Our mission is to preach the everlasting lasting gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. But the only gospel that saves from sin is the gospel of personal experience. And the only effective preaching of the gospel is when the gospel of personal experience is preached. Therefore, the only effective preacher of the gospel is the one who preaches the gospel of experience.
By the gospel of experience I mean that teaching which has been translated into our own personal experience. In this gospel of experience the central Person is Jesus Christ. The vital experience is union with Christ the Person. Christ Himself is the embodiment of the gospel. He is the gospel. Hear His own words: "I am the bread of life." John 6:48. "I am the light of the world." John 8:12. "I am the door." John 10:9. "I am the good shepherd." John 10:11. "I am the way, the truth, and the life." John 14:6. "I am the true vine." John 15:1.
You remember that in Exodus 3:14 He who sent Moses to deliver the children. of Israel said, Tell them "I AM" sent you. When Christ spoke to the Jews (John 8:58), He said, "Before Abraham was born, I AM." The expression, the sentence, "I AM," seems in itself incomplete. We expect some predicate after it, some statement. In the Old Testament we find "I AM." In the New Testament we find the sentence completed. And that sentence completed presents the Person who Himself is the I AM, who Himself is the gospel. "The Word became flesh." That is, the Word of God was manifested as a personality, and in that Person we find everything; apart from that Person we have nothing.
The great purpose of the gospel is to bring life to us. "He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Now He is the life. We cannot have the life apart from having Him. Life is not something separate from the Person, as I offer something entirely distinct from my self. He offers His eternal life by Himself being the eternal life. And so the apostle John says in his first epistle, the first chapter and second verse, "The eternal Life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us." Life manifested; power manifested; wisdom manifested; righteousness manifested; redemption manifested,—as a personality.
I know we are accustomed to thinking of such terms as "sanctification," "justification," "redemption," as abstract terms. I want you to know that they are nothing unless they are embodied in that Personality. The theology of redemption, the theology of sanctification, the theology of justification, is all right, in its place. But until that theology is transmuted into a Person, it is of no special personal help to us in the way of salvation. We may read much, and study much about justification, sanctification, redemption, all those great terms, and yet not be saved from sin. He only saves from sin. And it is only when He is personally dealt with and personally received that we really have the gospel of the grace of God.
Christ Himself preached Himself, presented Himself. Remember His words: "Come unto Me." Matt. 11:28. "Learn of Me." Verse 29. "Believe also in Me." John 14:1. "Follow Me." John 1:43. "Abide in Me." John 15:5. He presents Himself. Of course I do not mean by that that we should present ourselves, but we should present Him as He presented Himself. And that is possible only through our own intimate, personal fellowship with Him, the Person.
Note how He Himself places the whole test just there. "Every one therefore who shall confess Me before men, him will I also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father who is in heaven." Matt. 10:32. Is it not clear that everything rests upon the Person? Absolutely so.
Now I want to pass to the experience of a preacher. And let us see how the apostle Paul preached what he preached. The theology of the apostle Paul was the theology of experience. I think any one will note that who will read thoughtfully the letters of the apostle Paul and see how much of them is devoted to personal experience, his own personal experience. Turn, please, to Galatians 1: 15, 16. You remember that the apostle Paul in the letter to the Galatians was meeting an apostasy. And in what did that apostasy consist? It consisted in attempting to present Christ and— Now it doesn't make any difference what we say after "and." In this particular case it was Christ and ceremonialism. Certain men came down from Judea and taught them saying, Except ye be circumcised according to the law of Moses, ye cannot be saved. They didn't say it was not right to believe on Christ. But Paul's gospel of faith in Christ, they said, was lacking something. In this particular case that something was circumcision. But it doesn't make any difference what that something is. Just the moment you say Christ and something else, your emphasis is upon the something else. It doesn't make any difference what you put after "and;" just the moment that anything is put there which we have to do as a condition of salvation, you have spoiled the gospel. That is worth thinking of.
Of course we naturally think of some duties that we emphasize,—Sabbath keeping, we will say. Don't think for a moment that I belittle Sabbath keeping. I have never known anything else since I can remember than Sabbath keeping. But here is the point: If I keep the Sabbath because Christ has saved me, my experience is far different from that of keeping the Sabbath in order to be saved. Do you see the difference? It doesn't make any difference what it is, anything great or small that we say we must do in order to be saved, spoils our gospel, which is the one thing, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." And a saved person now, in the light of this message, will keep the Sabbath, and he will do all the other good things. But he will do them because he has believed on Christ, because he has been saved by faith in Christ.
Now Paul went out and raised up churches in Galatia, and then these teachers came and tried to add something to his gospel as being necessary for forgiveness and cleansing. The apostle Paul would not stand for that. Just notice this little difference: In the fifteenth chapter of Acts we have the record of that first council that was held in Jerusalem over this very question. There the apostle Paul stood firmly against requiring circumcision as a condition of salvation. But we open the sixteenth chapter of the book of Acts, and find that Paul wanted Timothy to travel with him, and so he took him and circumcised him. Was he inconsistent? The Jews said, It is necessary to be circumcised in order to enter the kingdom. The apostle Paul said, No. But he was perfectly willing to circumcise a person that he might enter the synagogue. See the difference? He was perfectly willing Timothy should be circumcised to avoid offense among the Jews, but when they put it that he must be circumcised in order to be saved, he said, No.
The apostle Paul faced that apostasy which was to add something to the gospel of personal faith in Christ as the basis of salvation. Let us turn to Galatians. Note how he introduces the subject in the first paragraph: "Paul, an apostle (not from men, neither through man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead)." He presents a living Christ who died and who lives. The Person who saves us is the Person who became dead and who lives; Paul says, "who raised Him from the dead." With that he touches the very heart of his gospel of the grace of God,—faith in Jesus Christ who died for our sins, who was raised from the dead, who ascended to heaven, who ever liveth to make intercession for us. That is the gospel that Paul preached. And that is the gospel that we must preach.
"Grace to you and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins." There is no other remedy. He "gave Himself." If we are to receive the remedy, we must receive Him. There is enough in that to think about a whole hour. He "gave Himself for our sins." If we receive the forgiveness of sins, it is by receiving Him who gave Himself for our sins.
"I make known to you, brethren, as touching the gospel which was preached by me, that it is not after man." Gal. 1:11. It is not the gospel according to man; "for neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ." Verse 12. Now isn't that exactly in harmony with the thought that He Himself is the gospel? The only way the gospel can be revealed is when He Himself is revealed. It comes to us by revelation. You observe that Paul says he was not even taught it. That is to say, this gospel was not an intellectual presentation of doctrine. His gospel was a presentation of a Person who had been revealed to him. That is the only true gospel. "Ye have heard of my manner of life in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God." Verse 13. He was zealous in the religion that had been taught him. When the gospel in the Person of Christ was revealed to him, his whole manner of life was absolutely changed. That is the difference between the gospel merely taught and the gospel revealed as a Person.
"It was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mother's womb, and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him." Verses 15, 16. The "pleasure of God . . . to reveal His Son." Notice the word used; it is significant,—"to reveal His Son." The gospel is the gospel of Sonship. "When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that He might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." "It pleased God . . . to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him."
Now I repeat that the only effective preaching of the gospel is the preaching of the gospel of experience. And is it not true that one cannot thus preach Christ unless Christ Himself has been revealed, not simply to the preacher, but in the preacher? Have you noticed how much difference the turn of a word will make? Take this in Galatians 1:15, 16: "It was the good pleasure of God . . . to reveal His Son in me." Now what difference does it make whether he says to me or in me? Notice how that simple change makes a vast difference.
Take another scripture, 2 Corinthians 6:16: "What agreement hath a temple of God with idols? for we are a temple of the living God; even as God said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people." Why did Paul say that? Of course He was referring to Old Testament Scripture. Where does it say, "I will dwell in them?" Perhaps you think immediately of Exodus 25:8, "Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them." It doesn't say "in them," does it? Look at Leviticus 26:12 and see what it says: "I will walk among you." Now why was "among" in the Old Testament changed to "in" in the New Testament? That which made it possible to change "among" in the Old Testament to "in" in the New Testament is Bethlehem, Calvary, Pentecost,—the incarnation of Christ, the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.
You find the word "Comforter" in the fourteenth chapter of John for the first time in the Bible. We read from Genesis 1:1 to John 14 before we find the word "Comforter." There we find "Comforter" defined to be the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit. But what is the difference? Do we not read of the Spirit of God from the first chapter of Genesis all the way through?—Certainly. Then why was Jesus warranted in saying, "It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you"? He Himself defined the "Comforter" to be the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth.
What is the difference? In the New Testament you meet with expressions concerning the Spirit that you do not meet with in the Old Testament. In the New Testament you meet with the expressions, the Spirit of His Son, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Well, isn't that the same Spirit? Yes, it is the same Spirit, but different. The Spirit of God has now become the Spirit of the God-man —the Comforter.
The turning point of this experience you will find in the fourteenth chapter of John in one brief statement that Christ made. "Even the Spirit of truth: whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: ye know Him; for He abideth with you, and shall be in you." John 14:17. There is the turning point between "among" and "in." He abideth with you in the flesh; He shall abide in you through the Spirit. That is the very heart of Christianity. That is the gospel that the apostle Paul preached as a personal experience.
"It pleased God . . . to reveal His Son in me." How does the apostle Paul define the mystery of the gospel? What does he say is the mystery? "Christ in you, the hope of glory." "Christ in you" is Christianity. Christ in you is the Saviour. I apprehend that many think of Christ as a Person up there somewhere, very much interested in us. Many regard Him in that way rather than regarding Him as a Person dwelling in us. Now a Christ up in heaven won't do for my Saviour. That is too far away. Where is the sin? Here in me. Where must the Saviour be? Where the sin is. Now don't misunderstand me and think me to be belittling the work of Christ in heaven. But suppose Christ, when He had finished His work here, had said to His disciples, I have been with you these three years and have set you the example of what you ought to be. Now I am going back to heaven. I shall look on and watch with much interest to see you live as I have lived. How much gospel would there be in that? Christ's example is all right. But Christ the power to meet that example must also be known. Or, to put it another way, Christ an example is all right; but Christ within is the only power that can make that example experience in us. That to me is the gospel of experience, the gospel of the Person.
(To be concluded in September)