In his opening chapter to the Romans, the apostle Paul states that ‘the gospel is the power of God for salvation’ (Rom. 1:16). Few statements can equal this one in importance. Paul is underscoring both the priority and importance of the gospel message.

It is by the preaching of the gospel that God has ordained that men and women should hear truth and be brought (through the min­istry of the Holy Spirit) into the experience of salvation. The critical importance of the gospel message in the salvation of sinners is further stressed by Paul in the following scriptures:

In Him you also, after listening to the mes­sage of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise. Ephesians 1:13

Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:1-2

But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, be­cause God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. And it was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14

The Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.Ephesians 3:6

Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? ... So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. Rom. 10:13-14, 17

When the biblical gospel is preached it becomes ‘the power of God for salvation.’ The importance, then, of a correct gospel message can hardly be overstated. As B.B. Warfield put it:

We must not fail to mark the honour which is thus put by the Ascended Jesus on what we have learned to call by way of eminence, the Truth, or, the Gospel mes­sage. Everything is made to turn on that. It lies at the root of all. The Apostle’s duty is to open men’s eyes. Whatever of salva­tion may come to men comes subsequently to that and as an outgrowth of that root ... Men are in darkness, they need light ... The appointed means of breaking this darkness is the proclamation of the Gospel by which alone men’s eyes can be opened B.B. Warfield, Faith & Life (Edinburgh: Banner, 1974), pp. 174-176

We live in a day when the gospel message is being relentlessly assaulted by two great en­emies: legalism and antinomianism. These two errors have confused and deceived many, wreaking spiritual havoc throughout both Roman Catholicism and Evangelical Protestantism.

The sixteenth century witnessed one of the greatest revivals in church history: the Ref­ormation. The Protestant Church was born out of a protest against the entrenched legal­ism of Roman Catholicism. The Reformers fearlessly preached the gospel bearing wit­ness to the biblical message of the sufficiency of the work of Christ, the grace of God and the full and final authority of scripture. They brought the Church back to the essential and liberating message of justification by faith as defined by the word of God. Since the sixteenth century the Reformation gospel has been the standard of orthodoxy for Prot­estants. Today however, we find a new inter­est in Roman Catholicism from of all places, conservative Protestantism, and a willing­ness to uncritically embrace the teachings of the Church of Rome. This is due in part to the fractured nature of evangelicalism and to an antinomian emphasis which is becoming more and more prevalent in evangelical circles. This has sparked an ongoing debate within evangelicalism as to the nature of saving faith and the meaning of salvation. But renewed interest in Roman Catholicism is motivated by more than a reaction against a liberal and antinomian form of evangelicalism. Given the state of today’s culture there are those who desire that all conservative forces within professing Christendom unite in a common battle in the culture war for moral values. Unity is the clarion call of this movement but a unity gained at the expense of truth in particular the great gospel truths which were articulated by the Prot­estant Reformers. Those evangelicals who promote such an agenda are short sighted. They have forgotten that scripture declares that the God ordained means of changing a culture is through the clear preaching of the gospel of Christ. But it is at this point where there is so much confusion.

There is a desperate need today for a clarification of the biblical gospel. We need to re­turn to a fearless and uncompromising proclamation of the fulness of the truth of the gospel as revealed in scripture. This is what characterized the preaching and teaching of the Reformers. Their gospel message was grounded on the ultimate authority of God’s word and God blessed their efforts with an outpouring of his Spirit in great power and conversion. The answer for evangelicals who are concerned about the superficiality of evangelicalism and the state of the culture is not union with or tolerance of the legalis­tic gospel of Rome but a return to the bibli­cal and Reformation gospel. It is this gospel that much of evangelicalism has abandoned. Given the widespread confusion that exists on the nature of the gospel of the Reforma­tion, it is essential that we adequately docu­ment its true teaching.