Chapter Four – What Is the Gospel?
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Referenced in the INTRODUCTION, a new question has arisen in most of the splinters, particularly the larger ones: Just what is the gospel? Is the role of Jesus Christ separate from or part of the gospel? Do those claiming to fulfill the Great Commission still teach the correct gospel?—and why does one large organization now list within its mission to actively “witness for Jesus”? Is healing part of Christ’s gospel? Do the splinters still understand the Great Commission given to the Church? Is the subject of the gospel separate from who warns Israel? What did Mr. Armstrong teach?
All these questions and more require that this section be the longest in the book. In fact, the subject commands two chapters, and beyond.
It is hard to believe that confusion over the most central and fundamental doctrine and understanding in God’s Word could have arisen, but it has. Most today, having been conditioned to believe the apostates’ “gospel,” which focuses exclusively on the personage of a “Jesus,” have merged the role of what is (when correctly understood) a different Jesus with the kingdom of God, creating a new kind of hybrid “gospel.” In most cases, because this has been subtle, it has been missed by God’s people. (Of course, some have noticed but do not care.) This fogged thinking is now also developing among those who form the growing “evangelical wing” of the smaller splinters, briefly referenced at the book’s outset. But the large splinters have also moved much closer to a focus on the “messenger,” with his “message” increasingly subordinate to this new priority. Again, some of these now also actively “witness” for their “messenger.”
It is important to take significant extra time to make perfectly clear the distinction between the role of the trueJesus Christ and what is the correct gospel. Much more is at stake here than meets the eye—and most in the splinters are now being badly fooled on this very CENTERPIECE of the entire Bible! It is critical that the reader understands how all of this is connected to where and with whom you should be found doing the Work. It is also enormously important to see how this wrong approach has permitted a kind of creeping indoctrination in, and involvement with, the popular “social gospel” and “another Jesus” of the world’s churches.
As I have decried the false gospel circulating in the splinters, the subject of the gospel has become a hotly contested, much more serious issue to those teaching various errors. This has meant my coming under direct attack for defending the Bible and Mr. Armstrong regarding this truth.
The apostle Paul declared, “I am set for the DEFENSE of the gospel” (Phil. 1:17) and he admonished all future generations of the Church to “strive together for the faith of the gospel” being “in nothing terrified by your adversaries” (Philippians 1:27-28)!
This becomes instruction for me—and YOU!—and should be received as a veritable COMMAND to every true minister alive today. I, too, am set to defend what hundreds of ministers seem to no longer even understand, let alone DEFEND!—and I do this without apology in the pages ahead. I am certainly not “terrified” of being attacked for exposing the false leaders who are in plain violation of what Mr. Armstrong taught and of all that is written here. They will not like what comes next.
Study carefully everything in these two chapters. They are of near incalculable importance to your life—and your SALVATION!
===Only the Kingdom of God!===
The New Testament is most plain about the true gospel, and prior to the apostasy all of God’s people were very clear on this. Literally, in scores of scriptures, the gospel is referenced—explicitly defined!—as “the kingdom of God,” “the kingdom,” “the kingdom of Christ and of God” or “the kingdom of [not in] heaven.” Nowhere, and in no sense, is the gospel described as involving “Jesus,” “Christ” or “Jesus Christ”—and not one of the over 10,000 people I worked with, either in the Worldwide Church of God or in the years after, over a 30-year period, asked about this or evidenced confusion about it! Nor did I ever even hear of one WCG pastor having to address this as a local problem. Never mind the idea of whether the Church should witness—profess!—Jesus to all nations.
These “kingdom” phrases are consistent with what Mr. Armstrong taught throughout his 52-year ministry. And you have noticed in his statements throughout this book so far that not once did he reference Jesus as part of the gospel—NOT ONCE! Neither did he in his booklet What Is the True Gospel? I would challenge the reader to find even one book, booklet, article, letter or sermon in which Mr. Armstrong EVER even suggested—orspeculated—that the Person of Jesus Christ was part of the gospel. (Also, the original correspondence course certainly never taught this.) There is good reason for this and, in fact, he both taught and stressed precisely the opposite. (Those claiming he privately believed or spoke otherwise are PLAIN LIARS!) You will see this momentarily within the avalanche of proof about to be offered.
Of course, Mr. Armstrong thoroughly understood every one of Jesus’ roles as Savior, High Priest, Captain of our Salvation, Apostle and Great Shepherd, as well as all of His future titles and roles. And he knew when and where—in what context—to stress these. He was neither “obsessed with the kingdom message” (as some claim), nor ignorant of the need to stress the vital roles of the true Christ of the Bible in a Christian’s life. And those who are aware of the full picture of all that he preached witnessed this!
The majority of ministers and professing Christians of the world have tried to say “the gospel of Christ” is a gospel about Christ. So many in the splinters have forgotten they once knew otherwise. This thinking is both false and ignorant—because “of” merely connotes possession. This is basic English grammar. As the kingdom of God is God’s kingdom, so the gospel of Christ is Christ’s gospel. The message about the kingdom of God is Jesus’ gospel—and this is all most basic past understanding.
How could so many forget it? How could so many so easily be pulled back into what they repudiated when God called them?
Mr. Armstrong Makes Plain
Mr. Armstrong was absolutely emphatic on the enormous difference between the Messenger—Jesus Christ—and the Message He brought—the KINGDOM OF GOD (the future, world-ruling SUPERGOVERNMENT under the God Family).
Most brethren today simply do not understand the tremendous—the SUPREME!—importance of understanding and believing the correct gospel. They have forgotten what should have been impossible to forget—and this is only part of the mass amnesia connected to the many elements of the Work of God that will be discussed later. They should have remembered bedrock statements such as the one that follows.
Here is how Mr. Armstrong opened his booklet on the subject of the true gospel. The subhead within it is his:
“WHY should there be such perplexity—such confusion—in every phase of life today? It should be the function of religion to point the way. Yet here, too, we find only confusion of tongues—hundreds of religious denominations and sects, in a Babylon of disagreement.
“Even in the professing Christian religion of the Western world, we find different sects and denominations preaching a variety of different GOSPELS! Some designate their gospel as ‘The Gospel of Jesus Christ.’ Others calltheir gospel ‘The Gospel of Salvation.’ Still others profess ‘The Gospel of Grace,’ some ‘The Gospel of the Kingdom.’ And many now blossom out with a modern ‘Social Gospel,’ while others call their gospel ‘The ISRAELMessage.’
“WHY HAVE THEY LOST THE ONLY TRUE GOSPEL WHICH GOD SENT BY JESUS CHRIST? WHY?
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