THE DOCTRINE OF JESUS CHRIST - PART TWO .... THE GOSPEL

 

“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” – Mark 1:1

 

Now that we have established who Jesus is, let us turn our attention to why He came.  Should we be left with any doubt after reading Matthew, Mark makes it clear – Jesus is the Son of God!

Jesus once asked His disciples, “Whom do ye say that I am?”  Hear the big fisherman named Peter stand and say “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Jesus responded by saying that Peter did not come to this realization on His own, but it was revealed unto Him by the Father (Matt. 16: 15-17).  The Father proclaims the Son; in fact, He is still proclaiming the Son!  We have the Holy Bible in which the Son is revealed in both testaments.  The book of Revelation’s central theme is Jesus Christ being revealed as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Make no mistake – Jesus is the Son of God!

“For God so love the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16).  This was the first Bible verse that many of us memorized as children.  Thank God for saints who stressed to me the importance of memorizing scripture as a child.  But I am afraid that our familiarity with it has caused it to lose some of its power in our lives – our fault, not His.   It’s time to take a fresh look at this verse again, and let it say to us what we need to hear.

God loves the world…that includes you, me, and everyone who has ever lived or is going to live.  He loved us before we ever loved Him or even knew Him.  How do we know?  Because He gave His Son – Jesus Christ, born of a virgin – to die as the ultimate sacrifice for sin.  Once and for all on the cross, Jesus paid the ultimate price for the sins of humanity – that includes you and me.  Just as the sins of the people were placed upon the sacrifice each year as an atonement, our sins – yours and mine – were placed upon Jesus on the cross.  The shedding of His blood brought atonement for them.  By placing our faith in what Jesus did upon the cross, we receive remission of sins and eternal life.  That, my friends, is the gospel!

Some will say, “It can’t be that simple or easy.  There must be more to it than that.”  Friends, if it takes something else in addition to what Jesus did on the cross, then He died in vain.  That’s all there is to it.  Anyone who says that it takes something more is preaching a false doctrine!  Paul dealt with this in his letter to the Galatians.  False teachers had crept in, and were teaching the people that in addition to being saved they had to follow Jewish law and be circumcised.  Paul, who himself was circumcised, offered his opinion on the matter.  “Oh foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?” (Gal. 3:1).  He said if anyone, even an angel from heaven, preaches any other gospel, let him be accursed (Gal. 1: 8-9).  Our faith is not to be in anything other than the finished work of Jesus.  If we are placing our faith in anything else, we are in error.

What is the gospel?  It is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It is this gospel that we are commanded to proclaim to the world.  “Repent and believe the gospel!” was the message of the early church, and it should still be ours today.  A quick glance at religious programming on television, however, reveals those that preach another gospel.  We find those that I refer to as “prosperity preachers.”  If I send in $25, God will send me back $100.  My friends, that is nothing but a message of manipulation and God cannot nor will He be manipulated.  God is calling men everywhere to repent – not to be rich.  The message of the true church has never changed nor will it.  Do I believe in giving to God what is His?  Absolutely.  But what I won’t do is think that I can use God like a return in the stock market.  He’s not a 401k, He’s a consuming fire. 

Let us go back to preaching the gospel!  May the message of John the Baptist be our message – “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the whole world.”  Have you believed?  This is not just about believing that He’s real, or even that He is the Son of God.  The demons believe that…and they tremble.  Believing is about putting your faith in Jesus and what He did on the cross.  It’s about repentance.  Have you repented of your sins?  I’m not talking about turning over a new leaf – or even a turn around.  I’m talking about falling before God in what the scripture refers to as godly sorrow.  When you see yourself as God sees you, for that is what true confession is – agreeing with God that we are sinners and there is absolutely nothing we can do within ourselves to change that.  Friends, THAT’S why God sent His only begotten Son – to pay the ultimate price for our sins so we could go free.  Through what He did at Calvary, His righteousness was imputed to us because on our own there is no righteousness that makes us good enough.  Again I ask – have you believed?

Jesus said you must be born again.  This second birth is a spiritual birth and it means to be born from above.  The Spirit of God comes in and transforms your life.  But you must repent of you sins with godly sorrow – agreeing with God that you are a sinner and without Him there is no hope for you.  That’s what Peter meant when he preached “repent and be converted, that your sins be blotted out!”  Believe the gospel – put your faith in what Jesus did on the cross – and by faith believe that His word is true and that He will forgive your sins.

Have you been baptized?  Baptism is not an option, it is a commandment.  It is the first act of obedience that shows you have repented and put your faith in Jesus.  It identifies you publicly with the body of Christ.  Remember, Jesus said that if we are ashamed to confess Him before this generation, He will be ashamed to confess us before His Father in Heaven. 

Take up your cross – daily – and follow Jesus.  Following Christ means that you will follow Him in suffering and persecution.  Jesus said that if the world hated Him, it would hate us.  If we don’t take up our cross and follow him, we can’t be his disciple.  We can’t live our lives our way and follow our own path and then claim to follow Jesus – it just won’t work.

Chris, why are you saying all of this?  Who would even want to be saved after all that?

Because there are people all over the land who have a hole in their heart they just can’t seem to fill.  Are you one of those?  You’ve tried everything.  You’ve done all the right stuff – gone to church, maybe taught Sunday School or done other work in the church – you’ve been baptized, you’ve taken communion, you’ve done it all.  But something is still missing and you just can’t put your finger on it. 

See yourself as God sees you – a sinner without hope in this world.  Repent and put your faith in Christ’s work on the cross – not just something you celebrate on Easter.  Let Him fill that hole in your heart and transform your life.  He will do it!

 

The Evangelist

THE DOCTRINE OF JESUS CHRIST - PART ONE

“The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” – Matt. 1:1

 

He is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last.  He is the beginning of all things, and the end of all things.  How appropriate that the first verse of the New Testament declares Him.  How fitting it was that John ended the Revelation with “Even so come Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20).  But who is He really?

If we are going to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world, then our hearts should know the answer to that question – for Jesus is the only hope this world has.  There is a great day coming, a day of reckoning when the world will be judged by God.  At that point it will be too late to get them the gospel.  We must do it now!  Now is the accepted time – today is the day of salvation.!  Remember, our delay is their loss.

The Old Testament closes with a promise of the coming Messiah, while the New Testament opens with the fulfillment of that promise.  Matthew declares Him to be Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.  What would move a Jewish tax collector to write such a statement?  The question is not “what?” but “who?”  It was the Holy Spirit that directed Matthew to write those words.  Since all scripture is divinely inspired, we know that men wrote as they were moved upon by the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, it is the glorious Spirit of God who makes this declaration.  He is still proclaiming it today, and He is moving upon us to declare it as Matthew did.  The question for our generation is… will we obey?

In order for us to understand the magnitude of this statement, we need to look back at the beliefs of the people who lived during the first century.  What did the Jewish generation of Matthew’s day believe about the Messiah?  In Deuteronomy 18:15, the Lord told Moses that he would raise up “a Prophet” from their midst.  The Lord said He would put His words in that prophet’s mouth and He (the prophet) would speak all that the Lord would command Him (v. 18).  Therefore, they believed He would be a prophet.  They also read from Isaiah that He would be born of a virgin, and that His name would be called “Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Is. 9:6).  Being born of a virgin meant that His birth would be of supernatural origin and man would have nothing to do with it.  God would become flesh and live among them.  Then what? 

Jewish citizens of the first century looked to other scriptures which said that when Messiah came He would sit on the throne of David and His kingdom would last forever.  Let us remember that the nation of Israel had not had autonomy since the Babylonian army came in and conquered them centuries earlier.  Following the Babylonians, they would be ruled by the Medes, the Persians, the Greeks, and finally the Romans.  Therefore, when the Messiah arrived on the scene, He would restore Israel to its place of prominence among nations.  In order for that to happen, they reasoned that the Messiah would have to throw off the chains of Roman rule.  From His throne in Jerusalem, He would rule the nations with a “rod of iron” and establish everlasting peace.  Their expectation was certainly understandable.  If you and I had been living in the first century, no doubt we would have shared their preconceived notions that the Messiah would deliver them from their political captivity.  I know this because we blame government today for the ills of our society.  Either it isn’t doing enough or it is doing too much.  We have it as wrong as they did.  Breaking away from Rome would never free them from their true captor – sin!

That’s why Messiah had to come, and that’s why the Holy Ghost moved on Matthew to pen this declaration we read as his book opens.  The people of the first century needed to know His real purpose, and so do the people of the twenty-first century.  We haven’t figured it out either.         

This first verse tells us three things:  (1)Jesus is the Messiah;  (2)He is the son of David; and (3) He is the son of Abraham.  Let us take a quick look at Abraham and the promises given to him.

In Genesis 12:3, God promised Abraham (then called Abram) that in him should “all families of the earth be blessed.”  And so they have – every kindred, tongue, and nation – all the families of the earth have been blessed because of Jesus.  Matthew 1:2-16 traces the genealogy of Jesus back to Abraham.  The Jewish people of the 1^st century would only accept the Messiah if his lineage could be traced to Abraham.  The Holy Spirit confirmed through Matthew that Jesus was truly the Messiah.

However, there would be more to the story.  Jeremiah 23:5 tells us that he Messiah would be a descendant of David.  Isaiah prophesied that of His government and His peace there would be no end (Is. 9:7).  No wonder that people reacted as they did when they understood that Jesus fulfilled every promise given concerning the Messiah.  At one time they even tried to take Him and force Him to be king (John 6:15).  Even the disciples were expecting Jesus to sit on David’s throne in their day.  After His resurrection and just before His ascension, they asked Him “wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6).   They reasoned that after everything which had transpired, now was surely the time that all things would be fulfilled.  But their work was just beginning.  Jesus told them to wait in Jerusalem until they had received power from on high, and that they would be witnesses of him unto the uttermost part of the earth (Acts 1:8).  Remember that it was prophesied that the gentiles would trust in Him.  For that to happen, the gospel would have to go out all over the world, which is the great commission given to the Church.  It is our one and only mission.

Last, but not least – in fact, FIRST – is the truth that Jesus is the Messiah.  "Christ" is not His last name, it's His title - He is the anointed one, the Messiah!  He demonstrated that through His power – He healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, even raised the dead.  He is God, which is why Isaiah proclaimed that He would be “the Mighty God.”  John began his gospel by calling Him the “Word of God”, and the “Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory…” (John 1:14).   Nicodemus proclaimed Him by saying “no man can do these miracles…except God be with Him” (John 3: 2).   But there is even more.  John the Baptist called Him the “Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.”  In order to be Messiah, He would be the ultimate sacrifice, one that the Father would accept as an atonement for all sin.  ALL – mine, yours,’ everyone who has lived or will live. 

That’s why we must get this gospel out to the whole world.  What could be better news than our sins can be forgiven.  The price has already been paid, for Jesus paid it on the cross.  This is the one true doctrine, not just a theory, or a method, but a life-changing proclamation that when grasped can change the world.   

Onward Christian Soldiers! Onward – while there is still time!  Let us work while it is day, for the night is coming when no man can work.

Onward!

Part two coming soon!

 

The Evangelist