What Is The Gospel?
It’s good to see you have taken time to consider the Bible’s message. Perhaps you are cautious of religion. Going to church, performing rituals, following traditions. And we would quite agree with you. The Bible teaches that God lives in the heart of men and women who listen to His words. The only ceremonies we should follow are those the Bible itself clearly explains – and there are very few of them in the Bible. Being baptized by dipping in water and breaking bread every week in memory of Jesus are the two main ones.
Or perhaps you’re just an ordinary person who wants God in your life, but doesn’t want to go any deeper. Now this is probably true of many of us who would read a religious leaflet, come to a lecture about the Bible, or have a discussion about it. It’s wonderful that we believe that God is; for surely He does exist. But there is so much more waiting to be discovered – by studying His word, the Bible, we can come to know Him and have a part in His eternal plan. That book was written by His Spirit influencing the people who wrote it – it isn’t just the words of men, like any other book. So this is why it’s so worth studying.
Or maybe you think you know it all. You’ve looked at the Bible, you figured it out. But if you are very, very honest, something is missing. There’s that hollow feeling still, that fear of the future, that lack of certainty about our final destiny... that doubt that’s like the black dog that follows most men and women till their grave. And to you, we’d say: Give it one more try. Perhaps human interpretations have got muddled up with your consideration of the Bible. Get back to the Bible text itself.
Or maybe you see Christianity as “just another intellectual adventure”, another hobby to play with for a while, another fascination, another town along a road – that leads to the grave all the same. Life is too short to have this kind of cynical attitude. One day you will be laid down in your grave, one day the terrible finality of death will close in on you. Give the Bible text a fair hearing now. Please, purely for your own sake, spare a few minutes of your life to at least consider what it says.
So can I address the question, What Is The Gospel?
Please open your New Testament to Matthew 1:1. This is the beginning of Matthew’s explanation of the Gospel. We read:
The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
It’s not quite what we’d expect. He says Jesus is the descendant of David and Abraham. And this, for Matthew, is the beginning of the Gospel. Paul saw it the same way. Have a look at Galatians 3:8:
The scripture predicted that God would put the Gentiles right with himself through faith. And so the scripture announced the Good News to Abraham: "Through you God will bless all people."
So, the Gospel is what was promised to Abraham. That’s what Paul says. So, if we can understand what God promised to Abraham, we can understand what the Gospel is. So let’s go back to the Old Testament, and see what God told Abraham. We’ll go to Genesis, the first book of the Bible, Genesis 17:8:
I will give to you and to your descendants this land in which you are now a foreigner. The whole land of Canaan will belong to your descendants forever, and I will be their God."
So Abraham was told that he and his children would live for ever on this earth. So, eternal life is an idea that comes up in the Old Testament. Note that – because the essential message of the Bible is the same all the way through. How could this be? Turn on to Genesis 22:17,18:
I promise that I will give you as many descendants as there are stars in the sky or grains of sand along the seashore. Your descendants will conquer their enemies. All the nations will ask me to bless them as I have blessed your descendants---all because you obeyed my command."
Abraham was to have a son who would be the source of blessing for the whole world. Now the way to understand the Bible is to see how the Bible itself quotes itself and gives us the interpretation. Now these words we have just read are quoted in the New Testament – in Acts 3:25,26. Let’s go there and find the interpretation.
The promises of God through his prophets are for you, and you share in the covenant which God made with your ancestors. As he said to Abraham, 'Through your descendants I will bless all the people on earth.'
And so God chose his Servant and sent him to you first, to bless you by making every one of you turn away from your wicked ways."
So, who is the seed of Abraham? Jesus. And what are the blessings he would enable for men and women of the whole world? The blessings of forgiveness of sins and salvation. Let’s go further. To Galatians 3:16:
Now , God made his promises to Abraham and to his descendant. The scripture does not use the plural "descendants," meaning many people, but the singular "descendant," meaning one person only, namely, Christ.
So, the seed of Abraham was one man, singular, Jesus. But how could that one man become so many, as many as the stars in the sky? Let’s read Galatians 3:27-29.
You were baptized into union with Christ, and now you are clothed, so to speak, with the life of Christ himself.
So there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free people, between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are the descendants of Abraham and will receive what God has promised.
So, only those who have been baptized into Christ have a part in these promises – the promises of eternal life here on earth. This is why we must be baptized if we are going to be saved! Paul said that his hope was “the hope of Israel” (Acts 28:20). As he faced death, this was his hope – the hope of Israel. What is baptism, then? It isn’t sprinkling. The New Testament is written in Greek, and the word translated ‘baptism’ means really to dip. It was used about a ship sinking, being submerged, or a piece of cloth being dyed from one colour to another by immersing it. Have a look at Mathew 3:13-16:
At that time Jesus arrived from Galilee and came to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him.
But John tried to make him change his mind. "I ought to be baptized by you," John said, "and yet you have come to me!"
But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so for now. For in this way we shall do all that God requires." So John agreed.
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he came up out of the water. Then heaven was opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God coming down like a dove and lighting on him.
Jesus went “down into” the water and came “up out of it”. He was baptized as an adult, not as a baby; by dipping, not sprinkling. That’s why it was done in a river. And if He was baptized, so should we be. This dipping and rising up signifies the death and resurrection of Jesus, and that we have decided to make His death and resurrection our own.
This is why it has to be by immersion, not by sprinkling. Have a look at Romans 6:3-5:
For surely you know that when we were baptized into union with Christ Jesus, we were baptized into union with his death.
By our baptism, then, we were buried with him and shared his death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from death by the glorious power of the Father, so also we might live a new life.
For since we have become one with him in dying as he did, in the same way we shall be one with him by being raised to life as he was.
This is why we appeal to you to be baptized – make it your aim in life, to accept Jesus Christ! By being baptized into Jesus, we become part of Him, and therefore the promises apply to us. Therefore when He returns, we will be resurrected, judged and then, if we have lived faithfully according to God’s word, we will be given the eternal life which He now has. Then we will live for ever in God’s Kingdom here on earth. If you believe this, then life has a new meaning. Whatever material problems we have, we will realize that they are only temporary, and when Christ returns He will give us a new and eternal life. This is why in the Bible and in Christ there is real HOPE. The hope ahead is so great that our present problems do not seem so great.
But how can it be, that this man Jesus can save us? He was our representative, and this is why we must be baptized into His death and resurrection; because He was just like us. Have a look at Heb. 2:14-18:
Since the children, as he calls them, are people of flesh and blood, Jesus himself became like them and shared their human nature. He did this so that through his death he might destroy the Devil, who has the power over death, and in this way set free those who were slaves all their lives because of their fear of death. For it is clear that it is not the angels that he helps. Instead, he helps the descendants of Abraham. This means that he had to become like his people in every way, in order to be their faithful and merciful High Priest in his service to God, so that the people's sins would be forgiven. And now he can help those who are tempted, because he himself was tempted and suffered.
Notice in passing that the devil is not an animal or a dragon. It is used here as a personification for sin. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), but here we read that ‘the devil’ “has the power of death”. We need to struggle against our own natures, not against an invisible being outside of ourselves. Verse 14 says the same thing several times – He, Himself, likewise, partook, the same nature as us. Yet most ‘Christian’ groups teach that there are three Gods in a trinity, and one of them was Jesus. But this isn’t what the Bible says. And according to Hebrews, it is very important we get our understanding of Jesus right. He was exactly of
our nature. The writer stresses it 4 times! He was tempted like us.
And how are we tempted? By our own human nature. Have a look at James 1:13-15:
If we are tempted by such trials, we must not say, "This temptation comes from God." For God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. But we are tempted when we are drawn away and trapped by our own evil desires. Then our evil desires conceive and give birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
This means that Jesus had our human nature. God can’t be tempted, it says, but Jesus was tempted, Hebrews says. So Jesus wasn’t God Himself. He was a man, the Son of God by birth, the descendant of David and Abraham through Mary. Likewise, God can’t be born; but Jesus was born. God can’t die; but Jesus died. We cannot see God; but men saw and handled Jesus. Jesus didn’t exist before His birth, either. He was the son of God through Mary. Have a look at Luke 1:31-35:
You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High God. The Lord God will make him a king, as his ancestor David was, and he will be the king of the descendants of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end!" Mary said to the angel, "I am a virgin. How, then, can this be?" The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and God's power will rest upon you. For this reason the holy child will be called the Son of God.
Notice all those future tenses! He will be the Son of God, Mary will conceive in her womb – this is where Jesus began, although the idea, the logos of Jesus, had always been with God from the beginning. Notice that Mary was just an ordinary woman. Jesus was the descendant of Abraham and David, and this could only have been because his mother was their descendant. If Jesus was God, then Mary is the mother of God, and she wasn’t an ordinary woman. If as the Bible teaches Jesus was the Son of God and also “son of man”, the descendant of Abraham and David through Mary, it is evident that Mary was an ordinary woman. So it’s all or nothing – a system of true belief, or a system of wrong belief. It is important to believe the right thing, because doctrine affects how we live. Have a look at Hebrews 4:15,16:
Our High Priest is not one who cannot feel sympathy for our weaknesses. On the contrary, we have a High Priest who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin. Let us have confidence, then, and approach God's throne, where there is grace. There we will receive mercy and find grace to help us just when we need it.
Because Jesus was of our nature, therefore we can pray with confidence through Him to God. We don’t need a human priest, church building or pastor to make our prayers acceptable.
So can I just summarize the things we have spoke about in seeking to respond to the question- What is the Gospel? :
1. There is only one God, not a ‘trinity’
2. Jesus is the Son of God, not God Himself; He didn’t exist before He was born. He had all our temptations and human experiences, but He never sinned. He gave His life for us in a painful death, but then, because He never sinned, God resurrected Him from the dead.
3. Through baptism into Christ by the dipping in water of an adult, we share His death and resurrection
4. So when Jesus Christ returns we will be resurrected, judged and given eternal life in His Kingdom – which will be based here on this earth. This Kingdom will be like the world was in the garden of Eden, when God first created man – and even better. All the problems which are now on earth – war, famine, sadness, even death itself, will be finally ended – for ever.
5. After death we are unconscious – ‘hell’ means just ‘the grave’.
6. The soul is not immortal; we are made of dust and return to the dust. The spirit is the power of life within us, which God takes back when we die. We don’t go on existing in any conscious form after death.
7. ‘Satan’ is a symbol for the evil human desires inside us, against which we must struggle; it is not the name of a dragon or monster that exists. God is 100% powerful; He doesn’t share His power with ‘satan’. All our problems come from God, not satan, and therefore there is a positive spiritual purpose to them.
8. By reading the Bible for ourselves we can find the true way to God.
I do appeal to you, to study these things, and give yourself no rest until you have come to surely know the answer to the question: What is the Gospel? I do so hope you will study our free Bible study course; and set yourself the aim, to be baptized one day, by dipping in water. Then you will surely have the hope of eternal life. OK we can’t imagine eternal life. I can only suggest we imagine a long, long line, with no end, stretching on into the distance; and we in this life are just a few millimetres at the start of it. This really is our hope, if we are baptized into Jesus and live in Him. I plead with you, to take all this seriously, and not treat it as mere religion, as just something ordinary.
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There is one Bible but many churches. We must all find out: What is the Gospel? We suggest that you need to read the Bible for yourself in order to find its true message. We believe that there is only one God, that Jesus is the Son of God, that He bore our nature and that we must be baptized by full immersion in order to benefit from His death and resurrection. Soon He will return to establish the Kingdom of God on earth (not in heaven). Please write to BBOS, PO BOX 10542, SADDAR, KARACHI to receive your free lessons to help you in your study of the Bible.
