By
Dr. Harry Ironside (1876 - 1951)
"Moreover,
brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also
ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep
in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I
delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that 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" (1st Corinthians
15:1-4).
It might seem
almost a work of supererogation to answer a question like this. We hear the
word, "Gospel" used so many times. People talk of this and of that as
being "as true as the Gospel," and I often wonder what they really
mean by it.
First I should like
to indicate what it is not.
THE
GOSPEL IS...
Not The Bible
In the first place,
the Gospel is not the Bible. Often when I inquire, "What do you think the
Gospel is?" people reply, "Why, it is the Bible, and the Bible is the
Word of God." Undoubtedly the Bible is the Word of God, but there is a
great deal in that Book that is not Gospel.
"The wicked
shall be turned into Hell with all the nations that forget God." That is
in the Bible, and it is terribly true; but it is not Gospel.
"It is a
fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." That is in the
Bible, but it is not the Gospel.
Our English word,
"gospel" just means the "good spell," and the word
"spell," is the old Anglo-Saxon word for, "tidings", the
good tidings, the good news. The original word translated. "Gospel,"
which we have taken over into the English with little alteration is the word,
"evangel," and it has the same meaning, the good news. The Gospel is
God's good news for sinners. The Bible contains the Gospel, but there is a
great deal in the Bible which is not Gospel.
Not
The Commandments
The Gospel is not
just any message from God telling man how he should behave. "What is the
Gospel?" I asked a man this question some time ago, and he answered,
"Why I should say it is the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount,
and I think if a man lives up to them he is all right." Well, I fancy he
would be; but did you ever know anybody who lived up to them? The Sermon on the
Mount demands a righteousness which no unregenerate man has been able to
produce. The law is not the Gospel; it is the very antitheses of the Gospel. In
fact, the law was given by God to show men their need of the Gospel .
"The
law," says the Apostle Paul, speaking as a Jewish convert, "was our
schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. But after that Christ is come we are no
longer under the schoolmaster."
Not
Repentance
The Gospel is not a
call to repentance, or to amendment of our ways, to make restitution for past
sins, or to promise to do better in the future. These things are proper in
their place, but they do not constitute the Gospel; for the Gospel is not good
advice to be obeyed, it is good news to be believed. Do not make the mistake
then of thinking that the Gospel is a call to duty or a call to reformation, a
call to better your condition, to behave yourself in a more perfect way than
you have been doing in the past.
Not
Giving Up The World
Nor is the Gospel a
demand that you give up the world, that you give up your sins, that you break
off bad habits, and try to cultivate good ones. You may do all these things,
and yet never believe the Gospel and consequently never be saved at all.
THERE ARE SEVEN
DESIGNATIONS OF THE GOSPEL in the New Testament, but over and above all these,
let me draw your attention to the fact that when this blessed message is
mentioned, it is invariably accompanied by the definite article. Over and over
and over again in the New Testament we read of the Gospel. It is the Gospel not
a Gospel. People tell us there are a great many different Gospels; but there is
only ONE. When certain teachers came to the Galatians and tried to turn them
away from the simplicity that was in Christ Jesus by teaching "another
Gospel, "the apostle said that it was a different gospel, but not another;
for there is none other than the Gospel. It is downright exclusive; it is God's
revelation to sinful man.
Not
Comparative Religion
The scholars of
this world talk of the Science of Comparative Religions, and it is very popular
now-a-days to say, "We cannot any longer go to heathen nations and preach
to them as in the days gone by, because we are learning that their religions
are just as good as ours, and the thing to do now is to share with them, to
study the different religions, take the good out of them all, and in this way
lead the world into a sense of brotherhood and unity."
So in our great
universities and colleges men study this Science of Comparative Religions, and
they compare all these different religious systems one with another. There is a
Science of Comparative Religions, but the Gospel is not one of them. All the
different religions in the world may well be studied comparatively, for at rock
bottom they are all alike; they all set men at trying to earn his own
salvation. They may be called by different names, and the things that men are
called to do maybe different in each case, but they all set men trying to save
their own souls and earn their way into the favor of God. In this they stand in
vivid contrast with the Gospel, for the Gospel is that glorious message that
tells us what God has done for us in order that guilty sinners maybe saved.
THE SEVEN
DESIGNATIONS OF THIS GOSPEL are called...
1.
The Gospel Of The Kingdom,
and when I use that
term I am not thinking particularly of any dispensational application, but of
this blessed truth that it is only through believing the Gospel that men are
born into the Kingdom of God; We sing: "A ruler once came to Jesus by night,
To ask Him the way of salvation and light; The Master made answer in words true
and plain, 'ye must be born again.' " But neither Nicodemus , nor you, nor
I, could ever bring this about ourselves. We had nothing to with our first
birth, and can have nothing to do with our second birth. It must be the work of
God, and it is wrought through the Gospel. That is why the Gospel is called the
Gospel of the Kingdom, for, "Except a man be born again he cannot see the
Kingdom of God" (John 3:3,7). "Being born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth
forever. . . And this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto
you" (1 Peter 1:23-25. Every where that Paul and his companion apostles
went they preached the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, and they showed that the
only way to get into that Kingdom was by a second birth, and that the only way
whereby the second birth could be brought about was through believing the
Gospel. It is the Gospel of the Kingdom. It also called
2.
The Gospel Of God,
because God is the
source of it, and it is altogether of Himself. No man ever thought of a Gospel
like this. The very fact that all the religions of the world set man to try to
work for his own salvation indicates the fact that no man would ever have
dreamed of such a Gospel as that which is revealed in this Book. It came from
the heart of God; it was God who "so loved the world that He gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting
life." "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because
that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through
Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He first loved us, and
sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:9,10). And
because it is the Gospel of God, God is very jealous of it. He wants it kept
pure. He does not want it mixed with any of man's theories or laws; He does not
want it mixed up with religious ordinances or anything of that kind. The Gospel
is God's own pure message to sinful man. God grant that you and I may receive
it as in very truth the Gospel of God. And then it is called
3.
The Gospel Of His Son
Not merely because
the Son went everywhere preaching the Gospel, but because He is the theme of
it. "When it pleased God," says the apostle, "who called me by
His grace, to reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him among the nations;
immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood" (Gal. 1:15,16). "We
preach Christ crucified . . . the power of God, and the wisdom of God" (1
Cor. 1:23,24). No man preaches the Gospel who is not exalting the Lord Jesus.
It is God's wonderful message about His Son. How often I have gone to meetings
where they told me I would hear the Gospel, and instead of that I have heard
some bewildered preacher talk to a bewildered audience about everything and
anything, but the Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospel has to do with nothing else but
Christ. It is the Gospel of God's Son. And so, linked with this it is called
4.
The Gospel Of Christ
The Apostle Peter
preaching on the day of Pentecost of the risen Savior, says, "God hath
made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." And
He speaks of Him as the anointed One, exalted at God's right hand. The Gospel
is the Gospel of the Risen Christ. There would be no Gospel for sinners if
Christ had not been raised. So the apostle says, "If Christ be not raised,
your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins" (1 Cor. 15:17). A great New York
preacher, great in his impertinence, at least, said some years ago, preaching a
so-called Easter sermon, "The body of Jesus still sleeps in a Syrian tomb,
but His soul goes marching on.: That is not the Gospel of Christ. We are not
preaching the Gospel of a dead Christ, but of a living Christ who sits exalted
at the Father's right hand, and is living to save all who put their trust in
Him. That is why those of us who really know the Gospel never have any
crucifixes around our churches or in our homes. The crucifix represents a dead
Christ hanging languid on a cross of shame. But we are not pointing men to a
dead Christ; we are preaching a living Christ. He lives exalted at God's right
had, and He "saves to the uttermost all who come to God by Him." The Gospel
is also called
5.
The Gospel Of The Grace Of God,
because it leaves
no room whatever for human merit. It just brushes away all man's pretension to
any goodness, to any desert excepting judgment. It is the Gospel of grace, and
grace is God's free unmerited favor to those who have merited the very
opposite. It is as opposite to works as oil is to water." If by
grace," says the Spirit of God, "then it is no more works. . . but if
it be of works, then is it no more grace" (Rom.11:6). People say, :But you
must have both." I have heard it put like this: there was a boatman and
two theologians in a boat, and one was arguing that salvation was by faith and
the other by works. The boatman listened, and then said, "Let me tell you
how it looks to me. Suppose I call this oar Faith and this one Works. If I pull
on this one, the boat goes around; if I pull on this other one, it goes around
the other way, but if I pull on both oars, I get you across the river." I
have heard many preachers use that illustration to prove that we are saved by
faith and works. That might do if we were going to Heaven in a rowboat, but we
are not. We are carried on the shoulders of the Shepherd, who came seeking lost
sheep When He finds them He carries them home on His shoulders. But there are
some other names used. It is called
6.
The Gospel Of The Glory Of God
I love that name.
It is the Gospel of the Glory of God because it comes from the place where our
Lord Jesus has entered. The veil has been rent, and now the glory shines out; and
whenever this Gospel is proclaimed, it tells of a way into the glory for sinful
man, a way to come before the Mercy Seat purged from every stain. It is the
Gospel of the Glory of God, because, until Christ had entered into the Glory,
it could not be preached in its fullness, but, after the glory received Him,
then the message went out to a lost world.
It is also
called...
7.
The Everlasting Gospel
because it will
never be superseded by another. No other ever went before it, and no other
shall ever come after it. One of the professors of the University of Chicago
wrote a book a few years ago in which he tried to point out that some of these
days Jesus would be superseded by a greater teacher; then He and the Gospel
that He taught would have to give way to a message which would be more suited
to the intelligence of the cultivated men of the later centuries. No, no, were
it possible for this world to go on a million years, it would never need any
other Gospel than this preached by the Apostle Paul and confirmed with signs
following; the Gospel which, throughout the centuries has been saving guilty
sinners.
THE
GOSPEL DECLARED
What then is the
content of this Gospel? We are told right here, "I declare unto you the
Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye
stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto
you, unless ye have believed in vain." There is such a thing as merely
believing with the intelligence and crediting some doctrine with the mind when
the heart has not been reached. But wherever men believe this Gospel in real
faith, they are saved through the message. What is it that brings this
wonderful result? It is a simple story, and yet how rich, how full. "I
delivered unto you first of all that which I also received." I think his
heart must have been stirred as he wrote those words, for he went back in
memory to nearly thirty years before, and thought of that day when hurrying
down the Damascus turnpike, with his heart filled with hatred toward the Lord
Jesus Christ and His people, he was thrown to the ground, and a light shone,
and he heard a voice saying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?"
And he cried, "Who art thou Lord?" And the voice said, "I am
Jesus whom thou persecutest." And that day Saul learned the Gospel; he
learned that He who died on the Cross had been raised from the dead, and that
He was living in the Glory. At that moment his soul was saved, and Saul of
Tarsus was changed to Paul the Apostle. And now he says, "I am going to
tell you what I have received; it is a real thing with me, and I know it will
work the same wonderful change in you. If you will believe it. "First of
all, "That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures."
Then, "that He was buried." Then, "that He rose again the third
day according to the Scriptures."
The Gospel was no
new thing in God's mind. It had been predicted throughout the Old Testament
times. Every time the coming Savior was mentioned, there was proclamation of
the Gospel. It began in Eden when the Lord said, "The seed of the woman
shall bruise thy head." It was typified in every sacrifice that was
offered. It was portrayed in the wonderful Tabernacle, and later in the Temple.
We have it in the proclamation of Isaiah, "He was wounded for our
transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our
peace was upon Him: and with His stripes we are healed." It was preached
by Jeremiah when he said, "This is His Name whereby He shall be called,
the Lord our Righteousness" (Jer.23:6). It was declared by Zechariah when
he exclaimed, "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and the sheep shall be
scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones: (Zech.13:7) All
through those Old Testament dispensations, the Gospel was predicted, and when
Jesus came, the Gospel came with Him. When He died, when He was buried, and
when He rose again, the Gospel could be fully told out to a poor lost world.
Observe, it says, "that Christ died for our sins." No man preaches
the Gospel, no matter what nice things he may say about Jesus, if he leaves out
His vicarious death on Calvary's cross.
CHRIST'S
DEATH - NOT HIS LIFE
I was preaching in
a church in Virginia, and a minister prayed, "Lord, grant Thy blessing as
the Word is preached tonight. May it be the means of causing people to fall in
love with the Christ-life, that they may begin to live the Christ-life." I
felt like saying, "Brother, sit down; don't insult God like that;"
but then I felt I had to be courteous, and I knew that my turn would come, when
I could get up and give them the truth. The Gospel is not asking men to live
the Christ-life. If your salvation depends upon your doing that, your are just
as good as checked for Hell, for you never can live it in yourself. It is
utterly impossible. But the very first message of the Gospel is the story of
the vicarious atonement of Christ. He did not come to tell men how to live in
order that they might save themselves; He did not come to save men by living
His beautiful life. That, apart from His death, would never have saved one poor
sinner. He came to die; He "was made a little lower than the angels for
the suffering of death." Christ Jesus gave Himself a ransom for all. When
He instituted the Lord's Supper He said, "Take, eat: this is My body,
which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of Me. . . This cup is the new
covenant in My Blood" (1 Cor. 11:24,25) There is no Gospel if the
vicarious death of Jesus is left out, and there is no other way whereby you can
be saved than through the death of the blessed spotless Son of God.
Someone says,
"But I do not understand it." That is a terrible confession to make,
for "If our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: (2 Cor. 4:3).
If you do not see that there is no other way of salvation for you, save through
the death of the Lord Jesus, then that just tells the sad story that you are
among the lost. You are not merely in danger of being lost in the Day of
Judgment; but you are lost now. But, thank God, "the Son of Man is come to
seek and to save that which was lost," and seeking the lost He went to the
cross. "None of the ransomed ever know How deep were the waters crossed;
Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through, Ere He found the sheep
that was lost."
THE
NECESSITY OF DEATH
HE HAD TO DIE, to
go down into the dark waters of death, that you might be saved. Can you think
of any ingratitude more base than that of a man or woman who passes by the life
offered by the Savior who died on the Cross for them? Jesus died for you, and
can it be that you have never even trusted Him, never even come to Him and told
Him you were a poor, lost, ruined, guilty sinner; but since He died for you,
you would take Him as your Savior? HIS DEATH WAS REAL. He was buried three days
in the tomb. He died, He was buried, and that was God's witness that it was not
a merely pretended death, but He, the Lord of life, had to go down into death.
He was held by the bars of death for those three days and nights, until God's
appointed time had come. Then, "Death could not keep its prey, He tore the
bars away." And so the third point of the Gospel is this, "He was
raised again the third day according to the Scriptures. "That is the
Gospel, and nothing can be added to that. Some people say, "Well, but must
I repent?" Yes, you may well repent, but that is not the Gospel.
"Must I not be baptized?" If you are a Christian, you ought to be
baptized, but baptism is not the Gospel. Paul said, "Christ sent me not to
baptize, but to preach the Gospel" (1 Cor. !:17) He did baptize people,
but he did not consider that was the Gospel, and the Gospel was the great
message that he was sent to carry to the world. This is all there is to it.
"Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was buried, and
rose again the third day according to the Scriptures."
THE
GOSPEL ACCEPTED
Look at the result
of believing the Gospel. Go back to verse two, "By which also ye are
saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed
in vain." That is, if you believe the Gospel, you are saved; if you
believe that Christ died for your sins, that He was buried, and that He rose
again, God says you are saved. Do you believe it? No man ever believed that
except by the Holy Ghost. It is the Spirit of God that overcomes the natural
unbelief of the human heart and enables a man to put his trust in that message.
And this is not mere intellectual credence, but it is that one comes to the
place where he is ready to stake his whole eternity on the fact that Christ
died, and was buried, and rose again. When Jesus said, "IT IS
FINISHED" the work of salvation was completed. A dear saint was dying, and
looking up he said, "It is finished; on that I can cast my eternity."
Upon a life I did not live, Upon a death I did not die; Another's life,
another's death, Is take my whole eternity." Can you say that, and say it
in faith?
THE
GOSPEL REJECTED
What about the man
who does not believe the Gospel? The Lord Jesus said to His disciples, "Go
ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be
damned" (Mark 16:15,16). He that believeth not shall be devoted to
judgment, condemned, lost. So you see, God has shut us up to the Gospel. Have you
believed it? Have you put your trust in it; is it the confidence of your soul?
Or have you been trusting in something else? If you have been resting in
anything short of the Christ who died, who was buried, who rose again, I plead
with you, turn from every other fancied refuge, and flee to Christ today.
Repent ye, and believe the Gospel.
"O, do not let
the word depart, And close thine eyes against the light; Poor sinner, harden
not thy heart, Be saved, O tonight."
[Dr. Harry
Ironside (1876-1951), a godly Fundamentalist author
and teacher for many years, served as pastor of Chicago's Moody Memorial Church
from 1930-1948]
