Category Archives: The Gospel

The Apostolic Preaching of the Gospel

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God’s love for the world was demonstrated by the giving of His Son so that all who believe in Him will in no way perish, but instead, have everlasting life.

The majority of American evangelism is reduced to “God Loves You and has a wonderful plan for your life.” But was the love of God even part of the Gospel that the Apostles preached in the Book of Acts?

What was the emphasis in the evangelistic preaching of the Apostles as recorded in the book of Acts? Does the record of Acts support the notion that the central focus of Christianity is one’s love relationship with God and personal life enhancement? Or did these disciples of Christ focus on something else?

The list below includes every instance of evangelistic preaching in the book of Acts, a summary of content, and an analysis of emphasis (©1999 Gregory Koukl. Reproduction permitted for non-commercial use only. For more information, contact Stand to Reason at 1438 East 33rd St., Signal Hill, CA 90755
(800) 2-REASON (562) 595-7333).

1. Pentecost, Acts 2:14-39
Peter notes the manifestations of the Holy Spirit that all had been witnessing, then ties them to the fulfillment of prophecy of Joel about the last days. He then preaches Jesus as the Messiah–attested to by miracles and by the resurrection which was prophesied by David–and the guilt of the crowd for the crucifixion.

The emphasis is on forgiveness of sin by Jesus the Messiah. There is no mention of God’s love or a relationship with Him.

2. Peter at the Gate Beautiful, Acts 3:12-26
After Peter and John healed a man lame from birth, Peter placed the blame for Jesus’ death on the shoulders of the listeners. He then appealed to fulfilled prophecy and told them either to believe and return and thus receive forgiveness and times of refreshing, or be destroyed.

The emphasis is on forgiveness of sin by Jesus the Messiah. There is no mention of God’s love or a relationship with Him.

3. Peter before the High Priest, Acts 4:8-12
Peter attributes the healing of the man lame from birth to Jesus the Messiah, whom the Jews had crucified, but whom God had raised from the dead. He quotes prophecy and says there is no other means of salvation but through Jesus. Peter then refuses to be silent about the Gospel.

The emphasis is on forgiveness of sin by Jesus the Messiah. There is no mention of God’s love or a relationship with him.

4. Peter’s Defense a Second Time before the Council, Acts 5:29-32
Peter proclaims the resurrected Christ as Prince and Savior who brings forgiveness of sin and gives the gift of the Holy Spirit. He accuses the Council of putting Jesus to death. They are so infuriated they want to kill the Apostles. Instead, on the advice of Gamaliel, the believers are flogged and released.

There is no mention of God’s love or any kind of tender relationship with Him.

5. Stephen’s Defense before the Council, Acts 7:1-60
Stephen recounts the history of the Jews in which they constantly rebel, rejecting God’s deliverer. He accuses the Jews of being stiff-necked, resisting the Holy Spirit just as their forefathers had. He accuses them also of betraying and murdering the Righteous One, the Messiah. They are so filled with rage they murder him.

Emphasis is on the guilt of the Jews. There is no mention of God’s love.

[Note: When God speaks to Saul about his future during the events surrounding Saul’s conversion (Acts 9), there is no mention of an intimate relationship, only that Paul would suffer much for the sake of Christ.]

6. Peter’s Message to the Household of Cornelius, Acts 10:34-43
Peter talks of the ministry of Jesus, His miracles, death on the cross, and resurrection. Peter tells the Gentiles it is his job to solemnly testify that Jesus is the One appointed by God to judge the world, that Jesus’ coming was prophesied, and that belief in Him brings forgiveness of sin.

The emphasis is on Jesus, the prophesied Messiah who either brings judgment or forgives of sin. There is no mention of God’s love.

7. Paul’s Message to the Jews in the Synagogue at Pisidian Antioch, Acts 13:16-41
Paul preaches Jesus as the anticipated Savior, affirmed by John the Baptist, crucified by the Jews, who rose from the dead in fulfillment of prophesy. Paul then proclaims forgiveness of sin and freedom from the Law for all who believe.

Paul proclaims Jesus the prophesied Messiah crucified and resurrected. His emphasis is on forgiveness amidst warning.

8. Paul at the Areopagus in Athens, Acts 17:22-31
Paul discloses the nature of the “unknown God,” One who is responsible for all creation, and in whom we all depend for our very existence. He calls all men to repent, because God has appointed a judge, a man who has risen from the dead.

Emphasis is on the nature of God, and the reality of judgment. There is no mention of relationship or God’s love.

9. Paul’s Defense before the Jews in Jerusalem, Acts 22:1-21
Paul gives his testimony, detailing his persecution of Christians motivated by his zeal toward God, his conversion on the road to Damascus, and how his sins were washed away in Jesus’ name. When he mentions his mission to the Gentiles, however, the Jews protested violently.

Emphasis is on Paul’s personal encounter with Christ, his own forgiveness from sin, and his subsequent mission. There is no offer of personal relationship with God or mention of God’s love.

10. Paul’s Defense before the Sanhedrin, Acts 23:1-6
Paul says he is on trial for the hope and resurrection of the dead. There is no mention of the love of God.

11. Paul’s Defense before the governor, Felix, Acts 24:10-21
Paul establishes his innocence regarding the Jews’ charges, then affirms the Law and the Prophets and the general resurrection of both righteous and wicked, a belief for which he says he is on trial.

There is no mention of God’s love or even of forgiveness.

12. Paul before Felix and Drusilla, Acts 24:24-25
Paul speaks of righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come which frightens Felix who then sends Paul away. There is no mention of God’s love or of a personal relationship with Him.

13. Paul’s Defense before the Agrippa, Acts 26:1-29
Paul gives his testimony, noting the importance of the resurrection. He tells of the commission Jesus had given him, proclaiming the Gospel with a goal of deliverance from Satanic darkness to receiving forgiveness and an inheritance from God. Paul claims his message is the same as the prophets regarding the Messiah’s suffering and resurrection.

Emphasis is on the resurrection of Christ, prophetic fulfillment and forgiveness, and Paul’s responsibility to preach the Gospel. There is no mention of love or a relationship with God.

The love of God is never mentioned a single time in the entire book of Acts.

Concerning this, Steven Langella observed, “What we do see is God’s love continually mentioned over and over in the epistles, letters written to Christians. But we really do not see it in any of the evangelistic outreaches of the apostles. Yet most gospel messages today are nothing but “God loves you,” with no mention of judgment, repentance, the work of Christ on the cross, etc… Just do your own survey. Stand on any street corner in your city and ask 50 people what they think about God. I am sure that the majority will say “God is a loving God”. The love of God has been elevated above all the other attributes of God. People will be quick to tell you “God is love”. But the Bible also says “God is Holy”. In fact the bible never says God is “Love, Love, Love.” But it does say God is “Holy, Holy, Holy”.

So what am I saying? To not speak of God’s love? Not at all, but to ONLY Speak of God’s love is doing a great injustice to the Gospel. I believe we need to preach the love of God which is displayed through His Son Jesus Christ and what He accomplished on the Cross.”

Have you heard?

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With so many surface level and man centered portrayals of the Gospel at large, how refreshing it is to hear the Good News presented the way the Bible proclaims it – starting with God and His holiness, and man’s desperate condition, then Christ’s effectual atonement, His triumphant resurrection and ascension, as Lord and King on His throne, at the right hand of His Father. Then to hear biblical repentance and faith properly outlined, the result of a true work of God in the soul which leads to an on-going trust and reliance on Christ and a desire for holiness.

I thought Paul Washer did a fabulous job in a short amount of time in this video, and my hope and prayer is not merely that God will use it to reach multitudes of lost people, but also re-evangelise the professing Church.

Law and Gospel

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The writers at the Mockingbird Blog posted these two quotes from a couple messages that Rod Rosenbladt preached at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama about nine years ago. His comments (based on Romans 3-5) are excellent and done in typical Rod Rosenbladt “Law first, Gospel second” fashion.

He begins by using the Law to diagnosis the problem (a problem, by the way, which continues even after we become Christians):

Now, look specifically at Romans 3, verses 19-20. I want to specifically focus on what it says about purpose of the law: “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.”

This is the point to which the apostle has been relentlessly grinding forward. The idolatrous and immoral Gentiles are ‘without excuse’. The Jews equally ‘have no excuse’. The special status of the Jews does not exonerate them.

In fact, all the inhabitants of the whole world, without any exception, are inexcusable before God, because all have known something of God and of morality, but all have disregarded and even stifled their knowledge in order to go their own way. All are guilty and condemned before God and without excuse.

Paul states in Verse 19 the purpose of the law is that “every mouth be silenced”. The purpose of the law is to shut our mouths, stop us in mid-excuse and hold us accountable to God. When confronted with the law we will shut our mouths. All of the excuses we learned to use so early in life will immediately fail us. We won’t say a word. As the verse goes on to say, the whole world will be held accountable to God.

In the end, God will assign one of two grades, 0 or 100, he does not grade on the curve and he will not hear our excuses. Those who have perfectly lived the law in thought, word and deed will be counted as righteous. Others like myself will be utterly doomed, check mate. Of course, Paul said earlier that “there is no one righteous, not even one”. None of us can place our hope in the law.

Now what does it all mean?

You and I are not only infected from top to bottom with sin—we can’t fix ourselves. Now this is difficult to say in our postmodern American society. It’s counter-cultural. We believe we can fix anything, even ourselves: Positive thinking, a couple of self-help courses, and all will be fine. But the Bible, especially Romans 3 says we’re wrong. I stand guilty before God and there’s nothing I can do to change that. My sentence is a just one and it is death.

Then he uses the Gospel to present the solution (a solution, by the way, which continues even after we become Christians):

Now God could have erased this world and no one could have accused him of injustice if he had done that, but he did not. While under no obligation at all to us rebels he instead put in motion a plan in which he freely, graciously, and at tremendous cost to himself satisfied his own justice in our place. Into my hopeless situation Paul speaks of God acting to rescue me anyway.

Let’s look at Chapter 5, verses 6 and 7: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

The language of Christianity is the language of substitution. It is not primarily the language of morals. God is not presented as a mother saying “eat all your vegetables”. Instead, Christianity is about a one-sided rescue, that we didn’t want and certainly didn’t deserve, and he did it anyway.

At the cross, Paul says God made Jesus to be sin, who himself knew no sin. Peter says he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree. Now how can this be just? How can God reckon like this? The answer is in Romans 3:24: gratuitously, or by his grace, through the ransoming that is in connection with Christ Jesus. It is not arbitrary, it’s not capricious, it’s not unjust for God to do this. If God died for us in Christ, God has every right having satisfied his own justice, by taking it all in our stead, to give us whatever he wants to give us.

In other words, God has his right to save us for free! He’s the one who allowed himself in Christ to be crucified for our sin. He has the right to give us eternal life. Having died in our place, he has a right to reckon to us a righteousness that isn’t really ours. And he does!

Concerning this, Tullian Tchividjian writes:

As Christians, we still need to hear both the law and the gospel. We need to hear the law because we are all, even after we’re saved, prone to wander in a self-righteous direction. The law, said Luther, is a divinely sent Hercules to attack and kill the monster of self-righteousness–a monster that continues to harass the Redeemed. We need constant reminders that our best is never good enough and that “there is something to be pardoned even in our best works.” We need the law to freshly reveal to us that we’re a lot worse off than we think we are and that we never outgrow our need for the cleansing blood of Christ. In other words, we need the law to remind us everyday just how much we need the gospel everyday.

And then once we are re-crushed by the law, we need to be reminded that “Jesus paid it all.” Even in the life of the Christian, the law continues to drive us back to Christ–to that man’s cross, to that man’s blood, to that man’s righteousness. The gospel announces to failing, forgetful people that Jesus came to do for sinners what sinners could never do for themselves–that God’s grace is gratuitous, that his love is promiscuous, and that while our sin reaches far, his mercy reaches farther. The gospel declares that Jesus came, not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it–that Jesus met all of God’s perfect conditions on our behalf so that our relationship with God could be unconditional.

So, God’s good law reveals our desperation; God’s good gospel reveals our deliverer. We are in constant need of both.

The Law discovers guilt and sin, And shows how vile our hearts have been. The Gospel only can express, Forgiving love and cleansing grace. – Isaac Watts