Old Gospel vs. New Gospel

About 25 years ago, my former pastor gave me a little booklet. It’s called "Introductory Essay to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ" by J. I. Packer. Packer explains the difference between New Gospel and Old Gospel.

"Those who study the printed sermons of worthy expositors of the old gospel, such as Bunyan (whose preaching Owen himself much admired), or Whitefieid, or Spurgeon, will find that in fact they hold forth the Savior and summon sinners to him with a fullness, warmth, intensity and moving force unmatched in Protestant pulpit literature. And it will be found on analysis that the very thing which gave their preaching its unique power to overwhelm their audiences with brokenhearted joy at the riches of God’s grace - and still gives it that power, let it be said, even with hard-boiled modern readers - was their insistence on the fact that grace is free. They knew that the dimensions of divine love are not half understood till one realizes that God need not have chosen to save nor given his Son to die; nor need Christ have taken upon him vicarious damnation to redeem men, nor need he invite sinners indiscriminately to himself as he does; but that all God’s gracious dealings spring entirely from his own free purpose. Knowing this, they stressed it, and it is this stress that sets their evangelistic preaching in a class by itself.

Other evangelicals, possessed of a more superficial and less adequate theology of grace, have laid the main emphasis in their gospel preaching on the sinner’s need of forgiveness, or peace or power, and on the way to get them by ‘deciding for Christ’. It is not to be denied that their preaching has done good (for God will use his truth, even when imperfectly held and mixed with error), although this type of evangelism is always open to the criticism of being too man-centered and pietistic; but it has been left (necessarily) to Calvinists and those who, like the Wesleys, fall into Calvinistic ways of thought as soon as they begin a sermon to the unconverted, to preach the gospel in a way which highlights above everything else the free love, willing condescension, patient long-suffering and infinite kindness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And, without doubt, this is the most Scriptural and edifying way to preach it; for gospel invitations to sinners never honor God and exalt Christ more, nor are more powerful to awaken and confirm faith, than when full weight is laid on the free omnipotence of the mercy from which they flow. It looks, indeed, as if the preachers of the old gospel are the only people whose position allows them to do justice to the revelation of divine goodness in the free offer of Christ to sinners.

Then, in the second place, the old gospel safeguards values which the new gospel loses. We saw before that the new gospel, by asserting universal redemption and a universal divine saving purpose, compels itself to cheapen grace and the cross by denying that the Father and the Son are sovereign in salvation; for it assures us that, after God and Christ have done all that they can, or will, it depends finally on each man’s own choice whether God’s purpose to save him is realized or not.

This position has two unhappy results. The first is that it compels us to misunderstand the significance of the gracious invitations of Christ in the gospel of which we have been speaking; for we now have to read them, not as expressions of the tender patience of a mighty Sovereign, but as the pathetic pleadings of impotent desire; and so the enthroned Lord is suddenly metamorphosed into a weak, futile figure tapping forlornly at the door of the human heart, which he is powerless to open. This is a shameful dishonor to the Christ of the New Testament. The second implication is equally serious: for this view in effect denies our dependence on God when it comes to vital decisions, takes us out of his hand, tells us that we are, after all, what sin taught us to think we are - masters of our fate, captain of our souls - and so undermines the very foundation of man’s religious relationship with his Maker. It can hardly be wondered at that the converts of the new gospel are so often both irreverent and irreligious, for such is the natural tendency of this teaching.

The old gospel, however, speaks very differently and has a very different tendency. On the one hand, in expounding man’s need for Christ, it stresses something which the new gospel effectively ignores - that sinners cannot obey the gospel, any more than the law, without renewal of heart. On the other hand, on declaring Christ’s power to save, it proclaims him as the Author and Chief Agent of conversion, coming by his Spirit as the gospel goes forth to renew men’s hearts and draw them to himself. Accordingly, in applying the message, the old gospel, while stressing that faith is man’s duty, stresses also that faith is not in man’s power, but that God must give what he commands. It announces, not merely that men must come to Christ for salvation, but also that cannot come unless Christ himself draws them. Thus it labors to overthrow self-confidence, to convince sinners that their salvation is altogether out of their hands, and to shut them up to a self-despairing dependence on the glorious grace of a sovereign Savior, not only for their righteousness but for their faith too.

It is not likely, therefore, that a preacher of the old gospel will be happy to express the application of it in the form of a demand to ‘decide for Christ’, as the current phrase is. For, on the one hand, this phrase carries the wrong associations. It suggests voting a person into office - an act in which the candidate plays no part beyond offering himself for election, everything then being settled by the voter’s independent choice. But we do not vote God’s Son into office as our Savior, nor does he remain passive while preachers campaign on his behalf, whipping up support for his cause. We ought not to think of evangelism as a kind of electioneering. And then, on the other hand, this phrase obscures the very thing that is essential in repentance and faith - the denying of self in a personal approach to Christ. It is not at all obvious that deciding for Christ is the same as coming to him and resting on him and turning from sin and self-effort; it sounds like something much less, and is accordingly likely to instill defective notions of what the gospel really requires of sinners. It is not a very apt phrase from any point of view. "

So which Gospel are you hearing from the pulpit at your church?

Biblical Evangelism 101

In May I had the great joy of attending the True Church Conference. It was so encouraging to meet fellow soldiers in the "Truth War".

Today, I was forwarded a letter from one to his pastor. With permission, and with names removed, I'll be publishing excerpts from this letter.

" So where does that leave me? You and I don't speak the same language. We're not on the same page. And for the last 8 months, I've struggled with that; trying to fit in amongst a church that is not anywhere close to what I was led to believe it was when I joined. Maybe that's a foolish thing to do - it's certainly a crippling thing, personally, to do. But I can't reject something out of hand - even if I am right to do so per se - without offering an antidote to the problem.

The antidote is hinted at in a few verses of Scripture:

-Romans 1:15 & 10:14
-1 Corinthians 1:18
-2 Timothy 4:2

God doesn't need programs. God doesn't even need us. But converts, and churches will grow and multiply through the means God has ordained. It is preaching (not surveys) that lost people need to hear. It is preaching that the converted need to hear to inspire them to go preach themselves. Not using the Bible to coach or lead, but taking the Bible and preaching it. Preaching is mentioned 134 times in the New Testament (If my count is correct).

Modern church wisdom says otherwise. I'm sorry, but I can't abide with it anymore. So what is the solution?

If a church wants to see personal soulwinning, lay evangelism, growth, and all of the other things men place a value on today, programs aren't the way to do it. There's a biblical model. That one is the best.


Matthew 28

18And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
19Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost :
20Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen


The great comission. So often we start in verses 19 nowadays, but Jesus started in verse 18.

All power is given unto Him - therefore, GO! We don't need a program, we don't need gimmicks, we don't need unGodly compromise and begging people to 'give their heart to Jesus'. We have a High Priest, a King, a Prophet, a Savior....and He is in charge. Lift His name up. We don't go because we want to improve upon God's justice by warning poor ignorant sinners of God's wrath. We don't go because people need friends or help with their felt needs (what they need is God...). We go because God is in control. We go because people need the Gospel, because they live life with their back to God, and an all-powerful God justly demands that men everywhere repent - and He has chosen us, the base, earthen, foolish, and weak, to preach, so that people might hear (Romans 10) . We go because God is in control.

And when we get there, we teach. We don't tell them how they need to avoid a mean old devil and his hell, or how their life won't be fulfilling without Jesus, or how God has a wonderful plan for their life. God's plan for life didn't do Pharaoh much good, did it? Our commission is first to teach men. What do we teach them? We teach them the Glory of God. We teach them about their wicked, vile nature, and their just condemnation before God. They may well hate us - but so what? God is, remember, in control. Praise His Name if people hate us. Praise His Name if people repent!

When they have been taught (ultimately not by us, but by a Sovereign work of God, John 6:45, Jeremiah 31:33, Hebrews 8:10-11), then we baptise them. We do so not to celebrate church growth, but to celebrate the testimony of God saving another wicked, vile sinner such as ourselves from the depths of Hell (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). Why do churches beg people to be baptised? Genuine converts will come running for the waters of baptism - as Peter said, the answer of their good conscience towards God.

Then we teach them to observe all of His commandments. We teach them a life submitted to the law of Christ, by His Grace (Ephesians 2:8), for His glory (1 Corinthians 10:31). Then we send out another generation of truth-bearers, sending them with the promise that God will never leave us; we can go out and live and work and witness amongst a heathen, pagan world because He has promised to be with us (Deuteronomy 31:6). God has spoken His promise to be with us. We can rest in this truth as we go forth.

Why will this work? Why will evangelism succeed if we start not with a man-centered approach, a man-invented program, but with God on His throne, sovereignly in control, as in Matthew 28:18?

It will work because true, genuine conversion ALWAYS includes an encounter with God. The truth we carry isn't to convince men to follow a religious system; the truth we carry is to be a path for the Holy Spirit to change man's wicked heart. How does this work? What Biblical assurance can we have of this?

Isaiah 6 "

Well said fellow soldier!

Blessings Out of Buffetings (Redpath)

I've been reading another "dead guy", Alan Redpath.

This book is an exposition of II Corinthians. Here are a few quotes that hit home with me.

"There are many different ways and means which the Lord uses and applies to His people, that through buffeting may come blessing. One of them is the misunderstanding of our motives, even by our friends."

"There is always a crowd of folks looking for a the slightest inconsistency in a servant of God, and for the opportunity to publish is far and wide."

"The certainty of life, the absolute, clear, unshakable certainty is that if I am to rest in His pardon, then I must accept His standard unswervingly."

"That is one thing that I believe the Christian church lacks today- a grip of eternal truth upon our souls- so that when God says, "Thou shalt not," something rises in us that says, "Why?"