I am really disgusted at this sappy “love” gospel being preached by pastors today. Not only do they preach it in almost all of their sermons, but they “live” it:–they “live” the “gospel.” Of course, the terminology of the word “gospel” is being totally misused by them, just as it was misused by heretics of the early church, Roman Catholic priests, antinomian Protestants, etc. It is not enough that these men say the word or use the word “gospel” or even the more eloquent phrase “the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” because even Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses use these phrases. I think Billy Graham and the ecumenical movement are largely to blame for all of this, but that would require a very in-depth study.

The correct use of the word “gospel” in the New Testament, if you read it closely: especially the Epistle to the Romans, is always understood as the message of God’s forgiveness offered freely to mankind, involving salvation from the eternal wrath of God in Hell, but conditioned on turning away from a sinful life (repentance: initial and evangelical/continual); and faith in the cross (penal substitution; or, substitutionary atonement): that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, bearing our sins in His body on the cross, as a sacrifice of atonement, by shedding His blood, and satisfying the wrath of God at our sins. The Christian life is a response to this amazing grace of God:–and results in progressive improvement and moral transformation through obedience to the moral laws of the Bible, and especially in the New Testament. In theological words: Repentance, Justification by Faith Alone, Regeneration, and Sanctification.

However, the evangelical and Pentecostal churches in America, and the world over, have entered a heretical and apostate phase in which the word “gospel” has been pretty much de-theologized, de-soteriologized, de-Helled, de-repentanced, de-crossed, and has now been redefined in almost universalist terms as the message of God’s unconditional love and forgiveness…with no moral strings attached. This message has been formulated by popular imagination rather than from Biblical revelation; by human visualization, and not from prophetic vision.

God have mercy on us! Send us pastors who preach the Romans Gospel!