The Great Commission
The commission of Christ to the apostles is recorded in Matt. 28:18-20; Mark 16:15, 16; and in Luke 24:46, 47. These accounts should be studied carefully, in order to know what the commandment of the Lord requires of a man, in order for him to be saved.
One's interest in the study of the commandment of Christ is in proportion to ones concern for the condition and final destiny of his soul. If you are really concerned about your soul, you will be intensely interested in learning what is required of you by the commission of Christ.
The Gospel
The responsibility of the apostles under the commission is expressed in the clause, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation (every creature)." The preaching of the gospel is indispensable to man's salvation. It is by preaching that, "the power of God unto salvation", (Rom. 1:16) is brought to bear upon the soul of a man. The gospel is for every creature in all the world; everyone who is saved in this age will be saved by the same power. This truth is also expressed in Rom. 1:16 when the apostle says that, "it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." God does not exert one kind of power upon some and another kind upon others to effect remission of sins.
The word, "gospel", means, "good news" or "glad tidings". The good news which is to be preached is, "concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and was declared to be the Son of God, with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead". When the gospel of the great commission is preached, the death of Christ for our sins, his burial and resurrection is preached. (1 Cor. 15:1-4).
Remission of sins is not the objective in view for those who preach a so-called "social gospel", for the social gospel advocates reject the doctrine of the death of Christ for our sins and are more concerned for the betterment of the outward man than they are for the salvation of the soul. The "social gospel" is not the gospel which is to be preached by the authority of Christ. Those who preach the "social gospel" are accursed of God for they have perverted the gospel of Christ and are preaching a gospel other than that which the apostles preached. "But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema." (Gal. 1:8.)
Obedience to the gospel is indispensable to remission of sins. Those who "obey not the gospel" will "suffer punishment even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might" (2 Thess. 1:8,9). Such is the awful end of those who obey not the gospel which the Lord required to be preached, and which the apostles preached to every creature under heaven (Col. 1:23). The approved response of man to whom the gospel is preached is learned by studying the actions which the commission required of those to whom the gospel was preached. One can learn what it is to obey the gospel by studying the conditions of salvation expressed in the commission. The first action required of those to whom the gospel is preached is belief.
Belief
Faith and belief are used interchangeably in the Bible. Of the centurion Christ said, "I have not found so great faith" (Matt. 8:11) and to the centurion, he said, "As thou hast believed" (Matt. 8:13). Another case of this is Heb. 11:6 where it is stated that, "without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing unto him for he that cometh to God must believe — " Faith is belief. It is an indispensable condition of salvation — "he that believeth not shall be damned" (Mk. 16:16).
All faith must be based upon evidence. Faith cannot exist in the absence of evidence. The evidence upon which faith in Christ is based is the testimony of the apostles. This is taught in such passages as: John 17:20 "Neither for these only do I pray but for them also that shall believe on me through their words — "; John 20:31 "These are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and believing ye may have life in his name"; Rom. 10:17 "So belief cometh of hearing and hearing by the word of Christ"; Acts 15:7 "Brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe". The order of the commission is (1) Preaching the gospel (2) Hearing (3) Believing.
The gospel must be preached before men can hear. Men must hear before they can believe, hence, Christ said, "Go — preach the gospel — "; "He that believeth — ". The impossibility of believing without hearing the gospel and of hearing without preaching, is seen in the following: "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach, except they be sent? even as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of good things! But they did not all hearken to the glad tidings. For Isaiah saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." (Rom. 10:14-17)
Believe is used in a comprehensive and also in a specific way in the New Testament. One can determine from the context whether the use is comprehensive or specific. Failure to recognize this distinction has resulted in the human doctrine of justification by faith alone. Texts where the word, "faith or belief", is used in a comprehensive way have been wrested to serve as proof texts for this erroneous doctrine. That faith or belief is sometimes used to embrace all the conditions required for salvation in the commission is seen from the examples of its use in Acts 19. Paul told those disciples at Ephesus that John the Baptist preached to the people, "that they should believe in him that should come after him, that is on Jesus" v. 4. "When they heard this", that is, "that they should believe on Jesus" — "they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus" v. 5. These people understood that the requirement to believe on Jesus included obeying Jesus. This they did by being baptized by the authority of Jesus. Another example which illustrates this comprehensive use of belief is the case of the Jailor's conversion. Acts 16:31. After his baptism he rejoiced, "having believed in God" (Acts 16:34). Never is salvation conditioned upon faith alone in the limited or specific sense of the word. "Ye see how that by works a man is justified and not only by faith." (James 2:24.)
(To be continued)