The Gospel, as we all know, is that Christ died for our sins and rose again so we can be saved. Woohoo! Except ... that's not all. That's barely scratching the surface. The Gospel is far bigger than most of us realize
Given our sin condition, our hostility to God, our blindness, our spiritually dead condition, the simple fact that faith in Christ saves us is truly, astoundingly good news. But it's only a part. We have forgiveness. We have justification. We have righteousness not our own (2 Cor 5:21). We have eternal life. And that's just the beginning. We have the Holy Spirit, Christ's life in us. We have the promise of being supplied all that we need (Php 4:19). We know that if God didn't keep His Son from us, He won't keep anything from us (Rom 8:32). We know that we are more than conquerors. We know we have peace with God (Rom 5:1). We are adopted into the family of God (Eph 1:5). We have the truth (John 16:13). We have supernatural peace (Php 4:7) and strength (Php 4:13). In trial and trouble we are more than conquerors (Rom 8:35-37). And more.
The Gospel is good news. Sometimes it's helpful to remember that it's more than the amazing news of becoming right with God. It is so much bigger. And when we see how very big it is, perhaps we'll be more willing to share it with others.
7 comments:
I always cringe when I hear people say "The most important thing in the Bible is..." There is just so much in theology that it interwoven and tied and twisted together that makes having a "most important" thing very difficult to point to.
Just as our natural birth is only the beginning of a whole lifetime full of promise and adventure, so too our spiritual birth opens up a dimension of new, rich life that, sadly, most people completely miss out on. At age 69, I often think about how different my life would have been if the Lord had not called me to Himself when I was 20; I know that that scenario--even with my very best efforts and resources--would be deficient in more ways that I could ever know. “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” (2 Cor. 9:15)
Yes!
Yes!
Isn't this partly because of how most of us read the Bible? We tend to read in small pieces, rather than treat the Bible as one long narrative, which seems to encourage us to pick out whatever we think is "most important", rather than realizing that everything is of equal importance.
We read in pieces and don't take the time for the long view. It's also part of our current culture. You know "TL/DR."
Several years ago I read something by John Piper where he spent a lot of time on this concept. It really changed how I look at scripture.
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