October 23 Daily Devotional

The whole gospel—for the whole man

We must have the full message ... ‘deliver the whole counsel of God’.... It starts with the Law. The Law of God ... the demands of a righteous God, the wrath of God. That is the way to bring men and women to conviction; not by modifying the Truth.... We must confront them with the fact that they are men, and that they are fallible men, that they are dying men, that they are sinful men, and that they will all have to stand before God at the Bar of Eternal Judgement....

And then we must present to them the full-orbed doctrine of the Grace of God in Salvation in Jesus Christ. We must show that no man is saved ‘by the deeds of the Law’, by his own goodness or righteousness, or church membership or anything else, but solely, utterly, entirely by the free gift of God in Jesus Christ His Son.... We must preach the full-orbed doctrine leaving nothing out—conviction of sin, the reality of Judgement and Hell, free grace, justification, sanctification, glorification.

We must also show that there is a world view in the Bible... that here alone you can understand history—past history, present history, future history. Let us show this great world view, and God’s Eternal purpose....

Let us at the same time be very careful that we are giving it to the whole man ... the gospel is not only for a man’s heart, that you start with his head and present Truth to it.... Let us show that it is a great message given by God which we in turn pass on to the mind, to the heart, to the will. There is ever this danger of leaving out some part or other of man’s personality.... Let us be certain that we address the whole man—his mind, his emotions and his will.

The Weapons of our Warfare, pp. 21–2