Systematic Theology -- Salvation

The Evangel or Gospel

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 08

Dictation Name: 08 The Evangel or Gospel

Year: 1970’s

In this hour, our subject will be The Evangel or Gospel. Mark begins his Gospel by declaring “the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The word “Gospel” is one we are so familiar with that the meaning has been largely lost. We normally think of the word as meaning good news, and it does mean that, but that’s just a very limited part of the meaning of the word. It also means proclamation, but more accurately, the word Gospel, in the meaning that it had at the time the Gospel was written, meant this literally: the proclamation of the Savior King’s accession to the throne. The proclamation of the Savior’s King’s accession to the throne.

Now, this was the meaning of the word in the Greek-speaking world of that time. It is also basic to the biblical meaning. The word made no sense to the people of our Lord’s day, of Mark’s day, on any other terms. What the Gospel therefore meant to all who heard it was that Jesus Christ is an ascended King who, on his throne, rules all heaven and earth. Now, this was the Gospel. This was the good news, the Savior King has ascended to the throne. The word “Gospel” is a familiar word. Whenever a pagan king or a Caesar ascended to the throne, there was a proclamation that went from one end of the empire to the other, and it was called a gospel, the king is on his throne, the savior king.

I cited some months ago the proclamation of the Gospel when Augustus Caesar took the throne, and it was that there is none other name under heaven whereby men may be saved than the name of Augustus Caesar. Now, that was the gospel according to Rome. This helps us understand what it meant when Mark and the other writers of the other Gospels and epistles spoke of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They said it is not Caesar there in Rome who is the savior king on the throne. It is Jesus Christ on the throne of heaven who rules all heaven and earth. That’s the means of Gospel, and we can see how, when Mark begins his epistle, “the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” he was declaring war on every king of the day who claimed that his reign was the gospel.

Now, it’s important for us to understand this meaning of gospel, because today, politicians take office and issue an inauguration address which is a gospel. “Look, I’m in office now, and we’re going to have a new deal. We’re going to have the great community. We’re going to have Jimmy Carter’s world. King Jimmy is on the throne.” The inauguration address today is proclaimed as a gospel, and what we have to say to all these politicians is, “The king is on his throne, and his name is not Carter, nor Brezhnev, nor any such thing.”

Moreover, the scriptures tell us that this king is reigning, and he has destroyed sin and death, that he has total power over heaven and earth, and he is in process of putting all his enemies under his feet, and finally, having accomplished that victory over all his enemies, in time, will then destroy the last enemy, death. So, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:25 and 27, Psalm 2, which predicts the coming of this, the savior king, announces the Gospel ahead of time and says to all the kingdoms of this world who are in conspiracy, because they take counsel together against the Lord and his anointed, and it says to them, fall down before his feet, kiss the son, kiss his feet, lest he be angry and ye perish in the way, and so the Psalm tells us that his power is so great that he shall break all those who oppose him with a rod of iron. He shall smash them, as one smashes a potter’s vessel, a piece of pottery, which is very easy. I can pick up this glass and drop it, and it’ll shatter, with no effort on my part, and so the Psalmist tells us, Christ the King can take all the nations of the earth and shatter them as easily as you and I can shatter a glass, or a cup, or a dish. He is the King, and we should know when we pray, we are praying to an ascended, reigning King who is on the throne, and he is omnipotent. This should tell us how to pray.

Recently, a very wonderful pastor in Georgia, Pastor Gene Reed, preached a sermon on prayer, and I’d like to reproduce very briefly what he said. He pointed out that, in ancient times, it was forbidden to go into a king’s presence in sackcloth and in mourning. It was forbidden to go into a king’s presence with anything but joy and a sense of privilege, because to be in the presence of the king meant that you had been given permission by him to come before him, a great privilege, and so we are given instructions in scripture how to come before the king. Psalm 100 tells us. “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness, come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord, he is God. It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name. For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting and his truth endureth to all generations,” and what does the Psalmist tell us when we pray? We come before the Lord with thanksgiving, with praise, because we have been privileged to go before the King. He has given us that privilege.

Therefore, to go before the omnipotent one in sackcloth and ashes, and downhearted, is wrong, because he is omnipotent. He is all powerful. The New Testament tells us this over and over again, does it now? For example, Paul, in Philippians 4:4 and 6 says, “Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice.” “Be careful (or anxious) for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.” However great our grief may be when we go into the King’s presence, what does out Lord say as he tells us to pray, “Don’t be as the Pharisees and the hypocrites. Wash your face. Put on a glad countenance, and then go into the presence of the King.” That’s how to pray, because we have received the Gospel. The Savior King has ascended, and he reigns on the throne of heaven and earth.

Now, in the original classical meaning, the word for “gospel,” which we have as evangel, literally taken over from the Greek, meant a reward for a bringer of good tidings. So, before it came to mean that the proclamation of the Savior King’s succession to the throne, its earlier Greek meaning was a reward. Someone brought good news to you, and you said, you reached down in your pocket and you gave him something and said, “Bless you, I’m so happy to hear that. Here’s a reward for you,” and the Gospel was the gift.

Now, it is used in that sense very clearly in the Septuagint, or the Greek version of 2 Samuel 4:10. However, when we look at Mark 1:14-15, we see both meanings of Gospel present. In Mark 1:14-15, we read, “Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.” First of all, our Lord comes with the good news, with a proclamation. I have come. I am the Savior King, and I rule, and so he summons people to repent and to believe, but there is a reward also. However, instead of the bringer gaining the reward, the hearer receives it, and so, we read in Mark 16:15-16, our Lord declares, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”

So, as the Gospel is proclaimed, there is a gift to everyone to whom it is proclaimed, a blessing to those who believe, damnation to those who do not believe. So, the Gospel is both, in the earlier sense the reward, reprobation and salvation, and also in the meaning of our Lord’s day which was most current, the proclamation of the Savior King’s accession to the throne.

Now, as we go through the scriptures and look at the word “Gospel,” we find a great deal more about it from its meaning. Just to hit a few of the high points. First of all, we are told that it is totally efficacious, totally powerful. “It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth,” Romans 1:16. It comes from the God of all power and can only come to man in power and in the Holy Ghost, never in word only, says Paul in 1 Thessalonians 1:15. The Gospel with its power elects and reprobates. It is the sovereign word. It comes from the King and from the throne.

Paul tells us further in Ephesians 1:13 that the Gospel is the word of truth. It is the word of the King of all who is, himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The Gospel is a throne proclamation from the King. It presents an accomplished fact. It sets forth the truth reigns, but Christ is the victory which overcometh the world, that there is no other Gospel, no other savior, and Paul tells us in Galatians 1:6-9, that all who preach any other gospel are accursed, because they preach a false savior, and a false reward.

We are told moreover, that victory is inseparable from the Gospel because Christ is King, and because he is King, everything, even to our very thoughts, says Paul in 2 Corinthians 10:5, must be brought into total captivity to Jesus Christ, and what is the end result of this? The Gospel is the proclamation of the Savior King’s accession to the throne, and Revelation 11:15 says, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever,” and our Lord, in the Great Commission, says the same thing, because he is the Savior King, ascending to his throne, he can say, “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And Lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world. Amen.” Now, this is the Gospel. Let me repeat. The definition of Gospel in our Lord’s day was the proclamation of the Savior King’s accession to the throne, and if we take Christ off the throne in our thinking in any way, we have no Gospel. If we limit his rule, his reign, in any way, we are limiting the Gospel.

Thus, when we affirm our faith in the Gospel, we must affirm our faith in Christ as King, who says “All power is given unto me.” This is the Gospel. Are there any questions now? Yes?

[Audience] Well, there was more of a kind of thought that, by that definition, most of the church today has severely limited the Gospel.

[Rushdoony] Yes, the church has severely limited the Gospel, and that’s why it’s so weak today. If we truly proclaim the Gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation, we would see the implications of that going out into every area of life. Any other questions or comments?

[Audience] One question that I always get with regard to this full orbed view of the Gospel, is why is it we don’t see that in the early church, the post-Apostolic church, the Nicene and {?}? {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, the question is why don’t we see this in the early church? We see it to a limited degree, because they fought and won very definitely, against Rome, and it was a battle between kings, Christ and Caesar. However, the early church had a problem in that so many of its converts were coming out of the whole world of Greco/Roman thought, and they carried with them neo-Platonic, and Manichean and other ideas which severely limited the Gospel. We see that, for example, in one of the greatest of the figures, Augustine. St. Augustine, late in life, issues a number of retractions, recognizing how much neo-Platonism and Manichaeism had influenced him, and even then, he didn’t uproot all of it from his thinking. So, these people came to the faith with alien backgrounds. Now, today, the average person is even more crippled, who is in the church that is, because he is so heavily infected with humanism that he is more a humanist than he is a Christian. I was very interested to learn recently that someone who thought of himself as a Christian came to realize as a result of some studying, that he was a humanist, and so he began to ask for prayers that he might be converted. I wish more would make such a stand, but it has been this confusion of differing strands that has so crippled the Christians. This, incidentally, has been one of the weaknesses in Russia through the centuries. The church there has been so heavily neo-Platonic, and even the persecuted church there has so strongly a neo-Platonic vein that it sees its role as one of suffering rather than victory.

[Audience] We ran into a well-known, in some circles anyway, a counselor. He moves amongst heads of state and especially heads of ministry in the South of this country right now, he comes from Switzerland, and we were talking with him about the dominion mandate, the idea that the Gospel does, not only save men in their hearts, but it moves out and saves and sanctifies their culture, too, and he listened to us for awhile, and then finally, he had this tremendous outburst toward the end of our get-together, and he was pounding the table and saying this was not right, that the Gospel was at its best in the Eastern church where people were being persecuted, and the wonderful unity that they had in each persecution, and talked about one group in particular that was out renovating an old barn that was the only place they could meet in, and what a wonderful, joyous time they had, and that the head of this group, he was asked if he would, he had the opportunity to come to the West, and he was asked if he would do this and he said no, he wouldn’t, because he didn’t want to lose that unity that they had under persecution.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, the theology of many people is such that they’re geared only for persecution. Take away the persecution and what is there to do with their faith? That’s a sad thing, but that is true of a great many people. In the Eastern church, especially the Russian church, the doctrine of kenosis, it’s the doctrine of the humiliated Christ, the emptied Christ, calls for the Christian to empty himself of all power, of all position, and to seek humiliation and defeat, in effect, as though this represents victory, and of course, that has been very influential in the West in the last century, and has been behind a lot of Christian pacifism.

[Audience] Andrew Murray and Watchman Nee {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, right. Well, if there are no further questions, let’s bow our heads in prayer.

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee for our time together. Fill us with the power of the Gospel that we may proclaim the Savior King has ascended and is on his throne, that he triumphs and we triumph in him. Send us forth to conquer. Now Lord, give us traveling mercies, a blessed night’s rest, and joy in thy labors on the morrow. In Jesus name. Amen.

End of tape