The
Gospel of Jesus Christ is God’s ‘good news’ for mankind. It is the ‘evangel’.
Gospel = Good News = Evangel. More
specifically, the Gospel is Jesus Christ. Nothing more, nothing less. So it is
that the first, four books of the New Testament are presented as ‘Gospels’.
They are the accounts of the life, ministry and victory of Jesus Christ.
It
is in the unfolding and demonstration of who Jesus is and what He does that the
Gospel is made known. Jesus Christ Himself proclaimed, at the outset of His
ministry, the Gospel ‘of the Kingdom of God’, calling people to repentance and
faith in this Good News (Mark 1.14-15).
It is the declaration that, in Jesus Christ, the reign of God invades and
penetrates the space and structures of this present Age, bringing release and
transformation. In this sense the Gospel is, in Jesus Christ, the embodiment
and expression of the Messianic mission, fulfilling the prophetic utterances of
Isaiah, when Jesus announces, in the synagogue in Nazareth at the beginning of
His ministry, that the Holy Spirit is especially present upon Him, enabling Him
to declare the Gospel, release prisoners, give sight to the blind and set free
the oppressed (Luke 4.18-19). The
Gospel is the declaration that God, in and through Jesus Christ, is reclaiming
the Earth for a redeemed mankind and God’s rule, ending the domination of the
Devil (1 John 3.8) over what is,
properly, the dominion of mankind (Genesis
1.26-28).
Where
Jesus Christ both declared and embodied the expression of the Gospel, it
follows that the Gospel is the account relating to everything about Jesus Christ.
It is there, in the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke. It is in the
description of the Word of God becoming human, in Jesus Christ, in the prologue
of John (John 1.1-18). It is in the
telling of the teaching and events throughout His life and ministry. It is in
His atoning and vicarious death upon the Cross. It is in His Resurrection. It
is His ascension to Heaven and the subsequent outpouring of the Holy Spirit on
the church at Pentecost. It is in His present reign in Heaven and in His coming
return to Earth. All of this is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
What,
though, of the centrality of His death on the Cross: that He died there, making
atonement for our sins (Romans 3.25)?
Is this not the Gospel? Indeed, it is: it is pivotal to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The account of Jesus’s death serves, along with His resurrection, as the climax
of each Gospel account. It is through the Cross that we are saved and enrolled
into participation in the life of Jesus Christ. It is there that the redeeming
transaction takes place, wherein He bears the consequence of human sin; and we
are enabled to be infused, through our participation in Him, with the
righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5.21).
Yet let this be clear: the news of what Jesus Christ accomplished at the Cross,
by itself, does not constitute nor describe the whole of the Gospel. The
declaration of His death and His bodily resurrection must be held together (1 Corinthians 15.3-4), in declaring the
Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Why
is this conjunction of the bodily death and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ
so important? The answer was made clear to the Apostle Paul. In grasping the
reality of the divine exchange, that was made at the place of Calvary, when
Christ took our sins to Himself and caused us to be deemed righteous before
God, the Apostle saw that Christ’s bodily resurrection on Easter Day
prefigures, enables and points the way to our bodily resurrection, because of
what Jesus Christ has done for us. Conjoined to our humanity, Jesus Christ’s
death, as a human being, was a death undertaken for all humanity; and His
bodily resurrection a translation into new life to enable us all (2 Corinthians 5.14-15), that we would
embrace Christ and the newness of life that He brings (2 Corinthians 5.17).
We
are able to share as witnesses, to this Gospel, because we have come to the
place of faith: we have been brought to the point where we willingly declare
our allegiance to this living, resurrected and reigning Jesus Christ as Lord (Romans 10.9-10). Faith in Christ is the
willingness to recognised that we are redeemed in order that we might be joined
to Him, to participate in His humanity, as those who live their lives for Him
and the purposeful advance of the Kingdom of God.
It
is this conjunction and meeting, of our humanity with His humanity, that
enables us to function as witnesses to our resurrected Lord. Christian faith
involves embracing that, in Jesus Christ, we are called to share in the
embodiment and expression of the Gospel to and for others around us. Just as
the Apostle Paul resolved to know nothing but Christ Jesus and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2.2), we are to
understand that our Christian calling is to embody, in each of our lives, the
Gospel of Jesus Christ: for it is Jesus Christ’s life that is now being
expressed in us and through us (Galatians
2.20).
Focally,
Paul saw our baptism as a means of expressing this voluntary enrolment by us
into the life of Jesus Christ (Romans
6.1-4): where we embrace the centrality of His death and His resurrection
for us. It is an enrolment that we enter, as conscious, responsible people, by
faith; and thereby express our consecration to live out our lives in faith.
In
embarking on this path, we are caught up in His victory over death, despair,
darkness and the Devil; and our calling is to walk in the path of the humility
and consecration as shown by Jesus Christ Himself (Philippians 2.5-8). It is to the way of the Cross that He calls us
(Luke 9.24), a journey of
consecration to the advancement of the Kingdom of God upon Earth (Luke 9.57-62). As the Apostle Paul
realised, it is a life where we embrace the path of self-giving and service
that is evidenced in the life of our Lord, in a manner where that same evidence
is found in our lives as well (Philippians
3.6-14).
Bearing
witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the act of carrying the presence, of
the inbreaking Kingdom of God, in our own lives. It is a mighty power to be
released and realised in and through us, that it might find in us a deep and
fertile soil in which it may be planted (Mark
4.1-32). It is that which is enabled in us, to the Glory of our Heavenly
Father, in and through all that has been made possible through the life,
ministry and victory of Jesus Christ. It is what is released in us, by God’s
grace, through the mighty workings of the Holy Spirit. This is what we are
called to take part in. This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Questions for reflection:
·
What does it mean for you, that Jesus Christ
died on the Cross?
·
How relevant is it, in your understanding,
that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead?
·
Why do you imagine Jesus was like us in
every way, except in sin?
