THE GOSPEL

     There's been a lot of talk lately about the Gospel and what it is, or isn't. If you're like me, you've heard a number of variations of gospel presentations and most are given by very sincere people who have learned methods of delivering a gospel presentation from church classes and Gospel tract steps. I won't bother you with my opinion that knowing the Bible is pretty important for giving the Gospel because I have a firm belief in the work of the Holy Spirit to interject His will when yours is a little nervous, but I will say this: knowing the Gospel yourself is vitally important to sharing it with someone else.


     Do you wonder why Gospel presentations are so different person to person and church to church? Sometimes they have such vast differences that it might lead you to think that the Gospel has changed since it was first delivered to early believers in the first century. But, in reality, the crux of the problem for man today is that in spite of man's own best efforts to tailor a gospel to his own desires, the Gospel today is the same as it has always been. Like Paul who led before us....we preach the resurrected Christ. The Gospel didn't change in the first three centuries after Jesus' death, burial, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of the Father even though false teachers had entered the church and tried to skew it to a works based effort. The Gospel didn't change when the Roman Church developed a method of penance and changed the Greek words into Latin words, thereby making 'turning to Christ' from the Greek to a more workable phrase for their designs, 'turning away from sin.' The Gospel didn't change during the reformation as Calvin and Luther struggled with prioritizing God's attributes and subsequently limiting God's Sovereignty to what man could understand. And finally, the Gospel has not changed today even though false teachers are again in the church making a man-centered gospel that is geared to drawing you in because God has a plan and a purpose for your life here.  It ain't about here.

     So exactly, what is the Gospel? What is John saying in John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."? What does Paul mean in Romans when he says the resurrected Christ? Is Peter on the same page when he states in 1Pet 1:3-5, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."


     Saving faith is the belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God who died and rose again to pay one's personal penalty for sin and the one who gives eternal life to all who trust Him and Him alone.


     The Gospel, literally translated Good News, has the object of Jesus Christ and the content of believing in Him as (1) The Son of God who died and rose again; (2) To pay your personal penalty for sin; (3) Thereby giving eternal life to all those who trust in Him for it; (4) and in Him alone.

     There were some three hundreds predictions that a Messiah would come and offer salvation to the world written hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus Christ was born. There is no doubt that He was born....the record of the Bible has stood every test of artifact and archeology it has been challenged with. Not only did Christians write about the life and death of Jesus Christ, but nonbelieving Jews, Romans, and Greeks filled page after page with the stories of this man who came and turned their world upside-down. The chances that one man could have fulfilled all of the prophecies of the Old Testament is calculated at 10 to the 2000th power. That's 10 followed by 2000 zeros that I know you are happy I didn't type out. Detailed prophecies such as where He would be born, from what family line He would come through, His betrayal by Judas, His beating and scourging, the piercing of His Hands and feet (predicted 600 years before crucifixion was known to mankind), being crucified with thieves, being given gall and vinegar, His burial in a rich man's tomb, and on and on and on.....


     Jesus' resurrection and post resurrection appearances were witnessed by over 500 people. It carried such an impact in the lives of those who knew Him that timid disciples who had left His tomb dejectedly three days prior and returned to their fishing became embolden Apostles who led thousands and thousands to Christ over the next few short years of their lives. Did I say short? Yes....short....all but one Apostle and many others were killed for the faith. Only the Apostle John, whom Jesus had entrusted with His mother, lived to a long life.


     What did all of this accomplish? Well, it was the perfect sacrifice that was required to pay for sin. The world's sin. My sin. Your sin too. Jesus was perfect, He led a sinless life and He laid it down upon the cross because you and I cannot. He beat death, He beat Satan and pronounced judgment upon Him, and He beat hell. No other person or faith has made that claimed and backed it up with a spotless record of historical records.


     God is a perfect God. Sin cannot enter heaven. It had to be paid for. Did you know that no one goes to hell for their sin? That's important to note because even with faith, people sin. You can't clean up enough before knowing Christ or afterwards to be acceptable in heaven or acceptable for forgiveness. Jesus' work in His death, burial, and resurrection is the only work that could accomplish was man never could. Try it...try to be sin free for one week. No anger, no bitterness, no sharp tongue, no immoral thoughts....nothing. I personally do very well until I get out of bed in the morning.

     To those that trust in Jesus for salvation, He gives eternal life. By faith we are made righteous. Some people say that a good God wouldn't send anyone to Hell....eternal destruction. But would a good God make them have fellowship with Him when they didn't want to? Hell is the natural outcome of a life that does not want God. It's honoring your request...to leave you to what you desire. Asking God to remove the consequences from your life after the fact is kind of like asking the judge not to charge you with a DUI and manslaughter because even though you knew you might get into an accident driving intoxicated....you didn't want to get into that accident and kill someone. Just like we set rules here, God has a nonnegotiable rule about fellowship. To have it later in eternity you must have had it now.


     Trusting in Jesus for your salvation is total. It's not Jesus and your works, Jesus and baptism, Jesus and anything else that man has come up with in history. It's trust in Jesus. That's why you cannot repent of your sin 'before' or 'in order to' be forgiven. If you could, then you could trust in that. You can't trust in baptism because that too would have something to do with you. You have to trust in Jesus. It's not easy....but it is also not fraught with a works based system that man has never been able to achieve. Jesus, and Jesus alone, made God accessible to the world.


     I share the Gospel sincerely and frequently for two reasons. One, because my faith and trust in Jesus Christ creates a heartache inside of me for your eternal condition. I am human here, despite my best efforts, and the thought of anyone going to the hell created not for man, but for Satan and his legion, wounds me. Two, because your salvation brings glory to a perfect Father who desires that none should reject him and perish. What a price He paid to accomplish that! What a shame should we not avail ourselves of what He so freely offers. You are not too good to go to hell. You are not too bad to go to heaven. You do not have forever to decide.






In Jesus' Name,
Liz