The Gospel According to Jesus

Book: The Gospel According to Jesus

Author: Marc Carrier

What if the very foundations of your faith were compromised? The Gospel According to Jesus contrasts the simple Gospel presented by our Lord Jesus Christ with the widely held “gospel” derived from theologians through history. In this book, you will be confronted with succinct, yet irrefutable biblical and historical evidence challenging some of the core doctrinal beliefs held by modern Evangelicals. And in the end, a decision will be required: who will you believe? Jesus or the theologians?

Foreword

For centuries, most churches have been preaching a message of “easy-believism.” Just say a short prayer and invite Jesus into your heart, and you will be born again as a result. Heaven is absolutely guaranteed to you. (At least, that’s what we’re told.) It’s not hard to see why churches preaching this easy gospel have no problem making lots of converts. But is this really the gospel that Jesus preached?

If today’s gospel of easy-believism is authentic, then why did Jesus tell His apostles, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him” (John 14:21). That certainly sounds like being a true Christian involves more than having said the “sinner’s prayer” at some time in your life. An obedient love-faith relationship with Jesus Christ is also required.

In The Gospel According to Jesus: Unwrapping Centuries of Confusion, Marc Carrier sets forth in a clear manner the historic gospel of Christianity. This is the gospel that Jesus preached, and it’s the gospel that the early Christians preached. It’s part of the “faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Although Marc sets forth this gospel in a succinct manner, everything he says is firmly supported by the words of Jesus as well as by the writings of the apostles.

But please don’t imagine that what you’re about to read is merely Marc’s personal interpretation of Jesus’ words. No what Marc presents can be corroborated by literally hundreds—if not thousands—of quotations from the early Christians who lived shortly after the apostles died. Marc’s presentation may sound strange to some modern ears, but it would not have sounded the least bit strange to the men and women who personally heard the apostles teach and who could read the New Testament in their own native Greek. These were Christians who belonged to the churches the apostles founded, and many of them willingly died as martyrs for Christ and His gospel.

My prayer is that Marc’s small book will arouse your interest and that, like the Bereans, you will search the Scriptures and the record of history to see if these things are really so.

David W. Bercot, editor of A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs and author of several books including Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up, The Kingdom that Turned the World Upside Down, and Will the Theologians Please Sit Down.