Which is more important relative to salvation, the message or the Messenger?  The answer depends upon whom one asks.  If the typical man in the pew is asked that question the answer will be the latter.  The other 99.99% of professing Christendom will agree with him.  Are they right?

Not long after the founding of the Church of God in an upper room in Jerusalem Satan began his assault on the young church.  Within a generation he had placed many of his people in the church where they spread false “truths” throughout the different congregations.  Jesus warned the disciples, and their converts then and now, about those men who would come in His name, declare that He (Jesus) is indeed the Christ, then would “deceive many” (Mat. 24:4,5).  These would be, and are, Satan’s false prophets on whom the people would depend for Bible truth.  The apostles worked diligently to counteract the damage being done among such prophets in the early church.

One of the false doctrines put forth by Satan’s messengers involved the message church leaders were to preach.  The conflict centered on the direction ministers were to take–whether to concentrate their sermons and teachings on the man Jesus, His life, ministry, death and resurrection, or on His message.  As we will see, God commanded that their focus was to be primarily on Christ’s message, not on Christ Himself.  However, the majority of church people wanted to hear about the Man and not the message.  There is a reason for this which we will examine later.

Today that emphasis continues to dominate the preaching and teaching of church leaders in every Catholic and Protestant sect.  As a result, only a tiny percentage (less than 1%) of church people have ever heard the “whole counsel (message) of God” that Paul and the other apostles preached (Acts 20:27) and God’s called and anointed apostles continue to preach today.

The vast majority of those within professing Christendom believe that the singular subject of the Holy Bible is “Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).  Isn’t that what the Apostle Paul wrote?  Let’s look at the context of that statement before we come to a conclusion.

In verse one Paul states that he came “declaring to you THE TESTIMONY (WITNESS) OF GOD.”  The testimony Paul preached was “THE (GOD’S ONLY) GOSPEL,”   In 1:6 the Gospel is called “the testimony of Christ,” meaning His testimony (witness).  In the previous verse the Gospel is called “all utterance and all knowledge.”  Clearly, the focus of the Gospel is the Gospel itself, not the Proclaimer of the Gospel.  In 2:6,7 the Gospel is called God’s “hidden wisdom.”  Jesus was never hidden.  His Words and acts were always out in the open.  The “cross of Christ” provided power for the preaching of the Gospel message followed by signs, wonders and miracles, which was made possible by making the Holy Spirit available to those whom God chose to be His messengers.  He told His first apostles: “You will receive power after the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My WITNESSES (message bearers) “… to the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 1:8).  Notice in the previous seven verses that Jesus had been meeting with them for 40 days during which He taught them “… the things concerning the KINGDOM OF GOD,” not the things about Himself (vs 3).

He then told them not to go out preaching immediately, but to wait in Jerusalem for the “promise of the Father” which would be the awarding of the Holy Spirit.  It was from that Spirit that they would receive power to be His “WITNESSES” throughout the world.  Those whom the apostles would not personably be able to reach with the Gospel their ministerial descendants would preach to until He would return to earth.  We who preach and minister His Gospel today are among those “sent ones” (apostles).

Concerning the focus of God’s ministers, consider Matthew 24:14 which Jesus proclaimed just before His death: “THIS GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM will be preached throughout the world AS A WITNESS to all nations, then the end will come.”  Notice that He said nothing about Himself.  They were to preach the kingdom message, which is the Gospel.  Of course they would tell the people Whose Gospel they were preaching and what He did to make it available.

Notice that the first time Christ’s message is identified was when He came into the region of Galilee “preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God,” not a gospel about Himself.  Note the following verse where He told the people to repent (for breaking the Law–1 Jn. 3:4) and “… BELIEVE THE GOSPEL” (OF THE KINGDOM).  Note that He placed the emphasis on the message, not the Messenger.  Nowhere in Scripture are we told to preach about Him personally, but about the Gospel of God’s kingdom and His part in providing it.  The purpose of the cross was for Jesus to take man’s sins upon Himself and to provide the Holy Spirit so that repentant man could, through the Spirit’s power, walk in holiness until death.  Only by keeping sin out of his life would man be allowed to enter the Kingdom of God which the Lord would establish following His return to earth.  Read The Message of the Cross and The Kingdom of God.  Key words–Message and Kingdom respectively.

Historically, the church has taken the admonition to “… believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you and your family will be saved” (Acts 18:25-34) to mean that believing on the Lord was all that was needed in order to be saved in this lifetime.  Here Paul was talking to a jailer who, upon witnessing a miracle, asked what he must do to be saved.  Paul told him to believe on Jesus.  However, as the following verses reveal, faith in Jesus was merely step one on the road to conversion (not salvation).  The jailer believed and took Paul to his home where he preached the Gospel to his family.  Why teach the Gospel if all they needed to do was to believe in Jesus?  The Apostle James answers that question in chapter two verses 10,14,16,17,18,20,24,26 where he tells us that FAITH WHITHOUT WORKS (OBEDIENCE TO THE GOSPEL) IS DEAD FAITH WHICH CANNOT SAVE THE SOUL.  In Acts 11:1-18 we find that Peter has been called to the home of a man whom an angel had told to send for him, and that he (Peter) would “… TELL YOU WORDS by which you can be saved.” (vs 14).  No doubt Peter shared the Gospel with the man and his family (vss 14,15), along with the Truth about the One Who had made it all possible by dying on a cross (stake).  Read Did Jesus Die on a Cross?  Key word–Cross.  And no doubt the families Paul and Peter preached to believed and OBEYED the Law they laid out clearly for them.  Obedience to the Law is the central theme of the Gospel message.

By virtue of the fact that Peter and Paul taught the Gospel to those people we know that faith in Jesus is not enough to affect conversion.  One must qualify for conversion by believing God’s Gospel, turning from one’s evil ways, walking in obedience to the Law and continuing to do so until the end.  Those who “… endure to the end (in obedience) will be saved” upon Christ’s return (Mat. 10:22).  Read Hope and Salvation.  Key word–Hope. L.J.