Only One Gospel

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A genuine Christian is one who has been regenerated and saved by faith through grace. Jesus Christ was born sinless, lived a sinless life, and died sinless on the cross. As he died, the Father imputed the sins of all those who will be saved to His account. His death was God’s wrath being poured out on Him as the Lamb of God. He was the blood sacrifice that satisfied the wrath of God against the sin being paid for by Christ’s gruesome death. However, Jesus did not stay dead. He was resurrected on the third day. This created the way to peace with God for all who believe on Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. Those who do believe on Him have Christ’s perfect righteousness imputed to their account. They are justified in God’s eyes. They now have peace with Him.

The following devotional by Martin Luther is from Faith Alone. Enjoy and be blessed. – Mike Ratliff

Only One Gospel

by Martin Luther

There is one body and one Spirit–just as you were called to one hope when you were called–one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:4-6)

All of the apostles taught one message. So we must be careful when we talk about four evangelists and four Gospels. Everything the apostles wrote is one gospel. The word gospel means nothing other than an announcement about God’s grace earned and purchased through Christ by his death. Actually, the gospel is not what we read in books and what is written with letters. Instead, it’s a living word, a voice that rings throughout the whole world. It is publicly proclaimed and heard everywhere. The gospel also is not a law book that contains many good teachings, as has been thought in the past. It doesn’t tell us to do good works to become virtuous but announces God’s grace to us, given freely and without our merit. It tells us how Christ stood as our representative. He paid for our sins and wiped them out so that we can become faithful and blessed through his work.

Whoever preaches or writes about this teaches the true gospel as all apostles have, most notably as Paul and Peter did in their letters. Although preachers teach in different ways and choose different words, they preach only one gospel. It may be a shorter or longer account. It may be presented briefly or more extensively. But if the preachers teach us that Christ is our Savior, that we are justified by faith in him without works, then it’s the same word. There is only one gospel, just as there is only one faith and one baptism.

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21 thoughts on “Only One Gospel”

  1. “Although preachers teach in different ways and choose different words, they preach only one gospel.”

    Yes and amen. When you read the gospel presentations of people like Wesley and Whitefield you see parallel gospels but sometimes they would accent different aspects while lifting high the Lordship of Jesus. What we must acknowledge is that so many today never mention the Lordship of Jesus and His sinbearing sacrifice while offering Jesus as a motivational part of your life that will help you be successful.

    It seems in such contrast to what people like Luther used to preach because…it is. It is not the gospel and as your post proclaims “There is only ONE gospel” and millions are embracing a self serving gospel that has very little to do with sin and more to do with helping your own selfish desires. The last days – many gospels.

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  4. Mike,

    interestingly both Luther and Calvin taught that regeneration started with infant baptism…

    yet we have no problem quoting them.

    I found an interesting quote since often the accusation against “emergent” is that we are against the reformers… which is not true… in fact we are more in the Spirit of the Reformation much as Spurgeon was…

    “”We admire a man who was firm in the faith, say four hundred years ago…but such a man today is a nuisance, and must be put down…Yet imagine in those ages past, Luther, Zwingle, Calvin, and their compeers had said, ‘The world is out of order; but if we try to set it right we shall only make a great row, and get ourselves into disgrace. Let us go to our chambers, put on our night-caps, and sleep over the bad times, and perhaps when we wake up things will have grown better.’ Such conduct on their part would have entailed upon us a heritage of error. Age after age would have gone down into the infernal deeps, and the pestiferous bogs of error would have swallowed all. These men loved the faith and the name of Jesus too well to see them trampled on.

    “It is today as it was in the Reformers days. Decision is needed. Here is the day for the man, where is the man for the day? we who have had the gospel passed to us by martyr hands dare not triffle with it, nor sit by and hear it denied by traitors, who pretend to love it, but inwardly abhor every line of it…Look you sirs, there are ages yet to come. If the Lord does not speedily appear, there will come another generation, and another, and all these generations will be tainted and injured if we are not faithful to God and to His truth today. We have come to a turning point in the road. If we turn to the right mayhap our children and our children’s children will go that way; but if we turn to the left, generations yet unborn will curse our names for having been unfaithful to God and to His Word.”
    C.H.S., Sermons, 1888, 83-84

    So, even Spurgeon thought that the Reformation was still needed. W are criticized as we are “men of decision”. We practice task theology as Paul the great task theologian did.

    Blessings,
    iggy

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  5. Iggy,

    Give me a break. If you wrote a post “like” this one then Ken Silva would not call you a heretic. Could it be that you are a Universalist and included that heresy in your post? If you are going to comment on these posts then address the topic.

    In Christ

    Mike Ratliff

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  6. I’m trying to figure out how the Pauline dispensationalists then say there are multiple Gospels? It seems rather heretical to suggest that there is more than one Gospel, and yet dispensationalists don’t seem phased by that at all.

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  7. Iggy,

    Interestingly, Luther and Calvin both preached, taught and wrote that men are saved by grace through faith, not baptism. Calvin associated infant baptism with Jewish circumcison. To him babies would be baptised to bring them into the covenant. What you are overlooking is that God is a covenant God. No Reformed Preachers teach that baptism saves anyone and neither did Luther or Calvin or Tyndale or Owen or Bunyan or Matthtew Heny, etc. We believe that regeneration is where faith begins. I am a Baptist and an adherant to the London Confession of Faith from the 17th Century. It is nearly identical to the Westminster Confession. The difference is in infant Baptism. However, since no one who is an adherant to it teaches that infant baptism saves anyone I have no problem quoting Spurgeon and Luther and Tyndale and Calvin in the same article or book or whatever.

    The church is ever reforming, but that does not mean that truth is no longer the truth. Truth never changes. Emergents refuse to adhere to the whole counsel from the Word of God. That is our point of contention Iggy.

    Paul would rebuke emergents to their faces just as he did the Galatians for changing the gospel.

    In Christ

    Mike Ratliff

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  8. iggy — regeneration starts with the work of the Holy Spirit. It may indeed start when a child is baptized. I’m Lutheran and for me, I consider baptism symbolic of what we pray the Lord will do in the child’s heart. If they grow up and profess faith in the true Gospel, then the baptism was valid. If not, then it wasn’t. At the moment they trust Christ, their previous baptism was valid. If we get into saying that they must be rebaptized (except in cases where they were not baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit perhaps) then anyone who ever thinks they’ve backslidden or may not have been saved at some point between their baptism and the present would have to be rebaptized. What is the point then?

    But this isn’t a discussion of baptism. Luther also said a lot of things that are used to persecute Jews. He didn’t hold himself up to be some sort of pillar of absolute truth, instead he held the Word alone up as that pillar of truth.

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  9. PJ,

    No arugment from me. I am not a dispensationalist and I agree with your analysis. Covenant Theology is Biblical. Dispensationalism taken to extreme is heresy as far as I am concerned.

    Also, well said in your second comment.

    In Christ

    Mike Ratliff

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  10. I agree, Mike! I have been doing research on dispensationalism and have been digging deep into it and I’ve been horrified at what I have seen. I do think there are different levels of dispensationalism. From what I can find so far, is that at it’s best it is humanism and at its worse it is flat out heresy! I have been very saddened at recently finding out that some famous preachers who many would consider reformed are dispensationalists. We must be constantly praying for them…Satan will use whatever arsonal he can find to shoot down Christ and the truth!

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  11. Infant baptism is an attempt to shadow the law and is not taught anywhere in Scripture. Luther and Calvin both still had vestages of the Roman Church, surely we’ve progressed since then. The infant baptism is covenant theology run amuck. R. C. Sproul’s theology is complex intellectualism and wrought with pride. The average twelve year old or uneducated farmer canoot understand that theology, so by definition it has staryed from the simplicity that is Christ.

    The emergent church theology, mercurial in nature, has questioned everything and finds the inconsistencies of former Christian teachers to supposedly knock down people we quote. We are under no illusions, Luther was a man full of faults in his personal life and in his theology and he was a rabid anti-semite. But he was mightily used of God to restore the authority of Scripture and THE gospel.

    As far as some of the back and forth in the comment sections of some of the other blogs they are juvenile from both camps. I appreaciate the Spiritual decorum that Mike maintains on PtT.

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  12. Amen Sarah! If we look at the history of dispensationalism it sorta’ reminds us of the history of the church of scientology which was made up in the 20th century to prove that religion could be created by a man that people would believe. Dispensationalism taken to extremes results in multiple gospels all with different ways to God. Utter nonsense!

    In Christ

    Mike Ratliff

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  13. Rick,

    I agree. I love to study and discuss the infinite depths of the Gospel, but you are right about keeping it simple. The simplicity of the Gospel means anyone can understand it. Amen!

    I also like your point about the reformers and other Church leaders we quote quite a bit. They are men and flawed just as we are. That is why our pillar of truth must be the Word of God.

    The mercurialness (is that a word?) of the emergent church means it has no solid foundation. The Genuine Church is full of imperfect people being led with imperfect people, BUT worship and server a PERFECT GOD who empowers and uses imperfect people despite their inconsistencies.

    Oh, how I want to be free from this body of sin and be with my Saviour!

    In Christ

    Mike Ratliff

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  14. Actually, my church (OPC very reformed) believes in infant baptism. No one in my church believes that the child is saved when they baptize their child. The child is unable to dedicate themselves to God and so the parents dedicate their children to Christ through this initial physical act and also by affirming that they will raise their children under God’s teachings. Even Scripture says that the children of saved parents are holy. We are to dedicate everything we have to Christ…especially our children. R.C. Sproul is wrought with pride! What a horrible person he is! Thank our merciful God that He still decided to elect Sproul as His child, draw him to God, make him alive, give him the free gift of faith on which to believe God, and receive Jesus as Lord and Savior….otherwise I would be high and dry on great theology! :o)

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  16. Hey, Mike! My name’s Lane Keister. I see we have a lot of blog links in common. I like what you’re posting about. They are very similar to my concerns, which, at the moment, involve defending the Reformation truths against various attacks, such as Federal Vision and the New Perspective on Paul. I will link to your blog.

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  18. The exclusivity of Christ’s gospel message is an offense and foolishness to those who are perishing. They’ve devised a god of their own making, a doting, senile omni-beneficent doddering old grandpa figure who would never, ever think of sending one of his beloved creations to hell. As if!

    Revelation 20:11-14
    11And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.

    12And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

    13And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

    14And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

    Every man will be judged by his Creator. Praise be unto the Lord that the judgment of His own took place on the cross of Calvary!

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  20. I’m sorry but I am literally getting tired of the emergents commenting at all and having the audacity to extoll another Jesus. Then they run to their own blog and bash people that hold to the Truth rather then falling for all the fads that trickle up from the pit. I may seem very angry and yes I am. I just appreciate you Mike as well as anyone who loves the True God of the Bible. Praise God for people who stand on The Word!

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