BIBLE TEACHINGS MADE PLAIN, PART 12 – The Gospel of Christ.

BIBLE TEACHINGS MADE PLAIN, PART 12

The Gospel of Christ.

In this lesson we will learn more about what God did to resolve what had gone wrong in the Garden of Eden. What God did has been given the name GOSPEL. This name is not found in the Old Testament but frequently in the New. The first time in Matth.4:23 (Mark 1:14) and the last in Revelation 14:6 and where it is even called “The everlasting Gospel”. It means Good News, and is everlasting, which means it is related to eternity. Again we must find it in the beginning. Read again as we have done before, Gen.3:15. This Bible verse is called “The Gospel in Embryo Form”.
Out of this text is born what we call the Gospel message or to use the term from Rev.14:6, “The Everlasting Gospel’. Thus God Himself was the first preacher of the Gospel

It was good news to Adam and Eve that they would not loose life immediately on the spot where they had transgressed God’s commandment not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Gen.2:17. They did eat from that tree because of deception through the medium of the serpent. The first thing God told them was that the serpent, the devil according to Revelation 12:9, would be crushed to death in the enemy war between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, Eve. However
in this war the seed of the woman would be hurt at the heel. Eve understood clearly what it meant, a man would be born out of her We know this from the time when Cain was born, she called the baby Cain because she said “I have a man gotten from the Lord” Gen.4:1 The literal Hebrew reads “I have a man, the Lord” But Cain became the first murderer and the world had to wait 4000 years before the angels announced to the world the Good News that Jesus, the Messiah, the Man as a gift from the Lord (John 3:16) was born in Bethlehem. Read Luke 2:10, 11 the angel said “I bring you good tidings (Good News-the Gospel) for unto you is born this day a Saviour Christ, the Lord”. Not Cain but Christ is the Lord, the Man from heaven to be the Saviour, the Messiah.

When the question is raised “What is the Gospel?” the plain and simple answer is “Jesus Christ”. Let’s explore that a little. Rom.1:1-3 here the apostle Paul calls himself an apostle of the Gospel. He says the Gospel or Good News from God and promised before by the prophets. These promises we have noticed in lesson 11 run from Gen.3:15 and then more and more become revealed about the coming of the deliverer or Messiah or the Seed. We have learned that the seed would come from Abraham and then from Judah, Hebr.7:14 and He would be of the seed of David as Paul mentions in Rom.1:3
His place of birth would be Bethlehem, the city of David, Micah 5:2 and that it would happen before Judah would loose independence,Gen.49:10. The year of His anointing by the Holy Spirit would be 27AD and His death would be according to Isa.53 a substitute for our death penalty, which happened in 31AD

The Gospel is all about Jesus. We learn more about that from 1Cor.15:1-8 read this. Paul explains what the content of the Gospel is. It is Jesus Christ who died for us or in place of us because of our sins, that He was buried, which means Christ was really dead, not in a coma as some unbelievers say. Christ rose from His death the third day
after His crucifixion, read Matth.28 first part and also Luke 24 first part.. Paul also mentions that Christ was seen by several people including himself as one of the last,
1Cor.15:5-8.
Further in 1 Corinthians 15 we learn more about the Good News, the Gospel, that when we die in Christ, we also will rise again, 15:22 or be changed when we are still alive and believe in Jesus the day Jesus returns, 1Cor.15:51-58; 1Thess.4:13-18.

From Revelation 14:6 we learn about a special last day aspect of the Gospel Under the symbol of an angel it is preached all over the world. Read also Matth.24:14 In that Good News, the Gospel message is the call to fear or give reverence to God, to glorify God and worship Him as the Creator, Rev.14:7 The second angel announces that the world of Babylon is fallen, 14:8. There is not much, yes nothing to gain from this fallen world. The third angel warns against turning our worship to the opposite party, the ones who try to worship God differently from what God has instituted, 14:9-11.

But what does it mean that it is called “Everlasting”. First it means it is and has always been and always will be the same. There is, was and never will be another way to be saved than through Jesus Christ our Lord, Acts 4:12. Jesus is the same always, Hebr.13:8 and God does not change, James 1:17; Mal.3:6

Everlasting also has a direct connection with eternity. The Gospel about the Messiah, Jesus Christ was in the mind of God from eternity. Jesus is the true Lamb of God through whom salvation comes to us, John 1:29 and this idea a Lamb slain for our sins in our place was there before the world was, Rev.13:8. Before the world was God had in mind, that in case something would go wrong Christ would come down to die in our place as a lamb, (Isa.53), and thus God would reconcile the world unto Himself, 2Cor.5:19
This would happen by way of making Christ to be sin for us, 2Cor.15:21 in other words Christ who had never sinned would be the sinner and suffer the penalty for our sin and that is really very Good News, the Gospel.

But God did more. Before Christ coming into our world God designed a plan to illustrate this Good News or Gospel plan of God. This was done through the sanctuary He commanded Moses to construct a sanctuary complex in the desert when coming out of Egypt. You remember that Adam and Eve covered themselves, but that covering was not sufficient to cover their sins. The Lord provided skins from animals and most likely two, one for each. So the innocent lamb had to sacrifice its life and skin, to cover Adam and Eve. This symbolised what Christ would do and has now done for us. He sacrificed His life to cover us with His sinless life or His righteousness. Thus He is called The Lord our righteousness, Jer.23:6

Abel understood that and sacrificed an animal from his flock, Gen.4:4. He understood what later is written in Hebr.9:22 that without blood there is no remission of sin and that we are not bought/redeemed with material things but by the blood of Christ, 1Peter 1:18, 19, and Eph.1:7.

Cain did not understand and thought he could make a gift offering from his own land to God to obtain mercy, Gen.4:3, 5 But his sacrifice was not acceptable by God. We cannot make a gift sacrifice to God to obtain forgiveness. We MUST accept God’s gift to us as stated in Lev.17:11 the blood of the animal on the altar is given by God to us. The Israelite may have paid for that animal, but still it had to be sacrificed as God’s gift, John 3:16. God is the Giver and we are the ones in need of it. This is not a bribe gift to buy our obedience but a pure divine love gift, because He does love us.

During the time Israel was in slavery in Egypt they had lost much of that concept and so God instructed Moses to build a sanctuary which would illustrate the gift of God and what reconciliation is all about. Briefly we will have a look at this sanctuary and what it means. We will find that it is all about Christ, the Messiah, the Redeemer.
We find that it is built within a court and in that court stands a tent or tabernacle with two apartments.
You can read all about it in Exodus 25-30. In the court we find an altar where the sacrificial animals were killed and their blood taken by the priest. The sinner would bring the animal to the priest and confess his sins over the animal by putting his hand on the head of the innocent animal, most likely a lamb and kill it. Read Lev.1:4, 5. The sins are now transferred from the sinner to the lamb. A little further on in the court is the washbasin or laver. Nobody was allowed to enter the tabernacle without being washed, made clean. This is a representation of baptism. After we have confessed our sins to God and have accepted Christ’s sacrifice as done in our place, Christ dying instead of us, then we must be baptised to complete the cleansing from sin. Later we will study baptism in a separate lesson.

Now we come to the tabernacle itself. The priest has some of the blood of the animal sacrificed with him and enters the first apartment to sprinkle the blood before the veil of the second apartment.Lev.1:5 last part. The blood is contaminated blood because of the sinner who confessed his/her sins over the animal. The sinner is clean, but the tabernacle becomes contaminated and needs cleansing later. In this apartment we find on the left the lamp stand, representing Christ being the light of the world, Exod.25:31-40; John 8:12; read also Ps.119:105. On the other side we find a table with shewbread representing Christ being the bread of life, John 6:35. Before we enter the second apartment we pass another altar, the altar of incense.Exod.30:1-10. The incense from this altar provided a beautiful smell or odour/fragrance filling the whole of the tabernacle. It is the place of prayer, Rev.8:3; Ps.88:2; 141:2.

Moving through the veil into the second apartment called the Most Holy place or holy of holies, we find only one item, the Ark of the Covenant.Exod.25:10-22 the top of the ark is called the mercy seat and inside the ark are the two tables with the Ten Commandments. The symbol here is that we cannot keep the commandments of God without His grace and mercy. We need to accept God’s gift of mercy and grace first before we are empowered by God in Christ to keep His commandments which then is not our work but God’s work in and through us. In the next two lessons we will talk more about this. Everything in this sanctuary model is pointing to Jesus Christ, the Messiah. A great pity that when Jesus was born and started His ministry 30 years later among the Jews they did not recognise Him as the promised Messiah and many people, Jew or no Jew still do not recognise Jesus as the promised Messiah. The challenge for you and me is to accept and worship Him daily as our Saviour and Lord.

What have we learned in this lesson? The Gospel is the Good news about Jesus, His coming as the promised Messiah, how He came to die for us, in our place. We have learned how God illustrated the saving ministry of Jesus Christ through the sanctuary and we like to add that Christ is now serving us as our High Priest in the real heavenly Sanctuary, Hebr.8:1-3 where He has entered by way of Hs own blood Hebr.9:11, 12 and in that way He carries our confessed sins into the heavenly sanctuary which also will need cleansing or purification. Heb.9:23.

Commitment: Dear reader are you willing to confess your sins before God and Christ urged by the Holy Spirit speaking to your heart and are you willing to accept Jesus as your personal Saviour who took your sins and died the penalty you deserve for your sins? God bless you making that commitment now.