Only Christ – Part 17

Doctrines to be Rejected #13:
That the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ merely.

This can be restated in a positive way: The gospel includes the covenants of promise granted to Abraham and David and involves the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth: “And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham” (Gal 3:8-9).

History

There was no mention in the synopsis by John Thomas, but Robert Roberts in the first Birmingham Statement I have seen, written in 1868, in the section on “Fables to be refused” said:

XXIV. — THREE-FACT GOSPEL. That the gospel is not the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ merely, but the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ. — (Acts 8:12; 28:30-31)

Bro. Thomas wrote Elpis Israel: An Exposition of the Kingdom of God, with Reference to the Time of the End and the Age to Come, because the churches had lost sight of the things of the kingdom. The robust faith of the apostles had become a vague gospel of an after-life not requiring the resurrection of the dead, a judgment, nor the restoration of Israel. Christianity hardly required adherence to particular standards, but the most depraved souls winged their way to heaven. Elpis Israel, and similar works which followed it, represented the restatement of a gospel which, though never altogether eclipsed, had been ignored by generations of theologians. To quote:

“The truth is defined as ‘the things concerning the Kingdom of God and the Name of Jesus Christ’. This phrase covers the entire ground upon which the ‘one faith’, and the ‘one hope’, of the gospel are based: so that if a man believe only the ‘things of the kingdom’, his faith is defective in the ‘things of the name’; or, if his belief be confined to the ‘things of the name’, it is deficient in the ‘things of the kingdom’. There can be no separation of them recognized in a ‘like precious faith’ to that of the apostles. They believed and taught all these things” (Elpis Israel, Part II, chapter 1, page 189).

“Repent ye and believe the gospel”

It is difficult, of course, to summarize “the gospel”. It encompasses almost the whole of our message, and occupies the largest parts of many of the books outlining our beliefs. I will, however, quote largely from a summary written by a former editor of The Christadelphian, Alfred Nichols, in his magazine.¹ We would note some inevitable overlap with the topic of the Kingdom, covered last month (The Tidings, November 2016).

We are accustomed to the somewhat vague conceptions of the gospel that are held outside our body, and to some current and radical ideas that “the gospel teaches us that the death of God in Christ has freed men from the tyranny of a transcendent Power”. But are we sure that we know and understand all the implications of the gospel ourselves?

Our Statement of Faith says that “the gospel consists of ‘the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ’.” So it does, but it means even more. The way the word is used in the Scriptures shows what a great divine conception it is, and how wide and deep are its implications.

The term gospel (Gk. Euangelion) originally denoted a reward for the bearer of good tidings; later the idea of reward disappeared and the word stood for the good news itself. This is the meaning of the New Testament word. But if it means “good news” — good news of what?

The gospel of God

Peter and Paul refer to “the gospel of God” for this is where the good news began: He is its source, its glory and its power. And it is, supremely, the good news that God is involved in the affairs of men to the extent that He has established a divine-human relationship of love and purpose.

Speaking of his attitude to bonds and afflictions, the Apostle Paul referred to this relationship thus: “None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).

This gospel of grace was what the ministry of Paul was about and his epistles abound in the word grace, for without it there would have been no savior nor the promise of God’s Kingdom on earth.

Grace is of the very nature of God: He revealed it to Moses who taught it to Israel; it was manifested by Jesus to the Apostles and the multitudes; and it was preached by the Apostles to the ecclesias. We should lack gratitude and feeling if we were not moved by all that the Apostle Paul wrote about this: not least of sinners “being justified freely by God’s grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:24).

This is the heart of the gospel message: the good news that the compassion, grace and mercy of God overflowed in His sacrifice of love so that as Jesus declared: “God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). It is through the loving, obedient sacrifice of Jesus that He is reconciling to Himself all who will believe in faith.

It is this gospel of God which has His grace at its center, that gives meaning and beauty to the life and death of Jesus and that gives the purpose to what God intends to do, through Jesus and the saints, in His Kingdom on earth.

The Father’s grace in mightily blessing us with His call, unworthy though we be, is a supreme reason for thanksgiving daily to be on our lips and in our hearts.

The gospel of Christ

Like Father, like Son: all the love that God revealed to Moses shortly before the revelation of the ritual of the Law, Jesus revealed in his reading from the prophecy of Isaiah in the synagogue incident at the outset of his ministry. Second only to the self-sacrificing love of the Father, is the sacrificial denial of self in life, and the sacrifice of life in death to which Jesus submitted himself. The good news that results from this is that his perfect obedience won him the power to unlock the grave for others.

Jesus himself preached this “gospel” when he said: “Everyone which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40). And he triumphantly proclaimed the fact of his good news when he told John on Patmos: “.. Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore; and have the keys of hell and of death” (Rev 1:17-18).

The Apostle Paul refers to the burial and resurrection of Jesus as “the gospel which I preached unto you”, and this accounts for his use of the term “the gospel of Christ” which occurs in several of his letters. Thus “gospel” covers the whole field of salvation: the promise of peace for the nations and glory for the saints.

What is of even greater importance for us now, is the assurance of this good news that God, the Father, is actively concerned, through Jesus, with our daily lives, and each second of time that ticks away is the guarantee that He never leaves nor forsakes us. All this was made possible by the sacrifice of the Son who promised that as the Comforter (parakletos) he too, would come alongside, or be with us.

There could hardly be better news for us and the world: or a greater gospel to preach to others.

The gospel of the Kingdom

Jesus “.. came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:14-15). There, he was referring not to the kingdom which he will establish at his second coming, but to his own sovereignty as the Messiah-King.

The primary sense of the Greek word basileia (translated kingdom) is sovereignty or kingly rule.

That is why Jesus emphasized that the Kingdom was “at hand” or “had come nigh”. He expressed the same idea to the Pharisees on their asking him “when the kingdom of God should come” for he answered: “Behold the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21) or, as the Revised Version renders it: “is in the midst of you”.

There is a parallel here with David whose throne Jesus is to inherit. David was anointed King long before he sat on the throne, and before he came to power he began gathering loyal servants who would help him in his sovereign task. When Jesus told the chief priests and elders that “the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof”, he was still speaking of a present sovereignty.

The chain of events which culminated in his death and resurrection led to the gathering of a sovereign host of servants who become “an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession” (1 Pet 2:9 ASV). That is why Paul, who wrote of Jesus being “set at God’s right hand in the heavenly places” (Eph 1:20), could also write that God “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:6). This is indeed a sovereign status, which we ill deserve; but woe betide us if we prove traitors to our high calling!

A sovereign “nation” being prepared for the Lord who will sit as King needs a people and territory over which to rule, and it is for this consummation that Jesus and the saints wait. Jesus spoke of the time when he would “sit on his throne of glory” and told the disciples that they would “sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelves tribes of Israel” (Matt 19:28). Paul, probably taking his clue from the prophecy of Jesus, that when he sits on his throne of glory “before him shall be gathered all nations” (Matt 25:32), wrote that the saints shall judge the world. A sovereign role as earthly princes demands a dedicated response to discipline and training. Our response to a much higher role should be not less, but rather more.

The gospel of our salvation

Paul, writing to the Ephesians and the Colossians, wrote of another aspect of the Gospel: “The word of truth, the gospel of your salvation” (Eph 1:13). And as he shows in his letter to Titus, God, the Father, and Jesus, the Son, cannot be separated in their work of salvation. In his opening words he describes both of them as “Savior”. Thus, the gospel of salvation is the good news that both are totally involved in the salvation and life of those who believe. There could hardly be a better illustration of this participation in the affairs of the saints than that provided by Jesus in his parable of the lost sheep, which concluded with the promise that there would be “joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth” (Luke 15:7), thus linking the families of earth and heaven together.

Unless we are lacking in spiritual sense and faith, we want it this way. And when we are in trouble of any kind we plead in prayer through Jesus for the Father’s involvement in our problems, so that He can help us to solve them. But we are not so ready totally to involve ourselves with Him and His purposes, and we are generally reluctant to commit all the serious decisions of our lives to His judgments and will.

If we make demands upon God, He makes demands upon us: “This is the man to whom I will look, says the Lord, he that is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word” (Isa 66:2). The word “look” means that He will look at those who respond to His call with close attention.

The gospel of the grace of God which has such a wide application includes the good news of the commitment of men to the ministry of this grace — but it is here that we often fail greatly, because we so like to keep the course of our lives in our own hands. Jesus made clear that this does not satisfy his Father nor does it please him. He taught, and lived, denial of self: a complete and absolute denial, and Paul wrote that to “present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God” was no more than our “reasonable service” (Rom 12:1). This gospel, in all its aspects, is a way of peace, and not of strife; it is a way of walking in fellowship or partnership with God, with Jesus, and with one another. It is a way which abhors the kind of “divisions” about which Paul wrote to the Corinthians: the formation of groups within an ecclesia — a practice which weakens the work of grace among its members. Above all it tarnishes the vision of a people being prepared for the all-in-all of the Father.

We have been privileged to receive a gospel of such grace that nothing that we can do will ever make us merit its rewards, but at least we can continue to strive to “walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory” (1 Thess 2:12).