Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
1 Corinthians 15:1-2
If you were to take the massive story of the Bible and reduce it to it’s most crucial and important message, that message would be the Gospel. The Gospel is that Jesus died to save sinners. God has made provision for sinners like you and I to have a relationship with God by repenting of our sins and believing in Jesus. If we follow this Bible text, this Gospel is preached, received, stood upon, and has the power to save us. There is a condition: we must hold firmly to the message of that Gospel.
If we do not stand strongly upon this presentation of the Gospel, there is the danger that while we may think that we are saved, we may not be saved. Paul says we may have “believed in vain.” To alter the Gospel is to trust in the wrong thing for salvation.
By guarding our understanding of the Gospel, we know without any doubt what has saved us and who keeps us in His care. We are not saved because we try our best to be good. We are saved because Jesus was perfect. We’re not saved because of what we have done. We are saved because of what Jesus has done for us. We are not saved by anything we might add to Jesus. We are saved by Jesus alone and nothing else. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6-7).
