The Gospel of Jesus Christ (Pt. 1) - Understanding the Gospel
Scriptural Anchors:
Romans 1:16-17
1 Corinthians 15:1-8
Mark 16:15
What is the Gospel?
We started off our series, “The Gospel of Jesus Christ”, with briefly defining the Gospel by emphasizing these 3 points:
The Gospel in the new testament means “Good News” - It can be thought of as the Good News of Christ or the Good News about Christ.
Ownership of the Gospel belongs to Christ - Hebrews 12:2 proves that He’s not just the subject of the Gospel but also the author, finisher, initiator, perfecter, founder etc.
It is for believers - Romans 1:16 refers to the Gospel as “…the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes…”
So in summary, it is the good news about Jesus Christ for anyone who believes (believers).
Why is it important that we teach the Gospel?
Because we need to communicate that being a believer of the Gospel is not where it ends. We have a Kingdom responsibility which the Bible refers to as the “The Great Commission” in Mark 16:15. This scripture highlights Jesus Christ after his resurrection, speaking to his disciples and urging them to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature”. Verse 16 says “And he who believes and is baptized will be saved, he who doesn’t believe will be condemned”. So one of the reasons why we need to teach this, is because judgement and condemnation awaits those who haven’t believed the Gospel.
We need to know what we have believed. Not all believers were saved by the Gospel. Some of us grew up in families with a Christian faith, some came to Jesus during a time of need etc. As a result, there’s many people who identify as Christians without a solid foundation on the Gospel. Take a look at:
Psalms 11:3
2 Timothy 1:12
So we can be established in the faith. For our remembrance. Rememberance happens to be a critical part of our faith because we tend to be very quick to forget the value of the Cross of Jesus. We tend magnify our immediate challenges in life to a point where we lose sight of the value of the Cross. We should always keep in mind that Salvation is the most important thing God has done for us and every other promise of God to believers is an added benefit. So if we as believers never received anything else from God for the rest of our lives, that should not cause our faith to waver.
Nothing else delivers us from condemnation like a good understanding of the gospel. Condemnation is an attack of the enemy against believers where we begin to feel condemned by your shortcomings. Whereas, the truth is that anyone with a solid understanding of the gospel will never feel condemned. Such a person also never takes the grace of God for granted. Not taking liberty for license. So whenever we feel condemned (not convicted), we need to remind ourselves of the Gospel of Christ. This is important because nothing else frees a believer from a “works-based” christianity than the Gospel. Trying to do things for the sake of acceptance by God is not scriptural. We do good works because we are saved, not to be saved. We needed a savior to fulfil the law because we are naturally incapable of earning our salvation. Every single person that God boasted about in the Bible (except Jesus) had flaws. Every single one. Hence, the best of men are men at best.
Because it is the foundation of our faith. Everything else is built on it. Without a solid understanding of the Gospel, every other scriptural knowledge is faulty. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 that “If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds are blinded by the god of this age (satan), who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them”. So if the gospel is the foundation of every other scriptural knowledge, this makes it an important area of attack from the enemy. The early church suffered this. Which brings us to our next point.
So we’re equipped to wage war against anti-gospel ideologies. Not just outside of church, but within the church as well. Remember when Paul and Peter wrote epistles to the early churches in Rome, Thessalonica, Galatia etc. the goal was not the salvation of souls for the Kingdom; but to defend the gospel against false ideologies that began to infiltrate the church.
To the end that we can fulfil the great commission. Because really, how can we preach what we don’t fully understand? One of the greatest shortcomings of Christians is that we don’t preach the gospel enough, whereas according to scripture, this is one of our major responsibilities. Failing to do this is a direct violation of the second greatest commandment which is to love your neighbour as yourself. It’s like a hoarding a cure to a widespread disease.
So how do we explain the Gospel?
The Bible says we’re all born with a sinful nature (Romans 3:23). Not only that, we were enslaved by sin. Which means even if you tried, you can’t overpower sin. Absolutely no one is capable of fulfilling the 10 commandments without the help of the Holy Spirit. This, again, is why we needed a saviour. Also being a sinner, attracts the judgement of God. It is a spiritual law. Just the same way by gravitational law, whatever goes up, or is suspended in the air, must come down at some point.
Now Jesus Christ was the only one ever to live a sin-free life which made him capable of resurrection after death. His resurrection is significant because it validates that indeed he was who he said he was. Without this, everything Christ said or claimed to be could be discarded. Also his sin-free life was justification that his sacrificial death could pay for our sins. **So Christ didn’t simply die because he was killed by men. He definitely had the power to save himself. He chose to die because our sins had to be paid for. It was a sacrifice.
And how could this be true?
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:5 that after the resurrection of Jesus, Peter, James, the apostles, the disciples and over 500 people saw Jesus appear to them. He also stated that some of the 500 were still alive (at the time of the writing). He said this to prove that his truth could be validated by many others. Also when Jesus died, most of His disciples abandoned Him out of fear. Peter also denied Jesus to avoid danger. However, some of these same witnesses, including Peter, ended up dying as martyrs for their belief in Jesus despite being threatened to deny it. They couldn’t deny what they actually saw. Especially Peter, who was once devastated by his initial denial of Jesus. This is all to say that the Gospel is based on historical events that are facts not fiction.
In Conclusion
The Gospel of Jesus is the cross of Jesus. It is the proclamation of the works and person of Jesus Christ with the ultimate purpose of giving us eternal life in Him. It enlightens us on how his works benefits us by faith and by faith alone! That is the good news - that we were captives to sin and Jesus paid the price for our freedom from it. Again, even if we tried, we could never have done this by ourselves. So according to scripture, our core message is Christ and Him crucified. Everything else is a bonus. Because through Him we have life. Eternal life.
