Gilbert,
Greg. What is the Gospel? Wheaton: Crossway, 2010.
Truth
is being assaulted from all sides in our day. From the capitulation
of the Biologos cadre, to the crass man-centeredness of Osteen, to
the “God is an American conservative Republican” cultural
Christianity crowd, there are voices out there to confuse believers,
distort the truth, and eviscerate biblical Christianity. It’s time
someone wrote a book reminding us what the gospel is, and what it
isn’t.
Greg
Gilbert’s brief (124 pages), accessible offering, published by
Crossway under the 9Marks imprint, is just what the doctor ordered.
Gilbert carefully points the church back to a biblical understanding
of the gospel, and along the way he manages to distinguish between
the results of the gospel and the gospel itself. It does not help
people much if we talk in glowing terms of kingdom and cultural
transformation if we haven’t made clear how one gets through the
door. As he gently corrects, Gilbert’s tone is not polemical; he’s
not going to alienate anyone, whether they are lost or merely
confused about the gospel.
The
book contains but eight chapters, four of which cover these topics:
God’s righteousness, man’s sinfulness, Christ the Savior, and the
response of faith and repentance. Gilbert reminds us that one does
not need to be a Princeton grad to understand that Jesus died for my
sins.
One
of the great things about this book is that you can give it to an
earnest seeker, and know that they will be exposed to a simple,
solid, accurate, biblical, and compassionate explanation of gospel. I
plan on keeping a box of these things in my study for just that
purpose.
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