The Gospel Message…
Thursday, November 22, 2007 by fikalo
The Gospel Message - In PDF.
It’s hard to adequately summarise the Gospel message. Indeed, the Bible has not been written as a series of categorised points and rules on how to live. It is a deep, rich, collection of stories (I don’t mean fiction!).
Yet, in the Bible, it is possible to find meaning, purpose and hope. It is possible to read the entire history of the world: from its creation to its ultimate destiny. It is possible to find guidelines on how to live each day, interacting with God and other people. It is possible to find personal revelation, time-tested wisdom, and even the meaning of the supposedly elusive Truth.
It would be impossible for me to completely summarise the Gospel message here, but I’ll do my best to clearly communicate the basics. As always, I encourage people to read the Bible for themselves, and for the individual to ask God to make it clear to them.
The Gospel is often referred to as the ‘Good News,’ but unfortunately people don’t always hear it as good news. Maybe it’s been miscommunicated, or buried under the tide of religiosity. I humbly hope to make it clear that it is, indeed, good news!
How It Starts…
God exists (Genesis 1:1). He is Creator God (who refers to Himself in the plural [Genesis 1:1, "Elohim" is a plural noun but a singular verb {1}]! One God consisting of Three Persons [e.g., Genesis 18:2-3, 22]. Yes, I know it sounds complicated…). He is love, He is Holy, He is wonderful, He is just.
The world was made perfect. All things were beautiful and wonderful. There was no death or suffering. Animals did not kill and eat each other, they ate only plants (Genesis 1:30). Humans were also to eat only plant-derived foods (Genesis 1:29).
The first humans - eventually named Adam and Eve - were created in God’s likeness, as His representative on Earth (Genesis 1:26-27). The man and woman are to rule the Earth, representing God, acting - in a sense - like His diplomats, or as King and Queen under a High King, or like His children (Genesis 1:28). They were able to walk with Him and talk with Him (Genesis 3:8). They were completely free of sin, so they were able to approach God directly. They were given the tasks of ruling over the animals (Genesis 1:28), and tending to God’s garden (Genesis 2:15), and producing a family (Genesis 1:28).
The humans were created with free will. They could freely choose to obey God or disobey God. So, for them to be truly free in a perfect world, they had to have the freedom to choose between God and sin. Sin is, simply speaking, disobedience to God that results in being disconnected from Him (Romans 6:23). God gave them the whole world with only one rule: they are not to eat the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:16-17). Note that the tree is a specific tree located in the middle (Genesis 2:9) of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:8), God’s specially created home for Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:15).
God gave Adam and Eve a clear consequence for disobedience: death (Genesis 2:16-17). Think about it: all Adam and Eve had to do was not eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and they would have lived forever in this perfect paradise world?!
In the meantime…
God also created a race of beings that were likewise given free will: the Angels. One of these Angels rebelled against God, and as a result he was thrown out of Heaven with many, many other rebellious Angels. He became Satan, the fallen Angel (Ezekiel 28:1-19; Isaiah 14:4-23) {2}. Satan is wise, but corrupted, and uses this to deceive humanity (e.g. James 3:14-15).
So, Satan then moved to steal (John 10:7-10) the throne of Earth from humanity. He did so by taking on the form of a Serpent (or perhaps possessing a Serpent) (Genesis 3:1-4), and deceiving the woman (Genesis 3:13), who would later be named Eve (Genesis 3:20). Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 3:6). She then offered some to her husband, who was with her the whole time, and he willfully disobeyed God by eating it (Genesis 3:6).
This is such a tragedy! A perfect, sinless, innocent world was destroyed that moment when the man and woman chose to obey the Serpent, Satan, rather than obey their Creator, God (Genesis 3:16-19). By bowing down to the Serpent in obeying him, they handed the rulership of the Earth to him (Luke 4:5-8). He was now the ruler of the world (John 12:31), not the man and the woman. They became subject to him (Romans 6:6-22), enslaved by this new Kingdom of Darkness (Ephesians 6:12).
The Bad News…
So, before the Good News of the Gospel, there is some bad news: humans are enslaved to sin (Romans 6). We are all descendants of Adam and Eve, and inherit their sin (Romans 3:23). We are, by default, born into sin, and headed for death. A subject of Satan receives Satan’s punishment - unfortunately, we are born into this condition of being subject to Satan (Matthew 25:31-46).
The Good News…
Ultimately, where there is sin, someone has to die. Death is the punishment for sin. You cannot be connected to God if you are enslaved to sin. So, the Bible records a history where God allowed people to approach Him if an innocent died in their place. The first time this happens is when God covers Adam and Eve’s sin and nakedness with clothes made from animal skin (Genesis 3:21). Imagine how horrible it must have been to go from a perfect paradise, to a fallen world where death and suffering were reality. Animal blood, and then human blood (Genesis 4:8), would be shed. Marriage (Genesis 2:24) - intended to be an equal partnership between a man and woman (Genesis 1:27)- became a system by which man would rule over the woman (Genesis 3:16), and would marry more than one woman (Genesis 4:19).
God’s people would approach Him through animal sacrifices (e.g., Leviticus 9), where the animal would be sacrificed on behalf of a human’s sin. But these sacrifices were not perfect, and so thousands upon thousands of animals were sacrificed to atone for human sin. Atonement simply means to reconcile, and to make amends.{3} The animal’s becomes the ransom payment for the human’s sin. A ransom is when a price is paid to release a prisoner, or to deliver someone from captivity, or to redeem someone from a punishment. {4}
The fact is that no sacrifice for human sin is perfect except a perfect, sinless human. But there aren’t any perfect sinless humans because all humans - people with human fathers - are born into sin (Romans 3:23). It seems like a hopeless situation, until we remember a promise made to the Serpent and Eve in Genesis 3:14-15:
So the Lord God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life. And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.” (NKJV)
There would be someone born of a woman, who was not the son of a human father (e.g., Isaiah 7:14). That is, a virgin woman would give birth (Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38). It sounds outlandish, but we are talking about the God who created the whole Universe (Genesis 1). Creating a fertilised human egg is probably not difficult for the One who made the Earth and the Heavens!
God Himself entered a human egg, and was born of a woman. He was named Jesus, and He demonstrated how to live a perfectly sinless human life. He taught us how to live, loving God and other people. Even loving our enemies. He healed the sick and cast out demon - demons probbaly being the angels who fell with Satan. {2} He even raised the dead to life! Then, He did the most remarkable thing ever: He was killed. But then He came back to life! He was brutally murdered in one of the cruellest tortures known to humans - Crucifixion. Yet, He came back to life. (Read the book of Luke for a description of Jesus’ life.)
The Bible teaches that Jesus’ death was in fact a sacrifice (Hebrews 10). The sacrifice of a perfectly sinless human being to atone for the sins of fallen humanity, to pay the ransom for the human race, enslaved to the cruel rule of Satan. Indeed, His was the perfect sacrifice - and no more sacrifice is needed for sin.
So what does that mean for me…?
Now, salvation from the rule of the Kingdom of Darkness is not a matter of slaughtering animals. Or of following impossible rules. It is a matter of grace.
What is grace? Well, it would be hard to truly condense it into one sentence, but here are some major concepts:
- it is the free gift of salvation. All it takes is to repent of a life lived apart from God; and to believe in your heart, and confess (that is, actually declare it) that Jesus died for your sins, and came back to life (Ephesians 2:1-10).
- it is the empowerment, through the Holy Spirit, to actually live in accordance with God, and do what He has commanded (Acts 1:8).
- it is reconciliation with God through the sacrifice of Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:14-21; Colossians 1:22-23).
Wow! How amazing is that? Could any human, caught up in ideas of rules, regulations and self-powered working to please God, ever invent this unique story? God Himself paid the ultimate price for human sin - just to give humans a chance to know how much He truly loves them (John 3:16-21)!
What next…?
The Christian life is not meant to be a dusty set of rules, boring Church services, or ultra-conservative politics… Well, ok, there are rules to live by - but the Holy Spirit empowers the follower of Lord Jesus Christ to choose to live for God. (It’s not external rules, it is a life that wells up from within.) And sometimes Church might get a little boring - but it’s not meant to be. The early Churches were places for people to gather together, enjoy each other’s company, and share in teaching the Bible so that they could live for Jesus. And politics? Well, as one author wrote, we’d all like to think Jesus would join our political party, but politics is not as simple as that. {5} Jesus is Lord, He is ruler of a glorious Kingdom of Light (John 3:21; Colossians 1:13)!
To be saved is to accept God’s free gift of grace. It means that the Holy Spirit - a person of the Triune God - will come to dwell within you (Ephesians 4:30). He will help you navigate life, and will help you pray to God the Father through Jesus (Romans 8:26-27). Salvation means that you are assured of eternal life in Heaven with God (John 6:35-66).
The Christian life is not a solo performance, either. It is important to be connected to a community of followers of Christ (Acts 2:42-47; Hebrews 10:25). (Make sure you check a church’s statement of faith and goals and mission statement before you sign up for membership!) A good church will usually be willing to answer your questions about the whys and hows of the Christian faith (1 Peter 3:15).
Living for God can be summarised as:
- Loving God with every part of your being (Matthew 22:37)
- Loving other people and serving God by serving others (Luke 10:27)
- Making disciples of Jesus (Matthew 28:19). A disciple is someone who is a student of Jesus’ teachings, and who seeks to live out their life the way Jesus has called them to. {6}
The Christian life, as a follower and disciple of Jesus Christ, is an exciting journey. God has a plan and purpose for every individual’s life (Jeremiah 29:11; Psalm 139:16). The individual is given free will to choose whether or not he or she will follow Jesus. But when he or she does make the choice, it is the beginning of a relationship with God (Matthew 7:23), who adopts the believer as His child (Romans 8:10-17)! Wow!
And that is what a fallen world needs:
Romans 8:20-28
For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (NIV)
For more information on the Good News of the Gospel, try this article from Creation Ministries International.
{1} NIV Study Bible, p.5
{2} Conner, K. (1980), The Foundations of Christian Doctrine, Vermont: KJC Publications, pp. 101-120.
{3} http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atone (accessed 22 November 2007)
{4} http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ransom (accessed 22 November 2007)
{5} Budziszewski, J. (2004), ‘Jesus is a Liberal?,’ Boundless Webzine, http://www.boundless.org/regulars/office_hours/a0000971.html (accessed 22 November 2007), Colorado Springs: Focus on the Family.
{6} http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/disciple (accessed 22 November 2007)
Posted 22 November 2007.
Updated 28 November 2007.
See also, “Good News!”
Tips on how to read the Bible at “Intro to Bible.”
Examples of different churches in Victoria and Australia.
You might like to browse through these churches’ websites to get an idea of some of the different types of churches that followers of Jesus Christ might like to attend. I am not trying to recommend any of these over any other, and they are of different denominations and styles. They are listed here for reference only.
Melbourne Life Christian Church
Churches of Christ in Australia
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