The right understanding of the Gospel

Greeting!

I greet you all in the matchless name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

I praise God for you all because you have taken your time out of your Schedule and have made it
here. I’m thrilled to see young men and women eager and hungry for the Word of God!

I have been assigned to preach on a topic called “the right understanding of the Gospel.”

Introduction!

There are so many gospels being preached around the world. Some preach prosperity gospel and
some health and wealth and some make their personal testimony the Gospel. Can we equate
these gospels with the gospel of Jesus Christ? Are the people who are hearing and obeying this
gospel saved? Is this Gospel powerful enough to transform a wretched sinner into a Saint of
Christ? How can we decipher the Right gospel from the rotten gospel? What are the
consequences of obeying the wrong Gospel? Are there any indispensable or essential
characteristics of a true gospel? Let us answer all these questions in this session!

What Does the Word Gospel means?

The word gospel simply means good news. The word gospel comes from the Greek word
“euangelion. It’s a compound word; “Eu” means “Good” like Eu in eulogy (good words uttered
during someone’s funeral) or euphonics and “angelion” means “message.” And it appears just
over seventy times in the New Testament.

The usage of the term in the Old Testament

This word euangelion, which means “good message” or “good news,” has a rich background in
the Old Testament. There, the basic meaning of the term gospel was simply an announcement of
a good message. If a doctor came to examine a sick person and afterward declared that the
problem was nothing serious that was gospel or good news. In ancient days when soldiers went
out to battle, people waited breathlessly for a report from the battlefield about the outcome. Once
the outcome was known, marathon runners dashed back to give the report. That is why Isaiah
wrote, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news” (Isa.
52:7). The watchman in the watchtower would look as far as the eye could see into the distance.
Finally, he would see the dust moving as the runner sped back to the city to give the report of the
battle. The watchmen were trained to tell by the way the runner’s legs were churning whether the
news was good or bad. If the runner was doing the survival shuffle, it indicated a grim report, but
if his legs were flying and the dust was kicking up, that meant good news. That is the concept of
gospel in its most rudimentary sense.

The usage of the term in the New Testament

When we come to the New Testament, we find three distinct ways in which the term gospel is
used.

First, we have four books in the New Testament that we call Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John. These books are biographical portraits of Jesus. Gospel in this sense describes a particular
form of literature.

Secondly, during the earthly ministry of Jesus, the term gospel was linked not particularly with
the person of Jesus but with the kingdom of God.

Thirdly, by the time the epistles were written, particularly the Pauline epistles, the term gospel
had taken on a new shade of understanding. It had become the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The quint essential elements of the Gospel of Jesus Christ

1) A biblical understanding of the God of the Bible

a) God is the creator of the entire Cosmos

God of the Bible created everything, whether seen or unseen, by His powerful Word.
Gen. 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Psalms 33:6 “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made their starry host by the
breath of His mouth.”
1 Cor. 8:6 “Yet for us there is one God, the father, from whom all things came.”
Hebrews 11:3 “God created everything out of nothing.”
 b) God is absolutely sovereign (Psalm 135:6)

God reigns over everything. He is under nobody’s dominion or rule, whereas,

everything is under His dominion. God doesn’t need anything for His existence,
sustenance, sufficiency, or satisfaction. God doesn’t need you because He is …

Self- existent – He is because He is. (Exo. 3:14)

Self-sustaining – He is not served by Human hands (Acts 17:25)
Self-sufficient – He doesn’t need anything for His survival.

c) God is intrinsically Holy ( Isaiah 6:3)

God is absolutely and perfectly holy by his very nature. God of the Bible is a thrice
holy God. He is not proven holy when He is compared with evil but He is holy by His
very nature.

2) A biblical understanding of the depravity of Men.

God never created sin. God created everything perfectly. God made Adam and Eve and He
fellowshipped with them. But Adam and Eve disobeyed God and His commands and thereby
disregarded His authority over their lives. When Adam sinned against a Holy God sin entered the
world and sin brought forth death, both physical and eternal. When Adam sinned we died in
Adam and henceforth anyone who was born was born in sin and spiritually dead.

Psalms 51: 5 “I was formed in Sin in my mother’s womb.”

Ephesians 2:1-3 “We are dead in our sins and transgressions.”

Romans 8:8 “We cannot please God.”

Psalms 5:5 “God hates all evildoers.”

Psalms 7:11 “God displays His wrath on the unsaved every day.”

Psalms 11:5 “The Lord hates the wicked with passion.”

3) A biblical understanding of the Justification by faith alone

We have seen that we are the enemies of God and we deserve His just wrath. We deserve
eternal hell and punishment. We deserve to be separated from a holy God for ever and
ever. But God in His mercy and love and eternal plan sent His only begotten Son who
existed as the second person of the trinity to take our punishment and die on our behalf
on the cross of Calvary. Jesus was born of a virgin and He perfectly kept the law on our
behalf and He didn’t sin in His thinking, emotions, and actions. Jesus chose to take our
punishment on Himself and die on the cross of Calvary. Jesus takes on Himself the wrath
of a righteous and a thrice holy God and propitiates the wrath of God.
On the Cross our sin is imputed on Christ and His righteousness is imputed on us, this is
called double imputation. The only way someone can be called as righteous is by
repenting and believing in the saving death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. God
doesn’t make us righteous but He declares us as righteous.

The word Justification comes from same root as “righteous.” The word is a legal term
where in the courtroom the guilt is declared as righteous by the Judge.

Two more metaphors can be used to understand this word.

One is a banking term where we are seen as spiritually bankrupt and as paupers, and
Christ comes into our aid and supplies His righteousness our own account and therefore
God declares us righteous on account of Christ’s righteousness.
One is a clothing metaphor. We are spiritually naked and Christ supplies His
righteousness clothing to us and therefore God declares us righteous on account of
Christ’s righteousness.

The only response that can save us from a Holy God is to repent and believe in the
finished work of Christ.

Repentance means to turn away from our sin submit our lives to the Lordship of Christ.
Believe means to trust in the saving death and the resurrection of Christ.
 The quint essential characteristics of a gospel-driven life

1) It delights in the Gospel of Jesus Christ ( Romans 1: 14-15)

2) It finds its identity in Christ ( Ephesians 1: 4-7)
3) It hungers for the Word of God (1 Peter 2: 1-3)
4) It displays love for the brethren (1 John 3: 11-15)
5) It repents daily (1 John 1:8-9)
6) It purifies itself daily (1 John 3: 2-3)
7) It has an eagerness to continually fellowship with the saints (1 Cor. 12: 26, Hebrews
10:24)