no repentance, no discipleship, no behavioral change, no practical acknowledgment of Christ as Lord of one's life, and no perseverance in faith, then I would have told you that you were out of your mind.
Another is John MacArthur, who along with a few others in recent times has attempted to bring back the older and established salvation doctrines (now often termed, for better or for worse, “Lordship salvation”) of Spurgeon and his predecessors. MacArthur makes the following comment on Chafer’s theology, which can be confirmed by any serious study of the earlier writers:
Prior to this [the 20th] century, no serious theologian would have entertained the notion that it is possible to be saved yet see nothing of the outworking of regeneration in one’s lifestyle or behavior. In 1918, Lewis Sperry Chafer published He That is Spiritual, articulating the concept that 1 Corinthians 2:15 – 3:3 speaks of two classes of Christians: carnal and spiritual. Chafer wrote, “The ‘carnal’ Christian is…characterized by a ‘walk’ that is on the same plane as that of the ‘natural’ [unsaved] man.” That was a foreign concept to most Christians in Dr. Chafer’s generation, but it has become a central basis for a whole new way of looking at the gospel.
The curiosity created by this new way of thinking about the Bible captured the greater part of the popular evangelists, the professing church, and nearly all the seminaries of that time, to the extent that anyone who questioned it was considered uninformed and out of step with “Biblical” doctrine. A few writers at that time (the 1920’s & 30’s), notably A.W. Pink, H.A. Ironside, and A.W. Tozer, tried to stem the tide of empty professions, and preached against the shallow evangelism of their day, but they were vastly outnumbered. In our own day, though most Christians have never read Chafer, the vast majority of our popular Christian writers and preachers were spawned in seminaries that were heavily influenced by Chafer and Scofield, and are of what could be termed the “easy-believe” mentality. Their ideas dominate most of the popular, even so-called “conservative” study Bibles (Scofield Bible, Ryrie Study Bible, etc.) and most modern Christian books and commentaries (for example, Wiersbe’s Be… series) read by millions of Christians and their leaders, who unknowingly accept their presuppositions without question.
The interconnection of these writers is astounding: Chafer and Scofield (who themselves were heavily influenced by the 19th century Keswick movement and the dispensational writings of J.N. Darby) were colleagues who formulated their then-dubious ideas together. Popular authors John Walvoord and Dwight Pentecost, both Dallas Theological professors, and both enormously influential in formulating Christian intellectual thought along with popular author Charles Ryrie, were Chafer’s and Scofield’s disciples, traveled in their circles, and disseminated their ideas. After the modern revival of lordship views came to the forefront with John MacArthur’s The Gospel According to Jesus in 1988, popular author Warren Wiersbe wrote the introduction to his friend Charles Ryrie’s So Great Salvation, a negative response to MacArthur’s book; and we could go on and on. All of these men and others exert great influence on the Christian public by injecting a bias into the way passages are interpreted and preached, and thus the way Christians talk about them. Thus, the salvation doctrine taught in most pulpits across America today is not the time-honored orthodox position of the last 2000 years, but a new doctrine based on the complex and innovative but questionable teachings of a small handful of men and the many who were influenced by them. Certainly, “a little leaven has leavened the whole lump.”
Today, the denial of a life-changing effectual calling and a God-sustained perseverance in every saved person has changed the very nature of preaching from Biblical texts. Passages such as Psalm 1 and Proverbs 2:1-5, for example, which traditionally were seen as factual contrasts between the saved, "blessed" or "wise" man, and the unsaved or "foolish" man (a theme presented so beautifully throughout Scripture, but especially in the Psalms and Proverbs), are seen today primarily as a list of things the Christian must do to be blessed of God. This view tears down and makes conditional – even works-oriented – one of the central truths of Scripture: that God loves and spiritually blesses His elect, whom He sees as righteous, and in whom He has written His law upon their hearts (Hebrews 8:10), “both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”(Phil. 2:13).
No Place for Truth
Through seminaries, pastors, evangelists, and missionaries, these new doctrines are carried virtually around the world, while the deep, biblical salvation teachings of Bunyan, Edwards, Spurgeon, and others remain buried in old books as the professional Christian world rushes on. As I discovered these older writings, I wondered why they were never presented at least for consideration during my college days, even to a student like me pursuing a Bible degree; in fact, most books like these are no longer in print.
I find it interesting that, while John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is one of the most read books in the English language, his writings on the difficulty of salvation are almost universally ignored. While Jonathan Edwards is revered for his role in the 18th century Great Awaking revival, how few are aware that he spent much of his life in deep contemplation about the nature of true saving faith, and questioned the genuineness of a sizeable percentage of the “conversions” during those revival years, writing in 1751, “How small a proportion there are…who, in the time of the late religious [revival] through the land, had their consciences awakened [i.e., made some profession of faith], who give abiding evidences of a saving conversion to God.” While A.W. Pink’s The Sovereignty of God is still widely read, his Studies on Saving Faith has been out of print for years. The salvation testimony of the beloved Spurgeon is often retold, with all of the touching details about the dark, snowy evening and the country preacher’s appeal to “Look and live.” But how few have ever heard that what drew Spurgeon to the Savior was his faith in the desire and certainty that salvation would not merely save him from sin but keep him from it:
The sweetmeat which tempted me to Christ was this: I believed that salvation was an insurance of character. In what better way can a young man cleanse his life than by putting himself into the holy hands of the Lord Jesus, to be kept from falling? I said, if I give myself to Christ, He will save me from my sins. Therefore I came to Him, and He keeps me. O how musical these words, ‘They shall not depart from me!’
And, while A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God is considered a devotional classic, few seem moved by his opposition to shallow professions and the questionable evangelical trends of his day. Perhaps it is because the message of these men is a “hard saying” which is not popular with the shallow Christianity of our day. Moreover, it seems that the absence of such writings has aided Satan in his mission to deceive souls despite the fact that people today have more biblical knowledge than at any time in history.
