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A Paddler's Perspective 		(Picture)

What is the Gospel?

A brief explanation of the message of the Bible.

What is the gospel?

Friend, if you are yet not a Christian then how you respond to what you read now will have eternal consequences. What matters as you read this is not how clever you are, but the intention of your heart - "for man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart. " - 1 Samuel 16:7.

Introduction

"Gospel" means "good news". The Christian gospel is the good news of the mission of God to save men and women from the punishment they deserve, and to bring them into a relationship with himself. It starts a long, long time ago...

Creation

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)
Many people don't understand why they need to turn to the God of the Bible, because they don't understand what role he plays in their lives and the world in general. They assume that if there is a God, then he's probably unnecessary, and irrelevant. But this is an enormous mistake.

The Bible teaches that there is one God (Deut. 6:4, Isaiah 44:6), who is God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. (Jn 4:24, Rom 11:33-36, Jer 23:34, Ps 145:3, Ps 102:12, Rev 1:4, 1:8, Heb 13:8, James 1:17, Ex 3:14, 1 Tim 1:17, 1 Jn 3:20, 1 Pet 1:15-16, Rev 15:4, Gen 18:25, Deut 32:4, Ex 34:6). He created the entire material universe; he spoke, issuing the command, and the world was created. He did this, because it seemed good to him to do so. God owes no debt to anyone, and as the only God, can do just what he pleases. It pleased him to create the universe, and so he did. On the sixth day, he created man and woman (Gen 1:27): Adam and Eve were the first beings he created. For thousands of years philosophers have been struggling over the question "What is the meaning of life?" The Bible's answer is quite clear; the purpose of man's life is to bring glory to God, and to enjoy him forever (Rom 11:36, Philippians 4:4, Rev 21:3-4).

"You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for you have created all things, and for your pleasure they are and were created." (Rev. 4:11).

Man was given a perfect world to take care of, in perfect relationship with God and fellow man. There was no death, no pain, no evil. Man was able to walk and talk with God, face to face. But something went very wrong...

The Fall

When God created man, he was not like other creatures; rather, uniquely man was created "in the image of God" (Gen. 1:26-27). This included the capacity to love, and be loved, and to know God. But God also in his wisdom allowed man the capacity to reject God. He made man a moral agent, responsible and answerable to God for his actions. And man did a terrible and awful thing; he used his free will to rebel against God. Man decided to reject God as the ultimate lawgiver, the ultimate authority on right and wrong, the ultimate arbiter of good and evil. God's command to man is this:

"You shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself." (Luke 10:27, Deut. 6:5, Lev. 19:18)

But man decided that he knew better; he didn't want God to be King, to be the only lawgiver. He wasn't content to live in a paradise ruled by God; he wanted to rule too. And so he did, and sin entered the world; for sin is rebellion against the King's law, sin is the breaking of God's law: "sin is the transgression of the law." (1 Jn 3:4).

When Adam sinned, he was acting as the federal head and representative the whole of humanity; when he sinned, all men and women incurred guilt (Rom. 5:12-13). This is known as "original sin". Today, in the western individualistic culture this idea is hated and mocked. But we are not only guilty on account of Adam's transgression, because each individual who has lived has each individually committed uncountably many sins, and so all are completely without excuse. Every part of man, every act committed, has in some measure become tainted by sin, so that now nothing we can do can be acceptable to God.

"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There are none that understand, there are none that seek after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that does good, no, not one." (Rom. 3:10-12).

"For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man." (Mark 7:21-23)

Judgment

"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." (Gen 6:5)

Because God is totally pure, blazing moral purity itself, and utterly opposed to all evil, he must judge evil. It is because of his goodness that he must always act against evil. Evil arouses his anger; not an irrational temper like man has, but a controlled, settled yet personal anger against evil and evildoers. His anger is not a trivial thing; it is terrible, an all-consuming fire (Heb 12:29).

"But the LORD Almighty will be exalted by his justice, and the holy God will show himself holy by his righteousness." (Isaiah 5:16).

"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." (Heb 10:31)

What can we do to avoid this? We can do absolutely nothing, because by sinning against God, by committing crimes against his holy nature, we have brought guilt upon ourselves. We cannot undo what we have done; no person, no matter how good, has kept the standard of goodness that all requires. Therefore all are guilty, and subject to God's judgment. Our good works will make no difference, because firstly even they are ruined by sin and hence unacceptable to God, and also because God has said "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." (James 2:10)

"And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Heb 9:27)

"all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6)

Jesus Christ, Eternal Son of God

There is nothing we can do about sin; because God is a God of total purity and justice, every sin must result in the punishment that it deserves, which is everlasting death (Rom 6:23). "Every man shall be put to death for his own sin." (Deut. 24:16). Keeping the five pillars of Islam will do you no good. The penances, priests, masses, pilgrimages and confessions of ritualistic "Christianity" will not make the slightest difference; rather, inventing your own religion merely incurs more of God's displeasure.

What then can be done? By us, nothing. But... God is not only a God of unending holiness and justice, he is also a God of unending love. And he has decided to take the initiative; the Bible teaches that, from eternity, God determined to save some of those who had rejected him, to find a means of saving some of the guilty, depraved rebels from the eternal hell that they deserved (Acts 13:48, Ephesians 1:4-5, 2 Thess. 2:13-14, 2 Thess. 1:8-9). Right from the fall in the garden of Eden there was the promise of one who would come to save his people, and in due time, Jesus Christ, himself God, left heaven and was born of Mary, who was then a virgin.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.", "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:1,1:14).

Jesus Christ, the eternal son of God, became a man. Leaving the glory of heaven that had been rightfully his from eternity, he stooped to enter our sinful and depraved world. He stooped further, to be born into the family of a poor carpenter in an obscure region. He stooped, to be hated and scorned, to be despised by men. He was like us in every way except one - he was without sin (Heb 4:15, 2 Cor. 5:21). He was totally blameless before God, because he kept the entire law. Therefore, unlike us, he did not deserve to die. He deserved to be praised and worshipped as God himself manifest in the flesh (1 Tim 3:16). Yet instead, he was treated with loathing, hatred, scorn, and ultimately he was put to death on a bloody Roman cross, an unusually cruel and painful instrument of execution. Yet his death was no accident; rather, it was part of God's plan (Jn 10:17). The cross was part of his mission to earth (Mark 8:31). Because on the cross, Jesus died no ordinary death; rather, on the cross, Jesus took upon himself the full force of God's wrath and anger against sin. On the cross, Jesus was punished for the sin of all those he had come to save. Although deserving life, he suffered the full measure of hell, of God's awesome, terrible hatred of evil. And there he died, under God's curse:

"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." (1 Peter 3:18)

"Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed." (1 Peter 2:24)

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (1 Cor. 5:21)

He offered himself as the perfect sacrifice, once-for-all, to which all the previous sacrifices of the Jewish temple system had pointed. Unlike human priests, he as the true high priest to which the Levites before him had pointed was able to make one final and perfect sacrifice which never needed to be repeated, and can never be repeated, satisfying once for all time God's anger against sinners:

"For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; Who needs not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself." (Heb 7:26-27)

"But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." (Heb 10:12-14)

Resurrection

Because Jesus had paid the penalty of sin, death was defeated, and no longer had any power to hold Jesus dead. Hence, on the third day, as proof that his work on the cross had truly dealt with sin, God raised Jesus from the dead. He raised him, and appointed him to be the one with all power and authority in heaven and on earth: to be the King. Jesus Christ is still alive, and ruling and reigning this universe. He has been appointed the judge of the living and the dead, and one day, he will return to this earth to pronounce judgment on every man who is living or who was ever lived.

"For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living." (Rom 14:9)

"Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." (Acts 17:31)

"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." (2 Cor 5:10)

"For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.", "So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God." (Rom 14:10, 14:12)

Response

In the light of this, there are only two response that can be made. The first choice is to respond to Jesus' kingship and work on the cross, by repenting and believing the gospel:

"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. "(Mark 1:15)

To repent means to turn. All men have spent their lives following themselves, making up their own rules for living, and sinning. Jesus commands us to turn away from this self-centred attitude, and to recognise that we are not the King, but that he is. We must hand over the crown on our own head, the right to rule our own lives, to him. We must turn away from sin, and turn to serving him. To repent is not merely to express regret or sorrow for sin, but to utterly reject it.

To believe means to trust. We must believe in and accept the work that Jesus Christ did on the cross, as the only way that we can possibly get into heaven. We must entirely reject any good works of our own that we can ever do, and put our trust entirely in what he did when he died and took the punishment for sin. We must accept this swap, this substitution, as the only way that God's righteous anger can be diverted from us, to him. There is no other way to be saved; we must renounce all other hope of getting to heaven. We must express this repentance and belief to Jesus by handing our life over to him, and being baptised into His name.

There is a second choice; we can reject Jesus as King, and decide to continue living for ourselves. We can say "not now, maybe later" and refuse to repent of our sins. In other words, we can continue as we are now. The consequences of this decision are that we remain under God's anger, and on the day of judgment we will have to face the full measure of his terrible anger. The unrepentant will finally hear the terrible words:

"Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." (Matt 25:41)

The message of Christianity is clear and simple: Repent and have eternal rest in Jesus Christ, or die in your sins, and face him as the judge who will declare you eternally guilty. (Luke 13:5).

"And the times of this ignorance God winked at [overlooked]; but now commands all men every where to repent" (Acts 17:30)

"In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;" (2 Thess 1:8-9)

"He that believes on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God remains on him." (Jn 3:36)

I could go on, but I have said enough! If you are still reading and think that you need to make further enquiries, then maybe I can recommend one of the following:

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