A Gospel Presentation - Part 1 (Two-Age Worldview)

This is the start of a six-part series I will be doing covering The Gospel. The core question I will be addressing is "what is the Gospel?" How I have arrived at this point is a longer story, but the impetus for tackling this question comes from two passages in the Messianic Writings (New Testament), Luke 3:15-18 and Mark 1:14-15, which I will share shortly. The overall arc of this series will be on five main points: Creation, Covenant, Confirmation (Christ), Charisma (Holy Spirit) and Culmination/Cure (Day of Judgement, Eternity). I learned these as "The Five C's" and so I'm preserving that structure because it makes it easier to remember. This first post will be introductory, but mainly covering the Worldview of a 1st Century Jew as a backdrop for the rest of the series.

"Now because the people were waiting in suspense and were all wondering in their hearts whether John himself might possibly be the Messiah, John, in response, told them all, "Though I have been baptizing you with water, the one who is more powerful that I is coming, and I am not fit to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear out his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn. The chaff, however, he will burn in the unquenchable fire." It was with many, many other exhortations of this kind, then, that John was proclaiming the gospel to the people." (Luke 3:15-18, Blessed Hope Translation)

"Now after John was arrested, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God. "The appointed time has been completed," he declared, "and the Kingdom of God is drawing near! Repent and keep putting your faith in the promises!"" (Mark 1:14-15, BHT)

After coming across these two passages some time ago, the question arose in my mind - if John was preaching/proclaiming the Gospel before Jesus was ever on the scene, and if Jesus was preaching/proclaiming the Gospel at the very beginning of his public ministry, before having done and said all he did, before his death on the cross and before the resurrection, then what was the Gospel that they were preaching? In the Evangelical world, we are taught a lot of things about the Gospel, but usually it is something along the lines of, "Jesus died for our sins so that we could be with him in Heaven". If this is the full Gospel, then what was John saying? For that matter, what was the gospel that Jesus was preaching? To begin to answer this question, I want to start with an overview of the Jewish worldview, particularly of the 1st century Jew, by whom and to whom the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) and all of the Apostolic Letters, were written.

Why the Resurrection?

A friend of mine and I are challenging each other to develop a concise, 20-30 minute presentation of the Gospel. As part of that exercise, I was reminded of something very important. There are TWO issues that humans have with regard to their relationship with God. The first thing, that none of us has a problem remembering, is sin. We are sinful and God is Holy. Sin is the thing that causes the fracture in the relationship. With that being said - there is a second thing that is just as critical. The second problem is the CURSE. Adam & Eve sinned (problem 1) which precipitated a curse (problem 2) from God.

God says in Genesis 3, "Because you [the serpent] have done this (deceived, circumvented), cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life" (Gen 3:14) and then later on to Adam and Eve, "To the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children; yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten (sinned) from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it'; cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." (Gen 3:16-19).

One thing that occurred to me this past Holy week: we often say that Jesus 'died for our sins' which, Hallelujah and Amen, is true. But do we think about why He had to come back to life? We have no problem understanding his death as sacrificial, but it seems like we just lump the resurrection into that equation as well, without realizing that the resurrection is, in itself, a unique element. Stay with me - Jesus could have lived a sinless and perfect life, have died for our sins and atoned for them perfectly, but stayed 'dead', just as the saints who had gone before him had. Would that have made the actual sacrifice any less effectual? I would argue 'no' - that the resurrection was not necessary in the sin/forgiveness equation.