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Friday, December 25, 2015

The Gospel Gone Wrong

I came across an article today on Fox News' website by Cal Thomas. The article was about the true meaning of Christmas. In the article Cal wrote
"The true meaning of Christmas is this: God took on the form of a human to die in our place, paying for our sins, so that humans who receive Him might be forgiven and be with Him forever."
There is just one problem with this statement; This is not the Gospel. Everything is fine until you get to the phrase, "so that humans who receive Him might be forgiven..." The problem here is that God's forgiveness was for the whole world, not just those who receive Jesus as Savior. You see the Bible says in 1 John 2:2
And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. - 1 John 2:2
You need to understand that the war between humans and God is at an end. That is why the angles came and proclaimed,
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."
- Luke 2:14
So if God forgave the sins of the whole world, of anyone whoever lived, does that mean everyone is saved? No.

Salvation comes by grace through faith. (Ephesians 2:8) We have to choose to accept the gift of salvation. Faith is our positive response to what God has already accomplished.

And, if God forgave the whole world of it's sin, then the only thing sending people to hell is their rejection of Jesus; not their sins. For we are told to confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.
John 16:8-9 says, 
“And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin, because they believe not on me.” (This is sin in the singular, not the plural.)
Andrew Wommack said it best,
"The singular sin the Holy Spirit reproves us of is the sin of not believing on Jesus. That’s it. That’s not to say that the Holy Spirit will not show us that things we do are wrong. But He uses them to illustrate that we don’t believe on Jesus. The Holy Spirit isn’t nailing us every time we sin; He loves us back into faith and trust in Jesus. That’s the whole issue with God. 
What difference does it make in our lives if we accept forgiveness as something that has already been accomplished or not? There is a huge difference! It gives us security and peace, knowing that God isn’t mad at us and won’t be mad at us. Our sins are already forgiven—and not just the past sins we committed before we were born again. All of our sins—past, present, and even future ones—are already forgiven."
Now that's good news!