Dr. Bob Jones, III: The Faith of the Gospel, Part 4

Previously I posted a sermon excerpt from Dr. Bob Jones, III. That was a continuation of a discussion I had at one of the Gospel Coalition blogs. There was some confusion there over whether or not Bob Jones, Sr., Jr., and the III preach the same gospel message as Dr. John MacArthur. In The Faith of the Gospel, Part Three1 we saw that there is a vast chasm between the gospel of grace and the works based, man-centered message of John MacArthur commonly known as “Lordship Salvation.”2 We saw that Dr. Kevin Bauder is wrong when he says that “fundamentalists and evangelicals believe preach and defend the [same] gospel.”3 Today, I am sharing opening portions from the fourth and final in the series, The Faith of the Gospel.

“Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel,” (Phil. 1:27).

I hope you students and all university family know that I am preaching this series of messages out of a grandfatherly concern, out of a pastoral concern, for you. Because what you do with your lives after you graduate and leave this place is of immense importance….

The faith of the gospel…is the outflow of the saving gospel of Jesus Christ. The faith of the gospel, which as we have been trying to say in these previous messages encompasses everything about the Christian life. And this is a verse about behavior, it says so right there in the first phrase…Let it be about the gospel stemming from the gospel. We have tried to make it clear in these messages that those who say, “Well, it’s all about the gospel.” If it’s all just about the gospel then we’ve missed the whole point of the gospel.

There is the saving gospel, which introduces us to the faith of the gospel. And if we embrace the philosophy that it’s just about the gospel we can put our arms around about every wrong, unbecoming Christian behavior in all the world. We can put our stamp of approval on counterfeit Christianity. If they’re preaching the gospel… no matter what else is going on in those ministries, no matter what endorsements and involvements they have with liberal unbelieving religion, no matter what ecumenical reach they may have, no matter what distortions they may have, no matter what tolerance for the intolerable…we can embrace all of that and say that’s fine, that’s good they’re preaching the gospel. This verse makes it very clear that there is a lot more than that….

I beg you to think about how the gospel is changed when it is conveyed in an unholy conveyance [that] God did not intend…

I encourage all guests to listen to the balance of this message (24 minutes) in its entirety. Dr. Bob Jones, III, The Faith of the Gospel, BJU Chapel, April 21, 2011 can be heard in its entirety at Sermon Audio.

Footnotes:
1) The Faith of the Gospel, Part 3

“First Corinthians 15:1-3, the nutshell of the Gospel, the saving Gospel. There is a difference between the saving Gospel, which starts it all and without which there is no faith in the Gospel. We love the saving message of the Gospel. It’s to be on our lips at all times and in all places wherever we go. But Paul is dealing here [Phil. 1:27] with the governing gospel. That which governs us, as members of the household of faith, citizens of Heaven, AFTER we have received and believed into the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

2) Summary of Lordship Salvation From a Single Page

3) Do Fundamentalists & Evangelicals, “Believe, Preach and Defend the [Same] Gospel?”