I guess illumination would be a better descriptor than revelation when it comes to my take on the gospel of Christ. The gospel is known by a variety of phrases. It is the gospel of the kingdom, the gospel of Christ, the gospel of God, and the gospel of his grace. These are all referring to the one true gospel. There is not a gospel of the kingdom and a gospel of grace. There is only the gospel. So, I want to lay out my understanding of the gospel and how it operates by the Spirit in the lives of believers.
The need for the gospel:
Humanity is separated from God. God is not separated from humanity. God created human kind in his image and declared in Genesis 1:31 that it was very good. In order for humanity to be able to love and worship God and not be merely a robot type individual there was of necessity a need for this separation. Further more, humanity needed to receive the ability to judge, thus the knowledge of good and evil had to be introduced. Finally humanity needed mortality to finalize the separation.
Humanity also needed a survival instinct to continue as a race. The survival instinct is the source of greed. Greed forces the individual to justify their self centered choices. Only God, the creator can decide and know what is truly good and what is really evil. So then, humanity's sin, I prefer the word pathology, is the result of being able to judge between good and evil while facing ultimate mortality and the uncertainty of what death brings. From all of this arises the need for two things. First is to know ones acceptability to the creator, and second to know that one is eternal. You can see clearly that God did not need to redeem humanity... it needed redemption for its sake and not Gods. With the knowledge of good and evil and mortality comes fear and doubt about death. This makes faith without doubt virtually impossible. Humanity needed redemption because of the innate lack of faith or the lack of the ability to have faith. Humanities fall destroyed faith with the addition of the knowledge of good and evil and death.
Note:
1Co 15:1-5 CSB "Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel I preached to you, which you received, on which you have taken your stand (2) and by which you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. (3) For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, (4) that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, (5) and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve." This is a very important passage when it comes to understanding the content of the gospel. Paul makes several claims about the gospel he preached. He said that it was the gospel he preached, the gospel they received, the gospel they believed and the gospel in which they stood. It is the gospel of the resurrection and the gospel of grace. Paul states emphatically that This is the entirety of the gospel.
The function of the redeemer:
With all of humanity locked in a faithless dilemma, there was needed a human who could have perfect faith in a loving creator to show the way for others to have faith. Since the problem that had to be overcome was death, Jesus the redeemer had to die with perfect faith in a loving creator... faith that he was eternal, and totally accepted for who he was, the unique Son of God. This is precisely why the Sure Word of God had to be made flesh. The challenge needed a human that was capable of perfect faith and in order to provide that God had to embrace and embody human form. The redeemer would be a human that would overcome the fear of death and triumph over the grave. Finally, the resurrection was necessary for humanity to see that they are eternal. The Holy Spirit supernaturally gives faith in the gospel message and assurance of the eternal nature of humans. Paul stated this with respect to the human need for the gospel: 1Co 15:55-57 CSB "Where, death, is your victory? Where, death, is your sting? (56) The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. (57) But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!"
The operational function of the gospel in the human transformation process:
The first century apostles and saints taught the concept of transformation. The transformation process is aided by the renewing of the mind to the gospel of grace. The entirety of the law is summed up in two things; loving God and loving humanity. The gospel of grace fulfills both. An individual, aware by faith that God has declared him or her righteous on the basis of Christ's faith causes peace with God, and ultimately, love for God. Resting in the gospel no matter what causes the love for God to be translated into loving what God loves which is humanity. This transformation can only take place when the person is resting in the justification provided by Christ. The minute that the individual begins to judge his or her righteousness by adherence to the law the transformation ceases and reformation begins. Self reformation is a futile exercise. This is why it is necessary to proclaim the gospel often. This is true no matter how long the person has had faith in Christ. There is never a time when the saint can try to live the law and keep the peace and love offered in the initial gospel message. It is all by grace. The more often the saint hears the gospel the more they are aware of their love God. The more they are aware of their love for God the more they become transformed into a loving individual.
How the gospel presented by the evangelical church falls short of the mark:
Contrast the above explanation with the way in which the current evangelical church presents the gospel. There are various gospels that are presented and so I am going to provide what I believe is the most grace filled gospel. All the other iterations are more legalistic and less grace focused but as you will see the best falls way short of the mark.
The current evangelical church sees the gospel of Christ as an entry point to the so called "Christian Life." Once a person believes the gospel, they are set on the path of allowing the Holy Spirit to aid in living the law. Once the person has entered in, the focus changes from being justified to how to self improve. There is no detailed explanation of how the Holy Spirit works in the individual. The individual proves the efficacy of their conversion by living a life of radically changed behavior. Now in the most grace filled iterations of this gospel, people are able to "First John One Nine It" and be in a continual cycle of confessing. That is not the way the first century gospel operated. You do not find this concept in Paul's writing. You will say, so what, it is in John's writing. This is one of the sources of the error of evangelical doctrine. Paul was called the apostle to the Gentiles, and he received revelation directed at the New Creation composed of Jew and Gentile, Male and Female, Bond and Free.
Paul's writings are chocked full of redemptive decrees. By redemptive decrees, I mean statements that are either solely true and stand alone or if altered are totally in effectual. Now Paul also wrote occasional messages that were cultural in nature, but the redemptive decrees have precedent. An example of an occasional cultural message is Paul's stance on women in the church. One of the best examples of a redemptive decree is this passage which I am posting in its entirety: Eph 1:3-11 NRSV "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, (4) just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. (5) He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, (6) to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. (7) In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace (8) that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight (9) he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, (10) as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. (11) In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will," This passage clearly states that God's purpose in creation was redemption as he has stated it was BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD.
Here is another example of a redemptive decree. Gal 2:16 NET "yet we know that no one is justified by the works of the law but by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by the faithfulness of Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified." The Greek scripture clearly states that we are justified by the faith OF Christ, as it is in the genitive case. I used the NET version of the bible as only it, the KJV and YLT translate it the faith of Christ. Finally another example of a redemptive decree is as follows: Rom 5:1 NRSV "Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," This is an important decree because since we have been justified by the faith of Christ we can have peace with God as we apprehend Christ's faith by believing the gospel message. That is the way that we stay in right relationship with God... not by "First John One Nining" it. First John was definitely an occasional letter, and while it has redemptive decrees we can not be certain of the occasion for verse nine of chapter one. It is possible that he is referring to the initial repentance which is a change of mind to believe the gospel. We can be sure that it is not referring to fellowship with the father and each other as fellowship is connected to 1 John 1:5-7 walking in the light. Walking in the light would be based on believing, accepting and resting in the gospel as Paul expressed it.
Now that is settled, let me reiterate the gospel in the simplest of terms. First I will quote Paul and then I will break it down further. I believe that this is Paul's best distillation of the gospel of grace. 2Co 5:17-21 "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! (18) All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; (19) that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. (20) So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. (21) For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." This is the gospel in a nutshell.
Here is my distillation (my Cliff Notes) of the gospel including the way in which the Holy Spirit uses the gospel to transform lives. God has reconciled and justified humanity on the basis of the faith of Christ and his willingness to die on the cross for our unbelief so that he could be raised from the dead to prove that we are eternal, and eternally loved by God. We apprehend this justification and peace by our faith in the gospel message which is supplied by the Holy Spirit. It is peace with God based on the work of Jesus Christ that produces love for God and in turn love for our sisters and brothers in humanity. Hearing the gospel often enlivens our love and faith and as we believe and love we grow in grace toward the stature of the fullness of Christ.
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