Sam Storms on What is the Gospel (in Three Minutes)

Lovin’ the new video clips…

That was terrific and a great message.

I have heard a number of people try and tell me the Gospel is a particular version of Calvinistic understanding…
Others think of the whole Bible as the Gospel.

I like how you have separated the difference between the causative effects of the Gospel in regards to our response to the actual message of the Gospel.

My only negative critique is that you say Christ only died for believers… I can’t find that in the Scriptures and perhaps it would be better to say that “Christ dying for believers is a result of the Gospel and not part of the Gospel message its self. “

Right.

Christ died for the whole world. And that means that he died for YOU. (that’s what the bible says about it)

And He forgives YOU.

That is the gospel.

After we announce that to people, it is God’s business what He does with it.

Thanks for the video. Very good.

Craig… How do you deal with scriptures such as Matt 26: 28 (many not all), John 10: 11, 15 (sheep not goats), and John 17: 9 (prayer for those given to him, not for everyone)? Verses outside the gospels like Acts 20: 28 and Eph 5: 25 speak to Christ dying to obtain, or purchase the Church (ergo believers), not the world. The metaphors are hard pass over. While I totally get that the idea of a limited atonement sticks in some peoples’ craws, it seems like it takes some parsing to get around it or just outright denial that the doctrine is taught in scripture.

It seems to me that Christ dying for believers is not a result of the gospel, it is a result of God’s sovereign electing grace. While his death was sufficient for all, it was not efficacious for all.

@Chuck.

TULIP…isn’t the gospel. Its a method of trying to understand how the Gospel works. Same as PSA isn’t the gospel; again its a theory of understanding how the atonement works.

So while it is true that the Atonement is efficient for believers; the Apostles and Scripture writers made a point when preaching the Gospel; that Christ died for the world and didn’t make the point and preach… Christ died for some of you and some of you he elected to go to hell….

The point is not that the TULIP is the gospel, but what did the atonement accomplish. Not only is the atonement efficient for believers, but it is efficient only for believers. The verses pointed out above simply underscore the Scriptural truth that Christ’s shed blood upon the cross accomplished propitiation for those whom he has chosen and called. There are many verses which could be added.

Did Jesus died for the whole world? Yes and no, depending on what you mean by “died for.” Yes if you are talking about in the general sense which makes the proclamation of a general gospel call possible among all the inhabitants of the earth; but no if you’re talking about what the atonement actually accomplished, namely, the salvation of God’s people.

Sam said some good things, but I wish he would have spent more of that three minutes actually speaking the gospel as one would want to speak it to a nonbeliever. He didn’t actually spend much time telling the gospel (but rather he mostly talked ABOUT the gospel). For instance, it would have been helpful if he had explained what Christ’s death on the cross accomplished and why it was necessary.
(posted this after the wrong clip the first time!)

@ Matt & Susan. I think you have totally missed the point of Sam’s clip…Sam was talking about the actual Gospel message…. Explaining how the atonement works is not the Gospel message.

There is a huge difference.

I love the simplicity of the Gospel. Thanks for sharing the video.

@Craig, I respectfully disagree when you say:

“Explaining how the atonement works is not the Gospel message.”

It’s not? What exactly do you explain about the atonement if not how it works?

Not only is explaining how the atonement “works” the content of the gospel, but also how grace, faith, repentance, etc “work”. How salvation “works” is the gospel. If this is not so, then what is the gospel?

In Romans, Paul makes a statement about the Gospel that he is “not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe; to the Jew first and also to the Gentile.” As I read Paul’s descriptive use of the term Gospel, it is not LIMITED to the ACT of salvation bought by the atoning work of the cross and the power of the ressurection but more heavily emphasizes “the working out of salvation” founded and fueled by the atoning work of Christ on the cross and the power of the victory established in His resurrection extended by grace to all who believe as a dynamic process in the life of a believer. The Gospel is not just for evangelism but the Gospel is the fuel that ignites and enables the Christian life – discipleship or walking as a disciple impelled by the power of the living WORD empowered by the Holy Spirit; this is the Gospel Paul preaches.

@ Matt.
You have missed the point in that there is a big difference between the Gospel message and a systematic explanation of how the gospel works.

Regarding your question about the explanation of the atonement: show me one passage of Scripture that was written by an Apostle that shows this is what they actually taught was the Gospel Message

… the truth is that the various views on the atonement are formed through a systematic analysis’s of the Scriptures of a whole…and therefore are an explanation as to how the atonement works and is off itself not the gospel message.

@ Doug – great comment on how the outworking of the Gospel is powerful… note though the outworking of the Gospel is not the gospel its self though.

@Craig,

I think you started to answer my question about how you would explain the atonement to someone without explaining how it “works” but then proceeded to ask me some other questions.

Anyway, I don’t believe I am missing your point that the gospel message is not equal to explaining how the gospel works, I simply disagree with you in this regard.

In any event, you have given me some things to think about and I appreciate the discussion brother.

Here’s the simplest form of the gospel I have ever heard:

“We are declared righteous, for Jesus’ sake.”

.

Sam,
What you described is not my understanding of the gospel. The Old Covenant sacrifices provided forgiveness. When an individual brought their sin offering to the priest, and the priest performed the ‘ceremony’ prescribed by God, we find: “the priest shall make an atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them” (Lev. 4:20 and other passages). Jesus, God in the flesh, often declared a person’s sins were forgiven: i.e. “Wherefore I say unto thee, her sins, which are many are forgiven… And He said to her, “Thy sins are forgiven” (Luke 7:47, 48). Jesus was granting forgiveness before He went to the cross. Men are defiled by sin (Is. 1:18 a vivid picture), God can be forgiving, but man still needs a cleansing. Nothing on earth can cleanse a man from his sin, or remove the sin from a man. The blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin (Heb. 10:4). Jesus was our perfect sacrifice, and His blood can cleanse men of their sins. But we also need to remember that Jesus became our Great High Priest, and He entered the heavenly holy place, “And when He had made purification of sins He sat down at the right hand of the Father” (Heb. 1:3). There is the priestly work of Christ in the life of each new believer to cleanse them and make them holy so that they can become a Temple of God and a priest of God. When Christ comes to dwell in the heart of a man, he is given eternal life and he is saved, with a guarantee of all future works of salvation. Men need to know why they need to be saved and they need to know that Jesus Christ does save them when He comes to live in them.