T. F. Torrance joins the chorus of pinnacle Reformed theologians who decry all conditional gospels as a false gospel. In evangelicalism today, the gospel is frequently preached in a conditional format, such that salvation will be received if and only if a personal decision is made to accept Jesus as savior. Reformed theologians have always preached against this false conditional gospel, and declared that the gospel of Jesus is entirely good news, and is not conditional upon any human decision or action or response whatsoever. Torrance rightly argues that placing a conditional before the gospel ultimately destroys the good news of the gospel, and annuals its power to save at all.

Torrance's conclusion is also affirmed by Jürgen Moltmann who said that "I accept Jesus Christ as my savior" diminishes the Gospel into an introverted and self-centered individualism, and that the gospel becomes indistinguishable from atheism because it makes the individual the ultimately determiner of their own destiny. Moltmann also rebuked the Laussanne Convenant's statement that "Those who reject Christ repudiate the joy of salvation and condemn themselves to eternal separation from God" because "Taken to a logical conclusion this is atheistic."

Likewise, Karl Barth corrected D. L. Moody and said that "the Apostles' never asked anyone to accept the gospel." Karl Barth also rebuked Billy Graham and said his evangelism "was the gospel at gun-point . . . He preached the law, not a message to make one happy. He wanted to terrify people. Threats—they always make an impression. People would much rather be terrified than be pleased. The more one heats up hell for them, the more they come running.'"

In The Mediation of Christ, T. F. Torrance explains why a conditional gospel is ultimately a false gospel:

The Gospel is preached in an unevangelical way, as happens so often in modern evangelicalism, when the preacher announces: This is what Jesus Christ has done for you, but you will not be saved unless you make your own personal decision for Christ as your Savior. Or: Jesus Christ loved you and gave his life for you on the Cross, but you will be saved only if you give your heart to him. In that event what is actually coming across to people is not the Gospel of unconditional grace but some other Gospel of conditional grace which belies the essential nature and content of the Gospel as it is in Jesus. It was that subtle legalist twist to the Gospel which worried St. Paul so much in his Epistle to the Galatians, a distortion of the truth which can easily take a 'gentile' as well as a 'Jewish' form. To preach the Gospel in that conditional or legalistic way has the effect of telling poor sinners that in the last resort the responsibility for their salvation is taken off the shoulders of the Lamb of God and placed upon them—but in that case they feel that they will never be saved. They know perfectly well in their own hearts that if the chain that binds them to God in Jesus Christ has as even one of its links their own feeble act of decision, then the whole chain is as weak as that, its weakest link. They are aware that the very self who is being called upon to make such a momentous decision requires to be saved, so that the preaching of the Gospel would not really be good news unless it announced that in his unconditional love and grace Jesus Christ had put that human self, that ego of theirs, on an entirely different basis by being replaced at that crucial point by Jesus Christ himself. [p93]

The Reformed tradition has been a strong opponent to the conditional Gospel in evangelicalism. Unfortunately, New Calvinism has been a disruptive voice in evangelicalism because it has fallen victim to the "legalist twist to the Gospel" that T. F. Torrance mentioned in warning. The New Calvinism rightly emphasizes that the gospel is good news due to the election of god. Karl Barth agrees and said "The doctrine of election is the sum of the Gospel because of all the words that can be said or heard it is the best: that God elects man; that God is for man too the One who loves in freedom. It is grounded in the knowledge of Jesus Christ because He is both the electing God and elected man in One. (CD II/2)." However, New Calvinism has embraced a false legalistic Gospel by excluding and condemning Christians who do not conform to their legal code, and it has produced statements and condemnations that are not good news but ultimately a dystopian gospel of bad news. I'd like to remind the New Calvinists that they do not have a hegemony on the Calvinist and Reformed tradition, and remind them that all the Reformed creeds have extended grace to the heathens (including people who have no accepted Christianity at all).

Sources:

1. Thomas Forsyth Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, (Helmers & Howard Publishers; Revised edition: 1992), p. 93