The Essentials of the Gospel, Part 7

Throughout the ages the gospel has been attacked over and over again by satanic forces that want to water down the truth of salvation found only in Christ. That attack will continue all the way through the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus. The cults always distort and twist the truth of salvation by grace but lately, the attack and distortion is coming from within our own evangelical circles.

Some are promoting a cross-less salvation, or a works salvation. Whatever the changes are that depart from what the Bible teaches bends the truth and weakens the marvelous fact of what God did to save lost humanity. 

While many more points can be listed, below are seven essentials that are necessary pillars of salvation by grace through faith in Christ. 

 

(7) What it means to believe in Christ

The gospel is "good news," but it is personal good news. Christ did something specific on the cross for the individual. Unless the offer of redemption is personalized, one does not become a child of God.

The Bible describes two kinds of faith or belief. (1) The intellectual brand that truly may know certain facts but those facts are not appropriated to the individual personally. The apostle James writes that the satanic forces of the underworld have this kind of belief. "You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder" (James 2:19). (2) Then there is saving faith that appropriates and takes personally the fact of Christ’s sacrifice for one’s personal sins. The writer of Hebrews goes to the heart of the matter:

           For indeed we have had good news (the gospel) preached to us, just
           as they (the Jews in the wilderness) also; but the word they heard did not
           profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard. For we
           who have believed enter that rest, …" (Heb. 4:2-3)

There is always the temptation to add something to the offer of salvation. Salvation offered by Christ is not cheap. It cost Jesus a terrible death on the cross because of my sins. But all we can do as human beings is trust that sacrifice, the transaction, which has a very personal component to it. God made the good news simple and basic for me personally. I must trust what the Lord did through His Son.

Unfortunately, Roman Catholics believe that Christ died for the Church. There is rarely the statement of personal acceptance of what He did at the cross. Catholics believe they must add good works to His beginning of justification, and even with all the personal efforts in trying to complete salvation, they never really know if they are saved. This is not "good news." The Catholic system plants doubts and fear and adds self-effort in striving to "become" saved by human engineering!

But there are some Protestant groups who do the same. They add to salvation and to the gospel message: good works, water baptism, and sometimes even church membership in their group. This puts the gospel into a framework of exclusivity. You must do this or that to please God or you are not saved!

The rejection of the simple offer of salvation generally can be described as "the evil of an unbelieving heart" (Heb. 3:12). Heart usually implies emotions. But there is more. In other words when one trusts Christ, the emotions are involved (not emotionalism) but also a conscious acceptance of the Lord’s work on the cross. The mind and the soul are responding to what He’s done for us!

That belief for a human being is the major issue (the only issue) for salvation and for becoming a child of God. This is found in so many passages of Scripture. Of course there is John 3:16:

"So thus, definitely loved (Aorist Tense) The God the world, for this reason the Son, the unique born One, [God] gave in order that everyone (pas), the one who is believing into Him, should not himself be destroyed (apolumi, Aorist, Middle, Subjunctive), but (in contrast) should be having (echo, Present, Active, Subjunctive) life eternal."

You cannot squeeze any other requirement into this passage for becoming saved. The verse makes it clear that salvation is (1) by believing, (2) plus nothing else! Belief equals eternal life.

Salvation then is by grace through faith, not through works. "We maintain then a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law" (Rom. 3:28). And, "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness" (4:3; Gen. 15:6).

Do not make the gospel complicated. Do not require more for becoming a child of God than the Lord does. God does not have a check list in heaven to test that one has said everything exactly perfect when coming to Christ for salvation. The Lord understands! However the main concern is that there are those who repudiate some facet of the gospel, making that fact trivial or unnecessary as to what constitutes salvation.

In working with many people who have been born again, I have never seen them deny, malign, or make light of all of the factors we have discussed in these essentials. As new born babes they embraced enthusiastically the essentials that make up the gospel message when those essentials were explained to them. 

But be careful of the wolves. There are always those who would destroy the simplicity of the salvation message. May these essentials on what constitutes the gospel be a meaningful and helpful reminder to you of God’s graciousness in the plan of salvation.

The Essentials of the Gospel, Part 6

Throughout the ages the gospel has been attacked over and over again by satanic forces that want to water down the truth of salvation found only in Christ. That attack will continue all the way through the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus. The cults always distort and twist the truth of salvation by grace but lately, the attack and distortion is coming from within our own evangelical circles. 

Some are promoting a cross-less salvation, or a works salvation. Whatever the changes are that depart from what the Bible teaches bends the truth and weakens the marvelous fact of what God did to save lost humanity. 

While many more points can be listed, below are seven essentials that are necessary pillars of salvation by grace through faith in Christ. 

 

(6) Complete Justification by Faith

There is no gospel without the truth of justification by faith. Some have problems getting their hands around this subject. Many do not fully understand what the doctrine is all about. Justification (dikaioo) carries the idea of being completely acquitted of sin before the bar of God. The Lord imputes (puts to our account) the very righteousness of Christ. Therefore God sees us clothed in His righteousness not our own. Paul saw the things he had accomplished as dung "in order that (as he said) I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law" (Phil. 3:8b-9). Salvation he adds, "is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith" (v. 9b). 

The words justification and righteousness are really one word. "Justification" is generally the word as a verb; "righteousness" is the noun. We do not earn this justification, it is imputed, imparted to us as a free gift based on our trust in Christ.

The Roman Catholics teach that by faith one starts the justification process or that it is but the first stage towards salvation. A person then must complete justification by works, by self efforts. But the Scriptures teach that it is a completed work in that only God could accomplish such acquittal because of the work of Christ on the cross. 

To be legally acquitted, or justified, is an Old Testament concept. The key verse has to do with Abraham in Genesis 15:6. Abraham believed what God had promised and God in turn then saw him as one legally acquitted in His sight. "Abraham believed God and He counted it to him for righteousness." Even Abraham and all the Old Testament saints would be justified only by the forward coming work of Christ on their behalf on the cross. In prophecy Isaiah 53:11-12 says, "My Servant (the coming Messiah) will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities. … Yet He Himself will bear the sin of many, and intercede for the transgressors." 

Christ illustrated this justification in His story about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Luke 18:10-14. The self-righteous Pharisee thought he deserved the favor of God by his good deeds but then reasoned that the Lord would look down with disfavor on the Tax Collector. But it was the Tax Collector who confessed his sins. Christ said the Tax Collector "went down to his house justified rather than the (Pharisee)." When the Tax Collector cried out "God, be merciful to me, the sinner!" he was claiming the grace of God as exemplified in the Mercy Seat in the temple. 

In my Luke Commentary I write,

"Paul says that God ‘justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus’ (Rom. 3:24). Now in the church age, this happens by direct trust in Jesus, the object of faith, because of His finished work at the cross. Paul says that we receive ‘the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ [meant] for all those who believe’ (Rom. 3:22)." (p. 178)

It may be said that justification is the cornerstone of salvation and the gospel. This is certainly indeed "good news." God through His Son has done it all for lost sinners.

This justification is complete and whole. We are seen as righteous as the Son of God by the fact that this righteousness has been put to our account. Whom God saves and justifies cannot be "un-justified". As with the Pharisee in the Luke 18 story, we have a choice to "be trusting in ourselves" or trusting in the finished work of Christ! Trusting Him gives eternal life and this truly is good news—the gospel!

The Essentials of the Gospel, Part 5

Throughout the ages the gospel has been attacked over and over again by satanic forces that want to water down the truth of salvation found only in Christ. That attack will continue all the way through the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus. The cults always distort and twist the truth of salvation by grace but lately, the attack and distortion is coming from within our own evangelical circles. 

Some are promoting a cross-less salvation, or a works salvation. Whatever the changes are that depart from what the Bible teaches bends the truth and weakens the marvelous fact of what God did to save lost humanity. 

While many more points can be listed, below are seven essentials that are necessary pillars of salvation by grace through faith in Christ.

(5) The Resurrection of Christ

There is no gospel without the truth about the resurrection. This is a cardinal doctrine of Scripture. It will be the Lord Jesus who will give new life not only to the church saints but those who have died as believers in other generations of the past.

The believers in the Old Testament and the saints in the New Testament knew well that there would be a resurrection of those who trusted in God. Great passages such as Job 19:25-27 give strong confirmation as to the resurrection. The verses read: "Though my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God; … my eyes shall see and not another." Daniel adds to this: "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt" (12:2). To make certain that Daniel understood that he too would come forth from the grave, the angel Michael who was speaking to him added: "You will enter into rest and rise again for your allotted portion at the end of the age" (v. 13).

At the death of her brother Lazarus, Martha said to Christ, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day" (John 11:23). Jesus then made it clear that He Himself would be the One who would give the power to the resurrection, for both the Old Testament saints and the believers in the coming church age. He said: "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die" (v. 25). 

There are two main Greek words used for the concept of the resurrection. One is anastasis. ana=up, and stasis=to stand. Or, "to stand up." Another word is exanastasis. It comes from three words: ex=out, ana=up, and stasis=to stand. Or, "To come forth and stand up." It is found only in Philippians 3:11: Paul says, I am "being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the ‘coming forth and standing up’ from the dead."

The word "resurrection" is used fifteen times in the Gospels. The Gospels were still part of the Old Testament dispensation. This tells us the doctrine was well believed and taught among the Old Testament believers. 

In the New Testament doctrine of the resurrection as it relates to church saints, Paul makes it clear we in this economy have a connection with Christ that grants us new life in Him. He says, "We have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection" (Rom. 6:5). In Paul’s definition of the gospel he said: "I delivered to you (in this gospel I preached) 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 (1 Cor. 15:3-4). There can be no gospel without these three main components! Because of His resurrection, and because we are now in Him, we have the guarantee of the same new eternal life.

The apostle Peter makes a direct connection between the idea of being born again, with the necessity of the resurrection. He writes, "According to His great mercy [He] has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Pet. 1:3). By this, and through the resurrection, we are given "an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you" (v. 4). Our imperishable inheritance is because we are now related to the Holy One and now receive eternal life and an eternal new body because of His work on the cross!

It must be remembered that there is also a resurrection for judgment of the lost and the wicked. Daniel mentioned this (Dan. 12:2) and so did Christ in John 5:29.

While I do not agree with everything Dr. Norman Geisler publishes, I think he has written the defining volume on the resurrection entitled: The Battle for the Resurrection published by Thomas Nelson. I believe the book is presently out of print but I urge those interested to try to obtain a copy.

Concerning the resurrection mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15, Dr. Dan Mitchell writes in his commentary: "The third truth of the gospel is ‘He was raised’ (v.4). Paul uses the aorist tense to speak of Christ’s death and burial as singular events. Now he uses the perfect passive tense to stress abiding results. Elsewhere Paul uses similar language to speak of God’s miraculous power in the performance of the resurrection (Acts 13:22, 30-37; Rom. 4:24-25)." Mitchell lists fifteen points that are highlighted about the doctrine of the resurrection in his textbook. Mitchell’s discussion on 1 Corinthians 15 is outstanding! The book is: (Mal Couch, Ed Hindson, gen. eds., The Book of First Corinthians [AMG Publications, 2004])

To tamper with the doctrine of the resurrection is to destroy the full definition of the gospel. Without the resurrection there is no gospel!

The Essentials of the Gospel, Part 4

Throughout the ages the gospel has been attacked over and over again by satanic forces that want to water down the truth of salvation found only in Christ. That attack will continue all the way through the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus. The cults always distort and twist the truth of salvation by grace but lately, the attack and distortion is coming from within our own evangelical circles. 

Some are promoting a cross-less salvation, or a works salvation. Whatever the changes are that depart from what the Bible teaches bends the truth and weakens the marvelous fact of what God did to save lost humanity.

While many more points can be listed, below are seven essentials that are necessary pillars of salvation by grace through faith in Christ.

(4) The Cross of Christ The cross is central to the message of the gospel. There are some who are now teaching a "cross-less" salvation. I need to make this clear. They believe Christ’s death on the cross is essential but that one can be saved without a reference to His work on the cross. The cross is not something magical but it was the instrument used to crucify the Son of God by which He died for sinners. If the human mind can defuse the idea of the cross, it will do so. One wonders why someone would want to downgrade or make little of the idea of the cross.

One cannot speak of the death of the Lord for sin without referring to the cross. But there must be something going on in the mind of those who may make it somewhat insignificance. I sense there is an agenda that could lead to a distortion of Jesus’ sacrifice for sinners.

The empty cross became the most important logo for Christianity. This is because of the teachings of Paul about it. He writes "For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Cor. 1:18). It was an offense that was supposed to discredit the early church (Gal. 5:11) and some tried to escape the fact that they would be persecuted for it (6:12). Paul said that he could only boast in the cross of Christ (v. 14). Christ has reconciled both Jew and Gentile together "in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity [between the two]" (Eph. 2:16). Christ did not humble Himself to just any form of death, but He became "obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Phil. 2:8).
In Paul’s day there were many who claimed Christ as Savior but the apostle wept at the fact "that they are enemies of the cross of Christ" (3:18). The Lord’s blood spelt down the cross and by this, Paul says, we have "peace through the blood of His cross" (Col. 1:20). The cross was used to inflict the most terrible of deaths, but the Lord "endured the cross, despising the shame" (Heb. 12:2). The cross is the central thought of the apostle when he thinks of the death of Christ. Paul wrote "For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2).

The death of Christ on the cross is central to our message of salvation. It is not a rabbit’s foot or something magical or mystical. But the Lord’s death was destined to be on a cross and that cannot be left out in the message of the gospel.

The Essentials of the Gospel, Part 3

Throughout the ages the gospel has been attacked over and over again by satanic forces that want to water down the truth of salvation found only in Christ. That attack will continue all the way through the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus. The cults always distort and twist the truth of salvation by grace but lately, the attack and distortion is coming from within our own evangelical circles. 

Some are promoting a cross-less salvation, or a works salvation. Whatever the changes are that depart from what the Bible teaches bends the truth and weakens the marvelous fact of what God did to save lost humanity.

While many more points can be listed, below are seven essentials that are necessary pillars of salvation by grace through faith in Christ.

(3) Christ – A Substitute for Sinners
There is no gospel without the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross. He took the place of sinners under the wrath of God. This was predicted by the fact that an innocent animal had to die to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve following their disobedience to the Lord’s command to not eat of the forbidden fruit. The Lord slew an animal and "made garments of skin FOR Adam and his wife, and clothed them" (Gen. 3:21). The FOR implies clearly a covering. Their nakedness somehow exacerbated the issue of sin.
The doctrine of substitution is graphically explained in Isaiah 53 and pictorialized in all the sacrifices proscribed throughout the Old Testament. The Messiah, the Servant of God, "will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities. … He will pour out Himself to death. … He will [bear] the sin of many, and intercede for the transgressors" (Isa. 53:11-12).

In the Old Testament the word most used to describe the work of the animal sacrifices is the word atonement. The idea comes from the Hebrew word kapher meaning "to cover." The animal sacrifices only covered sins for one year then had to be repeated the next. In actuality these animal sacrifices were but signs, pictures, projected pictures of what Christ would someday do in the future on the cross. They really were not efficacious. God was not really interested in the blood of bulls and goats (Heb. 10:4-6; Psa. 40:6-8). God was looking forward to the death of His Son for sinners! But with Christ’s sacrifice there would be no atonement but a final, complete and finished work, by Him, Israel’s Messiah, that once for all settled the issue of sin.

Unfortunately, there are various bogus or half-true theories of Christ’s sacrifice. There is the (1) "Ethical atonement" view that just kind of "solved" the problem of sin; the (2) "Payment-to-Satan view that would cancel out any claim the devil may have on human beings, the (3) "Recapitulation theory" which states that Christ simply did what Adam could not do and so satisfied God, the (4) "Commercial theory" that says God’s honor had been injured by sin and now Christ simply restored that honor by living a perfect life, the (5) "Moral Influence view" that states Christ primarily demonstrated the love of the Lord in such a way as to win sinners to Himself, the (6) "Duns Scotus view" that says the heavenly Father could have used anyone, even an angel, to die for sins. There are many other theories but they are all lacking in what the Bible says about the sacrifice of Christ for sinners.

Paul states the work of Christ plainly when he writes, "Christ [is] our Passover [who] has been sacrifice" (1 Cor. 5:7). Peter puts it succinctly when he writes, "For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit" (1 Pet. 3:18). Sinners who trust in Christ are "being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 3:24). And, "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:3b).

Christ’s substitutionary work on the cross is absolutely essential for the gospel. Without this there is no salvation!

Essentials of the Gospel, Part 2

Throughout the ages the gospel has been attacked over and over again by satanic forces that want to water down the truth of salvation found only in Christ. That attack will continue all the way through the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus. The cults always distort and twist the truth of salvation by grace but lately, the attack and distortion is coming from within our own evangelical circles. 

Some are promoting a cross-less salvation, or a works salvation. Whatever the changes are that depart from what the Bible teaches bends the truth and weakens the marvelous fact of what God did to save lost humanity.

While many more points can be listed, below are seven essentials that are necessary pillars of salvation by grace through faith in Christ.

(2) The Son of God – God Incarnate
There would be no gospel if our Savior was not the impeccable righteous Son of God.
Jesus Christ could not save us if He were just another human being. He would be part of the sinful race, and if He tried to die in my place under the wrath of God on the cross, He would simply be dying for His own sins! The wonder of wonders—Jesus Chris is fully man (without sin) and fully God. He is the God/Man! He, the second person of the Trinity, took upon Himself flesh in order to participate in the human race. The proof of His uniqueness is His virgin birth. The sin nature was not passed down to Him because He had no human father. Mary gave Christ His humanity; but He was mysteriously birth by the work of the Spirit of God. He was conceived in the womb of Mary but the active agent in that conception was the Holy Spirit. The angel told Mary, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35).

Recently, a Bible church pastor made the comment that Christ did not sin but that He could have! In my opinion this is almost heresy and it certainly does not reflect an understanding that Christ is actually God, the second person of the Trinity—and God cannot sin! This pastor’s statement tells me volumes about the theological training he did or did not receive!

The Scripture tells us: "For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin" (Heb. 4:15). Note that He was tempted many times, in many ways ("in all things") yet He was without sin (in the singular), meaning He did not have the sin propensity, as in the imputed sin transmitted through Adam.

Hebrews further tells us, Christ was a high priest who was "holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners" (7:26). Paul adds that God made Christ "who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21). And, Christ in His very nature is "the Holy and Righteous One" (Acts 3:14). He is the One "who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth" (1 Pet. 2:22; Isa. 53:9).
Jesus Christ then is not simply a "way-shower," a good prophet, a great philosopher and teacher. He did not die simply a martyr’s death, the death of a contrary political leader, or one who was just misunderstood by His people. He was perfect in His nature and perfect then in His activities while on earth. No one else could substitute for sinners under the wrath of God. By His death, and by the faith of the recipient of His work on the cross, sinners are declared justified and exonerated from sin.
Paul Enns well writes:
Christ’s divine nature was impeccable. Although Christ had two natures, He was nonetheless one Person and could not divorce Himself of His deity. Wherever He went, the divine nature was present. If the two natures could be separated then it could be said that He could sin in His humanity, but because the human and divine natures cannot be separated from the Person of Christ, and since the divine nature cannot sin, it must be affirmed that Christ could not have sinned. (Moody Handbook of Theology, p. 237) Only God, God the Son, because of His holiness, could save His own creatures. He bore the wrath for sin. This is an extremely important component of the gospel! Anything less is not the gospel.

Essentials of the Gospel, Part 1

Throughout the ages the gospel has been attacked over and over again by satanic forces that want to water down the truth of salvation found only in Christ. That attack will continue all the way through the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus. The cults always distort and twist the truth of salvation by grace but lately, the attack and distortion is coming from within our own evangelical circles. 

Some are promoting a cross-less salvation, or a works salvation. Whatever the changes are that depart from what the Bible teaches bends the truth and weakens the marvelous fact of what God did to save lost humanity.

While many more points can be listed, below are seven essentials that are necessary pillars of salvation by grace through faith in Christ.

(1) The Issue of Sin
The gospel is the good news (uangelion) that God has saved, spared, delivered, rescued us from sin that has entrapped and snared us. Salvation is distinctly a rescue operation from the power and the penalty of sin. And sin is "the missing the mark" (hamartia) with the results that men have fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). This implies that human beings can no longer measure up to who God is. Sin then will keep a person from the presence of the Lord, and even more, that person must die because God cannot tolerate sin in His universe!

Any presentation of a gospel message that ignores the problem of sin, is not the gospel of Scripture. "What are people being saved from?" must be part of the mix. It is a key component of what the gospel is all about. Just as there can be no "Christ-less" gospel, there can be no removal of the problem of sin from the presentation of the gospel. There are those who want to proclaim a "positive" gospel that paints over the subject of sin. It is an effort to avoiding something unpleasant and negative. But this is a modern secular psychological ploy to simply use a salvation vocabulary with SIN, one of the key ingredients removed from the formula and from the definition.

John the Baptist made it clear that Christ came to "take away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). John alludes to Isaiah 53 that tells us why the Messiah must die. Isaiah says the Suffering Servant must die "for our transgressions" (53:5a) and be "crushed for our iniquities" (53:5b). The lost require a "healing" (53:5c) because like sheep they have "gone astray" (v. 6). "But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him" (v. 6b). Notice that the Messiah will be dying for iniquities (plural) and for the principle of sin in the singular, iniquity (v. 6b). The penalty of sin must fall upon the Messiah. He will bear the iniquities of sinners, but in doing so, as God’s Servant, He "will justify the many" (v. 11). In doing this He will have to die (v. 12) and intercede for the transgressors (v. 12b).
One cannot understand the full implications of the story of the Fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve, without understanding the consequences of sin. Sin entered into the world through Adam’s transgression which then brought on death (Rom. 5:12). The wages of sin is death (6:23), Christ died for sins (1 Cor. 15:3), and gave Himself for our sins (Gal. 1:4). By His blood shed on the cross, we now have forgiveness of sins (Col. 1:14). And finally the last book of the Bible tells us that Christ’s blood "washed us from our sin" (Rev. 1:5).
Though there is much more that can be said about sin and its relation to the gospel in defining it, 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 gives many of the required components. On the issue of sin these verses tell us "that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" (v. 3). There can be no understanding about the gospel without fully understanding why Christ died—to save us from our sins! Secular psychology has put a coat of paint over the subject of sin. It has almost been removed from the language of evangelism. And it has been removed as part of the problem of how and why the believer struggles today.
The gospel is about Christ saving us from both the penalty and the power of sin. The substitutionary work of Christ upon the cross is infinitely perfect in its sufficiency. Therefore the sinner who trusts in Christ not only is forgiven, but he is even justified forever (Rom. 3:24). God has never treated sin lightly. Forgiveness may impose no burden on the sinner, but he is forgiven and justified only because the undiminished divine penalty has been borne by Christ (1 Pet. 2:24; 3:18).

Great Bible Scholar - Fedor Dostoevsky (1821-1881)

Though he was certainly not a Bible teacher, Dostoesvsky stands out as a most interesting personality in Russian history. He is best known for his book The Brothers Karamazov. Certain hints and indications in the book are that he was a true believer in Christ as his Savior. There are many such signs of his deep spirituality in this long and classic work that few can put down once they begin to read it!

In his early life Dostoevsky was very immature. As the years passed he became more wise and ended up the most outstanding author probably in all of Russian history! When the book The Brothers was published, Dostoevsky became instantly well-known and even wealthy. He was contemplating a new book when on the night of January 25, 1881, his favorite writing pen rolled under his bookcase. When he bent down to retrieve it the pulmonary artery burst and blood poured from his mouth. The next day a doctor was called though his hemorrhaging continued.

The next few days passed quietly. But on the 28th the hemorrhaging resumed. Dostoevsky called for his wife Anya to get a pastor and have communion brought to him. He predicted that he would die that day and asked his wife to give him a New Testament. Turing to Matthew 3 where John the Baptist said “Lord, I need to be baptized by You, and You are coming to me?” Jesus answered, “Suffer it to be so!”

When Dostoevsky read this he said calmly to his wife: “Do you hear—‘suffer it to be so’—That means I will die today.” This would certainly be seen as a certain mystical belief today, but Dostoevsky needs to be forgiven since he was a faithful member of the very mystical Russian Orthodox Church!

All the morning of the 28th, he called his daughter and his six year old son Fedya, and handing them his New Testament, he said after asking his daughter to read the story of the prodigal son:

Children, never forget what you just heard here. Keep your trust in God and
never despair of His forgiveness. Though I love you I do not love you as much
as God does. My love is nothing compared to the endless love of God for all
people He has created. Remember if you sin, do not lose your hope in God.
You are His children, be humble before Him as your heavenly Father, and
thank Him for His forgiveness. He will rejoice at your contrition and
repentance, as He rejoiced over the return of the prodigal son.

A few hours later the death agony began. Blood continued to pour from his mouth. Looking out his window he could see the church he belonged to. He went unconscious and it was over by 8:36 PM.

His funeral was unprecedented in Russian history. Some thirty thousand people attended his funeral. There were seventy carriages needed to carry the flower wreaths given in his honor. Some fifteen choirs sang at the church.

When Dostoevsky died, Russia was on the verge of revolution in an attempt to throw off the rule of Tsar Alexander II. Terrorist bombings were common, but he never joined in the revolt and upheavals that were about to destroy the nation. “He had gone against the current of his day and he never tired of fighting the liberals in the country.” He said that he “only served Christ.”

Dr. Robert Thomas

There are great living dispensational scholars today who understand that the Bible has various programs for different times in divine history. There is also a large company of such godly scholars in the past who made outstanding contributions to our grasp of the full message of the Word of God. What they have written is still with us today in terms of how we should interpret the Scriptures. Below are some thoughts that any interpreter of the Bible should be aware of.

THE NEW INTERPRETATION OF BIBLE PROPHECY

Dr. Robert Thomas

    Since the 1970s, evangelicalism and evangelical hermeneutics have undergone radical changes, changes that have affected interpretation of the Bible’s prophetic teachings. Iain Murray specifies the general time period of evangelicalism’s slippage: “We have seen that the new evangelicalism, launched with such promise, had lost its way in the United States by the late 1960s.” Later he notes regarding evangelicalism’s attempt to attain academic respectability.

The academic approach to Scripture treats the divine element – for all practical
purposes – as non-existent. History shows that when evangelicals allow that
approach their teaching will sooner or later begin to look little different from
that of liberals.

    Probably the single most devastating change in hermeneutics has been a widespread endorsement of the step of preunderstanding at the beginning of the exegetical process. It has dispensed with the goal of a traditional grammatical-historical approach for achieving objectivity in letting the text speak for itself. 

    The flippant way many evangelicals have forsaken the traditional principle of single meaning illustrates the impact of incorporating preunderstanding into the exegetical process. ... The moment we neglect this principle we drift out upon a sea of uncertainty and conjecture. 

    One of the areas in which PD (Progressive Dispensationalism) has departed from traditional grammatical-historical principles lies in its notoriety for violating the traditional hermeneutical principle of single meaning. The [PD’s] purpose that not only national Israel of the future will fulfill her Old Testament prophecies, but also the church is currently fulfilling those same prophecies. What PD calls “complementary hermeneutics” clearly violates traditional principles of literal interpretation. 

    New evangelical hermeneutics have opened wide doors for PD in implementing its preunderstanding and its quest to find a midpoint between Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism. … By thus ignoring the way the original historical setting “freezes” the meaning of a text, D. L. Bock concludes that textual meaning is dynamic, not static—ever changing through the addition of new meanings. [Bock] tries to justify this change by calling it revelatory progress, but revelatory progress speaks of new passages with new meanings, not new passages that change meanings of older passages. 

    If the current direction of evangelicalism continues, the movement will eventually reach the status of postmodernist and deconstructionist approaches to the Bible. The only remedy for this sickness will be a return to traditional grammatical-historical principles of interpretation. 

    Adapted from: The Gathering Storm, gen. ed. Mal Couch