What is the Gospel?
Oral Roberts, an American television evangelist died in 2009, at 91 years of age. On his programme he used to place his ‘healing hand’ on the camera lens and asked those wanting healing to touch their television screens. He claimed to have miraculously healed all types of diseases from cancer to haemorrhoids. He would then ask for ‘seed faith’ donations, “Twenty Dollars, Visa, Amex, whatever the Lord leads you to do.”
Was this the apostolic faith? There are two simple tests. Is the teaching the same as that of Jesus and his apostles and does the personal life match that of Jesus and his apostles? These tests are important as it is all too easy to use religion for my ends and not those of the Lord.
In the early 1980s the Oral Roberts association was grossing 110 million dollars a year in donations. His monthly magazine ‘Abundant Life’ gained a circulation of 1.2 million. A typical article read,
“Are you suffering, is pain raging through your body? Is your marriage falling apart? Does it seem nobody cares? I want to help you get the answer you need. I want to pray for you.”
This is very different from the message of eternal salvation from the consequences of my sin that is the Bible’s message from beginning to end.
Oral Roberts lived a luxurious lifestyle. He had a second home in Palm Springs worth a million dollars. He dressed in suits costing up to a thousand dollars, he changed his very expensive cars every six months and he flew around the country in a two million dollar personal jet plane.
In contrast, Paul suffered immensely because he taught that Jesus Christ’s message differed markedly from that of worldly authorities. He could say,
“I rejoice in what was suffered for you . . . I have become its (the churches) servant to present to you the word of God in its fullness.” Colossians 1:24-25
Today many Christians appear to believe that the gospel answers the prayer, “Lord, I feel empty, I am dissatisfied, fill me.” The emphasis is on the joy of being a member of the Christian community which is hopefully less selfish than communities in the world. They stress the joy of emptying your mind in the worship of the God who loves you. There is a great danger here. This is not the emphasis of Jesus and his apostles. For them the gospel was the one and only response to a different need.
Many of the early churches faced deviations from the apostolic faith. The apostles frequently warned them about this. The Galatian church was slipping back into Jewish rituals, so Paul wrote,
“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which really is no gospel at all.” Galatians 1:6
What is the true gospel? Paul continued,
“Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned.” Galatians 1:8
So Paul defines the true gospel as that which the apostles originally taught.
“As we have already said, so now I say it again. If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally damned.” Galatians 1:9
This has always been orthodox Christian teaching. The creeds confirm that we believe in ‘one holy, catholic (universal), apostolic church’.
A similar warning was given to the Corinthian church which was being seduced by a variant of Christianity in which spiritual experiences were emphasised,
“If someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough . . .”
We are all warned to be careful about the teaching we receive.
THE APOSTOLIC FAITH
It is a very useful study to work through the nine sermons outlined in the book of Acts in order to see what the emphasis of the apostles was. Their teaching was nearly always in two parts. The first part was a message about Jesus. The second was about the response God expects from us. Together they explain how our greatest need can be met. For brevity we will look at the first three sermons.
Peter at Pentecost Acts 2:14-40
In this remarkable sermon Peter has much to say about Jesus but he summarises this by saying,
“God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ (i.e. God’s chosen king). Acts 2:36
Who Jesus is and what he achieved on the cross is central. With regards to our response, Peter says,
“Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins . . .”
When we turn to Jesus Christ as our Lord, we are forgiven all our sins by God himself.
2. Peter to the Jerusalem citizens Acts 3:12-26
After a crippled beggar was healed as he was sitting outside the temple gates, Peter spoke to the onlookers who had witnessed what had happened. About Jesus, Peter said,
“The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus.” Acts 3:13
About the response God expects from all people, Peter said,
“Repent then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord . . .” Ac ts 3:19
3. Peter to the Ruling Council Acts 4:8-12
About Jesus, Peter says,
“It is by the name of Jesus Christ (God’s chosen king) whom you crucified but God raised from the dead . . .” Acts 4:10
There is no gospel if Jesus is not central to the message. Neither the preacher, nor his hearers, should be central.
With regard to the necessity of our response, Peter said,
“Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which you must be saved.” Acts 4:12
This is remarkable. Just three or so months before this same Council had condemned Jesus to death. Here are Peter and John, at their trial, saying that these judges must be saved by trusting in Jesus, their living Messiah. What did they need to be saved from? It can only be from God’s judgement when their sin, their rebellion against God, will be judged.
So it is clear that the apostolic gospel is a message about what God has done in Christ and what God requires of us in response. That we can have hope in spite of our rebellion is great news.
‘HERE AND NOW’ OR ‘THEN AND THERE’?
There are great benefits to be received from being right with God but these are not primarily to do with experiences in the ‘here and now’. The Corinthian church was besotted with ‘here and now’ teaching, but Paul reminds them,
“Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully . . .” 1 Corinthians 13:12
Helen Berhane was born in Eritrea in 1974, when it was an Italian colony. She was born into an Orthodox family, but in her youth she moved through Roman Catholic and then Pentecostal churches. When 14 years old a marriage was arranged for her with a 36 year old Ethiopian man. They had a daughter. The family subsequently moved back to Eritrea but by this time it had become an independent country run by the Eritrean Peoples’ Liberation Front – a communist organisation. Her marriage broke up and Helen became a singer and Bible teacher in the local churches. The new political regime hated Christians.
Helen was arrested and, without any trial, was put in a primitive prison consisting of several rusting ‘containers’. She was beaten repeatedly by her tormentors who insisted that she deny her loyalty to Jesus Christ. Whilst in this prison she wrote,
“Sometimes I cannot believe this is my life – these four metal walls, all of us corralled like cattle, the pain, the hunger, the fear. All because of my belief in a God who is risen, who charges me to share my faith with those who do not yet know him, a God whom I am forbidden to worship. I think back to the question I have been asked many times over my months in prison,
“Is your faith worth it, Helen?”
As the guards continue on their rounds, I whisper the answer,
“Yes.”
Jesus and his apostles frequently warned Christians that opposition and persecution would be their lot in this life.
THE CORE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE
In the fifth sermon in Acts we are given a more detailed explanation of the gospel. It is the first description given to gentiles. A Roman Centurion named Cornelius, who lived in the Roman coastal city of Caesarea invited Peter, who had been a close confidant of Jesus, to visit his home. A large group of Gentile people had been called together to greet him. Peter spoke to this crowd and gave them a concise summary of the Christian message. This message is a simple explanation of the unchanging message of the gospel.
Acceptance by God
Peter began to speak,
“I now realise how true it is that God does not show favouritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.” Acts 10:34
This point is fundamental. The Christian message is about how any individual, of any race or creed, can be accepted by the God who made and sustains the universe. Life is not primarily about our having a satisfying time here on earth, with a great group of friends. It is about being right with God. Surely to be accepted by God is the greatest need of us all.
Yet how few understand this. As I was travelling home from London yesterday, I had two separate conversations with fellow travellers. Both thought the Christian message was primarily a moral one about how people should behave and get on with each other. Both were taken aback when I suggested that the message Jesus and his apostles brought was primarily about how we can get right with God!
2. The Gospel is a Message
“You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Christ Jesus, who is Lord of all.” Acts 8:36
Today many churches appear to have forgotten that they are primarily there to deliver God’s message to all people. It is the verbal message about God’s chosen king, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus, and all he has done for us. It is he who has enabled us to find and live in peace with God. This relationship with him will continue into eternity.
It is obvious why this message is for people of all nations – Jesus claimed to be the creator and Lord of the whole world.
3. The Message is all about Jesus
“You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached – how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power.” Acts 10:37-38
How often people begin to talk about Christianity as if it were simply a work God is doing to help people in the present. In the Bible the message is all about Jesus and what he has done for us. This historical figure was someone extraordinary. Although brought up as a Jewish boy in the Galilean village of Nazareth, he demonstrated supernatural power which was demonstrated in his miracles, his teaching and finally in his resurrection.
At that time everybody clearly knew what had been happening in Israel. They were all talking about John the Baptist and the way he called people back to God, reminding them that their sin was the barrier. He taught the crowds that the solution was to turn back to God and ask him to wash away their sin, which was symbolised by baptism. He taught that ‘sin’, rebellion against God, was the problem.
A little while ago I was consulted medically by a lady who was also the church-warden of a village Anglican church. After we had dealt with the medical issues, I asked her how the church was going.
“It is not easy”, she replied, “Our church is getting smaller and older.”
I asked then her,
“Tell me, do people in your church speak to others in the village about the Lord Jesus?”
Her reply characterised what is so often what is happening today,
“Good gracious no. We don’t even talk about him amongst ourselves.”
In response I suggested that it was surely inevitable that the church would die. Catherine Booth, the wife of the founder of the Salvation Army was giving a talk in an established church and exclaimed,
“Is this all you do for God, you go to church!”
4. Jesus Healed People
“. . . and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.” Acts 10:38
Peter now introduces the spiritual battle that is raging in the world. The devil wants control yet his rule brings harm to people. Jesus came as the Saviour of all people; his message is ‘Good News’. He heals the ‘broken hearted’ and is so powerful that he can counter the devil’s influence in people’s lives.
Jesus performed miracles to identify himself as being the Messiah. At the beginning of his teaching ministry he stood up in the synagogue in Nazareth and read a passage from the prophet Isaiah that was widely recognised as being about the coming Messiah. I can imagine Jesus accentuating the personal pronouns.
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” Luke 4:18-19 quoting Isaiah 61:1-2
Other Old Testament passages also tell us that when the Messiah comes, he would be identified by the extraordinary miracles he would perform.
“Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,, and the ears of the deaf unstopped, then will the lame leap like deer and the mute tongue shout for joy . . . “ Isaiah 35:6
Jesus proved his claim to be the Messiah by doing all these specific miracles.
But some will ask,
“Didn’t the apostles also do such miracles?”
They certainly did, but they repeatedly warned us not to focus on the miraculous but on the message of the cross of Jesus, where he took our sins on himself.
“Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified . . . “ 1 Corinthians 1:22
Furthermore this ability to perform miracles was given specifically to the apostles so that they could also be recognised as those the Lord had passed on his authority to. This authority they put in writing to complete the bible, the Word of God. Their miracles did not continue for long.
“The things that mark an apostle – signs, wonders and miracles – were done among you . . .“
Faith for deliverance from problems in the ‘here and now’ is not Christian faith. The Christian faith teaches that whether I am visibly delivered or not, I will stick to my belief that God is love. There are some lessons that can only be learned through the fiery furnace.
Last Christmas we were sent the following letter which referred to a friend of ours,
“His cancer continues to grow. He has lived a bit longer that the initial predictions. The outcome is apparently not in doubt, and it has been a spiritual tonic to see matters of life and death with much greater clarity. He is learning to live at a very different pace and to realise that what he can do for God (in activity here on earth) is so much less important than what God has done for him (in Jesus’ death for our sins on the cross). It is a good time spiritually . . .”
5. The Apostles were Witnesses
“We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people but by witnesses whom God had already chosen – by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.” Acts 10:39-41
Peter again emphasises that the Christian faith is an historical one. It depends on there being a real, if extraordinary, person who lived in Israel at that time and was executed. Without the real resurrection of Jesus there is no Christianity. Paul wrote,
“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, you are still in your sins.” 1 Corinthians 15:17
Paul goes on to denounce those who emphasised a ‘here and now’ pseudo-gospel instead of the true gospel of forgiveness with the real benefits in the next life, ‘then and there’ ,
“If only for this life we have hope in Christ we are to bve pitied more than all men.” 1 Corinthians 15:19
The historic creeds of the church speak of the ‘Apostolic Faith’. This refers to the teaching that was given, once for all time, by the Jesus’ apostles. These apostles had been chosen by God before Jesus became famous, to be eye-witnesses of everything that Jesus did, so that they could inform the rest of the world. They had no doubts that the resurrection really happened. Jesus had risen from the dead, not as a ghostly apparition, but as a real person who ate and drank with his future apostles.
6. The Apostles were to Preach
“He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead.” Acts 10:42
These apostles were not just to be witnesses but were to pass on what they had witnessed to all people. The message mattered that much. The urgency comes from the fact that all of us, whether still alive or dead, will be judged on how we have lived. This role of judge has been given to Jesus, the Son of God. If we are honest we all know we will be found guilty of treason against God. The solution to our crisis is that someone else has paid the price for what we have done. This is why everyone needs to hear this apostolic message and become friends with Jesus.
OTHER EVIDENCE
Convincing as the apostles’ evidence is, there is further support for the remarkable claims of Jesus. The Old Testament prophets all looked forwards to the coming of God’s chosen king who would save the world. There are 330 prophecies about the Messiah in the Old Testament, of which 60 are major prophecies. They can be independently studied by all. These confirm that the Messiah would enter the world as a baby, would be born in Bethlehem, would be brought up in Galilee, would visit the temple in Jerusalem, and would proclaim the gospel before being executed by crucifixion. They also taught that he would rise from the dead three days after his execution. Anyone who wants to reject the apostles’ evidence needs also, logically, to find an explanation for all these prophecies.
THE CORE MESSAGE FOR TODAY
“ . . . that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” Acts 10:43
It is our rebellion against God and his right to rule over us that is the root of man’s problems. God is able to take us to paradise, he can arrange for us to live in a Garden like Eden; he can ,if he wants to, live again with man on earth. This is exactly what he has said he will do in his own time. He is waiting till all those who are due to be in his new world are signed up. Admission is through a genuine commitment to live under the authority of his Son. To such people, and them alone, he grants the forgiveness of their sins and the right of admission to his eternal kingdom.
Peter later summarised the Christian gospel in his first epistle where he wrote,
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness, by his wounds you have been healed. 1 Peter 2:24
This message of the apostles is the same message that the church is commissioned to pass on to others today. How our society and our world need to hear this message.
C.S.Lewis understood the implications of this gospel. He wrote,
“When the author walks onto the stage, the play is over. God is going to invade, all right; but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else comes crashing in? This time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. That will not be the time for choosing; It will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side.”
It is my standing before Almighty God that the gospel addresses.
BVP
