In Christ's Kingdom, understanding is from the top down; i.e., you proceed from the larger view to the smaller one. In the world, the large picture is constructed from fragmented views--something like building a house with single bricks. In this world, it makes sense to start with the ABC's, and proceed to words and sentences. However, this is not the manner of learning in Christ. First we get the full picture; that is the subject of Divine commentary. God Himself is expounded by Jesus, and Jesus is expounded by the Gospel. When these are grasped, believers are able to "judge all things," placing them in proper perspective.
If you desire to submit a summary statement of the Gospel from your perspective, we will be glad to review it for possible inclusion in this section. Send it via our email with "THE GOSPEL" in the subject line. The more concise you can make it, the better it will be. Please limit your expression to 200 words or less.
Email me your summation of the Gospel
The Gospel is primarily a proclamation (Mk 16.15). It is the message of what God has done through Jesus in order to redeem and reconcile us to himself. While we are the guilty/offending party because of sinning against a perfectly holy and just God, He is also loving, merciful, and gracious to provide the means of atonement. That is the Good News that while we were yet sinners, powerless, without hope, without God, enemies and ungodly... Jesus took our punishment on the cross. It is the essential message of salvation for the lost and the binding element of unity for the saved.
Left to ourselves we are candidates for eternal destruction. No one lives up to the per- fect will of God. We are all sinful or lawless. We all deserve God's capital punishment. But that is what grace is about...getting what we don't deserve while not getting what we do deserve. That is Good News!!! Johnny D. Hinton
The gospel is about how God created man in His image, with power and freedom of will, and how He won our hearts and reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ. The secret power of the gospel is its regenerative, transforming work that God performs in us by our willing response to His great mercy, love, grace, and generosity displayed in the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. That secret transforming power is begun in us by our belief of the marvelous report of the putting away of our sins, and is continued by our faithful belief, through the grace and Holy Spirit of God, until, when in its fullness the transformation is completed at our death, or at Christ’s soon return, and we inherit the full glory and liberty that our Forerunner has prepared for us in heaven. In so doing our Father has both displayed to all heaven and earth, and shared with us, the recipients of His grace, His great power, glory, wisdom, and love through Jesus Christ. Michael Blakely, Brownsburg, Indiana (oldest son of the Editor)
"According to Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, the facts of the Gospel are the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. However, since the word also implies ‘good news,' we must press further to understand what makes the Gospel good news. The efficacy of the Gospel is that God has allowed sinners to enter into the spiritual body of Christ through faith. Those who enter therein are afforded a new status of ‘righteousness,' which is the same status of the Head, Christ. This is what I believe Paul means when he said that Christ was ‘raised for our justification.' Without the resurrection there could be no justification, because faith--through which we enter into the body of Christ--is believing that God raised Him from the dead. In Christ our relationship to God is changed to that of ‘righteousness,' imputed to us through faith. That is the good news of the Gospel." R.L. Kilpatrick, Huntsville, AL
"Generally, the Gospel is considered to be the message of Jesus' incarnation, atoning death, resurrection, glorification, and promise of returning for us. It is the good news of salvation offered to man through Jesus. However, a message cannot save. There are no efficacious tenets of faith. Jesus is the Good News. The message saves only in that it leads us to a relationship with Jesus. The salvation which He offers is of grace rather than of our achievement, or of our ability to keep laws and rules. Righteousness is never fully accomplished in us, either by our effort or by the working of the Spirit within us; but we are accounted as righteous on the basis of our faith. We are reconciled to God when united with the Godhead in baptism. Our reconciliation is maintained by our relationship to God in Christ, rather than in keeping a code of laws satisfactorily (such a code of laws being thought by many to be an extension of the Gospel message). Jesus is the Gospel, the Good News of salvation by grace through faith." Cecil Hook, New Braunsfels, TX
The essence of the Good News to me is this: (1) DIVINE LOVE. God really and truly loves me. (2) VICARIOUS ATONEMENT. Jesus died for me in order that in Himself all of my sin and my sinful nature might be rightly condemned and justly punished. (3) RESURRECTION REALITY. Jesus then rose victorious from death and ascended in order to always represent me, Harold Key before the Lord God Almighty. (4) SANCTIFICATION. As I now trust Jesus alone for all my righteousness [my right standing with God], the Holy Spirit actually pervades me with consecration and power. (5) CONSUMMATE GLORY. Whenever the Father chooses to send Him, Jesus will come again to perfect all things [including my very spirit, soul, and body] for an eternal fellowship and a creative level of service which is beyond my comprehension now, but for which my discipleship in this life is privileged preparation." (6) FOR EVERYONE. This absolutely glorious Good News is not only for me, but it is for you, if you will have it to be so. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life' (John 3:16)." Harold Key, Pasedena, TX
"A profound statement may be perceived to be profound without necessarily being understood to be profound. My observation is that this has been true with respect to the classic definition of ‘The Gospel.' That definition avers: "The Gospel is the Good News about Jesus Christ'--which it assuredly is. But what happens when this assertion becomes a mere Christian Shibboleth--a trite password among ‘the faithful'? This richness is lost. What is the message which constitutes ‘Good News'? One must involve 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 in such a consideration. Paul, under the Spirit's guidance, defines ‘The Gospel' as: (The death of Christ as expiation (atonement, payment in full) for our sins, (2 His necessary burial, (3 His victorious resurrection and His resurrection-confirming appearances. So far this is a theological statement until one translates it into ones own life situation. The bottom line is, even though God's human creatures disobey Him and ravish the God-man relationship, God arranges, for those who will accept, man's salvation at His own expense, and lost man mane scape eternal hell and be with Him in the everlasting ecstacy of heaven." Wilford F. Lown (Shared with me before He went to be with the Lord a few years ago).
"The Gospel is the Good News that God cares about His chief creation, man. Man is not a grand glorious accident on the planet earth. He did not evolve from primitive plasma. God lovingly and carefully created a living soul, and put him into a created body. If there is no plan and no planner, then it is useless to talk about a ‘plan of salvation.' There is no need to talk of the Gospel if there is no sin. There is no sin unless there is a moral yardstick of behavior. The Gospel hits man where he lives. It deals with the realities of life as it is lived among the common people. Jesus Christ's first sermon was in His home town synagogue, where He had been brought up. He took His text from Isaiah 62:1-7 (Luke 4:14-210. ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.' Jesus Christy hammered home the point to the Nazareth congregation, starting flatly that these Scriptures come true ‘today.'" Tibbs Maxey, Joplin, MO
"The Gospel is God's ‘Good News' in three tenses: what He DID, what He IS DOING, and what He WILL DO. It is first God's mighty salvation-acts. Then it becomes the story of that action focused in the life, death, burial, resurrection, and re-creation accomplished through Jesus Christ--'the old, old story of Jesus and His love.' It is as high, deep, and wide as all creation (Eph 1:9-10; Col 1:17-20; Rev 21:5a). Yet, it is received as a grace-gift, a s I became overwhelmingly aware late one Saturday might. Hurrying to the bedside of a dying alcoholic, I asked frantically all the way, ‘Do I have any good news for this man?' Kneeling beside him, I could but say, ‘God loves you. On Calvary He had said it as clearly and fully as He can. We've all been rotters, but He refuses to let us go. All I can tell you is that God loves you, and then point you to the cross, and ask you to cast yourself upon the mercy streaming from Calvary. Will you do that?' The Gospel FOR us becomes the Gospel IN us when we accept it as God's Gift of Himself in empowering Friendship. It is no legal contract, but a grace-gift personally refused or received. There is no ‘personal gospel' and ‘social gospel.' It is one Gospel with radical personal and social consequence, and must be received before it can be adequately shared." Roy Key, Rogers, AR
"The Gospel is GOOD NEWS for the human race--not good advice, good legislation, or good doctrine. It is the good news that God has not given up on human beings despite their predilection to self- centeredness and waywardness. The ‘Gospel' informs us that God values (loves) men and women above all else in creation and has taken costly action to prevent their destruction. Through the cross and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, God offers eternal salvation to every person on earth. This salvation (shalom) includes justice (righteousness), peace, wholeness, and immortal life in the Kingdom of God. It means freedom FROM sin (dis-relation with God) and FOR the life-fulfilling purposes of God--now and forever more." Fred Thompson, Johnson City, TN
"The Gospel of Christ is God;'s power unto salvation for His offspring, alienated from and lost to Him by their sin. Being the report of His rich mercy and great love, as demonstrated by the sacrifice, resurrection, and exaltation of His dear Son, the gospel is wholly sufficient for men's spiritual needs. It provides for their restoration to God, now and forever, and is proffered them for that purpose. When believed and obeyed, the gospel confers a first fruit indwelling by the Father and the Son through the Spirit. If kept firmly in mind and heart until death, it will eternally invest those who embrace it with the Divine Presence, in a state of glorified perfection and service. Well, indeed, is it denominated by Scripture, ‘the glorious gospel of the blessed God' (1 Tim 1:11). Let us, with Paul, determine not to know anything among men but the Gospel (1 Cor 2:1-2)." Fred O. Blakely, Crown Point, IN (Father of the Editor)
"It would arrogant to try and improve on Paul's definition of the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1-10-, it is the Good News of the death, burial, and the witnessed resurrection of Messiah Jesus, my Savior. As Paul made it HIS Gospel (Rom 16:25), and since in my life I have seen numerous indications of the Presence of the loving Savior, ‘I know my Redeemer liveth,' and because He lives I too shall live. This makes ME a witness too, and it is MY gospel. I thrill to the company I keep, glory in this privilege, and rejoice in this hope." Dwaine Dunning, Watertown, SD
"The Gospel is Good News; Of God's love, incarnate Christ. (1 Seeking to restore men to relation with Himself and to the image of God given to man in creation. (2 And to motivate and guide redeemed persons in their stewardship of reclaiming God's dominion over all things." William T. Richardson, De Moines, IA
"The Church is Christ's Fellowship with the Father, shared with believers through their appropriation of the Savior's redeeming work, and their reception of the Holy Spirit's indwelling presence." Robert C. Fife, Johnson City, TN
"From the Bible point of view, history is the temporal locus of that dawning community on which God has set His heart, in which men and women live in harmony with Him, with each other, and with nature. But men and women are free to have purposes of their own which clash with each other and the Divine purpose. When human beings, in response to God's Self-disclosure, are moved and enabled to commit themselves freely to faithful partnership with Him, making His purpose their own, that is redemption. Its fruit is in joy and peace and love, and history becomes pregnant with the Kingdom of God. Redemption lies not in world rejection or world affirmation, but in world transformation. The Gospel is the Good News that God in Christ can and will release me from my inner conflicts, and thus restore in me the creative energies with which He endowed me, and all persons, to the end that in His service I might find the fulfillment of my existence." Robert E. Box, Anniston, AL
While men attempt to justify themselves in and by what they do, God has justified man by what his Son, Christ Jesus has done.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest of all love stories. It shows the true nature of the kingdom of God and at the same time proves to all sincere hearts the extent to which man has fallen from their God. The Gospel tells us of the humility of God himself in sending his Son to become flesh, the creator became one of his creatures that he might deliver them from the bondage of death. Christ laid aside the glories of heaven to be made in the likeness of sinful flesh and being found in that condition, he humbled himself. This is the true nature of the kingdom of God. Christ humbled himself in order that he might save us. He laid down his life, that we might have life. The Gospel is the power of God to everyone who believes. The exhortation therefore is to humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God and in due time he will exalt us. Soon all those who have endured unto the end will receive a crown of righteousness which will never fade away. We will be changed into his image completely. On that day we will stand on a sea of glass having the harps of God and we will sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb. We will come before our Great King of Kings and in that moment we will prove our transformation into his likeness as we cast our crowns at his feet. We truly will have been conformed by the Gospel into the image of Jesus Christ. Praise be unto our Great God who always makes us to triumph in the Kingdom of his dear Son. The good news of what Jesus Christ has acomplished for us is really the only good news there is. for if this news were removed from the minds of the sons of men, only bad news would remain. Robert A. Cobb, Wheatfield, IN
All humans are born by the
breath of God being blown into them, so to speak, as was done in Adam. (Gen.
2:7) But, by the Gospel of Christ, we are born again by the Spirit which was in
Christ being placed into us for our transformation into the sons of God. (John
1:13, 3:5-8) The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not something God thought up as life
went along. It is what He planned and purposed from eternity. The Gospel of
Christ is the eternal purpose of God put into action in the beginning of
creation. (Gen. 1:1, John 1:1-5) The “eternal purpose” means that it always
existed. It was, so to speak, in the heart of God even before He created the
world. (Eph. 3:9-11) For us, who believe the Gospel of Christ, it does have its
way in us as long as we continue in it; making us into the kind of persons God
intends for us to be. (John
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