THE GOOD NEWS

The forgiveness of all of your sins, reconciliation with God, sonship, eternal life, heavenly glory, and assurance of salvation are yours for the taking.  All you must do is believe it and receive it.

 A dmit that you’re a sinner.

 B elieve that Jesus Christ died for your sins and rose again.

 C all on the Lord Jesus Christ to save you.

There is only one means of forgiveness and only one way into Heaven.  The way is just as available to thieves and prostitutes as it is to those with extreme religious zeal.  The way is simple and the knowledge of this path is available to all—whether wise or unintelligent, old or young.  Yet the way is exceedingly narrow.

Enter through the narrow gate.  For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. (Matthew 7:13–14)

So what is the one, solitary, exclusive way into Heaven?  How can children of wrath, destined for destruction, obtain salvation and eternal life?  Answer: Through Jesus, by means of what He, alone, accomplished.

I am the door.  If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. (John 10:9)

Jesus is the gate.  Jesus is the door.  Not right living, positive karma, abstract notions of love, or even the Torah.  No achievement however great, no religion however admirable, and no amount of moral attainment however virtuous, will ever bridge the gap of sin between you and a resplendently holy God.  Jesus is the [one and only] way.

‘You know the way to the place where I am going.’

Thomas said to Him, ‘Lord, we don’t know where You are going, so how can we know the way?’

Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.’ (John 14:4–6)

It isn’t enough to say that Christianity is the only way among religions.  That belief isn’t narrow enough.  No.  Jesus is the only way within the religion we are already a part of.  Religion, religious labels, nor religious association will save you.  Only Jesus can save you.  And He can and will save those—all of those—who believe in Him and what He accomplished on their behalf.

The world can offer you short-lived pleasure and the religious can offer you a false sense of belonging and cleanliness, but neither can offer you this: reconciliation with God and eternal life.  If you want the gift that really counts then you need to sacrifice your pride and come to God on His own terms:

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The Gospel (“GOOD NEWS”)

In accordance with the Scriptures, Christ the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, became human, incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, lived a morally perfect and sinless life, died for our sins on the Cross as a substitutionary sacrifice, was buried in a tomb, and was raised bodily from the dead on the third day.  Everyone who hears and accepts this message of salvation, believing in their heart that God raised the Christ from the dead, will be pardoned of all their sins, given the gift of the Holy Spirit, and granted everlasting life in perpetual union with God.

Let’s break this down in even simpler terms...

1. Christ died for your sins.

2. Was buried in a tomb.

3. Rose to life again.

It’s that simple and painfully obvious, but the simplicity of this message (which makes it equally clear to young and old, alike) seems almost too simple to most.  And that’s a big part of why they reject it.  They don’t believe its simplicity.  It just seems too good to be true.

For ages people have wondered if there is a God.  They have pondered why there is death and suffering.  And they have questioned how a good God could permit such evil.  “Where is God and why doesn’t He show Himself?  Why doesn’t He give an account for the perplexing, miserable enigma that is life?”

I’ve heard this countless times from atheists—demanding that God just make an appearance and then they’d believe.  But history and the depravity of the human heart paint a different picture:

God did appear, visibly.  He came with angels shouting from the heavens (Lk. 2:13).  He came healing the sick, restoring sight to the blind, walking on water, controlling the weather, feeding thousands with just a few morsels.  And He came accompanied by numerous visible signs.  Yet His own people rejected Him—even many in His own biological family.  He came doing exactly what atheists demand He do today for “proof.”

And He was killed for it.  He was hung on a tree to die.  And even more signs followed: darkness in midday, earthquakes, and the Temple curtain being torn in two, from top to bottom.  These were followed up by the greatest miracle of all when God the Son, dead in the grave, started breathing again and walked out of His tomb.

For the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  For it is written:

‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
   the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’ (1 Corinthians 1:18–19)

Unbelievers think the Cross is foolishness.  Some think it’s too good to be true and reject it as “easy-believism” (as many in the Hebrew Roots Movement do).  Others think it’s simply a fairy tale told among evangelicals.  But pride, which is sin, lies at the very heart of the world’s rejection of Christ—acknowledging that one is helpless and entirely dependent on God for salvation is a confession few are willing to make.

Where is the wise person?  Where is the teacher of the law?  Where is the philosopher of this age?  Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?  For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.  Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:20–24)

Jews and Gentiles.  Who were these people way back in the first century?

The Gentiles (“nations”) were pagan peoples who worshiped all manner of things.  Their societies were governed by artificial pantheons of temperamental gods.  They were both superstitious and vile.  And the Greek Gentiles of that time period, in particular, had elevated knowledge and proto-scientific philosophies to the level of religious belief (not unlike secularists of today).  In brief, the Gentiles were believing whatever they wanted, allowing those beliefs to justify their own lustful pleasures.  They were pagan and heathen—adulterers, prostitutes, idolaters, and murderers.

The Jews, by the first century, were an ultra-religious people governed by various sects that had varying takes on how to observe and apply the Torah (Law of Moses).  They had endured exile and subsequent violent attacks on their land and religion and were determined to preserve it against the pagan Gentiles.  The adulterers, prostitutes, and idolaters among them were isolated and often put to death.  Yet exterior cleanliness masked all sorts of wickedness within—especially pride, which is one of the gravest sins of all for it is the sin that can keep someone from going to God for help.

The Jews and Gentiles were on two very different ends of the political and religious spectrums, yet once the message of the gospel began being preached, the Apostle Paul observed that in their mutual pride, the good news was foolishness to them both.  The simplicity of the gospel offended the “scientific” and complex philosophical sensibilities of the Greeks, but its simplicity was also a stumbling block to the exterior-focused religion of the legalistic Jewish sects.

Now we get to the crux of the matter: since the beginning of time, God has been progressively revealing His plan to save His children via an atoning sacrifice (The Promised Seed).  Those who came before Christ looked forward in hope.  Those of us who have lived after Christ came, look back to His cross and resurrection.  We all, in hope, acknowledge our sinfulness and accept God’s propitiation.  It’s just that simple.  And through our faith in Him, on the basis of the propitiation alone, God: 1. pardons our sins, 2. perfects our spirits, 3. adopts us into His family, 4. grants us eternal life, and 5. destines us for escape from the coming Day of His wrath.  Those with faith in God’s Anointed are the corporate aspect of the seed of the woman—the promised seed of Abraham.  These are those on the narrow road.

But there are many on the broad road, which leads to destruction.  These are the seed of the serpent.  The serpent and his seed are in perpetual enmity with Christ and His seed.  I believe the Spirit has given me insight into what kinds of people walk on the broad road, and with this gift of discernment I have made it a hallmark of this ministry to explain how false teachers (and teachings) can fall on either of two lanes of the broad road.  Christianity has suffered for a very long time, because it has failed to take seriously the frequent New Testament warnings of Satan’s two-pronged attack.

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Two Lanes, One Road

Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness.  There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns.  The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls.  She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries.  The name written on her forehead was a mystery:

Babylon the Great

The Mother of Prostitutes

And of the Abominations of the Earth

(Revelation 17:3–5)

From the very beginning there have always been two enemies.  It wasn’t just the serpent, Satan.  It was also man’s own desire (Gen. 3:1–5; cf. Gen. 3:6).  Satan is seeking to destroy us, prowling around like a roaring lion (1 Pt. 5:8), but our desires are at war with our souls, as well (1 Pt. 2:11).  Satan is the father of lies (Jn. 8:44), but our heart—the seat of our desires—is deceitful above all else (Jer. 17:9).  It isn’t accurate to say “Satan made me do it.”  No, Satan knocked at your door and your deceitful heart opened the door to him.

Satan isn’t against religion, he’s just against religion when he isn’t the object of worship.  Paul warned us that idols are just a front for demons (1 Cor. 10:20).  It would seem that demons and fallen angels—Satan especially—want the worship of man.  In Revelation it isn’t the whore of Babylon that is worshiped by unbelieving mankind, it’s Satan and his frontman, the beast.  Satan is at the heart of a new religion.

Man, on the other hand (aside from the occasional dingbat in the wilderness), isn’t interested in being the central figure in a religion.  Man is interested in gratifying his flesh and improving his status in the social pecking order.  Satan manipulates man’s insatiable desire to fill the bottomless pit that is the human heart, for his own ends.  Satan wants to displace God in the cosmos, while man wants the best this world has to offer.

Satan’s frequent sin, like religious legalism, is accusation.  He relentlessly accuses and condemns without offering hope or rescue.  And man’s frequent sin is lust: lust for money, lust for sex, lust for power, and lust for any and all material things.  But the sin of both is pride.  This is, of course, an oversimplification, but hopefully you begin to see where I’m going with this: all sin is lawlessness, but in the great irony of ironies, legalism is lawlessness, too, because it presents only the warnings in the law, and not the rescue.  It always overlooks the weightiest parts of the law: mercy, justice, redemption, forgiveness, sacrifice, atonement, and so forth.

The broad, lawless path to destruction can be understood as two lanes, or two sides on the same coin (legalism and lawlessness).  If you aren’t willing to see it then you won’t see it, but failing to recognize this can make all of the Bible’s warnings about false teachers, wolves, and deception, useless to you.  Sometimes the best way to identify the truth is to first identify what isn’t the truth, and herein we begin to understand why the Bible routinely points out two enemies throughout its passages.  Sometimes these two enemies are even at enmity with one another even though they both hate the truth.

Consider some examples:

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The Serpent and Eve’s Deceitful Heart

Satan was lurking in the Garden of Eden in the form of a serpent (Rev. 12:9).  He wanted to swindle Adam and Eve out of their dominion of earth and he was ready to strike.  He tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit from The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil...

...But it was Eve’s own heart, which had grown dark through unbelief, that caused her to actually take a bite.

Two enemies.

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Pharisees and Sadducees

The Pharisees were the meticulous, ultra-Torah observant Jews who believed in many of the same things Christ did (angels, the resurrection of the dead, a future earthly kingdom of Messiah, etc).  Yet despite the similarity in belief, they were also Christ’s greatest opponents, because they opposed Him where it counted the most: that He was the Messiah promised to Israel and God’s standard of holiness wasn’t “great” or “very good,” but absolute perfection inside and out.  We see threads of Pharisaism in many forms today: in legalistic religions outside of the scope of Christianity like Islam and Hinduism, but also by errant sects within Christianity, as well, such as the Roman Catholic Church, the Hebrew Roots Movement, and even some Protestant offshoots that place undue emphasis on one’s works rather than on what Christ accomplished.

Many modern Pharisees wear the Christian label, but they are either unaware of, or willfully opposed to, God’s ordained method of salvation: grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.  They may believe Christ died and rose again, but they don’t acknowledge or believe that His death accomplished their pardon.

Sadducees were Torah-observant to some extent, but their belief system was markedly unbiblical.  They were the nominally-religious of the first century: Hellenized, worldly, and unbelieving, yet wrapped in a cloak of religiosity.  They rejected the belief in a future resurrection of the dead, among other things.  It was more a lifestyle philosophy than an actual religion.

Progressive Christianity, Unitarian Universalism, and other syncretic belief systems (like Bahá’í), are in the same vein.  They are the modern Sadducees.  Though they are on the polar opposite side of the political and religious spectrum from legalists, like legalists, they also reject the atoning aspect of the gospel (the very reason Christ died).

Christian legalists may acknowledge that Christ is the only way, but they disbelieve the means through which He is the only way—His atoning death and resurrection (e.g. the Gospel)—thinking instead that they obtain God’s favor by being a good disciple of Christ, producing evident fruit, avoiding x, y, or z to a subjective extent, or, obtaining some other subjective level of adherence to varying laws, rules, and commandments.

Modern Sadducees, on the other hand, rather attack the belief that Christ is the only way.  Most are universalists to a certain extent, whether or not they wear the Christian label.  By virtue of believing that Christ is not the only way, one rejects the gospel, because if Christ is not the only way, then His death was not necessary.

However, some Progressive Christians do give lip service to the belief that Christ is the only way, but not in a cross-centric sense.  Rather, they believe that Christ’s death was merely a moral example and not a substantive sacrifice/provision/propitiation.  They believe God may ultimately save everyone regardless of their faith.  Similarly, some believe that “sin” is a mere religious concept and atonement is not needed (in the fashion of Brian McLaren).

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The Whore and the Beast

“Mystery Babylon,” the harlot of Revelation 17–18, represents several things.  Most literally, in my view, she symbolizes earthly Jerusalem.  More figuratively, she represents the apostate religious systems of the world (especially Roman Catholicism, in the view of early Protestant Reformers) and mankind’s collective lawlessness (like Babel of old).  In the biblical narrative she isn’t seeking religious worship for herself, but is carrying her lawless, worldly sins with her.  She’s doing all the things that legalists [outwardly] hate: sins of the flesh that are easy to point out.

She is riding the beast, unaware that their lawless alliance is tepid at best.  In reality, the beast wants her dead.

The beast represents both Satan’s earthly dominion after his fall from Heaven, and the particular personage of Satan’s own anointed in the form of the antichrist (aka the man of lawlessness, man of sin).  Inwardly he despises the whore, just as he despises the Church, but he carries her along as a means to an end.  The end goal for him is that the whole world would worship Satan to the exclusion of all others—especially YHWH.  And finally, after getting what he wants out of her, he devours the woman and burns her with fire (Rev. 17:16).

The woman and the beast will take their final form during the coming Tribulation, but we see types and shadows even now.  The Progressive Left is in an uneasy alliance with Islam because of their mutual hatred for Christianity, though Islam’s ultimate desire is religious supremacy and a hard-line theocracy.

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Final Thoughts

Satan and the human heart he deceives

The serpent and his seed

Pharisees and Sadducees

The religious Jews and pagan Gentiles

The beast and the whore he devours

Legalists and the lawless

Until Christ returns to establish justice, we will always be attacked from two sides.  And sometimes these two enemies are not outside us, but within.  If you are not in the faith now, then these two competing enemies and paths will steer you away from the simplicity of the good news of the gospel.  And if you are in the faith and don’t learn discernment with this, you will be saved, but remain unproductive and useless to the Kingdom.

Legalism is faith without grace.  In other words, believing everything about God and His word except what most matters: that we are saved entirely by God’s grace through what Christ already accomplished.

Lawlessness is grace without faith.  In terms of lawless people who believe in God, that is believing that God gives love and acceptance to all—even those who ultimately reject Him and reject His gospel.  The lawless may give some measure of religious lip-service, but disbelieve many of the basic precepts of the Bible, including Christ’s atonement for sin and the resurrection.  In terms of the lawless outside of Christianity, these are those who reject religious truth-claims altogether, thinking mere coexistence is what matters.

I urge and implore you, with tears and desperate pleading: don’t follow their way.  Follow God’s way.  Go to God through the means He Himself has provided.  His way is the simplest, clearest, and most beautiful of all.  Jesus Himself is the way, the road, the gate, the door, and the light of life.  He is the bread and water that you eat and drink of and never go hungry or thirsty again.

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Further Reading

THE LAW

THE GOSPEL

ONE ROAD TO HEAVEN, TWO ROADS TO HELL

ARE WORKS AND COMMANDMENTS NECESSARY FOR SALVATION?

WHAT IS REPENTANCE?

THE LAWLESS LAW-KEEPERS

THE HEBREW ROOTS MOVEMENT

KJV ONLY AND MID-ACTS DISPENSATIONALISM

WHICH JESUS DO YOU FOLLOW?

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