Wednesday, May 4, 2011

CC--Christianese 17a: Gospel (part 1 of ?)

--Literally, the term comes from the Old English “god-spell” which we would spell “good-spell,” meaning good news or glad tidings.
--This English term is itself a translation of the Greek term “euangelion,” meaning good news.
--So, the term itself means an announcement of some momentous and wonderful development or fact.
--This is why people sometimes talk about the Gospel as being “the good news” or being news in any sense.
--News, as such, is the sort of thing you announce or recount to others, and in this case, it’s news of an event or fact that changes everything.
--So, what is that news?
--First, God created everything perfect in the beginning.
--Second, mankind sinned (disobeyed God) and lost their ability to please Him and be with Him.
--Third, nothing they/we can do on our own will ever work to reestablish our status with God.
--Fourth, because only God can solve this problem, He came to live in the flesh as Jesus Christ.
--Fifth, that God-man lived a perfect life of sin-free obedience and devotion to God’s perfect plan.
--Sixth, being unjustly tried and found guilty despite being perfectly sin-free, Jesus allowed Himself to be killed on a cross outside Jerusalem.
--Seventh, after three days in a tomb, God raised Jesus from the dead (the Resurrection) as evidence that He was satisfied with the sacrifice Jesus had offered in dying in our place.
--Eighth, if anyone wants to be reconciled to God by way of this sacrifice, they may accept Him as their Lord and Savior.
--Ninth, Jesus’s own resurrection testifies that when the day of God’s judgment comes, we will stand before God and be accepted and live forever with Him in a resurrected body.
--In the shortest, yet most complete sense, that’s the Gospel.

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