Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Preserving Purity

As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! (Gal 1:9).
It is not a matter of small importance whether we preserve the purity of the gospel. The chief dangers to Christianity do not come from the anti-Christian systems. Mohammedianism has never made inroads upon Christendom save by the sword. Nobody fears that Christianity will be swallowed up by Buddhism. It is corrupt forms of Christianity itself which menace from time to time the life of Christianity.

Why make much of minor points of difference among those who serve the one Christ? Because a pure gospel is worth preserving; and is not only worth preserving, but is logically (and logic will always work itself ultimately out into history) the only saving gospel. Those who overlay the gospel with man-made additions, no less than those who subtract from it God-given elements, are not preaching "the gospel" in another form, but are offering a different kind of gospel, which is essentially no gospel at all.
- B.B. Warfield, "The Dogmatic Spirit"

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