What is The Sword and Trumpet? – Part 10
Julian Stoltzfus
In this final article I want to draw your attention to one more aspect of our mission statement. We are committed to the “gospel as revealed in the Holy Scriptures.” We take the Bible as our ultimate authority, over all philosophy and every tradition and system.
The Bible defines the gospel we proclaim. It is not one of our own making. With the apostle Paul we preach the “gospel [which] came through the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:12). The true gospel is not one we invent or discover, but instead is one we receive from God through revelation. That is to say, that without the Bible, we cannot know the gospel, and therefore cannot know God.
It’s true that we can know about God’s existence through the created world (cf. Rom. 1), but we cannot know our terrible plight as sinners, nor know God’s grace through Christ, unless God tells us about it. Holding to the true gospel requires recognizing that we depend entirely on God’s self-disclosure to know the gospel at all. We need divine revelation to know the gospel.
The Bible is not only necessary for us to know the gospel, it is also the ultimate authority regarding the substance of the gospel. God’s divine word—breathed from the mouth of the one who upholds all reality—defines reality. So any detraction from what Scripture tells us about God’s redemptive purposes is a diminishment or a distortion of the true gospel. Only the biblical gospel is the true gospel.
As we press into this, we should ask ourselves if we are drawing our understanding of the gospel from the Bible, or if our view is merely compatible with it. It is surprisingly easy to assume that our view is the biblical view. I have often been surprised and convicted when I compare my assumptions of the gospel with what the Bible teaches. We easily imbibe certain assumptions from our Mennonite tradition or American culture without realizing that we have adjusted the gospel in the process. We need the continual “reproof” and “correction” (2 Tim. 3:16) that Scripture provides so we can turn from wrong ideas and more accurately believe what is right.
Sometimes we can think our understanding of salvation is biblical because it overlaps with the Bible or because it agrees with the Bible on many points. We know of verses that support our beliefs, so we assume that we are holding the biblical gospel. If we want to be faithful to the true gospel, we must labor to make sure our beliefs are more than compatible with the Bible. We need to draw everything from the Bible. To put it bluntly, every truth and every presupposition must be grounded on the clear teaching of the word of God. If our beliefs are not drawn from Scripture, we are on shaky theological ground.
Martin Luther said that the Bible is the norma normans non normata. It is the norm of norms that cannot be normed. It is the authority over all other authorities, and no authority will ever supersede it. And since it is the ultimate authority on all matters of truth, we subject ourselves entirely to it. We are willing slaves to the Bible. Our future faithfulness depends on it. If The Sword and Trumpet ever promotes a gospel other than the one “revealed in Scripture,” we have ceased to be useful in God’s kingdom.
We seek biblically-grounded gospel fidelity. Why? Not merely to be “right,” nor to foment pride through theological precision, but because the eternal destiny of real human souls depends on us getting this right.
While it is true that we are not saved merely by having correct doctrine, it is also true that many people are damned because of false doctrine. The apostle Paul declared a curse against those who pervert the gospel of Christ by teaching that salvation partially depends on Christ’s work and partially depends on our obedience to the law (Gal. 1:7-9). The apostle John said that those who deny that Jesus is the Christ are liars and anti-Christ, clearly indicating that they are not saved (1 John 2:22-23). In the former case, wrong beliefs about salvation by grace are in view. In the latter, it’s wrong views about Christ. Both are damnable. In each case, someone’s doctrine determines their eternal destination.
It is important to restate that no one is saved merely by having the right doctrine. Yet unless someone knows who Christ is and what salvation entails, how can he believe and be saved? Right doctrine precedes faith and salvation. The mind must comprehend sin, judgment, and the offer of salvation (biblical truths) before the affections are stirred and the will can act to reach out in faith to Christ. It may be that an overemphasis on doctrine can lead to stale or dead Christianity. Yet there can be no living Christianity at all apart from right doctrine.
We aim to defend, promote, and proclaim the gospel as God has revealed in the Bible. We don’t want an innovative gospel, a popular gospel, or a therapeutic gospel, but rather the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.