The Gospel According to Abraham - Glenn Conjurske
The Gospel According to Abraham
by Glenn Conjurske
Galatians 3:8 informs us that the gospel was preached to Abraham: “And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.” All real gospel preaching contains two elements, namely, conditions to be fulfilled by man, and promises to be fulfilled by God. This is clear in many scriptures. “Repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations.” (Luke 24:47). “Repent ye therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.” (Acts 3:19). “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” (Acts 16:31). “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” (Rom. 10:9). Every scripture, of course, does not state every promise, nor does every scripture state every condition. Some scriptures state only the promise, or only the condition, but the other is always implied.
Thus the gospel is something to be obeyed, and also something to be believed. The conditions call for obedience. The promises call for faith. Since no one in our day doubts the part about faith, I say no more about that. As for obedience, we read in Romans 10:16, “But they have not all obeyed the gospel.” In II Thessalonians 1:7-8, “The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Christ is “the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.” (Heb. 5:9).
Both the conditions and the promises are clearly stated in the gospel preached to Abraham, though Paul quotes only the promise, and only part of it, as suits his present purpose. The whole passage from which he quotes is as follows: “Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” (Gen. 12:1-3). In this we plainly see both conditions and promises, and Abraham both believed and obeyed. “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.” (Rom. 4:3). “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.” (Heb. 11:8).
What did the gospel consist of, which was preached to Abraham? It consisted of present self-denial with a view to future reward. It consisted of the command of God to give up his present portion, and the promise of God of a future inheritance. Its first word was “get thee out”—-“from thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house.” That is, Abraham must give up his present portion, forsake it, and leave it behind him. This was of course the condition of receiving the future inheritance, and obedience belongs as much to faith as does expectation of the promised blessing. “By faith Abraham…obeyed, and he went out.” He set his eye upon the promised inheritance, and gave up his present portion. This obedience was not optional. The Bible knows nothing of an unconditional gospel, though some in our day think they have discovered one, and most others have contracted the conditions down to almost nothing. “Faith” they call this, but it is not the faith of the Bible, but the faith of devils. Nay, it is not even the faith of devils, for the devils “believe and tremble,” while many evangelicals and fundamentalists, who profess to be saved by “faith alone,” believe and laugh and play, and no more obey than the devil does. I spoke once with a young man who claimed salvation through faith, but whose faith had nothing to do with obedience, for he was living in open sin. I asked him, “What if Noah had believed God but refused to build the ark?” He replied, “God would have saved him anyway.” Here is the modern delusion which is peddled from pulpits everywhere as “salvation by faith.”
Abraham’s faith was another thing. By faith he expected the inheritance, and by faith he obeyed the condition. The condition was present self-denial, and his obedience to that condition determined the course of his whole earthly life. He set his eye upon “a place which he should after receive for an inheritance,” but of which he never received so much as to set his foot upon in this life. He therefore lived a life of self-denial. He not only “went out, not knowing whither he went,” but “By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles [tents, that is] with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.” (Heb. 11:8-9). Thus Abraham lived in accordance with the gospel which was preached unto him.
Abraham also preached the same gospel. We have no record of his preaching it during his earthly life, but when he had departed this life and gone to paradise, and when he had dwelt for centuries in that place of love and light, we see him then preaching the same gospel which he had heard, and by which he had lived, during his life on the earth. It is the same old gospel of present self-denial as the way to the future inheritance. Nor can we find a stronger statement of it anywhere in the Bible than we hear in the words of Abraham from paradise: “Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.” (Luke 16:25). Here it is, as plain as the light. Present self-denial, future reward. Present self-indulgence, future torment. The present cross, the future crown. No cross, no crown. Hating my life in this world, and keeping it unto life eternal. Loving my life, and losing it.
This is the same gospel which was preached by the Lord Jesus Christ. And why did he here draw back the curtain of paradise and bring forth to our view this declaration of Abraham, except to place his stamp of approval upon it? And why, after the precious blood of Christ was shed, the atonement made for the sins of the world, and the Saviour entered into the holy place to make intercession for us, why did the Spirit of God then record these words in the Scriptures of truth, except that they might be preached to the whole world till the end of time? It is unthinkable that Abraham could have spoken anything but the truth from his vantage point, and it is equally unthinkable that the Lord Jesus Christ would have retrieved these words from their utter oblivion, and brought them forth into the clear light of day, unless they were the truth of God. They are the truth of God, and the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Their message is this:
You have a choice to make. Will you have your good things in this life, or in the life to come? Will you love your life in this world, and lose it, or hate your life in this world, and keep it unto life everlasting? (John 12:25). Will you be rich and full and laugh now, and mourn and weep and hunger then, or deny yourself and weep now, and laugh and be filled then? (Luke 6:20-25). You have no other choice, if the Lord Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, preached the truth of God. And you who prate so much about salvation by faith, what is that faith worth which will not so much as believe the most solemn words of the very Son of God, but lives just as though he had never spoken them?
D. L. Moody used to tell of a Sunday school boy who, when the class was asked if they would rather be the rich man or Lazarus, replied, “I would rather be the rich man while I live, and Lazarus when I die.” The shrewd little fellow has a myriad of followers in the modern evangelical church, but every one of them is going to discover in the end that they were not so shrewd after all. You cannot be the rich man while you live and Lazarus when you die. You have a choice to make. It cannot be both. It must be one or the other. It must be present self-denial and the future inheritance, or present self-indulgence and future torment. There is no other choice, for the gospel according to Abraham is the gospel of the Son of God.
Glenn Conjurske
