Neal said:
But it kind of sounds like to me that he's skipping that belief in Christ is necessary. I'm actually reading the book--almost done--and so I was pretty sure that A.W. Pink would not have said that belief in Christ is unnecessary. In fact, he's been stressing that in addition to fore-ordaining the end, God also fore-ordains the means. So if God elected me from North America and Nguumabe from Africa, He has determined that we will both be saved. He has decreed--so far that I remember--that the primary means to salvation comes by hearing the Gospel preached. But the thing is, even if it was by another means, the same is required of both me and Nguumabe: belief in Christ! Isn't that right? Pink just made it sound, in that paragraph that I highlighted, as though that were not the case--that God requires living up to a light rather than belief in Christ for some. I had just merely accepted that God--of course in His predestinating power--had decreed that Christians spread the Gospel, and He decreed that His elect would believe in Christ for salvation, however it would be achieved. That includes, inevitably, however way God would work within the hearts of an infant or an idiot to bring them to belief in Christ. Sorry... it's just not sitting well with me to say that in some regard, salvation does not require belief in Christ for some people. I mean, even the people in Athens worshipped an "unknown god" (Acts 17:23), but then Paul preached to them the Gospel, didn't he? That would have been God fore-ordaining that Paul bring them the means (preaching and hearing) for belief in Christ for salvation. Then why are some said to not need to believe in Christ? I keep coming back to that one, I see...
Yes,
I understand what you are saying. As a matter of fact, we just had an in debth discussion, not too long ago on exaclty your concerns.
http://www.christianforums.com/t2958585-question.html
I posted the following (post number #21) in the above thread.
"Those who are saved are saved by the gospel itself; i.e., they are saved by the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. That is the only gospel salvation there is. Hearing the gospel preached is the best good news sinners will ever hear in this life, but they are neither saved nor regenerated by merely hearing about it. The message of a work accomplished always arrives after the fact. It is finished."
The Gospel, or Talking About the Gospel?
When asked what the gospel of Jesus Christ is, many say it is the power of God unto salvation, drawing this from Romans 1.16, as though that verse somehow defines the gospel.
The power of God unto salvation is not the definition of the gospel. It is an attribute of the gospel and not the gospel itself. Brown-eyed is an attribute, but it does not define who and what a person is. If one asks, What is an automobile? and another answers, It is the power of a gasoline engine to get you where you want to go, he would be talking of an attribute of automotive engineering and not defining an automobile. His answer could as easily be applied to an airplane or to a riding lawnmower. In like manner, the power of God unto salvation describes the gospel, but it simply does not define it.
Nor is the gospel how you or I think the gospel should be defined. The Scriptures, as their own authority, say the gospel is defined by the Scriptures. Since the Scriptures were divinely originated, designed, inspired, and completed by God, nothing can be added to or taken away from their testimony as to exactly what the gospel is.
And preaching about the power of God, as important as that is, is not the gospel. Many sermons based on Romans 1.16 have expounded on Gods power, predestination, sovereignty, and His mighty works. As vital as these themes are, they do not constitute preaching the gospel of Christ Jesus. The power of God unto salvation could be applied to election, predestination, or even the omniscience of Jesus, as in the case of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:
And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down
And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house
.. Such is part of the gospel account, but it is not the gospel. The gospels being the power of God unto salvation describes the gospel, then, but it does not define it.
When people say that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, multitudes, because they have been mistakenly led to believe it so, think that this phrase means that the power is in the proclaimed message of the gospel. Neither Christ, Paul, nor any other apostle implied such a thing.
Most worldly religionists seem to think of gospel preaching as being like a salesmans pitch: The used car salesman tells the virtues of a car and the benefits of owning it. He invites you to try it and buy it; and, hoping you will do so, he then must leave it up to you. Religionists think of the gospel preacher and his message in a similar manner. They in effect say, The preacher is one who tells the virtues of Christ and the benefits of believing on Him, he invites you to accept Him, and, hoping that you will do so, he must leave it up to you. Nothing could be much farther from Scriptural truth.
An automobile is one thing, but a used-car salesmans patter about it is quite something else. If the message were really what gets the job done, everyone who has heard a car salesmans yarn would be driving in style. Now, we know that this is a natural example, and the gospel is spiritual, as some will be quick to point out to us; but we mention this because multitudes of evangelical Christians see no difference between the natural and the spiritual. That is part of the problem mentioned earlier.
Lest anyone think this is an exaggeration, Im more than happy to share the following quote from someone who knows all about making merchandise of the souls of men:
Evangelist Billy Graham is as much an American Institution as the stars and stripes
In his crusade to spread the gospel, hes used nearly every technique known to Madison Avenue.
Says Graham: We are selling the greatest product on earth. Why shouldnt we promote it as effectively as we promote a bar of soap?
Dallas Times Herald, April 9, 1963, page 4 (From a Saturday Evening Post advertisement promoting a featured article on Mr. Graham in their then current issue.)
The gospel is a set of specific, witnessed, documented, historic facts. It is neither the preaching of those facts nor the preaching about those facts. True, a gospel preacher identifies and describes those facts, but his preaching is not the same thing as the gospel facts he is describing.
The facts of the gospel, what Christ hath done, are what have accomplished the salvation of Gods people. It is not the proclaiming of those facts as the gospel message. It is not as if the work of Christ is one thing and the preaching is the other, in the standard Arminian sense, Christ has done His part, but we must do ours. No, none of that! Regardless of what anyone says or does not say about it, Christs gospel is what He did, His finished work, period.
Wars have been won, and treaties have been signed, sometimes weeks and months before the soldiers in outposts, or their folks at home, found out the good news. It was an accomplished fact, freedom for a people had been won, sealed in the blood of the dead and the wounded, whether or not some of the participants and beneficiaries, for a time, had heard the blessed news. The hearing of the message, and for that matter, the believing or disbelieving of what one has heard, neither adds to nor takes away from the facts underlying the message. This is true whether it is a message of a wars ending in victory or the message of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christs having won the victory.
The gospel as actually defined in our text is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and why He died, and how: 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.
Paul declared the gospel in this letter to the church at Corinth. He declared the gospel to be the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, for our sins (whoever these our are, they plainly must include Paul, or else he could not say our); and all of that must be according to the Scriptures. Those facts alone, what Christ has done, constitute the gospel. There is a vital distinction between the gospel and the proclamation of it. The two are as different as life and talking about life, or death and talking about death.
Paul said he had previously received it. He says how he received it: For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ (Galatians 1.12).
But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mothers womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood (Galatians 1.15f).
God revealed His Son in Paul (or Saul) on the Damascene Road. He did not put His Son in him then. And Saul of Tarsus did not immediately seek out an apostle or a preacher who could explain the gospel to him.
Saul was already a brother, before he was baptized, when he first met with Ananias, who said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost (Acts 9.17). That statement alone dispells the baptismal regeneration error.
Prior to his writing 1 Corinthians to them, Paul had already preached the gospel unto the church in Corinth. They had previously received it. Steeped as the church at Corinth was in Greek philosophy, mans wisdom was worth nothing to Paul or to the Corinthian church (See 1 Corinthians, the first two chapters). Paul said, And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. The testimony of God was the Old Testament.
For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. That is the center of the gospel Paul preached.
And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of mans wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. In chapter 1 he had already defined the power of God as being Christ Himself (1.24).
Their standing, Paul says, is in Christ. That means their legal standing was innocent and justified before God. All who are in Christ stand before Gods judgment bar legally as innocent, just, and pure as Jesus Christ their head.
Those who are saved are saved by the gospel itself; i.e., they are saved by the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. That is the only gospel salvation there is. Hearing the gospel preached is the best good news sinners will ever hear in this life, but they are neither saved nor regenerated by merely hearing about it. The message of a work accomplished always arrives after the fact. It is finished.
C.C. Morris
Link :
http://www.the-remnant.com/thegospel.htm
)
