True and False Gospels Contrasted

There is a lot of confusion of the nature of the Gospel in the evangelical church (completely separate from the Catholic, Mormon and others) and many pastors are mistakenly focusing the message of ‘salvation’ on this life rather than salvation in the life to come.  This picture attempts to show a contrast between true and false Gospel message based on categories such as the assessment of our human condition, our response, the result the resulting fruit and a few others.

You can download a pdf version of this True vs False Gospel

JI Packer wrote in his book, A Quest for Godliness, about how the Puritans approach to evangelism differed from modern day evangelism, “some will assure us that it is a waste of time preaching to modern hearers about the law and sin, for (it is said) such things mean nothing to them.  Instead (it is suggested), we should just appeal to the needs which they feel already, and present Christ to them simply as One who gives peace, power and purpose to the neurotic and frustrated…If we do not preach about sin and God’s judgement on it, we cannot present Christ as Savior from sin and the wrath of God.  And if we are silent about these things, and preach a Christ who saves only from self and the sorrows of this world, we are not preaching the Christ of the Bible.  We are, in fact, bearing false witness and preaching a false Christ.  Our message is ‘another gospel’…An imaginary Christ will not bring a real salvation; and a half-truth presented as the whole truth is a complete untruth…the knowledge and conviction of one’s sin, in its guilt, pollution, and ugliness, and of God’s displeasure at it, must precede faith, since no one will come to Christ to be saved from sin till he or she knows from what sins salvation is needed…there must be contrition about one’s sins; otherwise, once cannot genuinely, sincerely, and whole-heartedly come to Christ to be saved from sin’s power as well as its penalty…Wise preachers and counselors, will not short-circuit the essential preparatory process, but will continue to press on the seeker’s conscience the sinfulness of his sins and the depth of his need to be not just forgiven, but also lead into holiness, until they will point him to a Savior…to the Puritans, it would be the worst advice possible to tell a troubled person to stop worrying about his sins and trust Christ at once when that person has not yet faced the specifics of his or her sinfulness and has not yet come to the point of clear-headedly desiring to leave all sinful ways behind and be made holy.”