The Gospel

What is the Gospel?

1. By etymology it is good news.

2. It is not a system of doctrine.

3. Nor a philosophy of life.

4. Not a compilation (or a bringing together) of laws.

5. Nor a code of ethics.

It is good news about a person and what that person has done for us in our hopeless, helpless and hapless condition.

1. It is not a message for the saved but the lost.

2. It is never addressed to saints but to sinners.

3. It is never proclaimed to the church but to the world.

4. The gospel is designed to make believers.

5. It is intended to create citizens out of aliens.

The word gospel is our translation of “euangelion”. It is an evangel and you do not evangelize saved persons. It is amiss to talk about preaching the gospel to the church unless the church is made up of those that have never been saved. That is, that have never obeyed the gospel.

The Gospel Paul preached.

1. The gospel Paul preached in Galatia did not originate with man.

2. Gal 1:1 Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;)

It was not the presentation of borrowed “sermon outlines”.

1. It was the gospel of Christ.

2. Gal 1:7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.

3. The good news about Jesus.

4. It consisted of preaching Christ among the Gentiles.

5. Gal 1:16 To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:

6. It was preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.

7. Gal 1:23 But they had heard only, That he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed.

8. What was that faith?

9. Act 22:19 And I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee:

It was belief in Jesus that Paul sought to destroy. It was faith in Jesus that he later proclaimed.

As we become a student of the Galatian letter we cannot help but see that the good news (gospel) was a proclamation that we are justified by faith in Christ and not by works of law.

Gal 2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

There was no good news in a reign of law. Those who rely for justification upon works of law are under a curse

1. Gal 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

No man can be justified before God by law.

1. Gal 3:11 But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.

If justification were through law, Christ died to no purpose.

1. Gal 2:21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

If inheritance were by law it was not by promise.

1. Gal 3:18 For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise.

Law is futile in that it must leave men dead.

1. Gal 3:21 For if a law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would indeed be by law” There is no such law either human or Divine.

Law confines under restraint. It binds but cannot free.

1. Gal 3:23 But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.

It (law) makes a person under it no better than a slave.

1. Gal 4:1 Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all;

Men had to be redeemed form it before they could receive adoption as sons.

1. Gal 4:5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

It is impossible to be justified by faith in Jesus and try to be justified by law at the same time, because one binds and the other sets free. One cannot be both slave and son, because the adoption as sons frees from the bondage of law.

One who seeks to be justified by law or legal conformity, severs himself from Jesus.

1. Gal 5:4 Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.

Nothing could be plainer than the statement in Romans 6:14 …..”You are not under law, but under grace”. You cannot be under both at the same time.

Rom 11:6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.

1. A better translation of that verse is found the Bible in Basic English.

2. Rom 11:6 BBE But if it is of grace, then it is no longer of works: or grace would not be grace.

Salvation is a right relationship with God. Jesus came to reconcile us unto God.

1. 2 Co 5:19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

We do not enter this relationship by bargaining with God.

1. We cannot earn it.

2. We cannot purchase it or deserve it.

3. We cannot bid on it or for it.

4. It is not what we do for God that brings us into this relationship but what He has done for us.

5. We are saved by grace through faith (Eph 2:8-9).

6. It is not of ourselves.

7. It is not of works.

Study Gal 4:1-7 “We were slaves……but…..God sent forth His Son……God has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts”.

1. We could not adopt ourselves into His family.

2. We had nothing by which to purchase our redemption from the slave pen.

3. “So through God you are no longer a slave but a son”.

Our response to the grace which sent a person to become sin for us, and to reconcile us, is faith in that person.

1. That is what justifies.

2. Justification has to do with freedom from guilt.

3. We are not justified because we are guiltless for all of us are guilty.

4. We are not justified because we have done something to free ourselves from guilt for no one can ever undo an act he has committed.

5. We cannot “take back” what we have done.

6. But Jesus is guiltless. He is the sinless one

7. If we are in Jesus we are not in a sinless state but in a sinless person.

8. If we trust in His righteousness that faith or trust is reckoned unto us as righteousness, or justification.

9. Justification must ALWAYS be a gift of God.

10. We cannot give anything to God to meet a need of His. We must always be on the receiving end.

To the one who works, what he receives must be counted as wages. It is not a gift. One who works has something coming to him, but no man has anything coming from God. He cannot be placed in our debt.

To the one who does not work, but trusts Him who justifies the ungodly,

His faith is reckoned as righteousness.

1. Rom 4:5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

To be in Christ does not mean.

1. We have not sinned.

2. It does not mean that our sinful acts have been undone.

3. It does not mean that we are guiltless.

4. It simply means that in Christ Jesus God can treat us as guiltless.

5. He can, through Jesus, reckon our faith as righteousness and not reckon our sins.

So then the gospel is the good news, the glad tidings, the joyful announcement of that justification by faith in Christ Jesus. It is the welcome communication from heaven that by trusting in Jesus in complete surrender and commitment, God will regard us as if were without sin, since we are in one who is in that state (sinless).

This is the gospel That Paul proclaimed in Galatia. It was the good news that Jesus was not as powerless as Greek wisdom and Jewish legalism.

1. Salvation was not hinged upon arriving at wisdom.

2. Nor coming under law.

3. But rather coming INTO a person.

4. God has made Him “our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30).

5. And in Jesus we have been made the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21).

The gospel is:

1. Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

2. He is the good news.

3. The greatest good news in all the history of sinful man.

4. Paul declared that the message brought to Galatia was “Jesus Christ publicly portrayed ( or placarded) as crucified (Gal 3:1).

5. The truth of that gospel, that is, the essence, the basis, the central theme was justification by faith in Jesus Christ.

6. The most earth shaking principle in the universe is that justification is by faith in the Son of God.

7. This is the core of the message. This is “the truth of the gospel”.