What is the Gospel?
But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. (Romans 6:22 NASB)
Although the true gospel is clearly presented in the Bible, many teachers have perverted it to the point that even honest seekers of truth, in order to find the life-giving fruit, have to unravel knotted falsehoods that these teachers have foisted upon the unwitting.
I am confident that many teachers have quoted the above verse without carefully noting the progression within its structure. First comes freedom from sin and servitude to God. From this freedom, people derive a benefit (“fruit” in the Greek). That benefit begins with sanctification. The outcome of sanctification is eternal life. The order is thereby provided:
1. Freedom from sin and servitude to God.
2. Sanctification.
3. Eternal life.
The verse makes this order clear. For something to be derived, the thing from which it is derived must exist first. That thing is a prerequisite. Therefore, being freed from sin and enslaved to God comes before the benefit can be derived. As mentioned before, the Greek word for “benefit” is fruit. You cannot have fruit without first having a source for the fruit, and that source is freedom from sin.
The same is true regarding an outcome. If eternal life is the outcome of sanctification, then sanctification is a prerequisite for eternal life. Sanctification exists before the granting of eternal life.
Most Christian theologians believe that God grants eternal life first, and then a slow sanctification process occurs afterward. This is true in some sense, depending on the definition of sanctification. If sanctification is defined as growing in wisdom, knowledge, and experience, then sanctification does take place during our years as faithful followers of Christ.
In this context, however, sanctification is not progressive growth. It is the benefit derived from being freed from sin and enslaved to God. Sanctification involves behavior associated with someone who has been released from the chains of sin. Therefore, sanctification means to be obedient to God. It means ceasing from sin.
The outcome of this kind of sanctification is eternal life. This leads me to state the bedrock foundation of the true gospel. Sin-free sanctification is required in order to gain eternal life. In other words, sanctification precedes justification, and justification is the scriptural equivalent of gaining eternal life.
Most professing Christians will balk at such a statement. Many will call it heresy. Yet, Paul states it plainly. The outcome of freedom from sin and sanctification is eternal life. Freedom from sin comes first. This is the heart of the gospel and the means by which we are saved, the pathway to the peace and joy of being forever with God in heaven.
For God to be just, he must punish a sinner for the sins he commits. As the verse that follows says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” A sinner must die for justice to be served, so in order to be forgiven, a person must no longer be a sinner.
Many teach that Jesus died to take the penalty for sin that we deserved. “He paid the debt,” some sing in their choruses. Yet the Bible makes no such statement. In fact, it is clear that Jesus did not pay the penalty that sinners deserve. The penalty is eternity in hell, and Jesus is not suffering in hell. He ascended to the right hand of the Father. Therefore, Jesus did not suffer the penalty.
Also, Jesus did not pay our debt. Again, nothing in the Bible says that Jesus paid the debt for our sin. In fact, the Bible says that God canceled our debt.
When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. (Colossians 2:13-14 NASB)
Since the debt was canceled, it was not paid. If someone paid the debt, then it was not canceled. This is a simple maxim. A paid debt is not canceled, and a canceled debt is not paid.
Why did God cancel the debt for a Christian? Because the sinner that he was has died. The person who sinned passed away. Paul stated this fact during his explanation leading up to the foundational statement of the gospel.
For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. (Romans 6:5-7 NASB)
It is unfortunate how the NASB and the KJV translate the last verse here. The Greek says, “for he who has died is justified from sin.” The ASV gets it right, “for he that hath died is justified from sin.” It is the same Greek word translated as justified in many other places, such as: “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.” (Romans 5:9)
The distinction is crucial in verse 7. Those who have died are justified—saved, forgiven of sin. Death is the reason God grants this justification and forgiveness.
Jesus did not die to suffer the penalty for our sin. He did not die to pay a debt. He died so that we could die with Him and be raised to new life.
Such a realization has huge implications on a proper view of the atonement. Death is the reason we are justified. The person who sinned has died, and a new person has been born. It would be unjust for God to punish a person who is not the same person who sinned. And now he can justify this new person, because, in a very real way, that person has not sinned. There is no reason to punish him.
Therefore, the progression of salvation proceeds as follows:
1. Death with Jesus (the old self is killed)
2. Resurrection to new life with Jesus (a new creature is born)
3. Freedom from sin, servitude to God, and sanctification.
4. Justification (forgiveness) and eternal life
This explanation of the atonement is also provided in Hebrews chapter ten. It begins with the statement of the inadequacy of the Law: “For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near.”
The Law’s sacrifices were unable to make people perfect. The next verse provides what the text means by “perfect.” Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? (Hebrews 10:2 NASB)
If the sacrifices had made people perfect, they would no longer need to offer sacrifices. They would no longer have consciousness of sins because they would have stopped sinning.
Therefore, the inadequacy of the Law is explained—it was unable to make people perfect in obedience. It could not make them sinless. Why? Verse 4 says, “For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” In other words, it is not possible for anyone to die to self through the death of an animal.
Thus the problem is stated. The Law couldn’t make people perfect (sinless), because the sacrifices were inadequate to do so. Then the writer of Hebrews provides the solution:
Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, “Sacrifice and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come (in the scroll of the book it is written of me) to do your will, O God.’ ”
After saying above, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have not desired, nor have you taken pleasure in them” (which are offered according to the Law), then He said, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. (Hebrews 10:5-9 NASB)
The new covenant was established by the obedience of the one who came to do God’s will. So what does this will accomplish? Verse 10 answers: “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
God’s will brings about sanctification for all believers. We are set apart for Him.
How does that happen? The next three verses answer:
Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. (Hebrews 10:11-13 NASB)
Instead of multiple offerings that cannot take away sins, Jesus provided a single offering for all time. And what did that one sacrifice do? Verse 14 answers: “For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.” (Hebrews 10:14 NASB)
This takes us back to the first verse. The Law could not make people perfect (sinless), but the offering of Jesus does. Remember, verse 10 established that all believers are sanctified, so verse 14 indicates that all believers have been perfected in righteousness. They have all ceased from sin.
The writer of Hebrews defines this as the new covenant:
And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws upon their heart, and on their mind I will write them,” He then says, “And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin. (Hebrews 10:15-18 NASB)
Now that we are forgiven, there is no longer an offering. Since we stopped sinning, there is no need of one.
Many theologians claim that Jesus’ sacrifice provides forgiveness of sins that a person commits after salvation, but there is no hint of that concept here. In fact, the text contradicts such an idea. There was one sacrifice for the sins we committed in the past, and that sacrifice brought perfection. It took away sins. True believers do not commit sins after the sanctifying work that perfects them and places them under the new covenant.
The new covenant, sealed by the blood of a one-time, perfect sacrifice, cleanses completely, perfects forever, and provides forgiveness.
How does someone enter this new covenant? How does a sinner die to self and become perfected by the one sacrifice, Jesus Christ? By taking on an obedient heart and being committed to our faith’s teaching, as Paul explains in Romans 6: “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.” (Romans 6:17-18)
The explanation continues: “For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.” (Romans 6:19)
Presenting yourself to God as slaves to righteousness results in the sanctification that leads to justification and eternal life. In other words, you have to repent of and forsake sin, then turn to God with an obedient heart that commits to Him in all things.
There can be no holding back of any sin, any evil heart attitude, any shadow of unrighteous behavior. Sin is a choice. Obedience is a choice. A sinner must choose by faith to no longer be a sinner.
Some will cry that this is salvation by works, but their cry is a false one. Sinners are slaves of sin, so when they repent and turn to God, they do so by faith, realizing that only God can unlock their chains. This surrender is a turning of the heart that reaches out to the one who can set sinners free from sin. They do no works to earn salvation, but they must turn their hearts from sin to obedience and ask God to perform the sanctifying work of killing the old self and raising a new creature to life.
This is the true gospel, and it honors God by telling the truth about His power to set sinners free, by telling the world that He loves people enough to break the chains of those who reach out to Him by faith.
Let us reject the counterfeit gospel that cripples God’s power, denies that he can cleanse from all sin, and reduces the new covenant to nothing more than a different label on old-covenant futility—a never-ending cycle of sin and repentance that produces unfaithful followers who rely on an impotent savior, a false Jesus who cannot save from sin.
The true gospel is far better than this weak excuse for atonement. The blood of Jesus does perfect His followers, thereby enabling them to be faithful forever. Let us march under this banner—a proclamation that honors God by telling of His power to make His people righteous in reality, that they are free indeed.
