Watering Down the Gospel

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Have you ever gone to use a ketchup bottle at a restaurant and had it gush out because someone watered it down? Not cool. You know what else isn't cool? Watering down the gospel of Christ.

 

Many who teach "easy believism" or "cheap grace" do just that. According to this view, salvation requires nothing more than mentally assenting to Jesus Christ as God's Son who died on the cross for our sins. There is no need to change your mind and attitude about your sin, work toward ridding it from your life, or submit to the Lordship of Christ.

 

Despite what advocates of easy believism claim, repentance is at the heart of the gospel. But before considering what the Bible teaches, think about the logic of excluding repentance from the gospel:

 

Did Jesus die on the cross because of our sins in order to forgive us of our sins, so that we could continue to live in and practice sin? Really?

 

Did Jesus die as our substitute, bearing the penalty our sins deserved, just so we could continue to love and cherish the very sin that put Him there?

 

Is this really the gospel of Christ?

 

As illogical as it is, this is the "gospel" many are selling and many are buying because it offers a license to sin while still promising salvation.

 

But what does the Bible really teach? God is "not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (2 Pet. 3:9). Therefore, He "commands all men everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30). Since God calls sinners to repent, to change their minds about sin and turn from it, it follows that He also calls those same sinners to live committed lives of Christian discipleship. Jesus said, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me" (Lk. 9:23). Paul declared the same truth: "He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again" (2 Cor. 5:15).

 

When we treat sin casually and neglect Christ's call to repentance, discipleship, and Lordship, we cheapen the cross of Christ. Grace is not cheap. The cross was real. Christ's suffering was real. Our forgiveness is real. So let us never cheapen what cost Heaven so much.

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Written by Craig Ressler