The Gospel Conveyed

Hello my friends! Sonny again. It’s been a lil while, but I finally finished something. second post, first written “essay” for WordPress. Check it out. God bless ya!! (oh and I noticed a slight boldness to some of the text throughout this writing. I haven’t figured out exactly why that keeps shwoing up, but please ignore it).

 

 

The Gospel is preached to every man successfully (Col 1:6, 23). Insomuch as God conveys it, such preaching is not at all in futility (Isa 55:11). A hallmark of the Gospel’s success is a dual effect: On one hand, the effect is the sentence of the wicked to Hell. And on the other hand, it is men’s diversion unto Heaven. But before this dual effect is consummated, it arises that Christ is the Savior of all men (1 Tim 4:10). This means not that he has saved all men from being conceived with original sin or from all of the earthly consequences of sin (Pro 11:31), but from suffering Hell immediately upon breaking God’s law (Rev 2:21, Rom 9:22, see also 2Pet 3:9). This is all the work of God. This gives allotment or place to the reality, as established by God, that no sinner has to go to Hell. The preaching of the Gospel bespeaks this reality. Otherwise, why preach? Why would God himself say to his people, “…preach to the Gospel to every creature” (Mar 15:16) and why would he command “all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30) if every individual who goes to Hell absolutely has to go to Hell and that there is no way at all to be saved? Indeed, it must be the opposite. It must be that the very preaching of the Gospel states that every individual doesn’t have to go to Hell. So as all men are, of themselves, disposed only to sling themselves straightway into Hell (Isa 58:3), the preaching of the Gospel stands in their way. Not necessarily to prevent all who encounter it from going to Hell, but so that they will have been at least presented with a bona fide means to be turned or diverted to Heaven (Psa 81:8-11).

 

As we all have Christ as our Savior, the preaching of the Gospel takes place by men (Acts 14:15) and principally, it takes place by God (1 Pet 3:19 & 20, Eph 2:14-17, 1 Pet 1:11) through his Spirit, calling men to believe so that they might be saved. So in as much as God preaches the Gospel and as he is without fail, it is the responsibility of the man who is preached it to acknowledge him as such before too late, so that he might have a salvation that is greater than that universal salvation which is also only temporal.

 

Now, I’d like to expound on that dual effect of the Gospel as made by the Spirit of God. On one hand, the effect is as follows: The Gospel is not some device that is dependent upon man that it remains without fulfillment if a man doesn’t believe it. Shall a man’s unbelief make the faith of God without effect (Rom 3:3)? This man or some other might at least naturally and initially shirk to believe the Gospel and resist the Sprit who presents it, but as the Gospel procures salvation for men it is certain that men will be saved. And God, in granting eternal life, is not as a fisherman, having a net, who throws eternal life upon this world and fortuitously makes his apprehension of souls, having yet to discover what he has apprehended. God knows whom he shall apprehend with eternal life and he saves according to his design and choosing. On the other hand, the effect is as follows: If man will not believe, then he is judged by or according to that Gospel (John 12:48, 2 Cor. 2:15 & 16, John 3:17-20 see also John 5:27-29, Acts 17:31). And the Gospel, being pure and reaching its destination, even the very destination of man’s conscience (2 Cor 4:2), cries to a sinner, “Christ died so that you might have life”. And it says also, “Behold, others who are originally ridden with iniquity like yourself have come to know salvation”. And the sinner retorts nonetheless, “I will not! I refuse to believe! So he that fashioned the Gospel says in response, “Cursed Ye” and your “damnation is just”. For if the sinner couldn’t keep the law and by the law he is, yet, condemned, how great shall condemnation be against the sinner who doesn’t give due regard to the Gospel which could have relieved him from his burden of iniquity (Heb 2:2 & 3, 10:29)?

 

It is true that man is, in his own natural state, incapable of doing or effecting any spiritual good (Rom 3), but, nonetheless, through being exposed to the Gospel, in recognition of its veracity, he is capable of taking heed to the Gospel not by himself, not so as to merit salvation, and not to oblige God to be merciful to him, but because the Gospel with its veracity is preached. Seeing as the Gospel is preached to the natural man, it is established that the glory should not be rendered to man who recognized its veracity, but God that preached it as he truly is desirous that none would perish, but that all would come to repentance. Thus it indiscriminately and universally draws assent. All men, involuntarily as well as through rigorous research, naturally or spiritually, from the parameters of the vast cosmos to the cross of Jesus Christ, will be preached the Gospel.

 

Insofar as the Gospel is preached and manifest to the natural man, it is not necessitated that all human beings have an equal measure of liberty to reject it. Observably, there are many who don’t not have the liberty to reject it as preached in natural terms simply because their lives are terminated too soon. But I think it is feasible that there are contexts in which one who has not been prevented from the liberty to reject it may and must exercise his liberty, as natural as he is in it, to not only assent to it, but also plead to God upon being preached it for forgiveness and mercy, assuming he has not yet been regenerated. As I said earlier, this is not done of himself, it’s not to merit salvation, nor can it oblige God to hear him favorably. For everyone who entreats to God in this context (assuming such a context is feasible), are evil in their entreating. And the fact that they are sincere and truly in need doesn’t change or negate that fact. But God is a merciful God, active in conferring mercy to the one who is wayward or hostile. Will he not confer mercy to one who can only cry for salvation?

 

I said above that among those who find salvation, there are many who have no liberty to reject the Gospel upon being exposed to it in natural terms. To be clear, I mean not that they don’t reject the Gospel in any sense. No matter how undeveloped one is in his fallen state, he can do nothing but reject the spirit of Gospel insofar as he is inherently evil and is contrary to sound doctrine. And it cannot be any other way, for the Gospel wasn’t made for the sustentation and perpetuity of the sin nature that he inexorably possesses and serves. When I speak of being prevented from the liberty to reject the Gospel, I speak exclusively in respect to his inability to reject the Gospel in terms of its being preached by nature and by temporal mediums. I suppose that there is at least some scant effect that the unborn child, seven months conceived, sustains as a result of the firmness and tone of a preachers voice on a Sunday morning while his mother sits in with attentiveness. But the child, still depending so critically on the nutrients traveling through the umbilical cord, is not thinking about shouting back to the preacher with even the slightest of aversion.

 

I presuppose that babies as well as those not yet delivered from the womb, upon untimely or premature death, “automatically” go to Heaven (Matt 19:13 &14). I must only infer, in light of God’s kindness, that babies who perish, unborn or otherwise, “automatically” go to Heaven. But even so, lets break this down a bit. Do babies automatically go or is God directly, personally, decisively regenerating them as early as conception? The child is shapen in iniquity (Isa 51:5) even if their physical form has not been fully matured, for each and every child is an offspring of sinners (Rom 5:12). God in spite of that has regenerated the child. We can see from this perhaps with great effortlessness that it is not ultimately a matter of the inherent capacity or advances of man, of woman, or of child, but of God who saves (Rom 9:16).