The Importance of the Gospel (Part 2)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

Apostle Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is

Mike Abendroth, and today we have part two of the message I delivered at the Nebraska Gospel Network, and that message is entitled,

The Gospel and Why Is It Important? Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 that he delivered to the

Corinthians as what was of first importance. And so why is the gospel of first importance?

Everything in the Bible is important. After all, it's in the Bible. It's God -breathed, it's inerrant, it's infallible, it's reliable, it's authoritative, it is sufficient.

But out of all the things that are in the scripture, the most important thing is the gospel.

Why is that? Well, if you listen today in No Compromise Radio, today is part two of a message I delivered at the conference

In Step with the Gospel 2011, with Tom and Gordon there as leaders.

And today is a message part two from the Nebraska Gospel Network, The Gospel and Why It Is Important.

Matter of fact, when we have testimonies at our church at certain times, maybe at Thanksgiving or something,

I have to make sure that people arrange the testimony about their lives, what

God has done for them, instead of how I have received what God has done for me.

Putting the emphasis like Paul, God is the one who's working. Now listen to this. Famous Dutch theologian,

Herman Ritterbos. Here's what he said. While in Calvin and Luther, all the emphasis fell on the redemptive event that took place with Christ's death and resurrection.

Later, under the influence of pietism, mysticism and moralism, the emphasis shifted to individual appropriation of the salvation given in Christ and to its mystical and moral effect in the life of the believer.

Accordingly, in the history of interpretation of the epistles of Paul, the center of gravity shifted more and more from the forensic to the pneumatic and ethical aspects of preaching.

And there arose an entirely different conception of the structures that lay at the foundation of Paul's preaching.

In other words, we've shifted from, this is who Jesus is and what he's done, to this is how

I've made him Lord of my life, how I've appropriated who Jesus is. Sinclair Ferguson said, true faith takes its character and quality from its object and not from itself.

Faith gets a man out of himself and into Christ. Its strength, therefore, depends on the character of Christ.

Even those of us who have weak faith have the same strong Christ as others. So I'm wondering, even as you talk about the

Gospel, is it what God has done and what he has accomplished? Or is it how you've received him and how you've personally believed?

I believe that we have to personally believe. But what's the focus of Scripture? God and his acting are our receiving.

And certainly my receiving Jesus, my believing in Jesus didn't atone for my sins, did it?

Did my faith die on the cross? Did my will die on the cross? No, it's all about God.

And so a quick look at 1 Corinthians chapter 15. I think it's important for us to make sure we talk like Paul does.

God saved me. The next time somebody says, could you give a personal testimony about what God has done in your life?

Then instead of giving a testifony, talking about yourself, why don't you testify to what

God has done and bear witness about what God has done? Summarize your sinful life quickly and then get straight to the cross so you can talk about how

Christ has died, Christ has been raised, Christ is going to appear, et cetera. That's why this is of first importance.

And this gospel about God cannot be found inside of us. It can't be found inside of us.

I call that, I do know you'll know what I'm talking about because you're from Nebraska. I call this the gizzard gospel.

I talk to people in Massachusetts about growing up and my mom would get a couple pounds of chicken hearts and some gizzards and livers and we would eat them and it would be good for us.

And the people with Brooks Brothers suits on outside of Harvard just look at me like, you eat gizzard?

Well, not anymore, of course. The courier, he witnesses the victory, he runs back and then he kind of gives the gizzard gospel about how he feels, how he emotes, how he's appropriated it and he tells that to the king.

That's just odd. That's not the way it goes. Can't find this gospel inside of us because the news isn't about us.

Getting saved is not how this happened to me. Getting saved is what

God did at Calvary 2 ,000 years ago. The good news is not

I can be a better husband. By the way, don't ever evangelize that way. You can have a better marriage if you accept

Jesus as Lord. No, that's not true at all because if you believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and confess

Him in his heart, you might get divorced because the cross comes to divide people. Of course, your marriage might be better.

But the good news is God justifies the wicked. That's the big story.

And by the way, no wonder our culture is so bored with our insipid little stories about how we've appropriated

Jesus and had our own Mormon bosom burning when the news that needs to be proclaimed is the news of the gospel and is the drama of redemption that happened at Calvary.

Now, that's not the boring story, but to me it is boring when people just continue to run their mouths about themselves.

No wonder our culture doesn't want to hear that. The gospel is good news, number one.

I'm glad for that. Number two, it's all about God. Thirdly, the third description of the gospel is the gospel is historical.

It's an objective reality. And so when you take a look at the passage in verse three and four of chapter 15,

Christ died, that is historical fact that Jesus Christ died on the tree 2 ,000 years ago.

What other religion falls apart if it's not historical? What other religion would fall apart if what was told us in the sacred writings wasn't true?

I can't think of anything. Buddhism would go on if we find out there's no such thing as a Buddha, as we say in New England, Buddha.

I was flying in Indianapolis to do a men's conference and I was gonna miss my connection because our flight was late.

This was a month ago. And so I'm flying from New England down to Baltimore and the flight attendant said,

I think everybody's gonna miss their connections except if you're flying to Tamper, you'll be all right.

I just go, Tamper, okay. All makes sense. First time

I got to the church and a guy did a scripture reading and he was reading about Jesus. And he said, I am the

Alpha and Omega. And what if Muhammad really didn't exist?

I don't think it changes Islam at all. But if Jesus Christ, we find his bones in an ossuary box,

Christianity is done. It's over. This is based on a historical event.

And this isn't true. The gospel isn't true because you've experienced it, because you've had a change.

The gospel is a historical event, as the reformers would say in Latin, extra nos, outside of yourself, it's been done.

The gospel is not our changed life. The gospel is what Jesus did on earth. And as Paul told

Festus, those events did not take place in a what? Corner, isn't that neat?

Didn't take place in a corner, public, historical, not individual, not subjective,

Christ outside of us. The gospel is not true because we believe it, but the gospel is true because it happened.

And when you look at this passage, again in verse three, four and following, Christ died, he was buried, he was raised, verse six, he appeared, verse seven, he appeared, verse eight, he appeared.

This is historical news about God. And it's good news.

Number four, number four, the gospel is theological. The gospel is theological.

And I want to emphasize right there in verse three, Christ died would be history. Christ died for our sins.

Now we're thinking about theological issues. Christ died. Now stop and think for a second.

It could say the Lord died. It could say Jesus died. It could say God died.

Why does it say Christ died? You have to ask yourself the question because Jesus isn't his first name and Christ isn't his last name.

Here's Christ the anointed one, the Messiah of Israel, the King of the Jews. Why does that say Christ died?

Because there's a theological import. The Messiah died and you begin to think about all kinds of things about the suffering servant in the

Isaiah passages culminated in Isaiah 53. This is the Messiah who is to be born to die.

It's a theological issue. Not Jesus talking about his incarnation but Christ the

Messiah. And Paul often talks about for our sins. Romans five,

Romans eight, Galatians one, Ephesians five, Titus two. God being both our representative and our substitute for our sins.

Jesus had to be made to take on human flesh so he could be our representative and our substitute.

The atoning death of Christ is central for Paul. And basically this is a good theological summary.

He could say all kinds of things but this is just compressed theology. And if you're a computer person, you could just open up this zip drive in Paul's mind and it just means all kinds of stuff about redemption, ransom, propitiation, priesthood, all kinds of issues.

A doctrinal summary of the atonement. Now interestingly,

I don't wanna go too fast through this passage. So look back at verse three, Christ died for our sins.

What's the implication there? What's the implication about Christ's perfection? What's the implication about did

Christ ever sin? Well, he's not dying for his own sins, he's dying for the sins of others. Implication, Christ is sinless.

Can you imagine if Jesus would have sinned one single solitary time? On Calvary, God's holy law had to be vindicated and the wages of sin is death.

Jesus would have died for himself and himself alone for one single solitary sin.

But he didn't sin, he was spotless, he was blameless. And then

Jesus didn't die for his own sins, he could die for the sins of others, for our sins, not his own sins.

And to quote one commentator, popular writer rather, and at that particular time when

Jesus was dying for our sins, he was having his worst life then. What God has done for us, taking sin seriously.

That's one of the things I love about Christianity, it takes sin seriously. There's a writer of a generation ago, he said that's the only empirical thing we could prove in the

Bible, sin and what it does. And the Bible takes sin seriously. Doesn't say

Jesus is dying for our diseases, dying for our syndromes, dying for our illnesses, dying for sin.

People were blasting Saint Anselm about his view of substitutionary atonement, vicarious substitution.

And he said back to them, you have not yet considered how great your sin is.

Because if you've considered how great your sin is, you know you need to have a lamb that would be slain in your place, on your behalf, in your stead.

Substitutionary atonement at the center of Paul's theology. Christ being punished instead of us.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5. 1 Peter 2, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

Some people call this blood and curse and holiness, uncouth, boorish, but for Paul, he never got over it.

Read Ephesians sometime and ask yourself the question, when did Paul get saved on Damascus and how much later did

Paul praise God in Ephesians chapter one, three to 14? 20 to 25 years later,

Paul is having a, from an outsider's view, a veritable conniption fit, praising

God. One whole sentence, 203 or five words, all praising

God. Praising God for the father's election, for the son's redemptions, for the spirit's sealing and he is just excited about it.

Paul didn't say, well you know what, the gospel's good to get people into heaven and then we just kind of move on. Arminian revivalist

Sam Jones said in the 19th century, God never did throw a javelin into the heart of his son attacking substitutionary atonement.

But for Paul, it's for our sins. Dealing with sin.

I need to find out if this is actually a true story, but I was reading the other day that Roosevelt, President Roosevelt, couldn't figure out

Hitler and the Nazis. He couldn't figure out what motivated him and why they did what they did. He was at a loss.

And then somebody gave him a book of theology about the sin and substitutionary atonement and he could see human condition for what it was and then knew how to explain what

Hitler did. What's our conference called?

Tom, what's the name of this conference? Gospel Network? Okay, if you ever see a conference entitled like this one,

Reimagining Conference, where you reimagine God, don't go. Mainline feminists who declared, we don't need guys hanging on crosses with blood dripping and all that weird stuff.

But for Paul, that was where the love of God was shown the most. For Paul, that's where God's wrath against sin was shown the most.

That's where everything happened was at the cross. And I know you know the song.

It makes me want to sing it right now. In my place condemned he stood and sealed my pardon with his blood.

Hallelujah, what a savior. Number five, the gospel's good news.

It's good news about God. It really happened. It's got theological significance. And number five, the gospel is biblical or it's derived from the

Old Testament. I could maybe say it's nothing new, but then we get into good news. So I'll just say the gospel is biblical.

In three verses, Paul uses according to the scriptures, how many times? Two times.

Can you find them there? Verse three, in accordance with the scriptures. And then

Paul says again in verse four, in accordance with the scriptures. And you know the scriptures for Paul in those days.

He's thinking about the scriptures from Genesis to 2

Chronicles. In our canon, it would be Genesis to Malachi. And he says according to the scriptures.

And what he's saying is basically that God's death, the

Son's death, is according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. He doesn't have in mind a particular passage because when

Paul says in accordance with the scriptures, plural with an S, he doesn't mean some particular verse like when he says according to the scripture, then he gives that scripture.

When he says scriptures, it's a general reference. When he wants specific verse in mind, he says the scripture.

Pillar Commentary said that the cross is the climax of events of salvation history as they are revealed in the

Old Testament. And that the message of the cross must be understood through the Old Testament categories of sacrifice, atonement, suffering, vindication, and so forth.

And so Paul says the weight of the Old Testament in general, and there are some peaks that talk about Christ's death, burial, and resurrection as it were.

He said that the weight of the Old Testament is culminating in this very thing. Now early tradition said that what

Paul was referring to was combined Psalm 16, Psalm 110, but I think it's more generally.

And we'll talk about that next session, how the Bible overall, the unified theme is the exaltation of Christ as our substitute.

Listen to Acts. Paul proclaimed before King Agrippa, and so having obtained help from God, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, stating nothing that what the prophets and Moses said was going to take place, that Christ was to suffer, and that by reason of his resurrection from the dead, he should be the first to proclaim light both to the

Jewish people and to the Gentiles, Acts 26. In general, Paul said the

Old Testament speaks of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. At Pentecost, Peter quotes

Psalm 16 and comments about David, the author, who looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the

Christ, that he was neither abandoned to Hades nor did his flesh suffer decay. So if you want to say it's a combination, if you want to say it's general, either one would be fine.

Number six, what is the gospel? Number six, the gospel is true because it was confirmed by the resurrection.

The gospel is true because it was confirmed by the resurrection. Romans chapter four, verse 25, why was

God raised from the dead? To confirm this actually worked. The transaction was accepted.

The sacrifice was accepted to God and God raised Him from the dead. And when you see in verse four that He was raised on the third day, the gospel must include the resurrection.

I teach men to preach the Bible. I teach men to evangelize. And the guys get to know really quickly when

I'll say what's the gospel and they go through and they've talked about all kinds of things and they forget the resurrection.

And then I'll say, well, you know, that was a pretty good update on Jesus, history, theology, but that wasn't the resurrection. And they're like, what?

Then the next guy will go. And over and over and over, matter of fact, there was a guy that you would know if I told you his name that said,

John MacArthur, would you please critique my message to these 40 ,000 people in California at a large crusade?

And so afterwards, John critiqued him and said, you know, you did a really good job on sin and God's holiness and Jesus is the only savior, the exclusivity of Christ, His substitutionary atonement, but you didn't preach the gospel.

So what do you mean I didn't preach the gospel? You forgot the resurrection. The resurrection is part of the gospel.

And it's interesting, when you look at the Greek tense here, it's a past tense describing a single action for Christ's death.

So when you see Christ died, see the passage there, Christ died for our sins, past action, single event.

But now when he wants to focus on the resurrection, he says that He was raised.

Now that's perfect tense. That's action occurred in the past, but has lasting relevance.

So Paul's point here is Christ died, yes, it was a single event at Calvary, and now Christ was raised,

He's raised and He still is raised. He stands raised, He's always raised. Putting focus on the resurrection.

Now I don't want to forget the word buried, that He was buried there. Was Jesus actually buried? Yes, taken down from the tree, laid in a tomb.

But when you see death and burial connected in Scripture, it talks about finality of death, reality of death.

Jesus really died, it wasn't some swoon theory, and that He was raised.

Raised, God raised

Him from the dead. I like this passage in Romans 1,

Jesus was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead.

That word declared, Jesus was declared the word of God, Son of God, it's where we get the word horizon, horizo.

And when you look at the horizon, and let's say you're on a lake and you see the sun coming up and you can see the clear demarcation of the horizon, this horizon separates the sky from the land, that's what the resurrection is, this clear demarcation proclaimed,

Jesus was raised from the dead. Now more about the resurrection.

Why all these witnesses here? Why appeared, appeared, appeared? Verse five,

He appeared to Cephas, and then the 12, why all these witnesses? Well, in a Jewish court of law, you need two or three witnesses to prove the veracity of the event.

500, that's seemingly a lot. This is all objective.

He's got it set up in such a way that there's a chain of continuity from Cephas to the 12, to the 500, to James, to the apostles, to Paul himself.

And some think, since the resurrection was about 23 years before Paul wrote this epistle, that some of these people that saw

Jesus alive were alive themselves. That's pretty neat to think about.

Only the gospel exalts the triune God. Why is the gospel important? Because it exalts the triune

God. It gives God alone the glory. To God alone be the glory. And any kind of glory that we could somehow want or try to eke out, we cannot do it.

Luther said, no man can attribute too much glory, goodness, grace, mercy, and kindness unto God in Christ.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible -teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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