Latest / Clear Path Christianity / What is the Gospel? || CPC Podcast Ep. 3
Transcript
- Cole Crone: Most of my life I believed that I was a Christian. I just, that was something that I took for granted for most of my life. I was going to a church and, ⁓ you know, every once in a while Jesus would get mentioned. ⁓ And so I just thought I was, I was a Christian. It was way too late in my life. I heard the gospel for the first time. And I realized that I had been decades in a group that wasn't actually preaching the gospel, wasn't actually teaching the gospel, didn't have anything to do really with biblical, historical, Christianity. I didn't know that. I just assumed that my church was what the church was supposed to be. What the church had always been. I didn't know that wasn't the case. Come to find out as I learned more more and more about the Bible and theology, the more I realized that I wasn't a Christian, that I wasn't in a biblical church, that my group had no history to it whatsoever. And so for the past six and a half years, I've been slowly deprogramming the nonsense that I was taught growing up. And I've been discovering how the Bible defines the gospel and which elements of the gospel been essential throughout history for the majority of Christians. This was news to me So this podcast is my best attempt to summarize the biblical data in order to answer the question that never got answered for me. And that is, what is the gospel? The word gospel comes from a Greek word which just means good news. ⁓ I understand that's not like the most helpful thing. ⁓ Good news about what is the question. The gospel is good news. So however we define the gospel, it has to be good news. And whatever good news it it has to be somehow connected to the person of Jesus Christ. So I start looking. And I find a lot of apostolic warning about this counterfeit gospel. There is this counterfeit gospel that exists. I'm finding this theme in the apostolic literature. And so I'm starting to worry, I'm going, ⁓ okay. I better make sure that I know what this counterfeit gospel is so that I know what the gospel's not. And then hopefully I can then discern exactly what the gospel is. So I go to Galatians chapter one verses six through nine and I read this from the Apostle Paul. He says, I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel. which is not another. But there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. Okay, so Paul has preached the gospel to the Galatians. They have accepted said gospel. And yet they've quickly departed from that gospel to follow something that isn't the gospel. what's craziest about this is that Paul is so adamant about the gospel he had preached that he says that ⁓ nobody has the authority to change that gospel that he had preached. He this, but even if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. Let that preacher be cut off from God, let them be damned. Very strong words. So clearly Paul here is taking this teaching seriously. This to be accursed is the most emphatic condemnation in the New Testament. Lest we be confused, Paul in the context of Galatians isn't talking about just bad preachers. This isn't a bad delivery method. This is the wrong message. Okay, so whatever the gospel is, it must be proclaimed ⁓ accurately. we look at 2 Corinthians chapter 11, we see another warning from the Apostle Paul. He says, I fear lest somehow as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted. from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he who comes preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, Or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it. So Paul's very worried about the gullibility of the Corinthians in accepting everything that comes claiming to be of Christ, of the Spirit, claiming to be the Gospel. For Paul, a false Gospel often preaches a different Jesus. So we have the potential of a different gospel. We have the potential of that gospel preaching a different Jesus. And then the apostle Peter weighs in. Peter this, but there ⁓ were. also false prophets among the people, speaking of the Old Testament Israelites. Even as there will be false teachers among you who secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them and bring on themselves swift destruction, and many will follow their destructive ways because of whom the way of the truth will be blasphemed. Now, we notice here that these false teachers bringing their destructive heresies, they ⁓ come among you. So look in your midst for these people, okay? They appear at first glance to be internal. In other words, they appear at first glance to be within the body, but they're not. ⁓ They're something that's from the outside. looking and I'm discovering that these heresies often look very Christian. But when you really investigate, they're not. so what does the Bible tell us about Jesus? Who is this Jesus Christ? Who is mysterious Jesus of Nazareth, this itinerant preacher who, you know, comes on the scene in the first century Roman Empire and starts turning everything upside down. Who is this guy? And for the early church, one of the most important things was his identity. Who is Jesus Christ? They begin in John 1. John 1.1 in particular has this very interesting statement about this logos, this divine logos, this word that in verse 14, John says, became flesh and dwelt among us. So let's look at that. John 1, 1, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Okay, so there's the beginning, which is clearly a reference to Genesis 1, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, right? So John is connecting the word to the beginning. And that word that is God became flesh, verse 14, and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth. So John says that the word, the divine logos, is God, and that God became flesh in the person of Jesus. So that's the first thing that I'm seeing, that's striking me. I'm going, wow, okay. So this Jesus isn't just some mere mortal, he isn't just some moral teacher, he isn't just some apocalyptic preacher from the first century. John is saying this person is somehow connected to God. in some strange fashion. So I continue to investigate this and I land in Colossians. And Paul has this very interesting statement in Colossians 2 verses 8 9 about Jesus. He says, according to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ. So he's prefacing what he's gonna say by saying, be careful. Be careful about what you hear, about what's going on around you, about what people bring to you and present to you as being of God. And then Paul says this, for in him, all the fullness the Godhead dwelled bodily. So this Jesus is both God, he's the fullness of the Godhead, but he's also dwelling bodily. So he's also man. So for me, a true gospel of Jesus Christ gets the person of Jesus Christ right. Okay, because I don't know if this is original to Mike Winger, but I feel like I came up with this before I saw him. say this. maybe this is probably, this probably isn't original to me, but this is, maybe this is a Mike Winger analogy. But, ⁓ Can this coffee mug be Jesus? That seems like a stupid question, right? But can this coffee mug be Jesus? If the answer is no, then it matters how we define, there's tea in here, by the way. So I'm calling it a coffee mug, but there's tea in there. It's neither here nor there. At any rate, if that coffee mug cannot be presented as here's Jesus, then Jesus must be something specific. He must be someone specific. And so it matters who he is because I can't just place my faith in this and then call myself a Christian because I say this is Jesus. Right? Obviously. And so again, a true gospel must begin with a true Christ. And as I begin to look at the Bible and I begin to look at the confirmation of the early church, I begin to see that people are really, really, fighting for this idea that Jesus is both fully God and fully man. But as I'm looking at it, I'm beginning to see this makes a lot of sense of what I'm seeing in the biblical data. So I look at what else is important about this Jesus, and I think we have the person of Christ, and the second thing is the work of Christ. And the work of Christ, as I see it, comes in two parts. First being the atonement. Now, atonement is a very churchy word that... I think probably requires some definition. Atonement is just a simply constructed English term. If you just break it down, it makes a lot of sense. It's ⁓ at-one-ment, at-one-ment. That's atonement is. It's just at-one-ment. So how do we become at-one? What is our at-one-ment? There seems to be this disconnect between God and humans. And how do we bridge that disconnect? That is the atonement. read a passage from Romans chapter three, verse 21 to 26. The apostle Paul says this, but now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. To all. and on all who believe. Okay, so there is no difference between whether you were Jew or whether you were Gentile, because as Paul says, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness. So Jesus is put forth ⁓ as the at-one-er. He is the one that provides the at-one-ment. And it is by faith in Him that we are made one, that we are united. because God sets him forth. So, because of his forbearance, God passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate at the present time his righteousness. That he, might be both ⁓ just ⁓ and justifier the one who has faith. In other words, God is gonna play both ⁓ roles. He can both just ⁓ and the justifier. That is how the at-one-ment takes place. The Apostle Peter, 1 Peter chapter three, verses 18 and then 22. Christ also once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers, having been subject to him. So not only is justification this one ment. obtained by grace through the work of Christ, Peter then agrees that Jesus provides this path, this redemptive path, by his at-one-ing, his atoning sacrifice. In case you need a third witness, the Apostle John, he weighs in as well and he says, my little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And he himself is the propitiation for our sins. This propitiation is just this means by which this atonement takes place. This is the mechanism of how this chasm between the Holy God and broken man is restored. and John goes even further. He says, ⁓ our sins only, but also of the whole world. That's 1 John 2 verses one and two. Okay, so we have Paul, we have Peter, and we have John all weighing in on this and saying that the big the most important thing that Jesus seems to have provided is this atonement, this atonement. that we get to now enjoy with God. The second thing I'm seeing here is the bodily resurrection. We see in Luke 24, Jesus appears to some of his disciples and he says to them, peace to you. And they're terrified, they're frightened. they're supposing that they've seen a spirit. That's their assumption. They go, ⁓ this must be a ghost as we watch Jesus die. This must be some kind of ghost. as if, obviously, knowing what they're thinking, knowing what their assumptions are, Jesus says this, are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me, see me, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. And so they come and they check and they investigate and their senses are telling them, whoa, this is actually This is Jesus bodily risen. And if that wasn't convincing enough, he sits and eats with them. He asks them, you got any food? So they give him a fish and a honeycomb and they sit down and have a little meal. That's in Luke 24 verses 36 through 43. So we see that Jesus has this physical body post-resurrection. So the resurrection isn't some thing that's just spiritual. This is a bodily thing. And Paul makes this, of paramount importance in 1 Corinthians 15, when he says this, now if Christ is preached that he has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? This doesn't make any sense. If the linchpin idea of this good news is that this man that we have placed our faith in, that he has reconciled us to God and the the primary means by which we know that to be true is the fact that God raised him from the dead, then it would just be pure idiocy to deny a bodily resurrection. And Paul continues, he says, but if there is no resurrection from the dead, then Christ is not risen. The implications of Christ being not risen is that our preaching is empty, our preaching of this good news, it's not good news. And your faith is empty. Paul insists that the bodily resurrection is essential. Point number three, I see that salvation is not something that can be earned. This was huge where I came from. Man, I came from a place that was works righteousness. You had to suffer for your sins. You had to do works to the law. People on their deathbed were just, just pray that I've done enough, man. Just pray that I've done enough. I I watched people die who were just desperate. desperate to believe that they had done enough. And so this was a radical thing. I'm going to the text and I'm seeing that not how this works. this isn't the, I mean we've already gone over faith. How many times have we talked about faith? Just in ⁓ this little survey that we've done. And. ⁓ then this aspect of grace starts coming in. I'm looking at the most popular passage. I'm gonna include verse 10, you because I'm not a free gracer, I'm gonna, but you look at Ephesians two, eight and nine. For by grace you have been saved through faith and that is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Okay, so in other words, Paul's trying to say that if you think you're gonna stand before God and leverage your righteousness, as some kind of way of twisting God's arm into letting you into his kingdom. Look at all these things I did. You gotta let me in. mean, if I'm not righteous, who is? Look at my track record. Paul's going, no, no, you got that wrong. You got that wrong, it's a gift of God. It's not a result of works. So you're boasting, it's not gonna play. You aren't gonna stand before God on judgment day. That's not gonna be, you don't want that angle. That ain't the angle that's gonna win. so we are saved ⁓ grace through faith. And here, this is why I like verse 10. For we are His workmanship. We've been saved for a purpose. We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Okay, so we're not just saved by grace through faith, but there's a purpose. That purpose is our works. let's look at Paul again. ⁓ to Titus, Paul says this, but when the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done. in other words, this isn't of us, but it's according to his mercy that he saved us through the abundant, ⁓ excuse me, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. That having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is Titus 3, verses 4 and 7. Here Paul gives us the benefits of being faithful workers by His grace. And then fourth, the authority apostolic scriptures. We have ⁓ 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. ⁓ All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness. Why? Again, so it isn't just, here's what the facts are, there's this purpose. And that is ⁓ that the of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. So all the church teaches must be founded on biblical teaching. Now, if you're Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic, you're gonna add a caveat to that where you're gonna say that interpretation is equally, equally authoritative, But all of us are gonna recognize the supremacy of the Scriptures in terms of its authority. And so whatever we needs to come from ⁓ the scriptures. should be one of our utmost authorities. And then I look at Jude and this for me, ⁓ this was of the most condemning statements from the Bible for me as ⁓ somebody who coming out of a counterfeit Christianity. I was part of ⁓ this restoration that had that had rediscovered the gospel. The gospel had been lost and we had rediscovered it. We had discovered the true gospel. And then I come to Jude. verse three, and I read this. Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to do ⁓ one thing. To. contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the Saints I'm gonna read that again because this this turned my brain into doo-doo I Just I couldn't believe what I was hearing because I because I believe that there was this there was this apostolic age and then just pardon my French, but literally all hell broke loose, everyone departed from the faith, and then there was this group of men that had rediscovered it and were authoritatively teaching it for the first time in forever. And then I read this, that the faith was once for all delivered to the saints. And I go, well, so then whatever is here is complete. All that need be revealed was revealed in past tense terms from Jude's perspective. Certainly from my perspective, growing up in the 90s, 2000s, surely the faith was complete for me as well. And so I began to realize that whatever taught here was something that was once for all delivered to the church. Okay, so historic guardrails. We're gonna go through these pretty quickly. Again, I'm not a historian. I'm just presenting the data and it's pretty dadgum convincing to me as I survey it that these are the things that the early church found to be most important. The earliest and most widely affirmed creeds of the early church provide further insight into what are gospel essentials. Let's look first at the Apostles' Creed, which confirms several things. One, God as creator, the virgin birth, the crucifixion, the bodily resurrection. a final judgment, okay? These are just a few things that the Apostles Creed affirms, okay? And this protects the church. Again, remember, the history provides these guardrails, right? Like the bumpers on a lane, right? That keep the ball from going in the gutter, right? That's what the history. That's what these historic creeds are meant to be. And so this creed protects us against people doubting the historicity of Christianity, Trinitarian theology, and the incarnation. Likewise, the Nicene Creed also affirms that the Son is, the Son being the second person of this Godhead, is begotten and not made. That's just a direct quote from the Creed, as is this, that he is of one substance with the Father. Okay? So that's how we get this idea that God is one and three, that God is tri-personal. This particular creed was written in direct response to Arianism, which denied the co-equality, co-eternity of the son to the father. It's Arianism. Okay, it also taught that Jesus was a created being. For the Nicene Christians, that's off the table. That is not cool. Okay, so this creed protects the Trinity and specifically the full deity of Christ. And finally, we look at the Athanasian creed. And it also agrees with the subsequent creeds, although it develops the ideas a little bit further. And I'd urge you to look into these yourself, okay? What's most captivating to me is I read it and I realize, I'm realizing that I'm in a counterfeit faith. I'm going, wow, no Christian believes the things that I believe, that I've believed all my life. No Christian from the past believes any of this nonsense that I've been taught. So as I'm deprogramming myself, I come to a statement like this. And the Athanasian Creed states clearly that what it teaches is the Catholic faith, the universal faith. Okay? What is Christianity? That's what the Athanasian Creed says it is. It is the guardrail within which orthodoxy lies. And it says this, cannot be saved without believing it firmly and faithfully. So I just go, okay. seems pretty cut and dry to me. As I survey the biblical data and as I look at how the earliest Christians interpreted that data, I'm seeing something very clear here. If these teachings helped us to define the boundaries, my next question is going to be, how do I recognize reoccurring distortions? And we're gonna get into that next episode. But for now, why does this matter? It mattered for me because I didn't believe any of this growing up and yet I called myself a Christian. Nobody told me that what John 1.1 teaches about the person of Christ. Nobody taught me what Paul teaches about how Jesus is, that in him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily. mean, there's just nobody. Nobody ever taught me that. Nobody ever taught me about the atonement. Nobody ever taught me about. how one becomes saved. And so if you're like me and you're going, dude, I've never heard any of this nonsense. This guy must be drinking something. He must be on something. Cause he's spouting stuff that I never heard before. Dude, I've been there. I've been there. I recognize why you might be skeptical of everything that I'm saying. Because I didn't believe this stuff either for most of my life. Until I started actually looking into it. And my prayer is that as you start to look into it, you will also start to realize the same things that I have.