Regenerated At The Cross

What Is The Gospel?

The Gospel is what Christ did 2,000 years ago. Many claim they know the Gospel, Nearly all are counterfeit gospels. Here are a few popular counterfeit gospels found on YouTube:

The Gospel is not “Make Jesus Lord of your life.” The Gospel is not “Repent of your sins.” The Gospel is not “Inviting Jesus into your heart.” The Gospel is not “You must be born again.” The Gospel is not “Regeneration.” The Gospel is not “You must be filled with the Holy Spirit.” The Gospel is not “You must be baptized in the Holy Spirit.” The Gospel is not “You must speak in tongues.” The Gospel is not “Faith precedes regeneration.” The Gospel is not “Regeneration precedes faith.” The Gospel is not “You can perform miracles.” The Gospel is not “Let Jesus into your heart.” The Gospel is not “You must have a personal relationship (or experience) with Christ.” The Gospel is not “Expect a miracle.”

The Gospel is not “Put Jesus on the throne of your life.” The Gospel is not “Jesus set an example for us so that we may follow him to Heaven.” The Gospel is not “Trust Jesus.” The Gospel is not “Let go and let God.” The Gospel is not “Draw nigh unto God.” The Gospel is not “Christ died for the sins of the elect.” The Gospel is not “Christ died for all sins, including the sins of the lost.” The Gospel is not “Christ desires the salvation of all and is lovingly and patiently waiting for all to grant his desire.” The Gospel is not “Christ damns the reprobate for the glory of the elect.”

The Gospel is not “Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, Wesleyanism, Provisionism or any -ism.” The Gospel is not “A decision for Christ.” The Gospel is not “Christians should take dominion over the Earth.” The Gospel is not “Jesus is coming again.” The Gospel is not “The church saves.” The Gospel is not “Baptism saves.” The Gospel is not “Scripture alone saves” The Gospel is not “Grace alone saves.” The Gospel is not “Faith alone saves.”

The Gospel is not “Scripture plus science saves” The Gospel is not “Grace plus free will saves.” The Gospel is not “Faith plus work saves.” The Gospel is not “The fundamentals of faith saves.” The Gospel is not “Regeneration precedes faith.” The Gospel is not “Faith precedes regeneration.” The Gospel is not “Easy believe-ism.” The Gospel is not “Impossible believe-ism.” The Gospel is not “Bestowed by the papacy or denomination.” The Gospel is not “Baptismal regeneration.” The Gospel is not “Baptism is a sign and seal of the new covenant.” The Gospel is not “The mode of baptism.” The Gospel is not “Paedobaptism.” The Gospel is not “Credobaptism.”

The Gospel is not “Synergism” The Gospel is not “Monergism” The Gospel is not “Trinitarianism” The Gospel is not “Modalism” The Gospel is not “Turning from your evil ways.” The Gospel is not “1,2,3,4,5,6,7. . . All good children go to heaven.”

All these messages and many more are being preached on YouTube videos as the Gospel. A few of them are commands taken from Scripture. Some are doctrine. Often opposing doctrines. But none of them is the Gospel. Not everything in the Bible is the Gospel.

The Gospel is Good News.

The Gospel is Good News of a particular sort. It is not good news about what Christians will enjoy in Heaven. It is not good news about what God can do to change your life. It is not good news about holy living or sanctification. It is not good news about success, prosperity, health, money, and powerful living.

Many people confuse the Gospel with stories about what God has done or can do in their lives. One looks in vain on YouTube for a presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Gospel is not a doctrine, although doctrines are derived from the Gospel. What one finds are endless doctrinal debates about the nature of man, free will, the bondage of the will, good works, faith, mankind’s total depravity, mankind’s goodness, conditional and unconditional election, universal and limited atonement, resistible and irresistible grace, the problem of evil, once saved always saved, inviting or rejecting Jesus into your heart, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, Lordship salvation, etc., etc., etc.

Debating doctrine is fine. But none of these things is the Gospel.

YouTubers counterfeit Gospels make the same mistake that seventy-two early disciples made, as reported in Luke 10.

Let me repeat the story:

After these things, the Lord appointed seventy-two others also and sent them two by two before his face into every city and place where he was about to go.

Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.”

And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven. Behold, I give you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in Heaven.

Unlike many religious people who falsely claim they can perform divine miracles, these seventy-two men could truly perform divine miracles. God was doing wonderful things in their lives. They had dominion even over demons.

But Jesus tells them explicitly, “Do not rejoice in this.”

Christ gave them a direct and explicit command not to rejoice in their works and experiences — works like YouTubers promote as “Make Jesus Lord of your life”, “Repent and you shall be saved”, baptismal regeneration saves, faith alone saves, faith plus works saves., holy living or experiences promoted as “power evangelism” and “power healing” to name a few.

The disciples were focusing on their own experiences rather than what God had done from all eternity and what Christ was going to accomplish on the cross. They were rejoicing in their subjective experiences rather than the Gospel.

But Christ told them to rejoice in something that they had never experienced, something that God was about to do wholly outside of them, even before they were born and planned before the foundation of the world. He told them to rejoice in the doctrine of election — that their names are written in Heaven. Something not easy to believe. Something impossible to believe except as we are drawn Father and convicted by the Holy Spirit to believe and receive His imputed righteousness. Something that God the Father planned, Jesus Christ finished, and the Holy Ghost reveals in time to His people through Scripture.

Many of these YouTubers believe that man is free of God’s control. Therefore, they focus on their own experiences, works, and doctrine.

The Gospel is information about a past, historical event.

Each of the three words past, historical, and event is of vital significance for understanding what the Gospel is.

The Gospel of the Apostles was something that happened. They all looked back upon it. They did not speak of anything in the present as the Gospel, and they did not speak of anything in the future as the Gospel.

That is not to say they did not speak of anything in either the present or future. Rather they did not speak of anything in the present or future as Gospel.

Unless we are looking back and speaking of something that happened in the past, we are not proclaiming the Gospel. The “past-ness” of the Gospel is one of its essential aspects. The Gospel was not a vision. It was not a dream. The Gospel is good news about an event that happened in history.

It is in this sense, that a Christian’s regeneration is at and on the Cross. It is a one-time event that we believe happened, that others witnessed, and that Jesus Christ alone fully experienced.

The historical nature of the Gospel has certain important consequences.

First, you cannot exhort the Gospel. It is logically impossible. You cannot exhort a past, historical work. You can only declare it, proclaim it, and publish it abroad.

Exhortation is good (because it is Biblical) and needed, but it is not the Gospel and is not included in the Gospel. Exhortation is included in a sermon wherein the Gospel is preached but if the exhortation is presented as Gospel, it is a counterfeit Gospel.

Second, not only can you not exhort the Gospel, but you cannot experience the Gospel. The Gospel cannot be experienced. The Gospel is information about a unique experience and achievements. A unique experience is that which cannot, by definition, be repeated. If the believer could experience the Gospel, then he would repeat the experience; and if he could repeat the experience, then the Gospel would not be about a unique experience.

Third, the Gospel is perfect.

Since the Fall, there have been no perfect, ordinary human beings on Earth, either before or after the Gospel. If men could be perfect, they would not need the Gospel. The Gospel concerns the substitutionary work of Christ. If the believer could experience the Gospel, it would cease to be substitutionary. The Gospel is what God has done in Christ in my place. If I could experience this, it would not be in my stead. The Gospel cannot be experienced.

We certainly do experience some of its benefits, but the fruits or benefits are not the Gospel. The Holy Spirit given to the believer is the effect of Christ’s finished work on behalf of his people. So also are faith, hope, joy, peace, and holiness as a state of the believer. They are all effects of the Gospel. We must not confuse the root (the Gospel) and the fruit (see Colossians 1:5, 6). The Gospel is information about a past, historical event.

There are two important aspects of this perfectness:

First, the Gospel concerns the perfect work of God in Jesus Christ. Unless we are preaching a work of perfection in Jesus Christ, we are not preaching the Gospel. The Gospel admits of no development. Anything that does admit development (the Christian life of sanctification, for example) cannot be the Gospel.

For instance, faith is good, but it is not perfect. Repentance is good, but none of us repents as he ought to. Holy living is good, and no man will see the Lord without it, but our holiest living is far from holy enough. None of these things can qualify as the Gospel.

The second important aspect is that the Gospel is information about the perfect work of God in Jesus Christ. Even if the believer were perfect, the Gospel would not be about him. It concerns Jesus Christ as the place of God’s perfect work. Nothing that is happening in the believer can be called the Gospel. It may be called the fruit of the Gospel, but not the Gospel itself.

Because the Gospel is information about the perfect work of God in Jesus Christ, there is no other name under Heaven by which we must be saved. The Gospel is information about the only Saviour, the only mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. The Gospel is exclusive. All other means of salvation taught by the churches are false. “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me.”

The Gospel is the power of God for salvation.

Paul tells us that the Gospel is the power of God for salvation. Those whom God intends to save are saved by the message preached. There are many aspects of this point that we could develop, but we shall focus on an area that needs clarification, judging by much literature in the religious world.

The Gospel is a one-time event experienced only by Our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says that the Gospel is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe.

Usually, we take such a statement to mean only that if the Gospel is believed initially, then salvation will follow. In other words, we think that such a statement (the Gospel is the power of God) refers almost exclusively, if not exclusively, to the salvation of the unbeliever. But Paul’s statement is also applicable to the believer.

The Gospel saves the unbeliever when he believes, but it also saves the believer as he believes. It is the continuing power of God for the salvation of the believer. The Gospel is that by which the believer is saved by God at the beginning, middle, and end of the Christian life. There is never a point in the Christian’s life when the Gospel is not saving him.

The YouTube counterfeit gospels repeat the same error of the 72 disciples, the same error that is confirmed again in Matthew 7:21–23.

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in Heaven. Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness!’

The Gospel is a historical proclamation that is given to believers by which we are saved if we hold fast to what the Lord did for us and do not get sidetracked by our doings and experiences.

The apostle Paul tells us what the Gospel is in 1 Corinthians 15:

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the Gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved if you hold fast that word which I preached to you — unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.

That is the Gospel, and that Gospel is preached so little today: Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, he was buried, and he rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures.

Because of contemporary religious confusion, several aspects of Paul’s Gospel demand clarity.

First, the Gospel concerns history, not legend or myth. It is not, as Peter says, “cunningly devised fables.” When Paul mentions Jesus Christ, he means an actual historical character like George Washington or Julius Caesar. He is not speaking of an experiential “Christ” whom we imagine.

There are many different “Christs” and “Gods” being talked about today. The words Jesus, Christ, and God have become almost meaningless in the twentieth century, as we have seen, and unless one says exactly which “Christ” he means, no one, including himself, can know. Paul does that. His Christ is a historical figure, not a voice, nor a vision, a feeling, or a dream.

Second, the Gospel concerns the past, neither the present nor the future. It is history. The Gospel does not describe any present or future action that God or man might take. The Gospel is news about actions God in Christ took 2,000 years ago to save his people, actions that are wholly outside of our experience.

Just as all men are condemned by Adam’s sin, which was wholly outside of our experience, so are all of God’s people saved by Christ’s obedience unto death, which is wholly outside of our experience.

Just as the Gospel is history, not legend; and just as the Gospel concerns the past, not the present nor the future; so the Gospel is about something that God did, not something that we must do or even can do.

Christ is both the author and the finisher of our salvation. We do not complete what he began; Christ said, “It is finished.”

Third, the Gospel concerns what Christ did for his people: Christ died for our sins, not for the sins of everyone in the world, but for the sins of his sheep only.

He did not die for the sins of Judas, for example, for Judas went to Hell. If Christ had died for Judas’s sins, why was Judas sent to Hell? Was it for his unbelief, his failure to “let Jesus into his heart”?

Unbelief and failure to “accept” Christ admittedly are sins, and Christ, according to this false but popular gospel, died for all of Judas’s sins. So the question remains unanswered: If Christ died for all men, why are some men punished in Hell?

The Gospel is an objective and historical message. It does not concern our experiences or feelings at all. It does not concern our works, but God’s works. It does not concern our alleged miracles, but Christ’s death and resurrection. It is belief in what Christ did and not what we do.

Regeneration is not the Gospel. Regeneration is a consequence of what Christ accomplished 2,000 years ago in Judea. It must not be confused with the Gospel, for effects should not be confused with causes.

But there is more in Paul’s account of the Gospel than might appear in a superficial reading. What we have discovered so far is different from what passes for the Gospel in this decadent age. There is a great deal more.

Paul uses the phrase “according to the Scriptures” twice in this concise account of the Gospel. His whole summary of the Gospel takes only twenty-seven words in the New King James translation (and fewer in Greek), and eight of those words are “according to the Scriptures … according to the Scriptures.” The phrase is very important. Why does Paul repeat it? What does it mean?

The Gospel, according to Paul, is embedded in something much larger: It is embedded in all the Scriptures. Not only are the Scriptures the only reliable source of information we have about the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, but the Scriptures alone explain those events. Epistemology for Christians is “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

The Gospel is not merely that Christ died; so did Paul. The Gospel is not merely that he was buried; so was Abraham. The Gospel is not merely that Christ rose again, so did Lazarus.

The Gospel is that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. And that He rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures. The Gospel is in accord with and explained by the Scriptures, all sixty-six books of them. When Christ explained his resurrection to the disciples, he did so by explaining the Scriptures:

And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. . . .Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him: and He vanished from their sight. And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?. . . And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.”

By emphasizing the phrase “according to the Scriptures,” Paul is emphasizing the fact that the Gospel is part of a system of truth given to us in the Bible. All of the parts of this system fit together. All the statements in the Bible are logically consistent with one another.

To give but one example of this, Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection fulfilled specific prophecies given centuries earlier. The exact town where he would be born was predicted hundreds of years before his birth; the fact that his birth would be unusual, for his mother would be a virgin, was predicted centuries before his birth; his death among the wicked and his burial among the rich was predicted; and Christ himself predicted his resurrection.

The specific propositions that Paul calls the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 15 do not stand alone. They imply and are implied by many others. The choosing by God the Father of those who should be saved, the suffering of the punishment due them for their sins by Jesus Christ at Calvary, and the gift of faith to the elect people by God the Holy Spirit are all part of the system of truth taught in the Bible.

They are the seven great aspects of redemption: election, atonement, calling, faith, baptism, communion, and glorification. In the Gospel, the doctrine of atonement is the central theme.

It is impossible to defend the Gospel, or even to preach the Gospel, without defending and explaining the system of truth of which it is a part. The “whole system of truth” is the Bible.

Christians are given to Christ from the Father and sealed in eternal life by the Holy Ghost through the gift of faith in the Gospel. We are born again (also known as regeneration) by believing what was accomplished at the Cross 2,000 years ago.

Those who preach “You must be born again” as the Gospel are preaching a false gospel. To begin with, the new birth (which is Biblical) is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is an event that takes place in the sinner. The new birth is not the perfect work of God in Jesus Christ and is not said to be the power of God unto salvation. Yet much preaching puts the new birth in the place of Jesus Christ. It is a great error to present the new birth as the Gospel.

It was one error of Rome to treat regeneration as the Gospel. Pseudo-evangelicals have fallen into the same trap. How many times do we hear the Gospel presented as “Jesus will come into your heart,” or a sermon climaxing with, “Ask Jesus into your heart”?

It is not the coming of Jesus into the heart that is the Gospel, but the coming of Jesus into the world and dying on behalf of his people. Focusing on the human heart is not focusing on Jesus Christ. It is not preaching a past, historical event. It is not preaching the completed work of God in Jesus Christ. And it is not preaching the power of God for salvation. Those who focus on the heart are not preaching the powerful source of sanctification, but that which is hostile to salvation. They are works that do not save.

Just as we do not choose to be born, we do not choose to be born again. Just as this sinful life was given to us without our participation or willingness, we do not choose to receive the new birth given to us. It is simply given to us by the Holy Spirit through hearing the Gospel without our participation.

Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. Isaiah 49:16.

To receive does not necessarily imply we have anything to do (or choose) with the reception. We receive eternal life through faith as we receive this life born dead into sin. We are regenerated (born again), not by our choosing or anything that we do, but because the Father first chose us. If one chooses to be saved, one can equally choose not to be saved. Eternal security depends on who makes the choice.

Again, the Gospel is that by which the believer is saved by God at the beginning, middle, and end of the Christian life. There is never a point in the Christian’s life when the Gospel is not saving him. Therefore we look to the Gospel at every point during this life. Past, present and future.

Through the one-time sacrament of water baptism Christians can view death in the rearview mirror. Through faith Christians can live without fear of death in the present. And through the communion of the saints, we partake often in the real body and blood of Christ in remembrance of what Christ did for us for perseverance through what lies ahead.

Baptism and Communion are not the Gospel, but Holy Sacraments because they are the work of God through The Word, and not our response or first work to the atonement. We believe and are baptized to be saved and we celebrate communion often in remembrance of what Christ did for us.

All seven aspects of redemption look to the Gospel alone for the regeneration of all believers known before time, drawn by the Father, accomplished 2,000 years ago at and on the Cross, called through faith by the Holy Spirit through the written Word, sealed by baptism, and kept through communion for glorification and perfect eternal life to come with Our Lord in heaven forever and ever.

Paul’s emphatic phrases in 1 Corinthians 15 indicate that those who wish to separate the Gospel from the system of truth found in the Bible cannot do so. The Gospel, while a distinct part of the Biblical system, is nevertheless a part of the system. This system is fully expressed in the Scriptures. The propositions that Paul calls the Gospel are some of the propositions of Scripture. Because the Gospel is part of the Scriptural system of truth, it is impossible to defend the Gospel without defending the whole system.

An exclusive emphasis on the “fundamentals” of the faith, rather than the “whole counsel of God,” which is the phrase the Bible uses, is futile. Six or eight unconnected truths, even if they are major doctrines of Christianity, are not the whole of Christianity, and cannot be defended effectively. Fundamentalism poses no serious threat to secular philosophies because it is logically unsystematic and disjointed, a mere shadow of the robust Christianity we find in the Bible.

Paul emphasized the Scriptures, but this emphasis upon the writings is not unique to Paul. When explaining and defending Christianity, Christ always appealed to Scripture, and never to his own experience. During his temptation in the wilderness, Christ quoted Scripture in reply to each of the Devil’s temptations: “It is written,” “It is written,” “It is written.”

What makes this appeal more significant is the context in which it occurred. Christ had just been baptized in the River Jordan by John the Baptist. He had heard a voice from Heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son in Whom I am well-pleased.” The Holy Spirit had descended on him in the form of a dove.

Talk about religious experiences! No one else, before or since, has ever had such an astonishing experience.

Yet Christ did not tell the Devil what had happened to him, the voice from Heaven and the giving of the Holy Spirit. Why not? Why did Christ ignore all this and quote what many today call the dead letter of the Bible? Why does Christ answer the Devil by quoting Scripture rather than recounting his recent and unique spiritual experiences?

Because the Scriptures are the objective written word of God.

The Bible, not our experience, is authoritative. If Christ did not appeal to his experience, and it was a far greater experience than any mere man could ever hope to have, there is absolutely no justification for our appealing to our miserable and possibly deceptive experiences.

It was, in fact, the Devil who wanted Christ to appeal to his personal experiences: He wanted Christ to perform a miracle; Christ refused. He wanted Christ to take a leap of faith off the pinnacle of the temple, presuming God the Father would perform a miracle; Christ refused. He wanted Christ to worship him, avoid the hellish suffering of the cross, and thereby gain dominion over all the kingdoms of the world; again Christ refused.

The Devil used the same appeal to experience in the Garden when he tempted Eve: He promised Eve that she would become godlike when she ate the forbidden fruit. And Eve “saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise.” Relying upon her experience, and seeking a still more wonderful experience, Eve was deceived and abandoned the Word of God.

Sin and death came through Adam who was not deceived and willingly abandoned the Word of God to follow Eve. Yet the perfect seed of the woman (Jesus Christ) was preserved in Eve before Adam’s fall resulting in the virgin birth of our Savior.

The secret of Christ’s intransigent resistance to diabolical temptation was precisely the fact that he did not prefer his own experiences to the Word of God.

The apostle Peter also emphasizes the written Word of God. He climaxes his account of the testimony concerning the truth of the Christian faith by mentioning Scripture. In his second letter, Peter says,

For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to him from the Excellent Glory: “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well-pleased.” And we heard this voice which came from Heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.

We also have the prophetic word made more sure, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

A few verses earlier Peter had written that God’s “divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us.” Please notice the phrase “all things.”

Later in the same chapter Peter again says that Scripture is the only way we have of getting this knowledge: Scripture, the prophetic word made more sure, is the light that shines in a dark place — not a brightly lit place, nor even a dimly lit place, but a dark place. There is no other source for this knowledge, including knowledge of the Gospel, than the Scriptures.

The sufficiency of Scripture is affirmed again in 2 Timothy 3:14–17:

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

The Bible claims to have a monopoly on truth.

The YouTube counterfeit gospels denigrate the Bible and base their religion on their personal experiences, good works, and the philosophies of men.

The Gospel is neither a testimony of our personal experiences nor commands that we are to obey or a philosophy of what good works we must do. The Gospel is what Christ did.

The Gospel is the Good News of what Christ did for his people 2,000 years ago. It is not about the new birth, nor the Second Coming, nor the activities of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

The Gospel is propositions about historical events that happened wholly outside of us. It has consequences and implications for us today, to be sure, but these consequences are effects of the Gospel, and must not be confused with the Gospel itself.

The fatal error of the Dark Ages was to confuse God’s work for us with God’s work in us, and so pervert the Gospel. The same error is widespread among so-called YouTube Evangelicals today who do not distinguish between what Christ has done for us and what the Holy Spirit can do in us.

English historian Edward Gibbon, author of “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” identified five marks of the Roman decaying culture: 1) art becoming freakish and sensationalistic instead of creative and original; 2) a widening disparity between the very rich and the very poor; 3) an increased demand to live off the state; 4) concern with displaying affluence instead of building wealth; and 5) obsession with sex and perversions of sex.

Many YouTube evangelicals address these symptoms, yet miss the Gospel entirely. We are rapidly re-entering the Dark Ages because the light and clarity of the Gospel are lost. The purpose of Regeneration At the Cross is to focus on and preach the everlasting Gospel with the goal of including the whole counsel of God for the strength of the invisible church in the end times.

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake, those days shall be shortened. Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Matthew 24:21–22

Conrad Jules Braun

Editor’s Note: Most of this article has been taken directly from my friend and mentor John W. Robbins What is The Gospel? and What is The Gospel of Jesus Christ?