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Monday 2 July 2018

3.4 To the Gospel of Jesus Christ


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?