Adding to the Gospel Only Diminishes It  

Recently I took a couple of my grandchildren to Dairy Queen in order to enjoy some of their delicious ice cream. While I got my usual hot fudge sundae, my grandkids each ordered one of those specialty treats that has candy, cookies, or other goodies blended in with the frozen dessert. On this occasion they decided to get one of the summer versions being advertised at the store. When it came out, I was struck by the lumps of candy and cookies filling their cup. It looked as if so much other stuff had been added that there wasn’t much ice cream. Personally, I don’t mind a small amount of extras in my ice cream, but in this case it seemed like too much. I prefer to stick with the simple treats where I get plenty of the pure, cold, delicious ice cream I enjoy. Even my grandkids agreed that this version overdid the candy fillings.

It reminds me of what can happen when we start adding extras to the pure Word of God, specifically the gospel or good news about our salvation in Christ. The more people try to add to it to enhance its flavor or to make it more palatable for modern society, the greater the danger of losing the very essence of what makes it such good news. When we add so much acceptance and tolerance, distinctions between good and evil get blurred and the concept of sin can eventually disappear altogether. When we pour in an overabundance of the one-sided picture of God being nothing but love, then the wrath of a holy God and the reality of hell get lost. Such additions may gain favor with the world, but the gospel itself gets robbed of that which makes it such good news. If we’re not lost sinners under condemnation from a holy God and facing the awful consequences both now and for eternity, why did Jesus need to come into this world and die on the cross as the sacrifice for our sins? If we weren’t in dire trouble, why did we even need saving?

Adding to the gospel changes it. It degenerates into no more than a sweeter-tasting, religious version of psychology, philosophy, and social action. The basics about sin and salvation get smothered under a bunch of half-truths about the goodness of man, not judging others, and the merits of our own good works.

Let’s not stray from the simple, pure gospel of Jesus Christ. We were born into a fallen world with our sinful tendencies that eventually showed up in acts of willful disobedience to God. As a result, we were facing condemnation and hell. However, this same holy God loved us so much that He graciously made a way for us to escape our self-imposed fate. He sent His own Son into this world to take our sin and its punishment on Himself as the perfect, sinless sacrifice. Then He was raised from the dead as evidence to who He was and the victory He had won for us. Through faith in Him and what He did for us, we can be forgiven, reconciled with God, and can possess new life in Christ now along with the assurance of a future home with the Lord. It’s nothing we deserve or earn – it’s strictly the free gift of God. As we let the Spirit of Christ fill us, He can make us a holy people. His will can be done in us and in the world around us as we serve Him in the power of the Spirit.       

This is good news. To add to it only takes away from its substance. “Desire the pure milk (or ice cream?) of the word” (I Peter 2:2).