The latest uploaded article has a second part to it that I will now publish. Last time, the section was on the nature of the gospel. Today’s portion narrows in on what we are to do now that we know more about the topic. Gospel work is so important; in fact, God commands us to be involved in it! Listen to the words of Jesus and allow your mind to ponder them as you read this next portion written by Micah Hackett.
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” -Matthew 28:19-20
“So then, we are faced with doctrine—the truth of the gospel. It is not a dormant fact, but it has an effectual outcome. In fact, it is the very foundation for each assembly. But do we not read in 1 Corinthians 3:11 that our foundation is Christ? Exactly! By this we understand that the gospel is the teaching of Christ; and therefore, our response to the gospel as believers reflects our response to Christ. Then when we change the immutable truth of God, we take away the very foundation upon that which we build as assemblies.
That is why Paul says ‘if you keep in memory what is preached…’ it is only when we do this that we stand in the gospel. God has ordained that there be continual gospel preaching in the assembly, both to the sinners and the saints. Enough with trying to continually boost the self-esteem of the audience, which seems to be so prevalent and concentrated upon in most churches! Let us rather have a godly passing down of truth—of the gospel. How we keep the gospel in our memories defines how the next generation views Christ. We only stand in Christ as an assembly if we preach Him faithfully.
How are we to go about doing this? Well, how did Paul do it? He preached the gospel on the authority of God. He emphasizes that it was a message ‘which I also received’ and ‘according to the Scriptures’. Never does the gospel go beyond this. Some men today claim that the gospel is the ability to heal. Some would say it is the opportunity for health, wealth, and riches. Some would say it is speaking in unknown tongues. But this is not the gospel! It is man taking Scripture out of context to exalt his own opinion. The gospel is something that we receive directly of God and only God, and when we preach anything other than what we have received, we step out of the sphere of gospel preaching into heresy preaching.
And so, in each of our assemblies, what must we have? We must have the preaching of Scripture—the authority from God. What then? The preaching of Scripture. And after? The preaching of scripture. We must have biblical teaching so that what the next generation receives is firm and that which will endure in substance. If we reject this, we have believed for nothing, because this is the root of true Christian discipleship. Also, how can we claim to have believed if we weren’t going to be committed to what we were believing? It is contradictory to do so.
Now as we close, what exactly is it that we are to pass down? Well, in its core, the message is the death, burial, and bodily resurrection of Christ on the authority of God’s word. This is the basic message we preach to unbelievers. Then, when we are saved, God desires that we delve into the truth we first believed in. This is why Romans, Hebrews, Colossians, and such epistles exist. We must seek to understand more of the gospel—more of the person of Christ. In reality, we are responsible to know what we believe regarding Him and other connected doctrines, for we see Paul’s question in verse 12 (of 1 Corinthians 15), ‘now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?’ He asks this, because there is so much more to be discovered than just that we have eternal life. We will never exhaust the beauties of Christ and therefore must get a good start looking into them through the revelation of Himself—His word. Perhaps then, it would be profitable to close with the words of the Hebrew writer:”
“For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. ‘Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits.”
–Hebrews 5:13-6:3
