Why doesn't anyone preach the good news about Jesus in its COMPLETE and CORRECT form? I have heard and read too many half-gospels and clearly incorrect versions of it.
Is God preventing me from getting to the saving knowledge? Is something restricting my access to the true gospel?
And most importantly, WHAT IS THE GOSPEL?????
The day is soon over and I have again spent my few hours of free time in this endless process of finding the gospel!!!
Question: "What is the gospel?"
Answer: The word
gospel literally means “good news” and occurs 93 times in the Bible, exclusively in the New Testament. In Greek, it is the word
euaggelion, from which we get our English words
evangelist,
evangel, and
evangelical. The gospel is, broadly speaking, the whole of Scripture; more narrowly, the gospel is the good news concerning Christ and the way of salvation.
The key to understanding the gospel is to know why it’s good news. To do that, we must start with the
bad news. The Old Testament Law was given to Israel during the time of Moses (
Deuteronomy 5:1). The Law can be thought of as a measuring stick, and sin is anything that falls short of “perfect” according to that standard. The righteous requirement of the Law is so stringent that no human being could possibly follow it perfectly, in letter or in spirit. Despite our “goodness” or “badness” relative to each other, we are all in the same spiritual boat—we have sinned, and the punishment for sin is death, i.e. separation from God, the source of life (
Romans 3:23). In order for us to go to heaven, God’s dwelling place and the realm of life and light, sin must be somehow removed or paid for. The Law established the fact that cleansing from sin can only happen through the bloody sacrifice of an innocent life (
Hebrews 9:22).
The gospel involves Jesus’ death on the cross as the sin offering to fulfill the Law’s righteous requirement (
Romans 8:3–4;
Hebrews 10:5–10). Under the Law, animal sacrifices were offered year after year as a reminder of sin and a symbol of the coming sacrifice of Christ (
Hebrews 10:3–4). When Christ offered Himself at Calvary, that symbol became a reality for all who would believe (
Hebrews 10:11–18). The work of atonement is finished now, and that’s good news.
The gospel also involves Jesus’ resurrection on the third day. “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” (
Romans 4:25). The fact that Jesus conquered sin and death (sin’s penalty) is good news, indeed. The fact that He offers to share that victory with us is the greatest news of all (
John 14:19).
The
elements of the gospel are clearly stated in
1 Corinthians 15:3–6, a key passage concerning the good news of God: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living.” Notice, first, that Paul “received” the gospel and then “passed it on”; this is a divine message, not a man-made invention. Second, the gospel is “of first importance.” Everywhere the apostles went, they preached the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Third, the message of the gospel is accompanied by proofs: Christ died for our sins (proved by His burial), and He rose again the third day (proved by the eyewitnesses). Fourth, all this was done “according to the Scriptures”; the theme of the whole Bible is the salvation of mankind through Christ. The Bible is the gospel.
“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile” (
Romans 1:16). The gospel is a
bold message, and we are not ashamed of proclaiming it. It is a
powerful message, because it is God’s good news. It is a
saving message, the only thing that can truly reform the human heart. It is a
universal message, for Jews and Gentiles both. And the gospel is received by faith; salvation is the gift of God (
Ephesians 2:8–9).
The gospel is the good news that God loves the world enough to give His only Son to die for our sin (
John 3:16). The gospel is good news because our salvation and eternal life and home in heaven are guaranteed through Christ (
John 14:1–4). “He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you” (
1 Peter 1:3–4).
The gospel is good news when we understand that we do not (and cannot) earn our salvation; the work of
redemption and
justification is complete, having been finished on the cross (
John 19:30). Jesus is the
propitiationfor our sins (
1 John 2:2). The gospel is the good news that we, who were once enemies of God, have been reconciled by the blood of Christ and adopted into the family of God (
Romans 5:10;
John 1:12). “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (
1 John 3:1). The gospel is the good news that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (
Romans 8:1).
To reject the gospel is to embrace the bad news. Condemnation before God is the result of a lack of faith in the Son of God, God’s only provision for salvation. “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (
John 3:17–18). God has given a doomed world good news.
www.gotquestions.org/what-is-the-gospel.html
Question: "What are the essentials of the gospel message?"
Answer: The word
gospel means “good news,” which is the message of forgiveness for sin through the atoning work of Jesus Christ. It is essentially God’s rescue plan of
redemption for those who will trust in His divine Son in order to be reconciled to a just and holy God. The essential content of this saving message is clearly laid out for us in the Bible.
In the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he lays out the content of the gospel message, “Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (
1 Corinthians 15:1–4).
In this passage, we see three essential elements of the gospel message. First, the phrase “died for our sins” is very important. As
Romans 3:23 tells us, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The reality of sin needs to be acknowledged by all who approach the throne of God for salvation. A sinner must acknowledge the hopelessness of his guilt before God in order for forgiveness to take place, and he must understand that the “wages of sin is death” (
Romans 6:23). Without this foundational truth, no gospel presentation is complete.
Second, the person and work of Christ are indispensable components of the gospel. Jesus is both God (
Colossians 2:9) and man (
John 1:14). Jesus lived the sinless life that we could never live (
1 Peter 2:22), and, because of that, He is the only one who could die a substitutionary death for the sinner. Sin against an infinite God requires an infinite sacrifice. Therefore, either man, who is finite, must pay the penalty for an infinite length of time in hell, or the infinite Christ must pay for it once. Jesus went to the cross to pay the debt we owe to God for our sin, and those who are covered by His sacrifice will
inherit the kingdom of God as sons of the king (
John 1:12).
Third, the
resurrection of Christ is an essential element of the gospel. The resurrection is the proof of the power of God. Only He who created life can resurrect it after death, only He can reverse the hideousness that is death itself, and only He can remove the sting that is death and the victory that is the grave’s (
1 Corinthians 15:54–55). Further, unlike all other religions, Christianity alone possesses a Founder who transcends death and who promises that His followers will do the same. All other religions were founded by men and prophets whose end was the grave.
Finally, Christ offers His salvation as a free gift (
Romans 5:15;
6:23), that can only be received by faith, apart from any works or merit on our part (
Ephesians 2:8–9). As the apostle Paul tells us, the gospel is “the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile” (
Romans 1:16). The same inspired author tells us, “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (
Romans 10:9).
These, then, are the essential elements of the gospel: the sin of all men, the death of Christ on the cross to pay for those sins, the resurrection of Christ to provide life everlasting for those who follow Him, and the offer of the free gift of salvation to all.
www.gotquestions.org/gospel-message.html
