What is the Gospel? (Part 4)

What is the Gospel?  That depends on the meaning of the question.  

1. What must I do to be regenerate?  Answer: Nothing! Regeneration precedes both saving repentance & saving faith.  (I John 5, Romans 8)

2. What must I do to be justified?  Answer: (1) Be regenerate (2) Lay down your rooted works righteousness. (Romans 9:30 - 10:4) turn to the LORD (ONLY!!) Romans 10:5 - 13, Joel 2:32) because of what Christ has accomplished (Hebrews). 

3. What must I do to be salvifically sanctified?  Answer: (1) Be regenerate (2) Lay down your rooted works righteousness. (Romans 9:30 - 10:4) turn to the LORD (ONLY!!) Romans 10:5 - 13, Joel 2:32) because of what Christ has accomplished (Hebrews).  Depend on God’s grace (Ephesians 2:8,9; Phil.2:12 - 13, 2 Corinthians 7:1)

4. Is it really true that Christ rose from the dead, or is it a myth?  Also, if Christ really did rise from the dead, did He rise figuratively or literally, and was His resurrection ghostly (spiritually) or physically (corpo-pneumatically).  Answers:  According to 1 Corinthians 15: (1) It is a historical fact.  It is no myth. (2) He rose literally & tangibly.  His resurrection is figurative only insofar as the language we use about its meaning is sometimes ufigurative.   For example, His death & resurrection make Him the Gate to eternal life (John 10:7), but that doesn’t mean He Himself is a literal gate. (3) His resurrection is physical & bodily.  He was not a ghost when He appeared to the witnesses listed in the Bible.  

Why write this article?  Because we live in an age in which Ecclesiastical Tradition has a stranglehold on the Evangelical mind, & since the days of Athanasius’ Creed (the 5th or 6th century AD\CE) Christians have so emphasized Christology that they have become notorious for saying, “This is the catholic faith:one cannot be saved without believing it firmly and faithfully.”   The result is that in answer to the question “What must I do to be regenerate &|or justified?” They answer with “believe a species of theologically accurate Christology,” on the one hand, yet deny that doctrinal propositions constitute a (or the) proper object of faith relative to justification.  

May God bless us all, each & every one and “Go & sin no more.”

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