What Is The Gospel? – Part 6

For the other parts of this series, see the end of this post.

10. The Gospel – False Gospels

The gospel of the death, burial, and resurrection is the one true gospel. That is the only gospel that is to be preached. God came down in love in the person of Jesus Christ so that all who believe might be set free from the bondage of sin. That’s it. Period. Done.

Obviously, though, we know that there are many false gospels that are being preached in many churches today. One that I feel passionate about is the health, wealth, and prosperity “gospel.” This presentation has the following phrases attached to it: “You can have what you say,” “The reason you haven’t been healed is that you don’t have enough faith,” “We can write our own ticket with God if we decide what we want, believe that it’s ours, and confess it,” “He wants you rich and healthy,” “What is the desire of your heart? Name it and claim it by faith, and it is yours!” These phrases are examples of the “spoken word theology” or rhematology.

What Is The Gospel? – Part 5

For the other parts in this series, see the end of this post.

9. The Gospel – Defined by D.A. Carson

I listened to a message by Dr. Carson on the gospel and what follows is what I got out of it. He based his preaching on 1 Corinthians 15:1-19, so if in any place it says “the text,” that is the text it is referring to. However, before I move on, I must thank Rebecca Stark, Rob Mitchell, and Justin Taylor for providing additional notes on their websites to supplement mine.

First, Dr. Carson defines the gospel in eight summarizing words:

What Is The Gospel? – Part 4

For the other parts in this series, see the end of this post.

7. The Gospel – What Happens To Those Who Don’t Repent and Believe?

The gospel is that God sent His son to die in our place. He offered up Himself as the single sacrifice for sins (Heb. 10:12). This gracious gift is free from God. We must have faith and believe and turn from our sin in order to have eternal life with the father.

There is a Judgment Day coming. The Bible speaks of it in many places, including 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17:

“For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.”

What Is Worship?

When we think of worship today, I believe it is common to automatically think of music. Maybe this is not the case for everyone, but it definitely is for me. I love music, I sing, I play music, so when I think of worship, it is real easy for me to think of music. However, worship is so much more than that. I am going to attempt to give an in depth look at worship – its importance and how we can do it.

I am going to define worship as what we assign worth to. Worship comes from the old English word “weorthscipe” (pronounced worth-ship). I think that is much more accurate than today’s word worship. The old English word was used in England and it meant that in worshiping God that they were assigning to God His true worth. It would refer to knowing and praising God as He has revealed himself to be by His creation and through the Scriptures.

What Is The Gospel? – Part 3

For the other parts in this series, see the end of this post.

5. The Gospel – Who Is Jesus

A logical question can come from this passage – who is this Jesus, and what qualifies Him to be our Savior? A little research can prove this answer. I will give a pretty quick definition of who Jesus is; of course I don’t know all there is to know about Him. First, Jesus is the one and only begotten Son of God (John 3:16). Larry Huck says that Jesus was not the only begotten Son of God, and that absolutely disgusts me. A key term when thinking about Jesus is incarnation – the fact that God became flesh and took on the form of a man in the person of Christ. He possessed all of the attributes of God and yet was fully man. The fact that Jesus is God is absolutely essential to understanding who He actually is (Col. 2:9, Phil. 2:6-7).

What Is The Gospel? – Part 2

For the other parts of this series, see the end of this post.

3. The Gospel – In The Bible

Whatever definition of the gospel that I could come up with, or whatever opinions of others that I could share, none would compare to the Bible. We can just offer commentary on the Bible. The best Bible commentary is the Bible itself. I belief that a great definition of the gospel is given in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 by the apostle Paul:

“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” (Emphasis added).

What Is The Gospel? – Part 1

I am starting a new series called “What Is The Gospel?” I spent all day last Friday writing a paper about it. It turned into 22 pages! I will be posting it in parts on here, and at the end will upload a pdf version of the paper with sources if you want it. Comments are always appreciated. Part 1 below:

All of the Bible verses that I use are from the ESV Bible unless otherwise noted.

1. Introduction

At first, this may seem like a hard question, based on all of the preaching and messages that are available today. In all actuality however, it is a real simple answer. The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). However, the answer to the question has to go beyond that. The gospel is not only that Jesus came, but that He died to take away our sins, and not only did He die to take away our sins, but He was resurrected from the dead. The gospel was not a work of Jesus, however. It was a work of God through the Son Jesus Christ.

Let me try to give a summary of the gospel as I see it.