Your Testimony Is Not the Gospel

Now we hear people all the time say, “I’m committed to the gospel, to preaching the gospel, to sharing the gospel.” And yet, if we look at the content of what it is they’re preaching and what it is they’re sharing, I may share with my neighbor that Jesus changed my life—that’s a wonderful testimony—but it’s not the gospel. I can say to my friends, “I’ve got good news for you. God loves you.” That is good news, but it’s not the gospel. In New Testament categories, the gospel is understood in terms of a definite content. And that content is not about me, and it’s really not about you. The content focuses attention on the person and work of Jesus—on who He is, what He has done—and then it is added how the benefits of His ministry can be received by us in faith.

Now on several occasions in the book of Acts, we get examples of Apostolic preaching. We get examples of what the scholars call the kérugma, which is just a fancy word for the “proclamation” of the early church. When we want to know how we should approach a watching world and a world that is dying, a world that is pagan, what gospel do they need to hear? It is this kerygma that we find encapsulated in the book of Acts in sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon, and what it is is the life and ministry of Jesus.

Now, I think it’s good for us to give our testimonies, but don’t confuse our testimony with evangelism. Our testimonies are pre-evangelism. They may be of interest to our friends, but again, my life is not the gospel. His life is the gospel. The power of God unto salvation is not R.C. Sproul’s testimony. The power of God unto salvation is the gospel of Jesus Christ focusing on the cross, on the atonement. A message about God’s work in our lives may be good news, but if it doesn’t include the cross, it’s not evangelism. It’s not the gospel.

Let me say it again from a different perspective. We can tell people wonderful things about God and how He can change your life and even about Jesus. But if the affirmation of the resurrection of Christ is absent from that testimony, it may be good news, but it’s not the biblical gospel. Because the cross of Christ, the resurrection of the Christ, are essential elements of the gospel, so that without them, you don’t have the biblical gospel.