In recent years many professed ministers of the gospel have relegated "the gospel of God concerning His Son" to the archives as out-of-date and only suitable for a place among the records of the past. In its place they have evolved what they call a "social gospel." Now "the gospel of God concerning His Son" is just exactly suited to the needs of lost people who are sinners on the road to death, and then to judgment, and who are in themselves helpless; but this innovation—the social gospel—offers no such remedy. It is plainly infidel in spirit for it denies the fall of man, God's just retribution for sin, and the atoning sacrifice of Christ as the only avenue of escape.
Let us speak plainly; this "new" gospel, which is not good news at all, is the devil's lie. It is but a variation of the serpent's lie in the Garden of Eden; there he called in question what God had plainly said, and insinuated that God was not good in withholding a certain fruit from man; now he says that God would not be good if He punished the unrepentant sinner, and so he undermines (in the minds of men—not in reality) the fact of judgment to come. His lie tells people that they are not lost and ruined, but basically good, and that the atoning work of Christ is of no value. Thus Christianity is falsified and made only a means of improving a doomed world and concealing the corruption that underlies what men call civilization. But as Eve listened to his lie and fell, so thousands upon thousands are doing likewise now and, although calling themselves Christians, are hastening onward to that place "prepared for the devil and his angels."
Recently a noted Jewish rabbi—a man who does not accept Christianity, nor believe that Jesus was the Christ—looked over present day Christianity, as commonly understood by the social gospel, and compared it with the New Testament account of the words and deeds of the Lord Jesus. His conclusion was that Jesus did not preach such a gospel for He did not try to reform the world or to correct the corrupt practices of the Roman Empire, but instead devoted His efforts to the salvation of men. His opinion seemed to be that Jesus was not what Christendom understands Him to be, and that His teachings were incongruous with the present day concepts of Christianity.
Surely this rabbi, an opponent of Jesus, sees more clearly than the "blind leaders of the blind" in Christendom that the widespread modernism of the day is incompatible with the gospel as found in the New Testament. But it is "wolves in sheep's clothing" who are out of step with the truth of God, not the reverse. This brings to mind what God said about conditions in Israel in the days of Jeremiah: