Answering 100 Questions Related to the Bible

Question (10) The Bible clearly says that if anybody is preaching a gospel other than the one we preach, let him be condemned. We will not accept what you preach because you are preaching a gospel other than the one we preach and it is another gospel.

Answer: This view of people is probably based on Galatians 1:6-9 in the Bible: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” But do we know the background against which Paul spoke these words? As we all know, the book of Galatians is the letter the apostle Paul wrote to the churches of Galatia in about A.D. 60. At that time, the gospel of the Lord Jesus had been spread outward dynamically, and many people in Galatia had accepted the Lord’s new work and established churches. In this period of transition from the Age of the Law to the Age of the Grace, there were two groups of gospel preachers among the Jews. One group was preaching the old work of the Age of the Law, asking people to keep the law of Jehovah, that is, to be circumcised, to keep the Sabbath, to enter the temple, and so on. The other group (primarily the twelve disciples of Jesus) was preaching the new work of the Age of the Grace, asking people to believe in Jesus to gain salvation and to practice the Lord Jesus’ requirements, that is, to confess and repent of their sins, to be baptized, to break bread, to love one another, to tolerate, to be patient, and so on. Those Pharisees who kept the law of the Old Testament claimed that the gospel which Jesus’ disciples preached was totally different from the one they preached, and that the way of Jesus had abolished the law of Jehovah and gone beyond the Old Testament. So they refused to accept Jesus’ new work and disturbed those who had accepted Jesus’ salvation of the cross. By then, Paul had left the churches of Galatia due to his busy work. So those who preached the law of the Old Testament took the opportunity to enter into the churches and spread that belief in Jesus could not lead to salvation, it was contrary to the teachings of Jehovah, and one should continue to keep the Sabbath, be circumcised, and so on. Because of the lack of discernment, the Galatians left the gospel of Jesus Paul had preached and followed those who preached the law. When hearing that the brothers and sisters in the churches of Galatia had forsaken the new grace and turned to believe in the law again, Paul worried about them because of their ignorance and also abhorred those who preached the old work. But because he was occupied with many church affairs, he could not go there immediately; so he wrote a letter to the churches there. He said, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!” (Galatians 1:6-8). By this he exhorted the Galatians to come back to the true way. He also said, “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?” (Galatians 3:1, 2). From these we can clearly see that the “different gospel” that Paul spoke of refers to the one asking people to keep the law, and not to the end-time gospel—the eternal gospel. If it referred to the end-time gospel, then how do we explain the prophecy that “…he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth” (Revelation 14:6)? Besides, when Paul wrote this letter, there was not the book of Revelation yet, let alone people preaching the kingdom gospel. So, the “different gospel” Paul spoke of was not the gospel of the Age of the Kingdom at all. It is erroneous for us to think so.

Brothers and sisters, now, we are also at a crucial time of transition from the Age of the Grace to the Age of the Kingdom. God has done a higher and deeper work on the basis of the work of the Age of the Grace to purify us and bring us who have been forgiven of our sins into the pleasant destination. This is exactly the “eternal gospel” (that is, the kingdom gospel) mentioned in Revelation. The Holy Spirit had long since revealed this last salvation to the Lord Jesus’ disciples. As Peter said, “…who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:5). And Paul said, “He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us…” (2 Corinthians 1:10). However, when this end-time salvation—the kingdom gospel—comes, again, two groups of gospel preachers stand in opposition to each other. One group preaches the gospel of Jesus of the Age of the Grace, and the other preaches the gospel of Almighty God of the Age of the Kingdom. Those who preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus of the Age of the Grace do their utmost to slander the gospel preachers of Almighty God, deny the gospel of Almighty God, and disturb people from accepting the gospel of Almighty God, just as those who preached the law in the period of transition from the Age of the Law to the Age of the Grace did their utmost to slander the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then, which group is after God’s heart today, the one preaching the gospel of the Age of the Grace or the one preaching the gospel of the Age of the Kingdom? The answer is already self-evident.