The Gospel and Simplicity

I began a series on my assessment of independent Baptists (parts one, two, three, four, and five), and will continue, but that's how I got started on the gospel recently.  From that series, I spun off into a post on the gospel, that turned into another series (parts one, two, three, and four).  All of this occurred between April 27 and May 20.  I still plan on finishing the assessment of independent Baptists, but I want to park on the gospel still, because if men either can't admit that or don't understand it, the other points and observations won't matter.

In one of the comments in the series I was writing on omissions from the gospel, someone expressed concern over the simplicity that might be missing in an explanation of the gospel, that included the Lordship of Christ.  To be sure I represent it properly, here is a quote from the comment:

Where is the simplicity in your position? Does someone have to understand that he is giving up his life, in order to be saved? Does he have to consciously have that thought?

I included the follow up questions, but it seems that the thought was that teaching the Lordship of Christ makes the gospel too complicated or more complicated than it should be or is.  I think the opposite of that.  The true gospel is the most simple, because it is the one you can show from the Bible.  A false gospel is one where you have to read into the text of scripture, and that's what is complicated.

However, I want to consider the concept of simplicity.  I have heard in the past the thought of keeping the gospel simple.  I have four separate thoughts right away.  One, I think of the old gospel tract, "God's Simple Plan of Salvation," that many churches had in their tract rack and used, and I'm sure still do use it.  That tract told people the plan of salvation was simple, so if it isn't simple, it must be wrong.  By "simple" the tract meant very, very easy to understand even for someone of very little mental capacity.  Or as I sometimes will describe something simple -- without very many moving parts.

Two, I think of the description of Peter and John in Acts 4:13, "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus."  The idea here is that the gospel of Jesus is one for even the "unlearned and ignorant men."  It must be simple, because that's how the original disciples of Jesus were -- simple.

Three, I think of 1 Corinthians 1, where Paul says that the saving message isn't for the "wise" or the "scribe" or "the disputer of this world."  Since it isn't for the "wise," it must be for those not so wise.  It is the "foolishness of God," something that doesn't even make sense in its lack of complication, a simplicity that would not be expected by an intellectual researching his plan of salvation.  He would make it more sophisticated.

Four, I think of 2 Corinthians 11:3:

But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

That verse says point blank that the gospel is simple, so it is.  It is worth exploring what "simplicity" means in 2 Corinthians 11:3, if "simple" has the same meaning here as it does today.  The word translated simplicity, aplotes, is used eight times in the New Testament, including here.  The same word is translated "liberality" in 2 Corinthians 8:2, "bountifulness" in 2 Corinthians 9:11, and "liberal" in 2 Corinthians 9:13.  On the other hand, that word is translated "singleness of heart" in Ephesians 6:5 and Colossians 3:22.  In Romans 12:8, the KJV translates it "simplicity," but the obvious meaning is similar to 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, because it reads, "he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity."  BDAG, the foremost Greek lexicon, says concerning the meaning in 2 Corinthians 11:3, "Of simple goodness, which gives itself without reserve, ‘without strings attached’, ‘without hidden agendas’."

The meaning of the word translated "simplicity" in 2 Corinthians 11:3 fits with the understanding of a true gospel.  The simple gospel, the true one, is one in which it is clear cut who is saved.  You can know it.  It doesn't muddle it up with convoluted explanations of the nature of Jesus.  It isn't this contemporary gospel, where it is almost impossible to judge, because a person could live in a nearly perpetual state of carnality and still be saved.  This is the one that seems to come with a hidden agenda that plays around with the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  You receive Jesus as Savior in the complicated gospel, and then maybe or maybe not, you receive Him as Lord at some later date.

As all of the doctrine of salvation relates to the modern understanding of simple, the later additions or omissions to a true gospel have complicated the simplicity.  Salvation comes through believing in Jesus Christ, and He's either the Jesus of the Bible or He's not.  If someone diminishes the identity of Jesus to widen the threshold or broaden the appeal of Jesus to the lost, you get another Jesus.  That's actually what 2 Corinthians 11:3 is talking about more than anything as related to the distortion of the gospel, that is, another Jesus Who will not save, albeit a more palatable Jesus to someone who wishes to remain in charge of His own life.  The false teachers at Corinth were presenting another Jesus and, therefore, teaching another gospel.

I'm afraid that the simple that people want, as it regards salvation, is something as simple as a glancing thought about Jesus.  A modern audience may want to "click in" to Jesus on the right index finger to its mouse.  You're now saved sort of like the one motion that sends an email, or publishes a post or comment, or makes a purchase.

If there is a simple plan of salvation, as close to what we would understand "simple" today, then it is found in the gospel of John.  I would agree that if you want to make it simple, have someone read John, because John writes (John 20:31), "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name."  John could be the Bible's gospel tract, giving the most fundamental or simple information that would end in someone believing in Jesus Christ with the consequence of eternal life.  What does John say to believe about Jesus?  "That Jesus is the Christ" -- "the Christ."

"Christ" is found 569 times in the New Testament.  John says if you "believe that Jesus is the Christ," you "have life through his name."  If salvation is simple, then that is as simple as it gets.  If it must be more simple than that, then it is too simple.  With it being so simple, then a lot of people were saved, right?  A lot of people got life through Jesus, right?  Wrong.  Was it not simple enough?  Did it need to be more simple?

When you read John, you see Jesus separate the true followers from the false ones.  He whittles down His crowd like no other preacher, by today's estimation just making it harder and harder for folks.  He totally blew multiple opportunities in John by a modern gospel assessment.  What was it that made the gospel so difficult for people, when it was so simple?

It's simple to "believe that Jesus is the Christ," right?  I think it's as simple as it should be.  I've not noticed it being complicated in my experience.  You've got to believe.  It must be "believe," but people easily mess that up.  It must be "the Christ," and then people also distort that.  I've found that they usually corrupt it by twisting it into something of their desire, so that it is less than believe and less than "the Christ," and usually both.

If John is about convincing people that Jesus is the Christ, so that people will believe that He is the Christ, then reading John, to see Who that is, is necessary.  Is it too complicated to find out Who Jesus is in John? With most evangelicals and independent Baptists today, I think it is.  That would take too long and require reading skills or perhaps a lot of time of explanation.

As I have read through John many times, and taught through it a few times, it reads like it's arguing for the content of saving faith.  Let me offer you a sample.  In John 5, Jesus goes down to one of the feasts in Jerusalem.  It doesn't say which one.  It's obvious that John 5 is thematic, furthering the evidence for what John says in John 20:31, like it already has been up to that point.  It reads like part of a master plan.

At the beginning, Jesus performs a sign or miracle.  He does it on the Sabbath, on purpose.  In this case, he has the lame man stand up, pick up his bed, and walk, so that he would violate their Sabbath laws.  He does that so that they could see that He was Lord of the Sabbath, just like His Father.  Jesus works on the Sabbath, just like the Father works on the Sabbath.  How does the Father work?  He upholds the entire universe on every Sabbath, a never ending task of sustaining the entire creation. Jesus argues that His work is the same as the Father's work, which is giving life and judging, which encapsulates everything that man experiences.  Jesus is the Author of it all.  

I could explain further, but I'm just pulling John 5 out as a sample.  John reads like it offers one sample after another.  All of this is to convince that Jesus is "the Christ."  "The Christ" is the Anointed One.  That's what the term means.  "Anointed" for what?  To reign.  Jesus is the Messiah. He is the coming King, Who comes to rule.  You have to believe that.  

"Belief" is not just intellectual assent.  The word means more than just registering something in the brain, what most evangelicals want "belief" to be and twist it into.  Interpretation is guided by the laws of language.  Belief must be what belief is.

Belief involves the will.  If someone believes Jesus is the Christ, he has acquiesced to Jesus' authority.  The reign belongs to Jesus, not himself.  In John, just from the minimal sample of John 5, he knows that Jesus does the works that the Father does. Someone who stays on the throne of his own life doesn't believe that.  However, most evangelicals and independent Baptists want that still to be belief and that still to be Jesus.  It isn't.  It's a distortion. The distortion is what complicates simplicity.

It's simple.  Jesus is either Lord or He is not.  That's simple.  That's not hard to grasp.  What makes it hard?  People want to stay in charge, want their own way.  They want to be saved, sure.  People want a Jesus who will save them, but not rule them.  If they believe in that Jesus, does he save?  No, because that isn't Jesus.  Men present this alternative Jesus, because he's easier to accept, but he doesn't save, because he isn't Jesus.  He isn't the Messiah. He isn't Christ.