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The Gospel Is the Power of God Unto Salvation, pt. 3
If the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, then what does that say about the Holy Spirit and His work? Does He have a part? The gospel is a message from the Bible and the Holy Spirit works through that message. The Holy Spirit speaks through the Bible. I have appreciated the language, “the mouthpiece of the text.” In Ephesians 6:17 language, the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit works, but He works through the Word of God. This helps explain one aspect of how the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.
The Substance of the Preaching of the Gospel
Furthermore, the gospel made of scripture or the declaration of scripture itself is powerful, as Hebrews 4:12 says. “The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.” This couples or harmonizes well with Romans 10:17, “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Faith comes by hearing the Word of God.
The gospel is the power of God unto salvation, not some kind of work of the Holy Spirit separate from words. I’m speaking of the unbiblical teaching of “regeneration precedes faith.” No. The gospel is the power of God unto regeneration, part of salvation. Even though scripture does not teach regeneration preceding faith, it says gospel preaching precedes faith. The Holy Spirit uses the message to regenerate, just like the Word of God generated the world in Genesis 1.
The Greek term for “word” in “word of God” in Romans 10:17 is rhema, not logos, both translated “word” in the New Testament. Rhema does not speak of scripture or the Bible as a whole, but an individual passage. Faith does not come from opening the pages of the entire book, but using the specific texts of scripture in the appropriate manner. There isn’t power in a wrong interpretation as if the Bible is a kind of talisman with magical qualities. The power comes through its message, what the text actually says.
What I’m writing fits with 1 Corinthians 1:21, when Paul says “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” This again corresponds to Romans 1:16, written also by the Apostle Paul. “Preaching” isn’t a tone or a style, yelling or bellowing forth. It is the Greek word, kerugma, which refers to the substance of the communication. It is not preaching the act, but preaching as in the message of the declaration. The preaching is what is being said, not how it is being said.
More people are not converted because someone is more clever in his speaking. People are saved because they hear the truth, the right content, and they respond to that. As you read this, you might think that something else could help the gospel along. I don’t think we should separate sincerity and compassion from the message itself. Paul uses the terminology, “speak the truth in love,” in Ephesians 4:15.
Compassion or the Lack and More Either Diminish or Adorn as Part of the Message
First, it is love to speak the truth, as opposed to (1) speaking error and (2) not speaking it, remaining silent. Jesus spoke the truth. Paul spoke the truth. Also though, someone could speak the truth without love or do it with some other wrong motive. This is one of the wrong motives referred by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. Though you speak with the great eloquence, that is, with the tongues of men and angels, if you don’t do it with love, it is “sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”
Sounding brass, what I like to call a gong, and tinkling cymbals, which imagines banging on forged metal platters, both percussion types of instruments, don’t have meaning without accompanying instruments that would offer a melody. They also dissipate upon striking, needing to be hit again. Without love, our communication is temporal.
Jude writes at the end of his epistle (v. 22) that compassion makes a difference to the presentation. How does this harmonize with the gospel being the power of God unto salvation? Is it better put, gospel and love are the power of God unto salvation? No, love itself is part of the message. Romans 1:16 stands. This fits with an adaption of the Marshall McLuhan statement, “the medium is the message.” The absence of love lessens the message, diminishes it. I believe accompanying truths buttress this.
Peter says that good works themselves, when beheld in a believer, have an effect of their “glorify[ing] God in their day of visitation” (1 Pet 2:11-12). The absence of the good works undermine the message. They are part of the message of the gospel. Paul speaks in Titus 2:10 of “adorn[ing] the doctrine of God our Saviour” with “all good fidelity.” “Fidelity” translates the word for “faith.” Several other passages provide further evidence for this point.
Good works alone, fidelity, compassion and other accompanying traits of the message do not act as “the gospel.” They are not “the gospel.” Paul extols the preaching of the gospel by those with a bad motive. He says in Philippians 1:15-16 that men preached “Christ even of envy and strife” and “of contention, not sincerely.” Paul rejoiced that they preached the gospel. He didn’t say their message should not have been preached at all.
People are often quick to judge the works and the motives of those who preach the gospel. They did that with Paul himself. I write to make this point though, that the gospel doesn’t need the accompanying aspects of a good motive, good works, and effective style to work. If it is the gospel, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.
Every professing Christian at times thinks of himself or feels he is not worthy to preach the gospel. He could not possibly represent it with his life. That is not to say he should not strive to live a life that matches or correlates with a true gospel that he preaches.
I’m saying that a weak confidence due to personal struggle with the flesh should not impede or stop gospel preaching. This is one reason why someone puts on the helmet of salvation before he picks up the sword of the Spirit in Ephesians 6. The helmet protects the head, the source of thoughts that debilitate spiritual warfare, using the Word of God.
More to Come
Main Reason God Intervenes on Earth in an Obvious Way: That We Know That He Is The Lord
Reading through the Bible twice this year, I just recently finished Ezekiel and I noticed these words as an emphasis in the book: “Ye shall know that I am the LORD your God.” I wondered how many times then it was in Ezekiel so I looked it up, and then I also wondered how many times it was in the Bible. I kept the search to “know that I am the Lord.” The words of that search just in Ezekiel are 63 times. “”Know that I am the Lord” is found 77 times in the whole Old Testament. It has to be an emphasis of the book of Ezekiel found so many times, and it is God Who is saying those words.
Here are some samples.
6:7, And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
7:4, And mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
7:27, The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled: I will do unto them after their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
11:10, Ye shall fall by the sword; I will judge you in the border of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
12:15-16, And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall scatter them among the nations, and disperse them in the countries. But I will leave a few men of them from the sword, from the famine, and from the pestilence; that they may declare all their abominations among the heathen whither they come; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
12:20, And the cities that are inhabited shall be laid waste, and the land shall be desolate; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
14:8, And I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
15:7, And I will set my face against them; they shall go out from one fire, and another fire shall devour them; and ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I set my face against them.
23:49, And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols: and ye shall know that I am the Lord GOD.
25:5, 7, And I will make Rabbah a stable for camels, and the Ammonites a couchingplace for flocks: and ye shall know that I am the LORD. . . . Behold, therefore I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and will deliver thee for a spoil to the heathen; and I will cut thee off from the people, and I will cause thee to perish out of the countries: I will destroy thee; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.
25:11, And I will execute judgments upon Moab; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
25:17, And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.
29:6, And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the LORD, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel.
30:8, And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I have set a fire in Egypt, and when all her helpers shall be destroyed.
30:26, And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
33:29, Then shall they know that I am the LORD, when I have laid the land most desolate because of all their abominations which they have committed.
35:4, I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.
35:23, And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, saith the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.
39:6, And I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
39:28 Then shall they know that I am the LORD their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen: but I have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there.
Those aren’t even half of the usages in the book of Ezekiel. I’m guessing that you didn’t read them. You got the gist of them after a few samples and stopped reading. This is typical, but maybe you should go back and read them. What you can see is that God does what is called in scripture “evil things,” which doesn’t mean “sinful,” but things of judgment, like pestilence, famine, war, and death, so that the people will “know that I am the LORD their God.”
I noticed that it isn’t only “evil things,” but also blessed ones such as the following example:
36:11, And I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bring fruit: and I will settle you after your old estates, and will do better unto you than at your beginnings: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
That is a positive one, but I don’t think I saw another positive one of the 63 usages in Ezekiel. It does mean that God uses blessings or positive things so that we will know that He is the Lord, but He mainly uses negative ones, ones that hurt and deprive. Those get our attention better and we know it. God uses those. What does it produce? In rebels, it produces more anger and rebellion, and then God judges them more, destroys them usually. However, His purpose is that they would know that He was the Lord. That’s what He wants.
The way these above examples read is something I’ve often said and that is that pleasure whispers to us and pain screams at us. I don’t like pain. I don’t want pain. But I know that pain gets my attention more than pleasure. I almost don’t want to say it, because I’m saying something that will come about.
None of us should lose sight of the point though. God wants to be known as the LORD our God. That knowledge is more than just intellectual. It affects our wills. You can read that in these passages too. It’s the kind of knowledge that overcomes us and changes us. Our behavior changes, because when we know that, we act like we know it. This is what God wants from us. We should know it.
The title of this piece is that God intervenes on earth in an obvious way. If God wants us to know something, He shows us. How we see He shows us in Ezekiel is through these difficult circumstances and events. They get our attention. They make us think. We could avoid them if we would just take in the revelation of God through creation, conscience, and through His Word. God is sovereign, but He may not intervene in a noticeable way, but if He wants to be noticed, this is how He wants to be noticed, that He is the Lord our God.
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