Book Review: The Two Gospels | by Lance Latham

The author Lance B. Latham (1894-1985) was a strong proponent of Free Grace theology and one of the original founding members of New Tribes Mission (now Ethnos360). He was for many years the pastor of The Northside Gospel Center in Chicago, Illinois. He collaborated with Art Rorheim, the church's youth director, to develop weekly children's clubs. These clubs laid the foundation for the organization they co-founded in 1950, then known as the Awana Youth Association, and today as Awana Clubs International. Mr. Latham was affectionately known to his friends and colleagues simply as "Doc". For more information on Lance Latham's life and ministry, see the biography by Dave Breese titled Lance: A Testament of Grace.

I recently purchased Lance Latham's book The Two Gospels (Rolling Meadows, IL: Awana Youth Association, 1984), and read it with great eagerness and anticipation. Reading through the book made me feel as if I was back at New Tribes Bible Institute again. What a refreshing breath of Free Grace! In this short review, I'd like to highlight a few key thoughts from the book and share several excerpts. The first quote I'd like to share is in regards to how we are saved freely by God's grace. "Doc" Latham writes:

Believing on Christ is distinctly not "turning the direction of your life over to Him." It is looking in faith to our Saviour crucified for our sins on Calvary! It is not of works, devotion or full surrender. It is His work and His death that avails. 

Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law (Rom. 3:28). 

Let Romans 3:24 sink into your heart: 

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. 

This is solid ground; for "My hope is built on nothing less (or more) than Jesus' blood and righteousness." 

When the church lost this beautiful truth, it sank into backsliding and serious decadence. It still had buildings, crosses, candles and black robes, but was spiritually dead, devoid of the truth. The essence, therefore, of spiritual reality is not in the externals of religion, but rather in the internal reality of a sincere faith in the clear teaching of the Word of God. 

We are fast approaching (if we have not reached) the place in our present age where these distinctive truths found in the book of Romans and in the balance of New Testament Scripture must again be "rediscovered." Methods and approaches will not do . . . it is the message that counts!

The doctrine of justification by faith is so provocative that it creates a question for many. "Will not belief in the grace of God alone produce a licentious living on the part of the people?" "Perhaps the people of God will live presumptuous lives when they realize that they are saved by grace and not by works." 

We find the remarkable answer as we continue to consider the book of Romans. 

[. . .]

In reading Romans 3 and 4, the great central passage on our justification, we find no words about the necessity of reforming our lives or forsaking our sins in order to obtain that justification. "Turning away" from our sins is mentioned after the matter of our justification is fully settled. 

Paul asks the rhetorical question, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?" (Rom. 6:1). 

As William P. Mackay writes in his book Grace and Truth: "Unless the gospel we preach, when presented to the natural mind, bring forth such a question, it is another Gospel than Paul's."¹

I love that statement by W. P. Mackay because he's basically saying that any gospel or system of theology that does not prompt a person to ask the question "Shall we continue in sin that grace might increase?" (implying that it is possible) is not biblical grace! The grace that Paul preached sounded dangerous enough to provoke the question.

Contrary to what some people think, the grace of God actually teaches Christians to "deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world" (Titus 2:12). The following true story illustrates this truth and is excerpted from Latham's book The Two Gospels.

"All The Stones In Stonyford"

* * *

The message of the gospel of the grace of God, over the years, has stood the test. When one considers a given message or ministry, he has the right to ascertain if it has produced results. One of the great delights of my life is to witness the life-changing power of the message of the gospel of the grace of God and the results that it has produced over the years.

For the past 40 years, I have had the privilege of being associated with the New Tribes Mission. This association began at their very inception, and has continued blessedly down through more than four exciting decades. The very first committee held its first meeting at our Camp Mishawana in Michigan. New Tribes Mission today has over 2000 missionaries in the field and in the homeland who are true to the gospel of grace.

Very shortly after the founding of the mission, a camp for training missionaries was founded at Fouts Springs near Stonyford, California.

Three brothers came with different backgrounds and seemed disturbed by our teaching. They believed in the shed blood of the Son of God as God's payment for sin and that Jesus was truly God's son and God. However, they believed that they had to deny themselves to be sure of their salvation.

We all worked physically on the grounds a few hours everyday. A real job had been undertaken by the mission at our "boot camp" in Fouts Springs. There were about 300 people on the grounds and among them many children. The necessity of a school became very evident. Preparing the ground, a mass of stones, sand and clay, involved removing many rocks of all sizes.

One brother saw the truth of Scripture in that task. "Doc, to move all the sins out of our lives before we get saved would be harder than getting all the stones out of Stonyford!" Many people try to do things that are absolutely impossible. We could confess and remove sins to the day of our death, yet never reach a standard of perfection that a Holy God could accept.

The burden of the brothers' conviction that they must add something to Calvary as the payment of sin was gone. The penances, the self-castigation, the fastings to ease their consciences disappeared. Instead, they became intensely interested in their Bibles, and spent hours and hours delighting themselves in the Word of God.

They became missionaries to Japan, rather they became citizens of Japan. They took no furloughs, so as the years went by their support began to diminish.

The Lord eventually opened up the opportunity for them to start a Japanese-English School, and an orphanage. The revenue became enough to take care of all their needs.

Now they send missionaries to other countries. A great work, started from observing the similarity of eliminating all the stones from a stream and trying to get all the sins out of a life. "Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified" (Rom. 3:20).²

References:

¹ Lance B. Latham, The Two Gospels (Rolling Meadows, IL: Awana Youth Association, 1984), pp. 54-55, emphasis his, second ellipsis added.

² Ibid., pp. 62-64, emphasis his. See under the heading: "All The Stones In Stonyford".