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The "Other" Gospel
We’ve been treated to gospel preaching this past week. We’ve seen how the gospel relates not just to our salvation, but to our everyday lives. We’ve noted, with joy and appreciation, how God has given us the solution to sin (Romans 1:16-17). And we’ve been shown how important it is to maintain the purity of His gospel by not adding anything to it or taking anything from it (Galatians 1:6-9). Furthermore, we have been impressed at how the gospel messages needs to be exposed to a lost and dying world (Mark 16:15-16; Acts 8:4).
There is such a thing as a counterfeit gospel. It looks, even sounds very much like the real thing, but it is not real. This gospel is appealing because it demands very little and promises much. It is called The Social Gospel. While this gospel operates as a guide to religion, it actually sows seeds that make the religion of Christ a secular, materialistic thing. While, admittedly, the gospel of Jesus Christ will have an effect on men’s social conditions, as well as his emotional being, it is in no way kin to the modern-day social gospel.
The social gospel is subtle. The devil does not have to coerce man into openly denying the saving power of the gospel, he can delude him into putting his confidence in what some televangelist or “big name” preacher says instead of the pure gospel. He can offer preaching as a “feel-good” kind of religion–one that says little or nothing about sin and its heinous sting ((Isaiah 59:1-2; Romans 14: 11-12). That kind of preaching is not gospel preaching!
The social gospel is more carnal than spiritual. It concerns itself with man’s living conditions–things that are world-connected, and not eternity-connected. It’s to change society, the environment, and other such deficiencies as exist in the modern world. The gospel, on the other hand–while it certainly has an affirmative effect on society–is more concerned with the here-after than the here-and-now (I John 2:15-17). “Seeing that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of god, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements melt with a fervent heat”? (II Peter 3:11-12)
The social gospel deals very little with sin and it’s consequences. While it is true that the social gospel helps with society, it seldom speaks of man’s sin–that which blights a man’s character and disdains (Ezekiel 18:4). It teaches a kind of watered-down form of forgiveness, if it teaches about sin at all. Its sermons require little more than admitting to the existence of God and “accepting Christ as your personal Savior.” Little attention is paid to what either of them said about salvation (II Peter 2:18-19).
The social gospel misleads men. It does not tell him the whole story about who and what he is. To speak of his being lost in hell is negative and that makes men fell poorly, so it just doesn’t talk about it. It promises what the gospel does not. It implies that moral progress is achieved by the improvement of present living conditions. It has little to say about death and judgment. The true gospel warns about what a man sows in this life and how what is sown here has a bearing on his eternal being (Galatians 6:7-8). Paul warns that a carnally-minded life has devastating eternal consequences. Hear him carefully: “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but those that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Romans 8:5-6). Furthermore, we are warned not to seek things here, but things there. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above and not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:1-2). A social gospel is for the here and now; the gospel of Jesus Christ has as its goal the eternal reward for the faithful.
The social gospel glorifies men, not God. “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever. Amen” (I Peter 4:11). That needs no commentary, do it? It says of itself all that need be said.
Whose gospel will you follow? God’s gospel or the social gospel invented and promulgated by men? Your eternal destiny will be affected by the choice you make.
