Question 36

What is the true gospel?

The gospel is good news about something Jesus did. It isn't a list of things you do. Paul gave it in one sentence: “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). He calls that the gospel “by which also ye are saved” (1 Corinthians 15:2).

You receive it one way: you believe it. “The righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe” (Romans 3:22).

Every false gospel takes that “done” and adds a “do.” Believe, plus clean up your life. Believe, plus keep the law. Believe, plus prove it, or keep it up, or you’ll lose it. Whatever the add-on is, it puts you back under the law, and the Bible says the law carries a curse for everyone who stands on it: “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse” (Galatians 3:10). Jesus took that curse so you wouldn’t have to: “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13).

Here is the evidence, all of it pointing the same way.

1. The gospel is news about what happened

News is something you hear and believe. You don’t do news.

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16). The power is in the gospel, and it goes to the one who believes.
On the cross, Jesus said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). Not “it is started, now you finish it.”
“But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God” (Hebrews 10:12). The priests in the temple never sat down, because their work was never done. Jesus sat down.

2. The one thing God asks: believe

When people asked Jesus what work God wanted from them, He gave them one.

“Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent” (John 6:28-29).
The jailer asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:30-31). No second step.
“He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18). People are lost for unbelief, not for a type of sin. If a type of sin is what sends someone to hell, then managing your sin is what keeps you saved.
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). Hath, right now. Passed, already.
John wrote a whole book for this reason: “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:31).

Repentance isn’t a second step either. The word is metanoia, a change of mind, from unbelief to belief. It isn’t penance, cleaning up your act to show God you’re sorry enough. That’s laid out in What is saving repentance?.

3. Grace and works don’t mix

Adding works to grace cancels grace.

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
“And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace” (Romans 11:6).
“Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Romans 4:4-5). God justifies the ungodly. Not the ones who got godly first.
“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us” (Titus 3:5).
“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ... for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified” (Galatians 2:16).
“I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain” (Galatians 2:21). If you could get there by the law, the cross was a waste.

Some teachers say Paul only meant the ceremonial works of the law, so other good works still count toward salvation. Bible teacher Onorato Diamante shows why that doesn’t hold: Titus 3:5 and Romans 4 make no such split. They rule out “works of righteousness” of every kind.

Look at who God counted righteous.

Abraham was counted righteous by believing God (Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3), years before he was circumcised (Romans 4:10) and 430 years before the law was given (Galatians 3:17).
David committed adultery and murder, and Paul uses him to describe “the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,” saying, “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Romans 4:6-8).
The thief on the cross never went to church, read a Bible or did one good work. Jesus told him, “To day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

4. What the law is for

The law isn’t bad. “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good” (Romans 7:12). Christian apologist Louis Scott puts it this way: “I love the law... but I love to teach the law for the reason that it was given.” It was given to show you the problem. It was never meant to fix it.

It shows you your sin: “by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20).
It shuts every mouth: “that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Romans 3:19).
It makes sin show up even more: “Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Romans 5:20).
It walks you to Jesus: “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster” (Galatians 3:24-25).
It ends at Jesus: “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth” (Romans 10:4).
It isn’t aimed at the righteous: “the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners” (1 Timothy 1:9).

Louis says the main purpose God gave the law is so we see that we are exceedingly sinful, and that in our sinful nature we will never be holy enough to deserve God’s blessing. Ashley Hays says the same: the purpose of the law was to point out our inability to keep it, and to point to the One who did.

That’s also how Romans 2 reads, even the verses people use to teach works. “To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life” (Romans 2:7) and “the doers of the law shall be justified” (Romans 2:13) hold up the law’s standard to everyone. Onorato calls it a hypothetical Paul puts forward “to demonstrate man’s helplessness and hopelessness without the righteousness of Christ”. Then Paul answers it a chapter later: “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). NeedGod.net calls it “a law verse”: it shows why you need Jesus, and then Romans 3:21 brings in a righteousness “apart from your obedience... achieved by Jesus.”

5. The curse of the law

Standing on the law brings a curse, because the law doesn’t grade on a curve.

“Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Galatians 3:10). All things. Onorato points out it doesn’t say some things, or most things (4:36).
“For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10).
“Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression” (Romans 4:15).
Paul calls the law written on stone “the ministration of death” and “the ministration of condemnation,” and says “the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life” (2 Corinthians 3:6-9).

And the law doesn’t make sin weaker. It makes it stronger.

“The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law” (1 Corinthians 15:56).
“But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead... when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death” (Romans 7:8-10).

Wyatt Coats, a former witch who now preaches Jesus, lived this. Before his relapse, he says, he was keeping Levitical law, keeping the Sabbath, not eating pork and hyper-studying the Torah. He was keeping the law so hard that he started to wonder if Jesus even needed to come, and the whole time he was still watching pornography. The law didn’t free him. It made him think he didn’t need a Savior.

Jesus already carried it. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree” (Galatians 3:13). The curse was real, and Jesus took it on the cross.

6. Every human leans toward the law

Nobody has to be taught to try to earn it. It comes naturally. Grace is what has to be revealed.

The first people. After they sinned, Adam and Eve “sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons” (Genesis 3:7). That was their own covering, their own work. God replaced it with His: “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21). Something had to die for them to be covered.
The rich young ruler came asking, “Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16). His first instinct was a to-do.
The religious crowd. “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God” (Romans 10:3).
The first church fight. Some men taught, “Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1). Peter answered, “why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they” (Acts 15:10-11).
Believers slide back too. “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you... Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:1-3). People who started by grace went back to the law to finish.

Louis Scott has seen the same thing in Christians today. We get saved and baptized, and then somewhere in our walk we put ourselves under a law again: a tick box of things to do to be holy again, or to be accepted by God. And he says “this kills us.”

Going back to the law to be right with God has a name in the Bible: “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:4). Falling from grace means falling out of the grace way into the law way. You can’t stand in both.

7. How to spot a half gospel

Paul didn’t treat this as a small disagreement: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8). Most fake gospels still say “Jesus.” They just add a plus.

Believe, plus turn from all your sins first. That’s penance in place of repentance (What is saving repentance?).
Believe, plus keep the law. “If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain” (Galatians 2:21).
Believe, plus your works prove it. That makes your behavior the judge of whether you’re saved (I still fail. Am I even saved?, Do I have to do good works, or do I get to?).
Believe, plus hold on or you’ll lose it. Jesus said, “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish” (John 10:28) (Can you lose your salvation?).
Tons of mercy for some sins, judgment for others. Mercy doesn’t shrink for certain sins: “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Romans 5:20).

Louis gives one test for any preacher: how does a sinner receive salvation? And how does someone stay saved? The answer to both is the same. They believe the gospel (How do I know if a preacher is teaching the truth?).

8. What happens after you believe

Good works come after salvation, as fruit. They aren’t the root. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (Ephesians 2:10). You get to, not have to.

Grace is also what actually breaks sin’s hold. The law can’t. “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14). “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world” (Titus 2:11-12). Grace is the teacher.

Louis says once you see that Jesus “has once and for all perfected those who are being sanctified”, you stop living conscious of your sin and start walking in your holiness. “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14).

And you can know you’re in:

“These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life” (1 John 5:13).
“In whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13).
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

Say it like this

“The gospel is news, not a to-do list. Jesus died for your sins, was buried and rose again the third day. Believe that, and you’re saved. That’s it. The law is good, but it was only ever meant to show you that you can’t keep it, and it curses everyone who tries to stand on it. Jesus took that curse on the cross. So anything you add, your law-keeping, your track record, your promise to do better, puts you right back under the curse He already carried for you. It’s Him plus nothing.”

Keep reading: How do I actually get saved? · What is saving repentance? · Do I have to do good works, or do I get to? · How do I know if a preacher is teaching the truth?