Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”
It is hard to see how this text is really believed by the ministry of the day. It seems as if everything is more important than the Gospel. Social issues, expositional preaching (so-called), and moral issues are rampant, but the Gospel is seemingly forgotten. On the other hand, there are those who have the so-called “simple gospel” which is nothing more than another gospel. They simply want to say a few things about Jesus and then invite people to say a prayer or walk an aisle and so on. The glorious Gospel of grace alone is rarely heard. Where can one hear teaching on Christ crucified and the wonders of the cross to daily life? Where can one hear about the imputed or reckoned righteousness of Christ and how that is for the ungodly? Where can one find the hearts of believers and unbelievers alike being opened to them and then Christ preached in a way that they can see how they must have Him?
Is the Gospel really the power of salvation for all who believe? If we really believed that, we would preach the Gospel of grace alone and the Gospel of the glory of God alone to all. Sinners need to hear the Gospel whether or not they are believers or not. Believers who wrestle with sensitive consciences and sinful hearts would welcome the proclamation of a crucified Savior. Unbelievers who have had their hearts opened to them and see how desperately they need Christ would want to hear of this Christ who saves sinners and of a Gospel that is the power of God for salvation.
Where is this great doctrine of justification that was so important in the understanding of Luther to the degree that he was willing to stand against Rome and the secular authorities over it? Why is this great doctrine of justification not being taught and proclaimed in the churches today? The Gospel of grace alone was discovered anew and the Reformation was born. Why is it such a small thing in the churches today? Has the Gospel changed? Has the doctrine of justification by grace alone changed? Has this doctrine been set to the side as unimportant now?
Could it be the case that the failure of preachers to declare justification by grace alone is the failure of preachers to understand depravity and of the nature of God? It is so bewildering to watch the churches simply fall away into irrelevance in reality thought they are a nuisance to the world with all of their moralizing in politics, though they may see that as being persecuted for the name of Christ. But the churches must proclaim the Gospel in order to be a church as this is one of the marks of a church. Apart from the Gospel being proclaimed there is no church. It does not matter how much a church stands for moral issues and political issues if it does not proclaim the glorious Gospel of grace alone. A group of people thinking it is a church does not make it one and they cannot make it a church apart from the gospel.
In the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, not from moral to moral and from political issue to political issue. In the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, not the righteousness of man in all sorts of other things. It is in the Gospel that God Himself is seen and it is the glory of His grace that is seen, but in all the things that “churches” are busy with today the glory of God is not seen. They may use the words and say that what they are doing glorifies Him, but they are deceiving themselves.
While it may seem radical to the modern world, apart from the Gospel of grace alone no group of people can be considered to be a true church. It does not matter what one group believes about the covenants or not, the covenants do not make a church a church. It does not matter what one group believes about the Westminster Confession or the 1689 London Baptist Confession if they don’t preach the Gospel. People of those stripes may call themselves what they wish and they may be as conservative as they wish and follow all the rituals as they please, but apart from the Gospel of grace alone people such as those do not make up churches. We must seek the Lord of grace to grant repentance to those who are so wicked as not to preach the Gospel of grace alone. Until that happens, the churches will not be churches and the world will be even more worldly.
God Loves... Himself 
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