Saturday, April 23, 2016

Live Like You're Loved: Defining the Gospel


This will be a post full of quotes. Others can say it better.
The gospel is the good news that God’s kingdom power has entered human history through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. When we repent and rely on his righteousness instead of our own, his kingdom power transforms us, and we become participants in the restoration of God’s world. The three aspects of the gospel are the kingdom, the cross, and God’s grace. 1. The gospel of the kingdom is life with God under God’s rule. 2. The gospel of the cross is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus by which God accomplishes our salvation, rescues us from his wrath, incorporates us into his people, and inaugurates his reign in the world. 3. The gospel of grace is the wonderful news that God accepts us, shares his life with us, and adopts us as heirs of his kingdom not because we have earned it or deserve it but because God chooses to give all of this freely at Christ’s expense. ~ Daniel Montgomery and Timothy Paul Jones
I am a Christian not because I think that I can walk in Jesus's footsteps but because he is the only one who can carry me. I am not the gospel; Jesus Christ alone is the gospel. His story saves me, not only by bringing me justification but by baptizing me into his resurrection life. ~ Michael Horton
The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. It's a way of overcoming every obstacle to everlasting joy in God. ~ John Piper
At its core, the gospel is Jesus as the substitute for sinners. We could summarize the whole by saying that in his life Jesus lives in perfect submission to the will of God and he fulfills his righteous standard (the law). In his death on the cross he quenches God's wrath against sin, satisfying the sovereign demand for justice. In his resurrection he is victorious over sin and death. All of this is done on behalf of sinners in need of redemption and is offered to all who believe. This is therefore very "good news." ~ Joe Thorn
“I go to prepare a place for you”—the whole of the gospel is in that statement; in that one verse is packed the whole of Christian theology and doctrine. ~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones
The cross provides our access to relate to God, but we must always relate to him in light of who he is, not just who we think or hope him to be. ~ Matt Chandler
Jesus fulfilled all of God's conditions on our behalf so that our relationship with God could be unconditional. Christianity is the only faith system where God both makes the demands and meets them. ~ Tullian Tchividjian
The Bible is the story of God's counteroffensive against sin. It is the grand narrative of how God made it right, of how he is making it right, and how he will one day make it right finally and forever. ~ Greg Gilbert
If a penitent should come and ask me, “What must I do to be saved?” I would say, “Christ must save you—believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” I would neither direct to prayer, nor reading of the Scriptures nor attending God’s house; but simply direct to faith, naked faith on God’s gospel. Not that I despise prayer—that must come after faith. Not that I speak a word against the searching of the Scriptures—that is an infallible mark of God’s children. Not that I find fault with attendance on God’s word—God forbid! I love to see people there. But none of those things are the way of salvation. It is nowhere written—“He that attendeth chapel shall be saved,” or, “He that readeth the Bible shall be saved.” Nor do I read—“He that prayeth and is baptised shall be saved;” but, “He that believeth,”—he that has a naked faith on the “Man Christ Jesus,”—on his Godhead, on his manhood, is delivered from sin. To preach that faith alone saves, is to preach God’s truth. ~ Charles Spurgeon
Either Jesus bears our sin, or we do. If the Father turned His face away from His beloved Son when He was regarded as a sinner, we can be sure that the Father will turn away from every sinner who stands before the Judgment Bar on his own merits. We are either saved by His rejection, or we must bear our own rejection for all of eternity. ~ Erwin Lutzer

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

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