THE TRUE GOSPEL By Rev. George Syms

“The Apostle Paul makes clear the primacy of the Gospel in 1 Cor. 15:1-4: “Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”

In reviewing this text, we immediately understand that this Gospel is so vastly different from what is being called the ‘Gospel’ today.  There is nothing here about asking “Jesus into your heart,” or “letting Christ into your life.”  The Gospel is an event which took place in history and objectively, that is, outside of us.  We ought not to be ashamed of this truth, however, people do get a bit touchy if you tell them that the “ask Jesus into your heart” Gospel is not the Gospel at all.  At the risk of sounding negative, if the inspired Word tells us what the Gospel is with certainty, then, we’ll go out on a limb and say that if the Gospel being preached does not match up with this, it is another gospel.

We cannot play fast and loose with the truth, and we must not be moved by the “niceness” of the people who preach these false ‘gospels.’  It is at this point that the powers of darkness seek to overthrow the truth.  Get the people to believe something other than what they should, but be nice about it.  The anti-Christ doesn’t come around wearing a red suit with horns and carrying a pitchfork.  He works through people who look and sound like they’re “nice.”  Anyway, we don’t determine truth on the basis of how, what, or whom we like, but what meets the standard of God’s Holy Word.”