What Does It Mean To Be Ashamed Of The Gospel?

The Apostle Paul wrote he was not ashamed of the gospel, but what did he mean?

Denying Christ

Jesus once said something that must have made everyone in the audience shudder. He said, “I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household” (Matt 10:35-36), so “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt 10:37). Jesus is telling the audience (and ultimately, us) that following Him is not going to be easy. In fact, it will be costly and may cause you to be disowned by your family and friend, and as a man recently told me who lives in Pakistan, his family shunned him after he told them about Jesus and then his employer fired him, and he now lives in the street, so this man certainly didn’t deny Jesus, even though it cost him dearly. This man must have understood, that “whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Matt 10:38), so we can understand the context in which Jesus warns that “everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven” (Matt 10:32-33). Denying Jesus Christ in this life means Jesus will deny them before the Father on the Day of Judgment.

Known by Christ

The Apostle Paul was obsessed with knowing Christ and sharing in His sufferings, not because he had a martyr’s complex, but in order to know Him better (Phil 3:10), and certainly Paul was known to Jesus because He called him on the Damascus Road, and repeated his name, “Saul, Saul,” which God always does with those He has a close relationship with, but it is infinitely more important that Jesus know you than you know Jesus. It is one thing to claim you know Jesus but another to say, He knows you. Jesus said, “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matt 7:22-23). Of course, Jesus, being God, knows everything, but when the Bible mentions knowing someone, it means it in a way that is more intimate and not just head knowledge. Jesus didn’t say, “I didn’t know you well enough” or “I wish I’d known you better,” but “I never knew you!” Here is an example. When God was doing extraordinary miracles through Paul (Acts 19:11-12), “some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims” (Acts 19:13), so how did it go? They used the “Jesus whom Paul proclaims” as having authority, but they didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus, and is essential if you desire to enter the kingdom (John 6:44; Acts 4:12), so if you have to go through someone else like the Sons of Sceva did, that’s not a very close relationship and the Seven Sons of Sceva learned this the hard way because the demons said, “the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded” (Acts 19:15-16). The demons knowing you are another indication that Jesus knows you, which is why the armor of God is made available (Eph 6). If you are doing enough in the kingdom to make the enemy angry, you’ll know it! To know Jesus is not enough. I know the president, but he doesn’t know me, and I doubt very much he would let me just waltz right into the White House. No, only until he knows me can I come in and not the other way around. In this context, if you don’t do the things commanded of Jesus (Matt 25:34-39), you are doing it to Him (Matt 25:40), if not, then you are doing nothing for Him (Matt 25:41-45) and it is unlikely He knows you.

Unashamed of the Gospel

The Apostle Paul proved by the marks on his body that he was not ashamed of the gospel. Obviously he wasn’t or he wouldn’t have endured such treatment. Instead, he could say, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom 1:16). Paul also acknowledged that the power of God is present within the gospel, writing, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1st Cor 1:18). To not be ashamed of the gospel means you have a public profession of your faith at believer’s baptism. Your family, friends, and co-workers clearly know you are a believer. People won’t be shocked upon hearing at your death that you were a Christian. A sin of omission can be worse than a sin of commission; the sin of silence in proclaiming Christ. Our worldly lifestyle and love of the world denies we’re Christ’s and our being no different from the world is being ashamed of the gospel, so ashamed in fact, that its denied before others in word and deed by the way we live.

Conclusion

I must admit that for many years I was a “pew potato.” I was only interested in getting into holy huddles, but a church must evangelize or fossilize, they must “Go” in order to grow. They must preach the pure, unadulterated Word of God, adding nothing and taking nothing away and preach about repentance, holiness, hell, sanctification, the blood of the Lamb, and so forth (Rom 10:9-13). Those who are ashamed of the gospel all their life will one day be ashamed of rejecting it, much like what the Prophet Daniel wrote, “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever” (Dan 12:2-3). Someday, we will see “he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him” (Rev 1:7), so the Apostle John’s advice is, “abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming” (1st John 2:28).

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is host of Spiritual Fitness and also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.