The Real Gospel

There are basically two ways in which we can look at and understand the gospel of God. The first way, which is by far the most common in our Church world today, is some kind of “formula”, such as “The Four Spiritual Laws”. The other way to comprehend the gospel is to look at it in light of God’s original purposes and intentions. We will examine both ways of viewing the gospel in this paper.

1 Thessalonians 2: 7-13: 7 But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children. 8 So, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us. 9 For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil; for laboring night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God. 10 You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe; 11 as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children, 12 that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. 13 For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.

Paul speaks here of the gospel being preached day and night among the Thessalonian believers. What is the point of my making that statement? The point is this: The gospel of God goes much, much deeper than, “Jesus died for your sins so that you can be forgiven and go to heaven.”

Paul did not say, “We preached the gospel night and day among Thessalonian unbelievers.” The word of God is precise and if Paul was speaking about preaching the gospel, over and over, to unbelievers in Thessalonica, he would have made a clear statement showing that.

He said they preached the gospel night and day among believers, and that preaching centered on a gospel that calls believers to follow their example and live devoutly, justly and blamelessly. It also was about exhorting, comforting, and charging (to direct authoritatively) every one of them, as a father does his own children, that they would walk worthy of God who calls believers into His own kingdom and glory. Finally, this gospel they preached was one that was working effectively in the believers’ lives.

I am convinced that Christians today do not understand the gospel of God. The gospel has been very watered-down and tailored to man’s self-interests in our day and age. Our modern-day understanding of the gospel is generally expressed in four “spiritual laws” that actually miss the real point of the gospel. “The Four Spiritual Laws”, which is THE most common way in this world of sharing and understanding the gospel, are as follows, with my comments:

1. God LOVES you and offers a wonderful PLAN for your life. Any “gospel” which begins with God’s love, and His having a “wonderful plan” for sinners, is “another gospel” (Galatians 1:6-9), and is clearly man-centered. The true gospel is God-centered. The real gospel must begin with “bad news”; the bad news of man’s wretched condition, and God’s hatred of sin, and how all sinners currently have the wrath of a holy God hanging over their heads like a sword ready to fall.
2. Man is SINFUL and SEPARATED from God. Therefore, he cannot know and experience God’s love and plan for his life. To say, in a vague, generic way that man is sinful and separated from God is not doing justice to the gospel. Men must see and understand, in clear, specific ways, what sin is, and that they are absolutely full of sin and subject to God’s judgment and wrath. When Peter preached on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2: 14-41), it says this about the people’s response: 37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Peter was clear and specific about their sins, and it had the effect the gospel is supposed to have. It cut them to the heart. Saying “Man is sinful and separated from God” doesn’t do this.
3. Jesus Christ is God’s ONLY provision for man’s sin. Through Him you can know and experience God’s love and plan for your life. Again, this is man-centered and far too vague to really mean anything, even if you quote a few scriptures. Also, what is this “wonderful plan” God has for our lives? Does it involve success, riches, problems being solved, relationships being made whole? Maybe it does; maybe not. Was the apostle James experiencing God’s wonderful plan for his life when he was killed with the sword? Was Paul when he was beaten, imprisoned, stoned and left for dead, and rejected by many believers? Were Roman Christians experiencing it when they were dragged into the Colossium to be tortured or mauled by wild animals?
4. We must individually RECEIVE Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God’s love and plan for our lives. What does it mean to “receive” Jesus? What does “Savior and Lord” mean? From beginning to end, the four spiritual laws are a generic formula and man-centered. It is “another gospel” which never paints an accurate picture of gospel truth. When people get “saved” through the use of this kind of presentation, they rarely live out a life of committed discipleship. Why? Because it’s about knowing and experiencing God’s wonderful plan for their lives, not about an awesome, holy God and what He is really after. Paul, when he was beaten, imprisoned, stoned and left for dead, and rejected by many believers was experiencing God’s wonderful plan for his life, but try making that a part of the presentation of “The Four Spiritual Laws” in our day and age. Believers in the early days of the faith (and in some places today) understood what embracing God’s “wonderful plan” might entail, and came to the Lord anyway. People today will run away, screaming.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying there is no truth or nothing of value in the four spiritual laws. I’m saying that this is not a sound, biblical understanding of the gospel. And remember that “The Four Spiritual Laws” is the most common understanding of the gospel in the world, and I’m convinced it produces weak, uncommitted, self-centered “Christians”.

God had original intentions and purposes for mankind. Man forfeited them through rebellion. This began a long process of sacrifice for sin as the way God would deal with and relate to man. In the fullness of time, God sent His Son to live the kind of life He always intended for man to live; carry the penalty for sin; restore man back to a relationship of peace with the Father; and make the way for man to be and do what God had always intended. So, we will begin by looking at the original purposes and plans that God had for mankind.

Bearing the Image of God

Revelation 4:10-11: 10 The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that lives for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, 11You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for you have created all things, and for your pleasure they are and were created.

The Lord created all things, and He had purposes and intentions for everything He created. What was God’s purpose and intention when He created man?

Genesis 1:26-27: 26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Psalm 8: 4-6: 4 What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him? 5 For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet.

All believers know, or should know, that God created man in His own image and likeness. Very few believers understand what this means, and understanding what this means is essential to understanding the gospel. But before looking at what it means, we will look at some other scriptures.

After Adam and Eve sinned and disobeyed the Lord, the scripture says this about Adam:

Genesis 5:2-3: 2 He created them male and female, and blessed them and called their name Adam in the day they were created. 3 And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.

So, man was created in the image and likeness of God, but sin caused a change to occur in this image. Adam and Eve bore a child in their own image, not in the image of God. I won’t show scriptures to support this. All of scripture testifies to this truth. The image and likeness to God was distorted and perverted in man by the fall into sin. It was not completely destroyed, but it was distorted. If it had been completely destroyed, then man would be totally, utterly evil all the time. Thank God this is not the case.

Now, since the fall, instead of being one who loves (seeking for the good of others by pure motives), gentle, humble, a servant, merciful, good, patient, and having dominion over all things by an authority given him by God, he is something very different. He is selfish and will do anything to get his own way, although it doesn’t always appear this way on the surface.

Man can put on disguises and fool himself (without even realizing it). He can appear to have good, godly qualities, but they are not genuine because the motives are not pure, but are self-seeking and self-directed, which are the essences of sin. This is why Paul can say, in 1 Corinthians 13:3, “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love (God’s kind of nature), I gain nothing.”

We will look at some other scriptures. Please read them carefully and look closely at what they are saying regarding the issue of bearing God’s image.

2 Corinthians 4:3-4: 3 But if our gospel is hidden, it is hidden to them that are lost: 4 In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them who believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Colossians 1:15: 15 Who (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.

Hebrews 1: 1-3: 1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; 3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

So, we can see that Jesus is the image of God. Man was created in the image of God, but Jesus is the very image of God.

Romans 8:29: 29 For whom He (God) foreknew (believers), He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He (Jesus) might be the firstborn among many brethren.

1 Corinthians 15: 44-49: 44 It (the body) is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 45 And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. 49 And as we have borne the (sinful) image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.

2 Corinthians 3: 18: 18 We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Colossians 3: 9-10- 9: Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, 10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.

Believers are to be brought into conformity to the image of the Son, the last Adam.

John 14: 7-12: 7 “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” 8 Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. 11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves. 12 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.

John 17: 20-23: 20 “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be ONE IN US, that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.

1 John 2: 6: He that says he abides in him (Jesus) ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.

1 John 4: 16-17: 16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him. 17 In this is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he (Jesus) is, so are we in this world.

Ephesians 3: 14-19: 14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Jesus and the Father are one. The Father did the works through the Son. Believers are to enter into this same kind of relationship with the Father and Son, so that the world might know that the Father sent the Son and that He loves them. Believers are to live and operate as the Son did, doing the same works and greater. We can have confidence, boldness, on judgment day because we are like Him, filled with the fullness of God.

So, what does it mean that man was created in the image of God? And why is it so important to understand the gospel in light of this truth?

To be in the image of God means we are “God-bearers” and do the kind of things that God does. We express God. We show forth the nature and ways of God. We love with a kind of love that genuinely seeks for the good of others, not only for our own good; we serve instead of seeking to be served; we show kindness and mercy, even to our enemies; we are content with having our basic needs met and don’t need to accumulate riches, possessions, prestige or recognition; we gladly serve God’s purposes and agenda, not our own; we will live and speak truth regardless of how costly that is (and it will be costly); we will go to the ends of the earth to see one soul saved from destruction, because that soul is precious to God; we will walk in the authority and dominion granted to us by God.

How do we know that this is what it means to be in the image of God? How do we know it doesn’t mean something else? We simply look at the life of Jesus.

Jesus is called “the last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15: 45). The first Adam (who is actually two persons, Adam and Eve) stumbled and fell from their original place and purpose through sin. He was ruined, and bore children in his own fallen, sinful image. The entire race of man was perverted, and destined for eternal misery. All was lost, unless God Himself would do something. He did.

He sent His Son, the last Adam, to live out the kind of life that He originally intended for man to live. We must understand that truth. It is absolutely essential. Adam failed and fell into sin and misery. Jesus, the last Adam, was the head of a new race. He succeeded perfectly and calls men to follow Him, to be like Him, to bear His image and likeness, to put off the old man and put on the new, by faith. Look at the following scripture, speaking of Jesus coming into the world:

Hebrews 10:5-8: 5 Therefore, when He came into the world, He said:

“Sacrifice and offering You did not desire,
But a body You have prepared for Me.
6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin
You had no pleasure.
7 Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come—
In the volume of the book it is written of Me—
To do Your will, O God.’”

8 Previously saying, “Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor had pleasure in them” (which are offered according to the law), 9 then He said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God.” He takes away the first that He may establish the second.

Sacrifice to atone for sin was never God’s plan. Sacrifice is needed as a result of disobedience. Read that passage again. Jesus came to perfectly do the will of the Father, eliminating the need for further sacrifice. He takes away the first Covenant, based on sacrifice to atone for sin, and establishes a New Covenant, based on obedience and submission to the Father, which we are called to walk in.

Jesus was miraculously conceived of a virgin, without any human sperm or egg, so he would not be tainted with sin inherited from Adam. He entered this world innocent, as Adam did, not stained by sin, as all the rest of us do.

Look at His life. It was perfectly pure, loving, kind, selfless, sacrificial. He did not care for the things of this world. He was utterly committed to His Father’s agenda. He said, “I have come to do your will, O God,” and He did it, even when it meant terrible suffering, pain and death. He had dominion, under the Father, over the wind and waves, over sickness and disease, over demons, over blindness. Even the Roman Centurion recognized Jesus as one under authority, who Himself could exercise authority.

This Jesus is the last Adam, the new beginning for the race of man that was ruined. This is human life as God always intended it to be lived. He was perfectly good and righteous (right) in His ways and nature; He was perfectly submitted to God the Father; and He exercised dominion over everything under God and according to His purposes. These are the three things God intended from the beginning! This is our calling. This is what the gospel is all about; being restored back to the original purpose and intention that God had for man from the beginning.

Sin is only an obstacle, not the core, central issue. It is a barrier between man and God that must be removed. Sin and its forgiveness (along with the resulting “ticket to heaven”) are not the beginning, middle and end of the gospel.

The Scriptures we examined above tell us that Jesus is the image of God. They tell us that those who have seen Jesus have seen the Father; that He and the Father are one; that the Father dwelling in the Son did the works; that as believers have borne the image of Adam, we will also bear the image of the heavenly man; that we are to be one in Him and the Father; that we are to be conformed to the image of Christ; that those who believe in Jesus will do the things He did, and greater; that we are to walk with Him as He walked with the Father; that we are to be like Him in this world; that we are to be filled with all the fullness of God.

This is a truly mind-boggling gospel!

In our modern Church day and age, all of these truths are academic theories, if they are even in the spiritual picture at all.

Go to: Real Gospel 2