Gospel

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We began this kingdom story journey with the idea that everything in the biblical story, from Genesis on, has been pointing toward Jesus, and now, we’re finally approaching the climax of the story. We could summarize the story up to this point like this: In the beginning, our loving, life-giving Creator God brought his “very good”, light-filled creation into being and set it apart from the darkness and chaos. He created humanity to be intimately connected to him and to reflect his image, and he blessed them and gave them the authority to rule over his creation with stewardship, love, and care, in creative partnership with him. After God brought his creation to completeness, wholeness—shalom—his intention was to dwell in it with his image-bearers in an eternal seventh-day Sabbath rest. But the image-bearers “sinned”—they “missed the way”—they forgot who their Father was and who they were created to be, and instead of trusting their Creator, they put their trust elsewhere, unleashing darkness, shame, fear, and chaos back into creation and into their own minds, hearts, and spirits. Disconnected from the life of their Father, no longer whole and “at-one” with him, humanity was sent out of their garden home and became lost, scattered, divided, and in conflict with one another. Enslaved and blinded by the corrupting power of darkness, the image-bearers were unable to know and trust their Father, so they were incapable of fulfilling their God-given purpose to love and bless, and to help life to flourish and grow. Even the family of Abraham—the nation Israel—the people God called to carry his covenant promise and to take his image, his light, and his blessing out to the world—were unable to fully know him and trust him and to fulfill their calling. But even in humanity’s blindness, in their turning away, or in their outright rebellion, their Creator, Father, God would continue to reach toward them with his promise to redeem and restore what was lost. And indeed, in his faithfulness and love, God made good on his promise. God reached into the darkness with the gift of his grace—the gift of himself in the person of Jesus—God incarnate—grace in person.

That brings us to the next word in our series, “Gospel”. The word in Greek is “euaggelion” which means “good news or a good message”. The corresponding word in Hebrew is “basar” which means “to announce good news or glad tidings”. Over time, Abraham’s family—the nation Israel—had developed some very specific expectations about what this “good news” was, and what it would look like when it came to pass. 

The prophet Isaiah expressed it well:

“Go up on a high mountain, Zion, messenger of good news, Raise your voice forcefully, Jerusalem, messenger of good news; Raise it up, do not fear. Say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’” (Isaiah 40:9 NASB).

“How delightful on the mountains Are the feet of one who brings good news, Who announces peace And brings good news of happiness, Who announces salvation, And says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’” (Isaiah 52:7 NASB).

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, Because the Lord anointed me To bring good news to the humble; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim release to captives And freedom to prisoners; To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord And the day of vengeance of our God…” (Isaiah 61:1-2 NASB)

And the prophet Ezekiel put it like this:

“For the Lord God says this: ‘Behold, I Myself will search for My sheep and look after them. As a shepherd cares for his flock on a day when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will care for Mysheep and will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them to their own land…I Myself will feed My flock and I Myself will lead them to rest…I will seek the lost, bring back the scattered, bind up the broken, and strengthen the sick…Then I willappoint over them one shepherd, My servant David, and he will feed them; he will feed them himself and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and My servant David will be prince among them…And I will make a covenant of peace with them…I will make them and the places around My hill a blessing. And I will make showers fall in their season; they will be showers of blessing…Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bars of their yoke and have saved them from the hand of those who enslaved them. They will no longer be plunder to the nations, and the animals of the earth will not devour them; but they will live securely, and no one will make them afraid.” (Ezekiel 34:11-13, 15-16, 23-24, 26, 27-28 NASB)

Throughout the Hebrew scriptures, the Creator God had been reaching toward his people—those who would listen to him—with the promise that he would come to save them from their enemies. The promise to “save” is a prominent theme in the Hebrew expectation of the “good news”. The word “save” in Hebrew is “yasha” and it means “to deliver from danger, liberate, rescue”. In Greek, the word is “sozo” and it has a similar meaning, “to rescue, heal, deliver”. 

We see this theme of rescue right away in the opening chapters of the Hebrew story. If you’ll remember, after humanity’s choice to trust the voice of the serpent in Genesis 3, God promised that one day a Son of Man—a snake crusher—would come to battle against the serpent—a symbol of the dark power that had contaminated his “very good” creation—and even though this Son of Man would be struck himself, he would crush the serpent’s head in the end. Then later, when Abraham’s family—the keepers of God’s covenant promise—became enslaved in Egypt—another symbol of that dark power—God reached out to save them with a mighty hand. Under the leadership of Moses, God rescued them from the oppression of Pharoah, made a way for them through death and dark waters, led them out into freedom, and called them to be his chosen people. 

The nation Israel would cling to the memory of that Exodus rescue and to the promises spoken through their Prophets, that one day God would raise up a mighty warrior from King David’s line—his Messiah—his “Anointed One”—to rescue them once again from the darkness that kept them captive and blind. Through his Messiah, God would free them from their oppression and defeat their enemies, he would bring back the scattered family of God, and he would proclaim the Year of the Lord’s Favor—the Year of Jubilee—a time when all debts would be forgiven, slaves would be set free, families would be reunited, and the abundance and blessing of God would overflow. When the Messiah arrived, it would mean that God had finally forgiven the people’s “sin”—their turning from God—and they would no longer have to offer sacrifices for forgiveness. It would mean their punishing exile would be over, God would have compassion on them, restore justice, and come to dwell with his people. He would overturn death and usher in the life of the Age to Come—eternal life—God’s kingdom on earth—and he would “put things right” once more. That was the hope that sustained Abraham’s family—the nation Israel—that was the “good news” they were waiting for.

When Jesus arrived on the scene hundreds of years later, he came proclaiming “good news”, but his “news” didn’t look or sound quite like what the nation Israel had been expecting. Even so, he told his Jewish listeners that though his message sounded new and unexpected, he had not come to overthrow or destroy the scriptural story—“the Law and the Prophets”—or the messianic hopes they clung to. He had come to fulfill those hopes, and to bring the scriptural story to its completion (Matthew 5:17). He said that in fact, the Scriptures had been pointing to him all along. 

He stood up in the synagogue in his hometown and reinterpreted Isaiah’s words, taking them on as his own mission statement—to “bring good news to the poor…proclaim release to captives…and recovery of sight to the blind…to set free those who are oppressed…and to proclaim the Favorable Year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19). He took ownership of Ezekiel’s words by insisting that he was “the good shepherd”; that he would bring back the scattered flock; that he had come to “seek and save that which was lost”; that his “little flock” need not be afraid because his Father had chosen to give them the kingdom (John 10:14-16, Luke 19:10, 12:32). And he would reinterpret the story of Passover and the Exodus rescue and reframe it around what he himself was going to accomplish (Luke 22:14-20).

But Jesus went beyond simply connecting himself to the scriptural promises of God. The Gospel of Mark tells us, Jesus came “…preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’” (Mark 1:14-15 NASB).“Repent and believe in the gospel”. This phrase holds the key to understanding the radically unexpected “good news” of Jesus, both in the first century and today as well. 

Remember, the word “repent” in Greek means “to think differently, to have a change of mind”. So, we could interpret Jesus’ words as an invitation to his listeners to think differently about their long-standing messianic expectations, to think differently about what they thought they “knew” about God and what he wants, to think differently about his kingdom—what it’s like, what their purpose is within it, who will participate in it, how and when God is going to launch it—and then to ultimately trust him and the “good news” he was bringing. 

So, how did Jesus’ “good news” both fulfill the Hebrew story and, at the same time, reinterpret it and cause his listeners to think differently about it? To think deeper about this question, let’s look at one of the most well-known sayings of Jesus that encapsulates his “gospel” message. 

In the Gospel of John, Jesus was having a conversation with one of the religious leaders of the day about the kingdom of God, and the need to be reconnected to God’s Spirit in a new way in order to be able to see it and understand it (John 3:3-8). Jesus said, “This, you see, is how much God loved the world: enough to give his only, special son, so that everyone who believes in him should not be lost but should share in the life of God’s new age. After all, God didn’t send the son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world could be saved by him” (John 3:16-17 NTE). This is the core of Jesus’ “good news”—his “gospel” message. Let’s take a closer look.

First, Jesus said God loves the world. That simple yet astounding statement is arguably the most important part of Jesus’ “gospel” message, yet it’s also the one that is the most easily distorted. If we’ve been following the Hebrew story, this phrase should immediately take us back to where we started—the Genesis creation story—and the love of our Creator God for his image-bearers and for his creation in the beginning. Genesis 1 and 2 make it clear that God loves his world. It isn’t until humanity’s fateful choice to “miss the way” and allow the creeping contamination of darkness, obscurity, and chaos into creation, that we begin to see God’s image and his love become increasingly distorted into something fear-based, conditional, and exclusive. God did not change, but humanity’s perception of him did. The Hebrew Scriptures affirmed that God loved his chosen people—the nation Israel—even though they also believed they would die if they approached him, that he turned his face from them in his wrath, and that he sent plagues, punishments, and curses on them when they sinned and disobeyed his commands (Jeremiah 18:11-17, Deuteronomy 28). But those same Scriptures also told them who God did not love—their enemies and those who would not acknowledge and obey him. In fact, they were sure that God would take vengeance against their enemies and utterly destroy them in the most violent ways (Deuteronomy 20:16-17, 23:1-6, 25:19, Isaiah 34). 

But as we’ve already seen, Jesus called his listeners to “think differently” about this distorted image. He told them that they didn’t know his Father, that they were blinded by darkness and unable to see clearly. Jesus said that he alone knows who his Father is, and only he reveals the truth about him (John 7:28, John 8:19, 55). He said that if they knew him, they would also know his Father because seeing and knowing Jesus was the same as seeing and knowing God (John 14:7-9). Then he went around saying and doing things that revealed the true nature and character of his Father and his kingdom. He reached out in love to the poor, the sick, the sinners, and the outcasts, and invited them to be a part of his family (Luke 8:21, 15:1-2). He told his listeners they were to love their enemies and do good to those who hate them because that’s what his Father does (Matthew 5:43-48). He healed and forgave anyone who came to him in faith with no sacrificial offering, payment, or punishment required (Matthew 4:23). He told stories about how much God values his creation (Matthew 6:25-33), and he likened God’s love to a father running to welcome his wayward son home, and then pouring out his lavish love and forgiveness on him without any payment, punishment, or condemnation whatsoever (Luke 15:11-32). Jesus was clear about the first part of his “gospel” message—the Creator God is a loving, forgiving, life-giving Father, who loves his creation and who waits with open arms to welcome all his image-bearing children home to him, no matter who they are or what they’ve done. 

The next piece of Jesus’ “gospel” is intimately tied to the first—Jesus came to save. He said that because of his Father’s relentless love for his image-bearers and for his creation, and in his desire to redeem and restore what was lost, he reached toward humanity with his grace and gave the gift of his own Son—Jesus—Emmanuel—God with us—to rescue them from their “sin”—their loss due to “missing the way” of love and trust—so they would not have to remain lost and perishing in the darkness. Jesus said he had not come to judge and condemn the world. He had come to save it. Remember our definitions? Jesus was saying that his Father sent him to rescue, to heal, and to deliver not just the nation Israel, but the entire world from the darkness that held it in bondage. Jesus made it clear that his Father was not the enemy, he was not the one they needed to be rescued from. He said he had come from the Father to judge and cast out the real enemy—“the ruler of this world”—the dark, accusing, violent power that fuels human evil and stands in opposition to God and his purposes—the lying, manipulative serpent from the garden (John 12:31, 16:11). 

Jesus was the promised Snake-Crusher, God’s Messiah, the Son of Man, and the Son of God who would stand in as the true image-bearing human and do for humanity what they could not do for themselves. He would reverse humanity’s Genesis 3 failure by doing what the image-bearers had been unable to do. He would refuse to collude with the darkness and stand in unwavering love and trust in God. But the sacrifice would be great. Jesus would pay the ultimate price to ransom the slaves. In a decisive act of self-sacrificial love, he would lay down his own life to free the image-bearers from the power of darkness and death they themselves had empowered. It was part of his Father’s plan from the beginning, the Snake-Crusher himself would be struck by the serpent, the humble Servant would suffer at the hand of evil and darkness (Genesis 3:15, Isaiah 53:7-9).

Jesus would allow himself to be handed over to the religious leaders and the Roman authorities who would unjustly accuse him, condemn him, mock him, beat him, crucify him, and kill him. He would allow the full force of human evil and the darkness that stands behind it, to do its worst to him, to crash over him and overwhelm him like a dark, violent flood. Yet even through the agonizing darkness and punishment of the cross, his trust in his Father and in their intimate, unbreakable, triune relationship, would not waver. The power of his steadfast, unfailing love for God and for humanity, would overcome the deceptive, murderous power of the enemy and would crush the serpent’s head. 

Then, three days later, the last weapon of the enemy—the power of death itself—would be overcome as well. In the light of a new day, the resurrected Jesus would walk out of the tomb into a new-creation garden (John 19:41, 20:1-18). The Light and Life of the world had prevailed over darkness and death. In this new Exodus, the self-sacrificial death of Jesus—the innocent Lamb—had saved the image-bearers from death and darkness, released them from the oppression of the enemy, and made a way for them to cross over to freedom and new life. Jesus’ triumph on the cross and his resurrection victory tore the veil that had kept humanity from coming to their Father. The darkness in the image-bearers’ hearts, minds, and spirits that had prevented them from understanding the truth of who their Creator is and who they were created to be, could now begin to be healed. Just as God had done in the beginning, Jesus had begun the process of separating light from darkness in the world and in the image-bearers themselves (Genesis 1:3-4). Humanity could now be made whole, they could once again be intimately connected to the love and life of their Father through his Spirit, to be reconciled to him, to live in a state of “at-one-ment” with him, and to share in his eternal life—the life of the Age to Come. 

“This, you see, is how much God loved the world: enough to give his only, special son, so that everyone who believes in him should not be lost but should share in the life of God’s new age.” 

The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the “good news”—the “gospel”. It is the fulfillment of the Hebrew story. As the Apostle Paul put it, “…Christ died for our sins…and…He was raised on the third day according to the scriptures…” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). But the “good news” of Jesus doesn’t stop with the fulfillment of the story. The resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of something new, a present reality and a future hope. But notice, the “good news” still involves a choice. As in the beginning, there are still two trees in the garden. Even though darkness and death have lost their power over those who choose to believe Jesus—the Tree of Life, they still remain a reality in this world for now. People still have a two-tree choice. 

As we’ll see next time, the final piece of Jesus’ “good news”, the ability to “share in the life of God’s new age” is an ongoing offer. The “gospel” is an invitation to eat from the Tree of Life, a chance to leave darkness and death behind and join in the life of new creation, a call to participate with God in his new creation kingdom, a call to walk in humanity’s intended image-bearing purpose—to reflect the Creator’s light, his love, and his life to each other and out into the world, and to steward and care for his good creation and help it to grow and flourish.