The Four Fold Gospel
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Introduction
In November 1881 A. B. Simpson resigned from his prestigious NY City pastorate to begin a spiritual movement to reach NY City’s overlooked nonbelievers. The movement grew into an Alliance of believers building churches here in the US and in unreached foreign lands. The movement eventually grew into a new protestant denomination - The Christian and Missionary Alliance. The idea was to draw together believers who were seeking a deeper life in Jesus.
Through his deep encounters with Jesus, including a miraculous physical healing, A. B. wrote The Fourfold Gospel—a summary of the depths of grace and love Jesus provides us as our Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King. This work ran like “a rich vein of gold” throughout his preaching and teaching. It is the foundation for the “deeper life” Simpson was passionate for every believer to experience—greater intimacy with Jesus that overflows in our daily lives with Holy Spirit empowerment to overcome personal sin and fulfill God’s plans and purposes.
So what is the Four Fold Gospel of Savior, Sanctifier, Healer and Coming King?
These are the four basic tenants of A.B. Simpsons theology about Jesus. When the Alliance began it was made up of people from all the Christian denominations. -------- It allowed for a harmonious gathering of these different denominations without having a lot of denominational requirements getting in the way. A.B. simply boiled the Christian faith down to the bare bones. What follows is an over view of each tenant of the Four Fold Gospel.
The First is:
Savior
Savior
What is a Savior?
Savior — someone who rescues something from danger or violence; especially used of Christ as the one who rescued His people from their sins and the resulting danger of judgment.
11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,
12 instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age,
13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,
14 who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.
What happens when Jesus becomes our Savior?
In his book the Four Fold Gospel A.B. Simpson lists 8 things that we are saved from through Christ Jesus as our Savior. He begins with the fact that He takes away the guilt of sin, and the list ends with the fact that salvation saves us from eternal death.
A.B. Simpson goes on to list 8 things that we receive when we accept Christ as our Savior. This list begins with the fact that salvation brings us justification in the sight of God, and it ends with the fact that salvation brings to us eternal life.
If you don’t know what justification means it is: A Christian doctrine concerning how believers are declared to be in the right with God through their faith in Jesus Christ
These lists point to the fact that we are all in need of a Savior. We will all be judged by God - and there is only one name by which we may be saved.
12 “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”
If you have not accepted Christ Jesus as Savior then do so - the list of things we are saved from is not a list I would want to partake in. Especially the one that says we are saved from the wrath of God.
The Second is Sanctifier:
Sanctifier
Sanctifier
To sanctify — to make as dedicated to God; either in becoming more distinct, devoted, or morally pure.
12 Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate.
13 So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.
Sanctification is basically separating from sin and conforming us to the likeness of Christ Jesus.
How are we sanctified?
We are sanctified by Christ Jesus when we receive the free gift which Christ Jesus paid for on the cross. Initial sanctification sets us apart as a child of God and progressive sanctification makes us grow more Christ like or more morally pure over time.
The third idea is Healer:
Healer
Healer
To be healed — to be or become in a state of freedom from illness or injury after having been ill or injured, sometimes abstractly.
23 Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.
24 The news about Him spread throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all who were ill, those suffering with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics; and He healed them.
25 Large crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.
So Jesus is our Healer - but what does A.B. Simpson say about it.
Simpson describes Divine healing in his book the Four Fold gospel first by providing a list of 10 things that Divine healing is not. Number one on the list is: Divine healing is not medical healing. Number 10 on the list is: Divine healing is not a mercenary medical profession that men adopt as they would adopt a trade or profession in order to make something out of it.
Many of the items listed were a response to ideas that at the time were prevalent about what divine healing was and how it could be used for monetary gain or to lead people to Christ through miraculous wonders.
Next Simpson provides a list of ten things that Divine healing is. First on the list is: “It is the supernatural Divine power of God infused into human bodies, renewing their strength and replacing the weakness of suffering human frames by the life and power of God. It is a touch of the Divine omnipotence, and nothing short of it.”
Number ten on the list is: “Divine healing is one of the signs of the age. It is the forerunner of Christ's coming. It is God's answer to the infidelity of today. Man may try to reason it down with the force of his intellect. God meets it with this unanswerable proof of His power.”
Why are we healed by Jesus?
4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
Jesus paid for our healing with His blood. We can’t pay for it, we can’t make it happen. The healing is a gift that must be accepted by faith.
The fourth idea is Coming King:
Coming King
Coming King
What does it mean when we call Jesus our coming King?
Well - a king is: — a male sovereign ruler of a kingdom.
So as a coming King Jesus is going to come again to set up a kingdom which He will reign over.
According to the Statement of Faith for the Christian and Missionary Alliance His return will be:
“The Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is imminent and will be personal, visible, and premillennial. This is the believer’s blessed hope and is a vital truth which is an incentive to holy living and faithful service.”
This one small paragraph contains a wealth of information to explain and support the theology of Christ Jesus as our Coming King.
The big question - When is He coming? The answer: Only God Knows!
7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority;
Even Jesus didn’t know when He would be coming. Only the Father.
Closing
That is the Four Fold Gospel in a nut shell. I have kept the information for each part short. I will do a full message on each of the four ideas in the coming weeks. The thing to remember is that this is foundation of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. It allows us to focus on Jesus as our Savior, Sanctifier, Healer and Coming King and to leave a lot of denominational doctrine out of the message. This is the bare bones of theology. We don’t need to add a lot of extra rules. Through the Four Fold Gospel we can keep Jesus at the fore front of our message, for it is only through the name of Jesus that we may be saved. And through the message we can keep the Alliance mission and vision as our mission and vision. Part of the vision is to be children of God who are seeking a deeper life in Christ Jesus and to fulfill His Great Commission around the globe. Whenever you hear His voice do what He says - if He says “Go” then “Go.”
I got this quote off the Christian and Missionary Alliance website:
The Alliance mission and vision are rooted in the call to a deeper life in Christ formed during our early days, which continues to fuel our call to “go” wherever and whenever God leads.
The Alliance mission and vision are rooted in the call to a deeper life in Christ formed during our early days, which continues to fuel our call to “go” wherever and whenever God leads.