What is the Gospel

The way I see it and understand it, there are two sides of the Christian message we need to be more than acquainted with, the first one is God's Glory and the second one is Our Salvation.

God has a Kingdom, a Throne, an Honor and Glory that will always stand, even above every man, yet God is love and in His mercy He wants every man to be saved, and so He made a Door for mankind to enter Heaven, willingly.

So we'll talk about our Salvation, which is the Good News, in fact the word Gospel means Good News, but before we proceed, it is important to understand that because of God's nature and attributes, in God's Glory we benefit, so what I'm saying is that our benefit is not just in our Salvation, but when God receives His Glory we also benefit.

Let's start with a bit of a background, when God created mankind, basically with the first man, Adam, He created him perfect, yet in that perfection, Adam fell, how did he fall?
Through disobedience, was God asking something slighly unreasonable from Adam?  No, in fact it was very reasonable, but that disobedient moment revealed a fracture in human integrity at the very least, in other words, the problem within Adam was so deep that only God could see from that very event of disobedience in the garden of Eden.

After that God provided mankind a way to re-establish a communication, a restoration path, through the first covenant, which we call the Old Testament, which is where the Law was introduced, simply put specific instructions on how to live correctly before God, but yet again, man failed.

Now God was working something greater in the meantime, because He knew man would fail with the Law, God was working a rescue path of Grace, Truth and Mercy for mankind, which started with Abraham and entailed a trust in God like no other, this trust is what we call Faith, a blind trust, but I wouldn't say it is totally blind, because God has given people, even Abraham plenty of assurance that He would come through for us, so it is not totally blind, yet there are moments in which we are called, and really have no other option but to practice that blind trust in the Lord, Faith!

Through the seed of Abraham came King David, and through the line of King David came the Lord Jesus Christ, and the beginning of mankind's hope was born, humbly in a manger, Jesus is the Gospel, expressed in the Bible in Four different books, sort of like God telling us, here's your diamond, look at it from Four different angles, which are the Four Gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), they are one and the same, the account of the Lord Jesus.

So Jesus is the gift of God to mankind, which we saw when He came to Earth the first time, but the second time He comes back to Earth, Jesus will come to receive God's present to Him, the Church and all of creation, something very special and beautiful really to think about.

So even thought Jesus didn't sin, instead He fulfilled the Law, and did many good works, healed many people, all of that, as good as it was, did not reach the mark of the Gospel, in other words, up until this point the Gospel is not complete, what completes the Gospel is something very special done by God Himself.

God wanted mankind reconciled to Himself, but that would mean every man would need to be perfect, now remember that every man had already failed at the Law, we really had no hope, so what was the answer?  Something we call a Substitutionary Power, in other words, in order to make every man perfect, God's righteousness must be placed in each man, but that could only happen if man willingly accepts it, but we'll talk about that later, so the Lord Jesus began this Substitutionary Work, which God would complete with His power, by going to the Cross, dying on the cross, it needed to be this way, and it is hard to explain, because the inner workings of this process are hidden in God's Power, but the point is that when Jesus die on the cross, your sins and my sins were laid on Him, the sins of mankind where placed on Him, this is the most amazing work of love in the history of mankind.

So Jesus die on the cross, not because of anything He did wrong, but because of YOU, because of ME, individually, and even thought it might be hard to understand or mentally difficult to digest, it's the result of God's rescuing power, so that's the beginning of the Gospel, the good news that our sins were removed from us, but that's only half the story, the other part is that the righteousness of Jesus was placed upon us, in other words, our filth was replaced with a crown, now the Good News are complete!  We were made right before God, that's why Jesus said, It is finished!

But here comes the most amazing part, as if all of what Jesus did wasn't enough, God raised Jesus from the dead, thereby confirming that the life of Jesus, His words and actions, Jesus pleased God with His own life, otherwise God would not have raised Him from the dead, the scriptures say, if Jesus had not been raised from the dead, we would have no hope whatsoever, so there you have it, the message of the Gospel, explained from my perspective, but you ought to read the Four Gospel accounts, they talk about whom Jesus was, and as you read more and more, you'll realize how deep the mystery was, because it has roots in the Old Testament and what I've shared with you on this page is only a glimpse of the reality of our Salvation.

But Salvation is not complete without the person that need needs to be Saved, which is YOU, I was there at some point, and truly the Bible is a huge invitation, which has to be taken willingly, God won't forces us, but if we don't make a choice in our lifetime, God has the right not to let us into His Heaven, and that's not a good thing for any of us, that's why we hear the following verse so often, because it encapsulates the essence of the Gospel, but I'll include the next two verses to make it more complete:

John 3:16-18 (KJV)  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

I hope the above gives you a better understanding not only of what the Gospel is, but our need to be saved, which I didn't really talk much, but in a nutshell, if we're not saved we'll be separated from God, and since God is Light and Love, that should tell you what it would be like to be away from God, the Bible explains all this in much greater detail, but the conclusion is that we really don't want to be away from God, hence the Good News, because the opposite simply is bad news.






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