Even making all due allowance for the passage of 2000 years, changes in cultural aspirations, and so on, since man is the same as he has been since the Fall, and since the gospel is unchangeable, the essence of what is preached must likewise remain unchanged. Essential key words – scriptural words and all their meanings – must not be lost; words such as propitiation, wrath, sin, condemnation, justification, repentance, faith, redemption, atonement, and the like. They contain and convey the essence of the gospel. If they are lost, all is lost. Moreover, we have to insist on the biblical realities these words speak of.1 The crux of the problem is not losing merely the vocabulary; the essence of the gospel is intimately tied into the language. |