Paul introduces the idea of the Gospel in Romans 1:1-6 – “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.”

The common perspective of evangelical pragmatism is that, in order to reach the world, the church has to become like the world. To attract people, the church must offer what they want; it must act in a way that people like to see. Where there is more common ground that the church can find with the world, the more effective it is in reaching out to them. Many Christians with good intentions often proclaim a watered-down, insufficient presentation of the gospel.

Why do they do that? The answer frequently observed is that they see it as a stumbling block. People are hostile to it; they don’t want to be identified as wretched sinners heading towards hell. So, we add many nice things to make it more palatable; we soften it; we dilute it in our attempt to improve upon it. This is pretty dangerous. We should not offer a misrepresentation of the gospel to people.

05 Reasons not to mess with the Gospel

The Gospel does not belong to us

When Paul uses the phrase “the gospel of God,” he is not talking about a message about God. Rather, he is describing an announcement that belongs to God, authored and owned by God. That is very important because we do not want to play with that message, for we are playing with something that is not ours. You don’t want to mess with the gospel, you don’t want to tinker with it, you don’t want to improve on it, and you don’t want to change it.

The Gospel is for believers, not just unbelievers

The mission of the church is to fulfill the Great Commission; to preach the Gospel and to make disciples. The church is here for one purpose: to bring the gospel to those whom the Father has chosen, so that they can hear it and believe and be saved. God has already chosen His children even before the foundation of the world, and Christ has finished His saving work. Our mandate is to call to salvation those whom God will call according to His sovereign will. The saving work belongs to God; the adding of believers is God’s task. We are the human means that God uses in his salvation plan. “The gospel doesn’t just make converts — it saves those converts.” – John Piper.

The Gospel is the power of God for salvation

Gospel brings believers to eternal safety and joy in the presence of a holy God. All the other “gospels” in the world cannot win souls for Christ. Tinkered gospel cannot save sinners from the final wrath of God and leads to fullness of joy in His presence. Anyone who wholeheartedly believes and embraces the gospel message ultimately will not be disappointed, and therefore, those who proclaim it ought never to feel disgraced or embarrassed because of it. We continue to preach the true Gospel because we know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus.

It will bring divine retribution

Gospel is a divine message, not a human invention, and any attempt to change it, even for perceived improvement, is a dangerous act of “playing with fire” that carries spiritual consequences, including God’s wrath. The call is to faithfully deliver this pure and complete message without adding or deleting from God’s announcement. Paul, in Galatians, pronounces a curse on anyone who does it. “If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8-9). God will not hold us guiltless when we seek to improve on His Gospel.

You won’t get the truth out

The greatest evangelist who ever lived on earth is Christ Jesus. He came to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10). He is the model for the evangelism strategy. He came to the world to preach the gospel, and the world hated Him, and finally they killed Him. He didn’t use any marketing strategy to mitigate the hostility towards Him. He never employed a strategy to win people using worldly tricks. The bottom line is that the method a church finds that makes unbelievers happy is folly. If the church tries to mitigate hostility and find worldly ways for nonbelievers to like it, it misses the point of getting the truth to them.

We should persevere in maintaining doctrinal purity regardless of the number game, because God is the one who elects, He is the one who calls, and He is the one who adds believers to the church. Just as the early church, we are called to follow the very same principles, same methods, and same duties that they had under the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit. There is only one Gospel. It is our duty to believe it and to proclaim it.