THE ONE TRUE GOSPEL

📖Scripture: “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my GOSPEL, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God’s word is not chained.” 2 Timothy 2:8-9

🔎Reflection: The Apostle Paul makes it clear that there is only one true GOSPEL—Jesus Christ, King David’s descendant, crucified, and risen from the dead. The GOSPEL writers, the Apostles, the Law, the Prophets, indeed the whole of Scripture, presents the same truth at different times in different ways, but never a different message.

Satan’s counterfeit “gospels” always distort this singular truth. In Galatians 1:6-9, Paul warns that even if an angel from heaven preaches another gospel, let him be accursed. Contemporary “Christianity” has diluted the GOSPEL into a moralistic worldview, self-help therapy, prosperity, promises, and privatized consumer-minded spirituality that denies the reality and power of the cross. But the true GOSPEL is not a set of principles, propositions, or life hacks—it is the person of Christ Jesus, the eternal Word (John 1:1), who suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18).

There are not “many gospels,” only distortions of the one. “My GOSPEL” is shorthand for the apostolic GOSPEL of Jesus Christ crucified and risen, once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). “My gospel” is Paul’s Spirit-inspired way of saying: This is the one true GOSPEL entrusted to me; reject all others. It’s personal to Paul because he received it, was transformed by it, and now carries it. The GOSPEL’s authority and content are universal and unchangeable. To receive the GOSPEL is to receive Christ, not to tack Him onto a sinful life as an add-on, but to be born of God (John 1:13), utterly remade as children of the Heavenly Father. Just as there are not “many paths to God”—only Christ (John 14:6), there is only one GOSPEL. To tamper with the GOSPEL is not only to trample on Christ’s blood, but to reject Him as the divine and eternal WORD.

Paul calls it “my GOSPEL” because he was entrusted with it as an apostolic steward, not because he (re)invented it. He received it by revelation from Christ Himself (Gal 1:11–12). In Romans 16:25 he again says, “according to my GOSPEL and the preaching of Jesus Christ,” tying it inseparably to the apostolic proclamation of Christ’s person and work. Paul’s “my” emphasizes responsibility and guardianship (1 Cor 9:16–17: “Woe to me if I do not preach the GOSPEL!”). Thus, “my GOSPEL” does not mean a private, heretical version of “what the gospel means to me is…” but the divinely revealed, objective GOSPEL revealed in the WORD, as the WORD, that Paul, as an apostle, was commissioned to proclaim.

🤺Action: Ask the LORD to examine whether your faith is in a personal decision, a prayer, religious affiliation, obligation, or if it is a transcendent gift of God, i.e., regeneration by the Holy Spirit. Have you truly been buried with Christ in baptism into a life-giving relationship with the real Christ of Scripture or into a counterfeit religion and “Jesus” shaped by culture, comfort, or personal desires? The test of whether we truly love Him as Savior, Lord, and the God of our salvation, or merely admire Him as a concept, is revealed in how we respond to suffering in the trials of life. Does it result in praise, honor, and glory to God?

🙏Prayer: Heavenly Father, guard me from believing a counterfeit GOSPEL. Expose lies in my heart that seek a convenient Christ instead of the crucified and risen Lord. Teach me to rejoice in the one true GOSPEL and to proclaim it faithfully.

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Blessings & love,

Kevin M. Kelley

Pastor

BigIslandChristianChurch.com