God (Acts 14:22). We don’t get to Heaven
by going through tribulation; it is by sheer
grace. But entering into our inheritance
comes through suffering, self-denial, and
holiness. What is most important is that
you go to Heaven when you die. After all,
even if we are healed, we are going to die.
What happens when you die is surely
more important than being healed.
When I ask, “Whatever happened to the
Gospel?” do I mean what some Charismatics
call the “gospel of salvation”? Yes, and I am
not ashamed of it.
The Gospel is mainly about your
death. And some people are, sadly,
more interested in their lives than they
are in their souls-where they spend
eternity. This emphasis in the here and
now is called existentialism. It is about our
“existence”–living in the here and now.
If you ask, “Why do the Gospels refer
to the Good News of the ‘kingdom’?” it
is because Jesus was demonstrating His
authority and dominion over the devil in
this present world. He had authority over
demons and diseases and proved it. It was
because He healed on the Sabbath day
all the time-which got Him into trouble and
which led to His death. His death fulfilled
the Law (Matthew 5:17; John 19:30) and
became the basis for the Gospel as
Paul expounded it.
gospel of Christ,” as in the King James
Version. But the very earliest manuscripts
merely state: “I am not ashamed of the
gospel.” Just the Gospel. The Good News.
Being “unashamed” means you are not
afraid of or embarrassed by the stigma-
or of being stigmatized because of the
Gospel. The word stigma is a pure Greek
word. It originally was used to describe
runaway slaves; they would be given a mark
with a hot iron so they would be visibly
stigmatized. You and I should never be
ashamed of the stigma of upholding the
Gospel. Perhaps the word that comes the
nearest to ashamed is being embarrassed.
When I first started handing out tracts
and speaking to passersby on the steps of
Westminster Chapel in Buckingham Gate,
the street that runs into Buckingham Palace
two blocks away, I admit that I found it a
little embarrassing.
It was far, far easier to preach in a
Geneva gown (which I wore in those days)
to hundreds than to approach a complete
stranger and ask him if he knows for sure he
will go to Heaven when he dies. But when
I realized it is something Paul would have
done, I soon got over it; he witnessed in the
marketplace with those who “happened
to be there” (Acts 17:17).
But when Paul uses euaggelion near the
beginning of his longest and possibly most
important epistle, he merely says: “I am not
ashamed of the gospel” (Romans 1:16). By
around AD 60, when Paul wrote Romans,
the word gospel had probably become for
many part of their Christian vocabulary. It
became the language of Zion. Paul knew
that his readers would know what he
meant by saying, “I am not ashamed of the
gospel.” Some ancient manuscripts indicate
that he wrote, “I am not ashamed of the
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