Mere Missions

106 • M ere M issions : M oving F orward to M ultiply

The fact of the matter is that we can’t do this. We are bankrupt and powerless. Self-redemption is an utter impossibility. It is the core purpose for Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. Jesus not only upheld the moral and religious ideas and consciousness but took it to the next level when He declared, “You have heard it said . . . but I say to you.” He needed to bring bankruptcy, hopelessness, despair, utter impossibility of self-redemption, self-rescue, in order that we would cry out to God for help . . . for salvation. “This is the end of self-redemption. Here is the very heart of Jesus’s ethical teaching: the renunciation of self-attained righteousness and the willingness to become like children who have nothing and must receive everything” ( A Theology of the New Testament , George Eldon Ladd). Jesus went on to say, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” (Matt. 16.26). Only the Gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to break through the temporal into the eternal and transform one who is spiritually dead into one who is alive, adopted, and eternally secured in the roll call of heaven. Because of this, the Church’s priority, its focused attention, must be on souls and the Gospel. If the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only power to rescue from hell and the bondage of sin and Satan’s kingdom, then we better have a clear understanding of what is the Gospel? Not a half Gospel but a complete, full Gospel. This has been the cunning deception of Satan since the Garden of Eden. He spoke a half-truth, which is a whole lie, leading Eve to question the God of all Truth. “Did God actually say . . .?” This half-truth led to the fall and rebellion of humanity. So, what is the full Gospel? Literally the Gospel is the revelation of God’s love, in Jesus Christ, for all humanity past, present and future (John 3.16; Heb. 1.1-4). It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon term god-spell, meaning the “good story” or in the Greek rendering evangelion, “good news.” What is this good story, this good news, that is so powerful that