𝐂𝐥𝐮𝐛 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐲: 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐥 𝐆𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐋𝐢𝐦𝐩
Having just completed 10
years of part time study with the Presbyterian Theological College in Victoria,
a highlight for me was reading church history. Not just the accounts of events,
but the way the Reformers particularly were often savage with their attacks on
what I will call here “sub gospel” proclamation. I quickly learnt that in 21st
century academia the Reformers would have failed their courses!
Now, it is true, my personality
leads me to shy away from such writing. In fact, truth be told, I would prefer
to avoid writing something this direct, but the Reformers leave me no such
luxury. They are, after all, part of the great cloud of witnesses Hebrews
reminds us of. They did not whisper about a diminished gospel. They named it,
opposed it, and, at times, exposed the men who preached it.
At the heart of the
matter stood the apostolic warning: “If anyone preaches another gospel… let him
be accursed” (Galatians 1:8). The Reformers believed this was not a relic of
the first century, but a living criterion for the church in every age.
Ten years of association
with the preaching within the Presbyterian Church of Victoria have shocked me.
It is more than just bad preaching that has more in common with Semi-Pelagianism
than Presbyterianism. It is also the system that protects the status quo. Club
Pressy seems an apt name. A closed circle in which preaching is rarely
examined, sin is gently redefined, and Christ is offered without His offence,
so long as the machinery of church life continues undisturbed.
Yet, the very history Presbyterians claim as their own, the Protestant Reformation, gives hope that perhaps God will move again. What do I mean?
Martin Luther stands as the clearest example. In his 1520 treatise The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, he did not merely critique abuses. He declared that the sacramental system of Rome had “captivated” the gospel itself, turning grace into a managed commodity. Against indulgence preachers like Johann Tetzel, Luther charged that they offered forgiveness without repentance and assurance without Christ. In his lectures on Galatians, he sharpened the blade further, calling such teaching “a false gospel,” insisting that wherever justification by faith alone is obscured, Christ Himself is displaced. He did not hesitate to identify those responsible.
Now look at that list. The offer of forgiveness without repentance? My immediate thought is, “how can you repent if you are a victim”? I say this because sermon after sermon, sin is presented in therapeutic terms. And to sweeten the deal, Christ is presented for the benefits he gives for the enhanced life he could give, not for Himself and his worth.
John Calvin carried the same conviction into a more systematised theology. In the Institutes of the Christian Religion, he argued that the true church is recognised by “the pure preaching of the gospel.” That phrase did real work. It meant that preaching could exist, even flourish outwardly, and yet fail at its centre. Calvin spoke of Rome as presenting “another Christ,” not because Christ was denied outright, but because He was mediated through human merit and sacramental machinery. In his sermons and commentaries, Calvin repeatedly warned that when ministers soften sin, obscure judgment, or relocate righteousness into the believer’s cooperation, they are not merely imprecise. They are corrupting the gospel itself. The logical conclusion, when Calvin’s thoughts are contrasted with much of modern Presbyterian preaching, is the gospel is being corrupted.
John Knox brought this into the public square with a sharper edge. In The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women and his letters to the Scottish church, Knox openly rebuked clergy who maintained outward religion while preaching a compromised message. He warned the “commonalty” not to trust ministers who flattered rather than convicted, who offered peace without repentance. Knox did not treat such preaching as a secondary defect. He treated it as a betrayal of souls.
At one level, this all sounds severe. At another, it is painfully ordinary, like discovering that a doctor has replaced medicine with flavoured water and still calls it treatment. The Reformers believed that a “sub-gospel” does precisely this. It retains the language of Christ, grace, and salvation, yet empties them of their saving force.
And so for the Reformers, practice followed their theology. They publicly named error, identified its sources, and warned the church. Not because they relished controversy, but because they believed the gospel itself was at stake.
If their tone unsettles us, it may be because we have grown accustomed to a gentler failure. Yet the question they press remains: if the gospel is altered in its substance, what exactly is left for the sinner to trust?
