Aaron Massey

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Is the gospel something to be heard once, believed once, and checked off the bucket list as a “been there, believed that” kind of thing?

Or does the gospel of Jesus intersect the hours of our day, persuade the thoughts of our minds, and move the affections of our heart? I’m convinced it’s the latter based on what God says in Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church, which we will observe in this post after we review what we have already seen.

In the first post on the gospel, Paul’s statement in Galatians 1:11–12 claimed that the gospel comes from God, not humans.

In the second post, John’s vision, recorded in Revelation 14:6, taught that the gospel conveys an eternal message, not one that expires or needs updating.

In the third and last post on the gospel, Matthew recorded how Jesus began his ministry, in the thirty-second verse of the fourth chapter of his gospel, displaying that the gospel announces the reign of God and invites all who hear the gospel to enter under that benign rule.

In this fourth post on the gospel, we will read how Paul believes we should respond to that message and the core content of it.

The Corinthian Church

On his second missionary journey, the Apostle Paul entered Corinth around AD 50—about twenty years after the ministry of Jesus and about three to five years prior to Paul writing his first letter to Corinth which we call 1 Corinthians. Paul probably traveled to Corinth to plant a church there due to its size, the third largest city in the Roman Empire, its cultural diversity, and its thriving commerce.

After a few years, the Corinthians sent him a letter updating him on the status of the church and asking him some questions of how to exist as a church. As it turned out, they came dangerously close to forsaking the gospel. We have the letter that Paul sent back to them in which he addressed their questions, issues, and schisms saving for last the most significant of the problems.

Always Return the Basics of the Gospel

“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you . . .” (1 Corinthians 15:1a, ESV)

Before reiterating the content of the gospel, Paul reminded them of their initial reception of the gospel. How did it happen?

Paul proclaimed the gospel. They heard him announce it. Paul entered their lives and disrupted their routines and challenged their worldviews by heralding a message from God.

That message, they received. What he spoke, they didn’t ignore or dismiss. They kept listening. Paul kept speaking. Paul continued teaching. They kept learning. They embraced the gospel, which Paul faithfully delivered, as a message personally relevant to them.

In the fifteenth chapter of his letter, Paul emphasized that they had already heard what he was about to tell them. Only, they had failed to let the gospel permeate their entire reasoning, so they began holding as true something inconsistent with the message of the gospel.

Paul brought them back to the basics of the faith in order to reshape their thinking from the core message of the gospel, which would lead them away from a false idea they had begun to believe—that the final resurrection already happened.

From Paul’s statement in this verse, it seems safe to say that returning to the basics of the gospel is an important practice for Christians today. Assumed basics all to often become forgotten basics, and forgotten basics all to often because forsaken basics.

Then different basics replace forsaken basics.

God wants us to return to the good news, to remember it in our prayers and worship, and to let it continually influence our hearts, minds, and habits. The gospel has the power to dispense life in our mortal bodies and can kill what causes death in us—evil thoughts, torqued desires, false ideas about God, and destructive practices.

Jesus Uses the Gospel to Draw Us, Keep Us, and Perfect Us

“. . . which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:1b–2, ESV)

The members of the Corinthian church first heard and received the gospel which Paul proclaimed to them. The message invites individuals to connect with God, to experience his grace, receive his forgiveness, and live with power and hope. In Paul’s mind, the corruption in the world makes obvious where it is headed—to receive judgment from God since all people have forsaken God.

But note what Paul says, “. . . by which you are being saved . . . .” The gospel delivers a person by re-positioning them from under God’s anger and placing them under his love. The gospel gives each person a new name, a divine name, with the hope of not only receiving deliverance from evil and judgment, but receiving immortality, life, peace, and joy in the eternal kingdom of God.

But the Corinthians must not turn from what Paul originally proclaimed! Paul warned them that they have begun to do so, so they should stop, think, reaffirm the gospel, and enjoy its life-giving benefits. Paul wanted the Corinthians to hold fast to the word of the gospel. Yet, if they stray, if they turn to another gospel, or turn to a different hope, or pledge allegiance to contradictory truths about God and this world, then their original belief will turn out to have been in vain.

Likewise, all Christians today must not only affirm the gospel at a point in time and embrace the gospel for a part time, but continue doing so through time—letting the gospel, the word of God, have its perfect work in us.

The Core of the Gospel Message

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures . . .” (1 Corinthians 15:3–4, ESV)

Paul did not invent, or infer to the best possible explanation, what he originally spoke to the Corinthians. He received the message as divinely originated tradition to be passed along—and that’s exactly what Paul did.

What’s of first importance in that tradition?

That Christ died, was buried, and then resurrected from the dead.

Why did Jesus die? He died on our behalf. Jesus did not deserve to die. He lived spotlessly. Bleach could not have made him cleaner. But he didn’t suit the fancies of the community. He challenged their beliefs and way of life, so they killed him. From the pairs of eyes seeing Jesus naked, in pain, dying on a cross, he just looked like an innocent man receiving a criminal’s death. But in the eyes of God, the death of Jesus carried the full weight of the curse brought by our wrongdoing and the wrath our wrongdoing deserved. In our place, he suffered, that we might not have to suffer. That’s why we call the death of Jesus sacrificial and substitutionary. He satisfied the wrath of God in our place. He bore the full weight of this world’s curse.

Jesus died, but did not stay dead. He resurrected from the dead, leaving his grave clothes nicely positioned on the slab of rock as he left the tomb. In the pairs of eyes that initially saw his new body, they simply experienced a normal man, with scars in his hands, who somehow arose from a very obvious death. In God’s eyes, Jesus conquered death, the works of evil, and the power of the curse. This victory of Jesus, Jesus now extends to others by way of invitation that all may share in his victory and live with the hope of the new world, live in communion with God, and live triumphantly over the desires that used to enslave them.

That’s the core content of the gospel Paul proclaimed. It’s good news about the works of God. God invites all to participate in that work that has already begun and will one day be complete through Jesus Christ, the lion from the tribe of Judah.

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Without any formal training, providence gave me a season of work in the arena of commercial construction. I immediately had to swim in the waters of jargon, abbreviations, measurements, specifications, etc. So, almost daily, I had to investigate the meaning of terms, like plenum rated, and acronyms like MEP and AHJ.

One day, as I was standing near my desk, I reviewed a document stating we needed to send such-and-such drawings to the AHJ. I asked our consultant, who had served for decades as a construction architect for hospitals, “Did we get these to the AHJ?”

After a bit of discussion, he asked, “Aaron, do you know what an AHJ is?”

“No,” I said. Perhaps, I thought, the initials represent some engineering company.

“Aaron, AHJ simply means the authority having jurisdiction.” It doesn’t refer to a specific company. It refers to the company overseeing that certain sphere of the project.

Since I was also attending seminary when I heard this, I instantly thought of the New Testament passage, Matthew 28:18, in which Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Matthew develops the theme of God’s authoritative rule channeled via the person Jesus Christ.

Matthew also contains the third text for exploring the meaning of the gospel.

In the first article, on Galatians 1:11–12, we learned that the gospel comes from God. In the second article, on Revelation 14:6–7, we learned that the gospel conveys an eternal message.

In this third article on the gospel, we’ll look at Matthew 4:23 and learn that the gospel proclaims the rule of God. In other words, the gospel claims that God functions as the AHJ of our planet.

Matthew wrote four simple statements summarizing what Jesus did at the beginning of his earthly ministry.

“And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.” (Matthew 4:23, ESV)

A punchy verse packing a lot of truth.

The Sand on Jesus’ Feet

Jesus based most of his ministry in Galilee, near the Sea of Galilee (a freshwater lake). This region contained at least two hundred villages and cities, filled with Jews and Jewish synagogues, who relied on the abundant water—especially the heavy dew to irrigate the crops—and the supply of fish. Galilee’s elevation also made it the highest region in Israel.

Jesus did not travel throughout Galilee to make a profit, explore ancient ruins, or get cultured because he felt embarrassed having grown up in the small village, Nazareth. Jesus did not tell his followers to send out an invite so people would come to him in Capernaum.

He traveled to teach.

He traveled to proclaim.

He traveled to heal.

Yet, cosmic meaning hides in Matthew’s simple line, “And he went throughout all Galilee….”

God comes to us.

In Jesus, God got his feet dirty.

God got his feet dirty because he wanted to come to us. That kind of God we would not invent. Most of our invented gods project human likeness—tendencies, emotions, desires, virtues, and vices. The gods of human imagination necessarily contain human characteristics even though they also contain inhuman ones.

I think it’s fitting for anyone learning the gospel, or having already believed it, to spend time considering this radical truth.

In Jesus, God has come to us.

Matthew continues explaining why.

The Curriculum of Jesus’ Teaching

Jesus taught in the synagogues of the region. The Jewish synagogue developed at some point between the fifth and third centuries BC. Many Jews revolved their routine of life around the activities of the synagogue. It housed worship and teaching. It fostered community. It preserved identity. Born a Jew, Jesus occupied the Jewish milieu of his time making the synagogue integral to his life and mission.

Matthew wrote, “…teaching in their synagogues….”

The time of teaching in the synagogue consisted of teachers reading a portion or multiple portions from the Hebrew Bible, perhaps Genesis, the Psalms, or Isaiah. The Hebrew Bible contained texts considered to be the word of God to his people. By the time of Jesus, the Jewish canon just about solidified into the documents Christians and Jews now hold authoritative today.

Jesus might have received invitations to speak. Other times, he might have stood to offer comments on the passage.

When Jesus spoke, people listened.

The scriptures that Jesus exposited explained how the Jews came to be, why the Jews came to be, and what God had in store for the Jews. The scriptures conveyed what God is like, what God likes, and what God dislikes. They taught how to live and how to think.

Jesus stood next to the stone bench holding up the scripture scroll; he read from it before the people—perhaps only a few dozen sat around him. He sometimes may have had to translate the text from Hebrew to Aramaic. Then he explained its meaning—why it was important for them to know and how it was significant for their lives during his day.

What has Jesus’ teaching in the synagogues to do with the gospel? It means that the gospel did not appear at random in history nor did it appear disconnected from any human culture.

The gospel appeared in history because it was promised beforehand. God prepared the Jews to receive the gospel. In doing so, God had prepared the world to receive the gospel.

The gospel message of Christianity lodges itself in human history. It’s historical. God acted in history. People saw Jesus, touched Jesus, witnessed his bloody death on a wood cross, and felt the fleshly holes in his palms after he resurrected.

The gospel is based on empirical evidence. Humans living two thousand years ago saw, touched, tasted, smelled, and heard with the sensory capacity we do today. God revealed himself to their senses.

The four Gospels, written about Jesus, connect Jesus’ story with the story of the Jews and simply put forth what people experienced. The gospel message contains earthly content and divine meaning.

God is Back

Why did Matthew write that Jesus taught in the synagogues and proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom? Aren’t they the same thing?

Not quite.

While Jesus may have proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom during a bit of his teaching in the synagogue, the proclaiming added to the teaching.

Matthew says kingdom, in this verse, to represent the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. Jesus proclaimed the good news of God’s reign. He invited people to participate in it.

The scriptures from which Jesus taught heralded the return of God to his people, to restore them and deliver them. The scriptures heralded the return of God to establish his kingdom on earth.

Here’s an image from Isaiah written about seven hundred years prior to Jesus:

“It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:2–4, ESV)

When Jesus traveled through the villages of Galilee, he proclaimed the good news that God has come. God’s kingdom is at hand.

Evidence of the Kingdom

Lastly, Matthew wrote that Jesus healed every disease and affliction. Elsewhere in the Gospels, the writers tell us Jesus had compassion on the crowds so he healed them. Yet, more meaning lies behind the healings.

In the Isaiah passage quoted in the previous section, the outcome of God’s teaching is that people will turn their swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.

God made them farmers. Farming reflects that God will return the world to the ideal state. Humans will use the world as God intended, will relate to each other as God intended, and will connect with God as God intended. God will restore all.

Jesus healed as a sign that the restoration has arrived. In Jesus, God began the work of restoring the world—healing what’s wrong with it.

God did not make the world because he enjoys death and decay and wants those harsh rulers to reign. He made the world for life, health, peace, and joy. He made humans to flourish.

The gospel of the kingdom, the announcement of God’s return, the proclamation of God’s rule puts forward the invitation from God to flourish—to find life, to discover love, and to live with purpose and hope.

That’s why it’s good news that God is the AHJ of this world.

But for each of us to flourish, something radical must happen for us and to us. And that’s what’s at the core of the gospel invitation, which will be the content of our next passage.

Bibliography

1. The Lexham Hebrew Bible, 2012
2. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, 2016
3. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 2003
4. The Lexham Theological Wordbook, 2014
5. The Lexham Bible Dictionary, 2016
6. Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, Carlo M. Martini, and Bruce M. Metzger, Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th Edition, 2012
7. William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker, Walter Bauer, and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 2000
8. D. A. Carson, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew
   –Mark, 2010
9. R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, 2007

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How can the Christian gospel have any relevance in today’s world? It’s ancient and seemingly cryptic and speaks of a higher power we can’t physically see. Modern medicine, light bulbs, air planes, sedans, and cell phones foster such a widespread level of human flourishing—it could make one wonder if we even need a gospel of good news.

Then life happens. And we learn that, yes, perhaps there’s “more” to life than what our eyes see. At least we hope so.

We learn that “more” through the spiritual lens of the biblical gospel. That message eternally abides and universally transforms because it extends from a divine source.

The second statement of the gospel worth knowing comes from the strangest book of the Bible.

The Roman government grew tired of John gathering passersby to listen to him proclaim the message of Jesus Christ. So Rome exiled this agitator to an island called Patmos in the Aegean Sea. This likely occurred while Domitian reigned as emperor in the AD 90s.—sixty years after Jesus resurrected.

Domitian didn’t favor Christians. While on this island, John received a vision from Jesus and penned the last book of the biblical canon: Revelation. The book unveils a new layer about the person of Jesus Christ and his plan for our world.

In Revelation, the noun gospel appears only once. We can learn a good deal from John’s use of it. He wrote,

“Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. And he said with a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.” (Revelation 14:6–7 ESV)

The Gospel Conveys an Eternal Message

Did you notice the adjective John used to describe the gospel? Angels carried a message that is eternal. The gospel doesn’t expire or spoil. A new model will never replace the old message. The gospel conveys the core communication which the divine wants you and me to know. The gospel comes from God and has God as its source. Therefore, it’s eternal.

The gospel holds as much significance to people today as it did to its hearers five hundred years ago and fifteen hundred years ago. People come from God. The Bible does not represent an aloof deity unconcerned about autonomous humanity. God’s involved and will never be uninvolved in our world. He has his fingers in every detail. He wants us to know who he is.

He’s communicated an eternal gospel to some that they may take it to all.

The Gospel Directs People to God

The fundamental direction to which the gospel calls our attention is God himself. The gospel directs people to the true God. It points to him. God will not allow deception to characterize his person. He has communicated all he wants us to know through the gospel.

Most of the time, from nature, and some of the time, from ignorance, we imagine a different God from the one we come to know through the gospel. I’m convinced that Jesus seems too good to be true, for many. For others, I’m persuaded they shun him without actually understanding him.

We read the content of the eternal gospel in the verse following: fear God and give him glory. In other words, God wants us to act and think like he exists. No marriage lasts, or can be deemed a relationship, if one member refuses to acknowledge the other. God wants a relationship. A relationship requires relating from both parties.

Our race has stepped away from God, but God steps toward us in the message of the gospel. God became flesh in Jesus that humans may approach God. The gospel restores the relationship. God has opened the line of communication through the gospel.

The Gospel Calls for a Universal Response

The messengers of God proclaim that eternal gospel to all inhabits of the world. God’s timeless message contains a universal scope. God does not care about language, nationality, or location. God wants all to know him.

Now, God delivers the message through people. As we read in this verse, God will wrap up our current stage of history by blasting the message forth through angles unhindered by gravity or terrain or weather.

That God wants all to hear reveals the value he has placed upon each individual. Every person, with a distinct face and voice and hair and finger prints, God deems worthy of eternal love. He doesn’t view people as cogs in the machine nor count some expendable for the greater good nor compare with arbitrary credentials nor play favorites within a divine political regime.

Every single individual, God knows, God sees, God loves, God values, God wants to come to know him. People hold prejudices. People play favorites. People judge arbitrarily. People love conditionally. People discriminate. God doesn’t.

Jesus has shown this to be true through his gospel.

Bibliography

1. The Lexham Hebrew Bible, 2012
2. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, 2016
3. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 2003
4. The Lexham Theological Wordbook, 2014
5. The Lexham Bible Dictionary, 2016
6. Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, Carlo M. Martini, and Bruce M. Metzger, Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th Edition, 2012
7. William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker, Walter Bauer, and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 2000
8. G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary, 1999
9. Alan F. Johnson, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Hebrews–Revelation (Revised Edition), 2006

Below, I explore the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the church at Rome to share its relevance for our world today.

You Receive Your Purpose in Life Rather Than Create It

“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,” (Romans 1:1, ESV)

Your purpose in life derives externally and separate from your brilliance, emotions, and genes. No one can concoct their true purpose no matter their mental capacity nor discover it no matter how deeply they plumb the depths of their souls. Furthermore, the society does not confer it upon an individual.

All of these aid us in fulfilling our purpose, but our purpose does not come from them. It comes from God.

The Christian messenger, Paul the Apostle, wrote the verse above as the introduction of his letter to the church in Rome while he lodged in the city of Corinth sometime between AD 55 and 58.

Paul calls himself a servant of Christ Jesus asserting that Jesus still lived despite Jesus’ crucifixion over twenty years earlier. Paul believed Jesus resurrected from the dead. The book of Acts, written by Luke, contains the account of Paul’s encounter with resurrected Jesus. Paul wanted to destroy the church. Jesus made him part of it and told him to grow it.

That’s why Paul says he was “called to be an apostle.” An apostle simply delivers the message from the sender. Jesus sent Paul to proclaim his message. Paul discovered his purpose by receiving it rather than creating it from his own genius or searching for it within himself.

God set Paul apart to deliver the message of God’s gospel. Paul did not set himself apart. Paul’s parents did not set him apart. Paul’s Jewish club didn’t set him apart. Paul’s talents did not set him apart. God set him apart for a specific purpose. God does the same for you.

All people want to feel special. Some people believe they’re special without any need of being told so. Most of us rely on all sorts of scales and measurements to prove to ourselves, and others, we’re unique and special. We add zeros to our bank accounts, speed away in flashy cars, use selfies to show off our abs, run faster than anyone else, code better than anyone else, or put forward our model partner to convey we’re special. All great stuff, but poor purpose dispensers.

Self-comparison leaves us empty and impels us to strive for more lest we come up short on achieving our self-contrived purpose. There’s a better source for finding purpose: the gospel.

Gospel simply refers to good news for public announcement. That’s the meaning of the Greek word euangelion. God wants his message about Jesus Christ to be announced to those who haven’t heard it. That’s what Paul did to build the church. God’s news differs from the news you and I read on CNN or Fox News. It’s news with a call to respond like a wedding save the date.

However, God’s gospel differs from a save the date. With a save the date, you mark your calendar and maybe call your friends to congratulate them. But they don’t send you a filet mignon sampler in the mail for you to have a foretaste of their big day. God’s gospel not only extends a call, but a promise to benefit the hearer upon his or her immediate reception of the message. How?

The gospel invites you to connect with God immediately, in a real relationship, and receive from God His joy, peace, forgiveness, wisdom, hope, and . . . purpose for your life.

The Message of Jesus Can Breakdown Personal Prejudices

“For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you.” (Romans 1:9–10, ESV)

The gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to subdue, even squelch, personal prejudice.

Romans 1:9–10 reveals Paul’s intent to travel to the church in Rome as well as his motive for doing so. That desire stemmed from Paul’s service in the work of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He proclaimed the gospel. He taught others the bone and marrow of the gospel message and he taught them how to live by the power of the gospel.

Before becoming a Christian, Paul was a Jewish Pharisee. This religious sect not only divided themselves from many non-Jews, but also many Jews whom they believed didn’t live up to their interpretation of the Torah, the Jewish law from Moses.

Paul became a Christian about fifteen to twenty years before writing his letter to the Roman church. Paul said he eagerly wants to join them that they may benefit from him and he from them. He prayed for them consistently as you can see above. Most of whom he prayed for, populating the Roman church, did not have the Jewish badge.

When Paul believed the gospel of Jesus and lived by its power, it broke down common societal prejudices. But it not only broke down prejudices, it impelled Paul to serve and love against those he formerly those prejudices.

Paul assumed God sees what we do in this life and has an interest in it. Paul first said, “For God is my witness.” In verse eight, Paul told the Roman church how often he gives thanks for their faith in Jesus and, by extension, the uncommon lifestyle that accompanied it. To emphasize his consistent praying, he argues that God is a kind of legal witness to these prayers.

God did not create the world in a natural, metaphysical cocoon, with no intent to be involve Himself in every minute detail. He sustains all intentionally. He cares.

God not only sees what we do and has an interest in it, He intends for us to do certain things while avoiding others. Paul said he serves God with his whole spirit. Paul simply means that he fully engaged himself in his service to God with as much effort as he could give.

The Greek word Paul uses for serve comes from the cultic sphere of life that could also mean “worship.” The Greek word is used in religious contexts rather than master-employee or master-slave contexts. Paul assumes that God has revealed how we can serve Him. Paul assumes God has revealed how we can delight Him. Paul assumes that God likes particular actions and attitudes and not others.

People cannot do whatever they want and claim they’re serving God without first learning what it is God wants. Doctors don’t apply local anesthesia to your right foot to prepare for surgery on your left hand. Doctors first learn learn from you what’s hurting or needs correction, then they act. Likewise, in our relationship with God, we first learn who he is and what he likes by what he has communicated to us about himself.

He’s communicated to us through the gospel of Jesus. Paul’s faith evidenced itself via broken down personal prejudices. God liked that.

God Provided the Gospel to Benefit Us

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16, ESV)

Those who hear and believe the Gospel of Jesus can benefit from it.

Romans 1:16 launches Paul into the most sustained theological treatise we have from him. It lasts from Romans 1:16 through Romans 11:36. In it, Paul unfolds the meaning and relevance of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The benefits of the gospel outweigh the social pressures it may create. Paul said he’s not ashamed of the gospel. When Paul proclaimed the gospel in the ancient world—whether to Jews, Greeks, or Romans—he put himself at risk of persecution, injury, oppression, or even death. He told Jews, “We now know God through the message of a crucified Jewish peasant.” He told Greeks, “Only through the crucified Jew from Nazareth can you find true wisdom.” He told Romans, “There is one Lord, Jesus Christ, whose kingdom will soon rule over all—not Caesar.”

Paul didn’t say this to get rich, to start a riot against pagan cultic systems, to impose pressures on a corrupt government, to achieve fame from his debating prowess, or to start a separatist movement in desert caves.
Paul wanted people to hear the gospel because it is good news from God for them. People can benefit from it. People can connect with God through it. Paul let this desire to benefit others impel him despite the risks of publicly announcing a controversial.

The gospel might bring shame because it always brings to light evil perpetuated by humans. He names what’s wrong with the world. According to the gospel, each person stands at fault. Environment didn’t create evil. Poverty didn’t begin evil. Power didn’t conjure up evil.

Moral evil begins in each person’s heart. What leads an eighth-grader to punch another in the face leads a dictator to extinguish an entire class of people based on race or wealth. What leads a thirteen year old to watch pornography also leads frat-guys to gang rape a drunken co-ed.

But we don’t have to stand condemned before a holy God or travel the world to find paradise or inject chemicals to discover peace. The gospel clarifies the issue and offers the solution.

The gospel channels unique, divine power to the one who believes it. Paul said the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Humans stand in need of salvation. We need salvation form our own evil devices, salvation from God’s just wrath against wrongdoers, salvation from the wicked acts of others, salvation from deceptive schemes of thought, salvation from this world’s natural disasters, and salvation from our ultimate enemy, death.

The world’s evil does not bind the power of God. God created the world. The first humans turned astray preventing the full blessing of God from permeating the earth. While God’s partial blessing remains, corruption also festers—from hurricanes to the abuse of power. Through the gospel, God reverses the effects of corruption beginning by giving us new hearts and ending with a world that has his full blessing as he intended.

Through the gospel, God is making all things new. Through the gospel, you can be made new because God pledges to do so to the one who seeks him through the message of the gospel. Simply believe it.

The gospel channels God’s message to every human being. God does not discriminate on language, race, or nationality. He gave the gospel that all may hear it, understand it, believe it, and receive hope from it.

God does not use online marketing to the upper-middle class and above. He doesn’t send invites to only those with a college degree. He doesn’t look at your hair style or where you live. Through the particular message of the gospel of Jesus Christ, God makes himself universally available.

Your past doesn’t keep God from freely extending to you his message of hope and life. God knows death pervades, but he wants new life to sprout all over the world through the gospel.

The gospel derives from, fits within, and continues the grand story of God’s goal for the world. The events and message of Jesus Christ do not appear randomly in the vicissitudes of human history. God began the story with Adam, promised the blessing to Abraham, gave the law to Moses, promised a priest-king to David, and actuated all of his promises through Jesus Christ.

The story of the Hebrew Testament, the Old Testament, prepares the world for the story of Jesus Christ. All of God’s promises find their yes in Jesus. Most of these promises, Jesus inaugurated, but he won’t finalize them until the end of human history which will come at a cataclysmic event in which all will see the power of God and understand that Jesus is Lord of all.

God wants humans to be, without hindrance, those whom they were meant to be—individuals made in His image who love each other and have a thriving relationship with the one who made them. It takes God’s message and God’s power for humans to receive this purpose and live it.

God Likes Certain Attitudes and Behaviors, But Hates Others

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” (Romans 1:18, ESV)

God distinguishes between good and evil. Not all behavior is good; not all is bad. God’s judgment resides outside the bounds of culture or human opinion. The gospel comes to us as good news of God’s grace, forgiveness, love, and hope because we all stand under his wrath. Paul assumes God is a personal God who has moral standards for how humans should act and think, and Paul assumed that this God applies these moral standards to the world—approving and praising the good while judging and condemning the bad.

God does this to humans and not to orangutans, tiger sharks, or golden retrievers because He made humans in his image to reflect his nature. By doing what God wouldn’t do, we wrong Him, defame Him, offend Him, belittle Him, and injure Him. God deeply cares about what we do.

I’m sure for most, this makes no sense because it doesn’t match our experience. Men don’t go to jail for lusting after another man’s bikini-clad wife and women don’t go to jail for coveting another woman’s flashy ride. But God would not have those thoughts nor commit deeds from lust or covetousness because those attitudes and behaviors don’t come from love. God is love and does what is loving. He made us to do the same. When we don’t, we commit a crime against God.

For these crimes, God holds us accountable responding by removing from us the life He gave to us and the good things we could receive while living the life He gave to us. People don’t create themselves nor conjure their own purpose for living. Death reminds everyone that we, ultimately, will never be the captain of our fate or the master of our soul.

Paul calls this kind of judgment, for wronging God, God’s wrath. It’s punishment. Just because you haven’t felt wrath against another—perhaps due to your exemption from the heinous, unjust crimes of criminals—doesn’t mean wrath isn’t real and that God doesn’t act from it.

The love of God directed his wrath to fall on the head of His perfect son that we, who are all guilty, might not receive it. Those who embrace the Son, through the gospel, step out from under the wrath of God into His unfettered love. But below, we’ll see what happens and why to those who don’t receive Jesus.

God actively opposes moral evil committed by people. Without Jesus, all people tip-toe on a thin sheet of ice that could break at any moment. We know it as death. Only Jesus can reverse death. We can’t reverse death on our own. No one cheats death. Only God’s grace and love, suspending the full release of his wrath, allows people to enjoy the bounty this world produces.

Yet, even though this lush earth sometimes hides the wrath of God against wrongdoing—whether it be to others, ourselves, or against Him—corruption and corrosion binds itself intrinsically to this world. That corrosion comes from the partial removal of God’s life-giving blessing.

That the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven signifies God dimming the full expression of the light of His beneficent presence. We know death. We know murder and hatred and greed. We know tsunamis and hurricanes and earthquakes. The world does not exist as God originally made it. God does not intend for it to eternally abide this way. So Jesus came to reconcile the world to God. Now God is revealing his salvation while also revealing his wrath.

So we experience not only the side of God that blesses, but also the side of God that curses.

God partially enacts judgment against people who commit evil and will one day fully judge those who do evil. We see the side of God that curses because of the wrath of his judgment that he partially reveals in the present world. While we don’t understand, completely, the cosmic meaning of all earthly events, we do know that God chooses to execute partial retribution against wrongdoing.

He does this that those who see it may stop whatever wrongdoing they commit, fostering death, and turn to him, the author of life.

We have the ability to label moral evil as unrighteousness and ungodliness. Paul assumes we’re able to place our finger on tangible actions and label them as ungodliness and unrighteousness. We can label falsehood, rape, theft, envy, lust, and pride as moral evils. God hates these acts no matter what culture or time period in which they surface.

No culture stands equal to another. Some civilizations hold more superiority than others. But all have moral evil in common. Some more, others less.

We can label evil practices done by individuals as well as systemic evil that pervades a society. In other words, unique perspectives do not determine whether evil is evil or good is good. Good and evil exist whether everyone recognizes it. However, most of us can and do whether we admit or not.

By doing what isn’t morally upright or in accordance with God’s intention, we personally squelch the presence and existence of the personal God who made us and loves us. In this verse, Paul said that the evil, which people perform, masks the truth. While this truth refers to God and God’s nature, it also refers to moral truth. Moral truth transcends cultural values. Just because a culture or people accept adultery as good doesn’t mean God does.

When people commit wrongdoing, they suppress God’s truth about himself and his intent for this world according to Paul. Evil deceives and blinds us from reality. Our false desires make us see reality as we want it to be rather than as it is.

All have been consigned under the propensity to commit moral evil. All have the inclination, and act on this inclination, to do ungodly and unrighteous deeds. All stand guilty before God by the guilt of our first ancestors, who disobeyed God, and because of the guilt from perpetuating that evil doing..

For many, inherited guilt is difficult to understand. More so, inherited consequences. But it’s like the children of Adolf Eichmann. He helped lead Hitler’s extermination of the Jews and was captured by Israeli agents and eventually executed. Eichmann had children, one young, when Israel found him guilty and hanged him. For Eichmann’s evil, the children inherited a fatherless life and the stigma of the deeds his father committed.

The difference between that illustration and our situation is that all have continued the evil done by our parents—while it may differ in expression from person to person, it continues in our nature, with our minds, through our lips, and by our hands.

The Gospel counteracts and overcomes the works of evil and satisfies God’s own judgment against it.

As we read in Romans 1:16, the gospel reveals the righteousness of God to all who receive it. God’s righteousness defeats the works of evil mentioned in Romans 1:18. This righteousness God gives to us for receiving Jesus because Jesus received the punishment we deserve—which he didn’t deserve.

Not only this, God gives us a new nature that gives us the power to conquer our evil and do good. While evil tendencies remain in us, God’s power can conquer them and we can confess this evil to God knowing that he can forgive and restore us.

One day, Christians will receive a new nature and a new body untainted, in any way, by the inclination to do evil or live in a world affected by it.

God Sometimes Punishes Us By Letting Us Get What We Want

“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.” (Romans 1:28, ESV)

When we actively reject God, God actively rejects us. God does not coerce us to love him and do what he wants. When we reject God by doing evil and ignoring his ways, he lets us go. He lets us run free. He lets the wind of our desires carry us off the foundation of his truth.

When we reject God’s ways, the immediate judgment we receive is getting what we want.

Sometimes, the worst that happens to us comes to us when we get what we want. We think it will be better. We think we will have more money, feel better, be happier, enjoy more security, or earn more respect. But the attainment of that goal leaves us dissatisfied and hungrier for something more.

Similarly, God lets us loose to do the evil we want. Often that evil puts chains around us preventing us from escaping. By turning to Jesus, he’ll break the chains, let you lose, give you a new heart, redirect your life, and give a taste of what you’re truly looking for.

We can see God’s first judgment against evil—that judgment is we want what shouldn’t be wanted and ignore what’s true about God and this world.

The first glimpse of the evidence of evil in ourselves and in others lies in wanting what we shouldn’t want, refusing to believe what’s evidently true, and neglecting the existence of an involved God.

According to Paul, when we reject God, we believe what’s incorrect and engage false pursuits—like an all-cookie diet to lose weight.

The Gospel reveals that God actively pursues us even as we reject him. As we see in Romans 1:16, even though the natural state of humanity inclines away from the true God toward what’s evil—even as some good persists—God pursues us through the message of the Gospel because he loves us.
It’s God’s love that expels our evil inclinations, opens our eyes to His grace, and attracts our hearts to him.

We see glimpses of the power of love—especially in moms and dads toward their sons and daughters. This selfness and sacrificial love can be so moving to see—how much more when we actually experience it from the God of the cosmos.

The gospel reverses the affects of sinful corruption by teaching us what God is like, how to think about the world, and how to desire what is good.

When we embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, it first benefits us by changing the way we see God as well as the way we see the world. It changes our thinking. Thinking that used to corrupt us falls under the weighty truth of the gospel.

Then we grow by letting God’s truth permeate our minds, transform our desires, and alter our habits so that our lives more closely become reflections of God and his nature. We begin new lives aimed at imaging him. That new life begins, is sustained by, and has as its end a thriving relationship with the living God our father through his eternal son Jesus Christ.

Bibliography

1) The Lexham Hebrew Bible, 2012.
2) The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, 2016
3) Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 2003.
4) The Lexham Theological Wordbook, 2014.
5) The Lexham Bible Dictionary, 2016.
6) G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, 2007
7) Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, Carlo M. Martini, and Bruce M. Metzger, Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th Edition, 2012
8) William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker, Walter Bauer, and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 2000.
9) Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, 2018

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Ever want just the gist of the Bible? After all, the Bible contains 66 writings—39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament—comprising 1,189 chapters that have over 31,000 verses. Is it even possible to sum up? Yes. It’s called the gospel.

The Christian gospel is like a seed of a tree which the Old Testament planted and from which all the New Testament grows.

If you don’t understand anything about Christianity, at least learn the gospel.

Even though none of the writers of the New Testament wrote: “Here’s all you need to know about the gospel, ‘Blah, blah, blah…,’” we can at least piece together enough statements to connect them like a puzzle…and the puzzle is not a blurry picture. Rather, it has sharp lines and distinct features forming a clear presentation.

The First Statement to Know

The first thing we need to know comes from Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia—probably one of his first letters written in the AD 40s—approximately fifteen years after Jesus died and resurrected.
Paul said,

“For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11–12, ESV)

What Does the Word Gospel Mean?

According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the use of the English word gospel began in the Middle English period (twelfth to fourteenth centuries) and comes from the Old English word godspel used prior to the twelfth century.

Godspel consists of two Old English words—god which means “good” and spell which means “tale,” to mean “good tale” or “good story” or “good news.”

Translators of the Latin Bible needed to translate the word evangelium so they combined the two words to form godspel.

The Latin word evangelium translates the Greek word euangelion used by the Greek New Testament writers to speak of “good news.” In the Roman world, messengers traveled to publicly announce good news from their senders.

The Christians adopted this word to encapsulate the message of Jesus Christ that must be publicly announced as good news. So the word gospel in the Bible means “good news.”

Today, we typically use the word gospel to refer to the good news from Jesus Christ or as a title for one of the first four books of the New Testament documenting the life of Christ—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

For the World, But Not of the World

“…that the gospel preached by me is not man’s gospel….”

Paul says he didn’t receive his gospel from any person. When Paul wrote to the church in the Roman province of Galatia, the southern region of modern day Turkey, false teachers had spread throughout the church a gospel different from what Paul originally taught. They preached a message saying, “Embrace Jesus Christ and…” as opposed to Paul who said, “Embrace Jesus Christ alone.”

The false teachers learned Paul’s gospel and made it their own by adding to it layers of Jewish tradition, logic from human ingenuity, and fancy badges, metaphorically, to convey how they’re the true people of God. They thought the heavenly cake needed cream cheese frosting.

But this gave the gospel a souring flavor differing from the sweet teachings Paul gave to the Galatians.

The gospel preached by the early Jews of Jesus did not develop from their wise theorizing. Their history and schools of thought did not give them the training to contrive the good news they preached. It’s like saying Karl Marx developed socialism from reading Shakespeare.

The early Christians preached a story Jews would understand if they kept listening, but different enough to make many of the Jews stop listening. But those who did listen understood that the message indeed comes from the God of their fathers who raised up and brought down the nation of Israel.

Christians believed the God of the Jews had returned to restore not only the Jews, but the whole world to himself through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

So the gospel of Jesus is not another clever idea on par with the writings of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Plato, Gautama Buddha, or Thomas Jefferson. Yes, their writings may be interesting, even useful for many, but in the end, they’re developed by another person made of stuff like you and me.

The Gospel Comes from God

“…but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ….”

The biblical gospel comes from God—not originating from a human mind like yours and mine.

Paul did not invent the message he preached. He received it by way of revelation. God revealed the message to him. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, stands at the center of that message. The message not only came from Jesus Christ, but also consists of Jesus Christ. It’s about him. The message has a divine source with divine content.

After Pilate crucified him and Joseph of Arimathea buried him, Jesus Christ appeared in a new body to Paul while he traveled to Damascus.

Prior to that, Paul didn’t like the Christians. He didn’t like their message. He actually wanted to squelch their movement and kill the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, so called the “Christ.” That’s what Paul had done in Jerusalem and planned to do in Damascus.

So it makes sense that something drastic must have happened to Paul to impel him to claim that Jesus resurrected from the dead and for to him worship Jesus as the God of Israel.

Paul not only saw Jesus, but received Jesus’ commission to proclaim the gospel. Paul says he went to Jerusalem to ensure the message he received from Jesus, and had proclaimed to non-Jews, aligned with the message received by the leaders who knew and followed Jesus during his lifetime.

Paul had the same content as they had—sourced from heaven and about the man from heaven who died and was raised, Jesus Christ.

So It Came from God, What’s the Big Deal?

First, the gospel of Jesus contains specific content about the person of God, the purpose of life, and the goal of history.

More on the specific content later. For now, this means that no other message—that contradicts, adds to, or takes away from what the first century apostles put forward—adequately represents what God wants us to know about these things. Chocolate milk tastes like chocolate milk and is called chocolate milk because it’s not orange juice.

Whether it be a new scholar, a dreamer of dreams, or a new movement, if the message contradicts, adds to, or takes away from the gospel according to the Bible, then God did not give it because humans invented it. Often, people invent different gospels based on the real gospel.

Second, we should learn about the purpose of life, the person of God, and the goal of history through the gospel.

Don’t you hate the constant flow of ads that promise to reveal the one decoration your living room is missing or the one investment no one knows about that is making people rich? They just want you to look there…or to click here…or to enter this door. Often, they don’t actually care about adding value to your life. They just want your attention and money without providing a quality service or product.

Not so with this gospel.

God doesn’t want us to invent our own purpose for life, nor contrive our own thoughts of how God should be or what God should do, nor stake all of our hope in human cunning to progress our race.

If the true God has spoken to us through the gospel, then he obviously wants us to know something. That the gospel means “good news” indicates that God wants us to benefit from the news he’s given.

He wants us to have words in our mind that stem from thoughts in his. He wants us to understand the meaning of the events he performed. He wants us to know his plans. Not all. But what’s pertinent to us, and our well-being, God has shared with us.

Third, the gospel should receive an ample amount of our effort, time, and attention.

Nothing else worth knowing compels us to know it more than the gospel.

That a home exploded on seventh street, or the prime minister of France met with the prime minister of England, or the Dow went down two percent, or Beijing’s smog has increased, or receiving education for a career, or even learning that a loved one has passed away…none of this can affect us more than what God wants us to know through the gospel. It sounds extreme because it is extreme, eternally so.

The gospel invites us into a story far more captivating than Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. It contains events stranger than any fiction, knowledge deeper than any philosophy, and power that works better than any self-help guru—especially Tony Robbins…though I find some of his stuff useful.

The gospel’s importance bids us to enjoy its richness often.

Bibliography

1) The Lexham Hebrew Bible, 2012
2) The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, 2016
3) Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 2003
4) The Lexham Theological Wordbook, 2014
5) The Lexham Bible Dictionary, 2016
6) Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, Carlo M. Martini, and Bruce M. Metzger, Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th Edition, 2012
7) William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker, Walter Bauer, and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 2000
8) Timothy George, Galatians, 1994
9) F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, 1982