The Message of The Gospel

The Gospel.

As I see it presented, discussed and interpreted in some blogs, the message of the gospel is made out to be so overly complicated, who could understand it? Or, by contrast, it's reduced to practically nothing, so who really needs it?

It seems to me that the Scriptures are very, very clear on who God is, on man in relation to Him, on sin, repentance, forgiveness and salvation.

Everything - as in E.V.E.R.T.H.I.N.G. - begins and ends in God. God is. I AM

I am the LORD, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides Me. I am the LORD, and there is no other, The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these. "Drip down, O heavens, from above, And let the clouds pour down righteousness; let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit, And righteousness spring up with it. I, the LORD, have created it. "Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker -- An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter, 'What are you doing?' Or the thing you are making say,'He has no hands'? "Woe to him who says to a father, 'What are you begetting?' Or to a woman, 'To what are you giving birth?' " Isaiah 45:5-10

Wow - this and many other passages just like it ought to cause us to tremble at the Great God and Maker of this universe and everything in it.

And despite what some teachings would claim, God wasn't so lonely or desperate that He created man because He looooonnnnged for fellowship with him. Throughout the Bible, we see that everything He does is for the purpose of making known His glory. Good reference tools are Crosswalk.com and BibleGateway.com. Do a search on "glory" and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Without turning this post into a thesis paper, I'll simply say the Scriptures teach that human beings are depraved sinners. We're this way by nature via birth. 'Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned'-- Romans 5:12. In other words, because Adam (the 'one man') disobeyed God, the DNA of the entire human race became fractured. So again, despite bad teaching, we are not born "good" and become "bad" through upbringing and environment.

See also Romans 3.

Because we are depraved sinners, we cannot have a relationship with a just, holy and righteous God; we cannot know Him, and we cannot spend eternity with Him. We cannot be 'good enough' to earn His favor; we have nothing to offer Him - e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. is ALREADY His; we have nothing with which to barter. We are helpless and hopeless in our wicked, sinful, depraved state. And we're headed for hell without His merciful intervention.

But...

He is merciful; He is gracious, and He is loving. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

See this whole passage in Romans 5.

Read Ephesians 2, too!

God condescended. He sent His Son to live on this earth. To absorb His wrath. To die so that we might be saved. 'He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. ' 2 Cor 5:21

The Bible teaches that we must repent. And that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Acts 2:21

Good News, indeed.

Maybe in reading this, God has begun to stir your heart. Perhaps this writing is just one tiny thing in a string of events that God has used or is using to draw you to Himself. I wouldn't really know. But He does. And you do.

Paul's Gospel

¹²I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, ¹³though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, ¹⁴and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. ¹⁶But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. ¹⁷To the King of ages, immortal,invisible,the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. - 1 Timothy 1:12-17 [ESV]

In Matthew 23 Christ describes the Pharisees as traveling land and sea to make a single convert, and that when a Pharisee finally makes a convert, the convert becomes twice as much a son of hell as the Pharisee who led him to that end ever was.

Ouch.

Paul, as you likely know, was not only the son of a Pharisee (c.f. Acts 23:6), but a Pharisee himself and was so entirely zealous a Pharisee that he personally led a one man persecution-marathon against Christianity. If your garden-variety Pharisee was a considered by Christ to be a son of hell, how much more a son of hell was someone like Paul who persecuted the early church?

We see therefore that Paul's description of himself as the foremost of sinners was not entirely hyperbole. Yet the account of Paul's conversion leaves us staggering under the truth of what Paul is saying here. See the reason Paul gives for his conversion? He says that it was because he was the foremost of sinners that Christ showed mercy on him. Do you see the flow of Paul's thought here? Christ came to save sinners, and if you doubt that you need only look to Paul whose conversion experience demonstrates loudly that salvation is not given to those who merit it by their own righteousness, but rather Paul's own salvation demonstrates that it is given as a gift to sinners, for only a fool would dare to argue that Paul was seeking Christ on the Damascus road... Paul's point is that his own salvation proves the character of Christ - for in saving Paul Christ put His own perfect patience with sinners eternally on display.

Paul wasn't fretting about whether or not he was "chosen" - his Damascus road experience was clear testimony enough, not only to him, but to us as well. Paul was chosen, his relationship with Christ began not as an initiator of his own faith, but rather in response to Christ's initiation. In Paul's experience, as well as in Paul's theology - God initiates faith, not man.

What we see here in this passage is that even though Paul was a sinner, and not merely a sinner, but a sinner who was by design and deep conviction a man entirely opposed to Christ and Christianity, even though Paul was as far from Christ as a man is likely to get in this lifetime - yet in a single moment on the road to Damascus, even this greatest of sinners was not hindered by his sin in coming to Christ, and especially, was by no means helped along the way by his own understanding of righteousness.

Paul knew and taught that we cannot take credit for our justification, that we cannot take credit for the faith that led to our justification, and that we cannot even take credit for the circumstances that gave us the opportunity to extend faith - that is, Paul understood that salvation is -all- of grace. That from beginning to end God decides whom He will show mercy upon, and that this decision by no means depends upon a person's worth or a person's initiating decision - or else Paul could not have been saved, for Paul was certainly not worthy by virtue of his great sin to receive salvation, and Paul was by no means the initiator of his faith, being about as far (at the time) from initiating a relationship with Christ as any man could ever be.

Paul's gospel was by no means Pelagian or SemiPelagian, it was all grace, yet what was orthodox has become repugnant, and what was heresy is now embraced. Men are offended by the idea that God chooses whom He will save by grace through faith. They picture all men as being equally deserving of salvation, when the right picture is that of all men being equally deserving of damnation. From their perspective, God cannot choose whom he will show mercy upon, because he must show mercy to all or he is "unfair". Thus they prune God down into a god who fits their understanding. They embrace an image of God wherein God is trying to save everyone, but can't save anyone unless the person does the right thing by coming to God in faith.

I hope you can see that were that the case, Paul could by no means have come to God in faith, because his own testimony teaches us that Paul was not coming to God in faith, nor in good works - but was in both running as fast as possible away from God IN THE VERY MOMENT that Christ came to him.

Whatever else Paul was, he was absolutely not SemiPelagian or Pelagian and by no means imagined that salvation followed the error of the Arminian scheme, whether in whole or in part.

The Good News of God's Grace

…the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them
(Acts 16:10)

First the bad news…

We can't make it to heaven on our own; no one is good enough to meet God’s perfect standard. Romans 3:23 says all have sinned, and all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Did you know that’s what He requires, perfection (Matthew 5:48)? It’s true. Now come on, admit it, you aren’t perfect, you may be better than a lot of people, but are you as good as God? Left to ourselves, we all will die without God, and that is bad news, indeed. However, that isn’t the end of the story.

Now for the good news…

God had a plan all along; he knew what he was doing. He would show his mercy and grace to a people he would call out for himself. He would send his own son, to die for those people’s sins, and give those called out people the righteousness they needed, the righteousness of his own son, Jesus. Jesus executed that plan; he came to earth and lived a perfectly righteous life, and allowed himself to die for our sins. He was a righteous man, the only righteous man ever, paying the penalty due us. His death meant that God would grant us mercy. His life meant God would give us grace. You see the mercy is God forgiving our sins because Jesus paid the penalty with his death, and the grace is God giving us a righteous standing based on Christ’s perfect life. God accounts our sin to Jesus’ account, and Jesus’ righteousness to our account. This great exchange is explained to us in 2 Corinthians 5:21 – he who knew no sin (that’s Jesus) became sin for us (he paid the penalty) that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (through his perfect life we meet God’s standard). God had spoken of this plan before Jesus was even born (Isaiah 53:6), and he proved that this sacrifice and this way was what he planned all along by raising Jesus from the dead (Romans 1:4 / 4:25).

Now we obviously didn't deserve it, but that’s grace, my friend (1 John 4:9-10). God draws us to Him in a way that he knows we will respond to if we are one of his, and God gives this gift to us freely. All God asks us to do is believe (John 3:16 / Romans 10:9). When we accept Jesus sacrificial death to forgive our sins, the bible calls this being justified by faith (Romans 5:1), and God counts Christ’s righteousness as our own. But there’s more, because God also leads us into a more holy life, where we learn to truly seek after and please God, and God ensures that we will make it to heaven. Because God didn’t leave us to ourselves, when we die we will be with God, and that is good news, indeed. If you will believe, you’ll make it to heaven, and that’s the end of the story.