{"id":58120,"date":"2018-01-03T10:00:58","date_gmt":"2018-01-03T15:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/\/us\/?p=58120"},"modified":"2018-11-12T11:26:56","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T16:26:56","slug":"the-amazing-gospel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/banneroftruth.org\/us\/resources\/articles\/2018\/the-amazing-gospel\/","title":{"rendered":"The Amazing Gospel"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Thus saith the Lord: Behold I will bring again the captivity of Jacob\u2019s tents, and have mercy on his dwelling-places; and the city shall be builded upon her own heap.’<\/em>
\n, Jeremiah 30:18<\/p>\n

The gospel is something which comes from God: \u2018Thus saith the Lord\u2019.\u00a0I shall deal with this principle more in detail later on. What I desire to indicate here and now is that if we fail to realize that the gospel and all it\u00a0professes is primarily an activity on the part of God and not on the part of\u00a0man, we have entirely failed to understand it. Of course, man has something,\u00a0and indeed much, to do in the scheme of salvation but all that is secondary.\u00a0Man only begins to act after God has first acted and has rendered man\u00a0capable of action. What is the Bible after all but an account of God\u2019s activity\u00a0and action in the matter of human salvation. It is not a manual of instructions designed to tell us how to save ourselves, it is a revelation and a\u00a0proclamation of what God has done in order to bring that salvation to pass.\u00a0Salvation then is something which is already complete and entire in God\u2019s\u00a0hands. It is something which he has to give and which he is willing and ready\u00a0to give. He has done the work, he has taken the action and you and I, if we\u00a0are Christians, recognize and acknowledge gladly and with thanksgiving that\u00a0we are what we are and have what we have solely and entirely by \u2018the grace\u00a0of God\u2019.<\/p>\n

This comes first. Before you begin with your good deeds, before you\u00a0begin to prepare your programmes and plans and set out after your high\u00a0ideals \u2013 stop! Have you listened to what God says? Do you understand this,\u00a0\u2018Thus saith the Lord\u2019? Are you planning in accordance with what he\u00a0announces or are you drawing merely on your own ideas and imaginations?\u00a0That which starts with man and his attempts to find God, instead of starting\u00a0with God\u2019s way of finding and saving man, is not the gospel. Had you\u00a0realized that? The gospel starts with God and comes from him.<\/p>\n

And because of that we are able to announce as our second controlling\u00a0principle that the gospel is essentially supernatural both as regards its nature\u00a0and also its mode of action. It is a miracle. \u2018The city shall be builded upon\u00a0her own heap.\u2019 Salvation according to the Bible is something large, something\u00a0vast. And there is no better test which can be applied to anything that\u00a0professes and offers itself as the gospel as this test of greatness or of scope. It\u00a0is so great according to New Testament writers that no terms are quite\u00a0adequate to describe it except such terms as rebirth, renovation, regeneration.\u00a0It is something which makes all things new. The gospel is not merely meant\u00a0to make us a little better and to hold out ideals for us. It does not offer itself\u00a0as a mere veneer on our lives. It is something which completely and entirely\u00a0changes us. It is face to face with this truth that all the vapid idealisms and\u00a0moralisings that so frequently pass as the gospel today are seen to be so hopelessly\u00a0inadequate.<\/p>\n

But because the gospel is essentially miraculous and supernatural it follows\u00a0that it is not only large and vast in its scheme and its action, it must also be\u00a0something that comes as a surprise to man and which in its essence is incomprehensible\u00a0to man. It is marvelous, astonishing and invariably moves all\u00a0who truly see it to a cry of wonder and amazement. Here again we have but\u00a0to recall one of those great exclamations of a man like Paul as he contemplates\u00a0the gospel. \u2018Great is the mystery of godliness\u2019, he cries (1 Tim. 3:16).\u00a0Then again, \u2018O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge\u00a0of God!\u2019 (Rom. 11:33). And with him all the saints at all times and everywhere\u00a0have owned themselves as being \u2018lost in wonder, love and praise\u2019 as\u00a0they contemplate the gospel. But if the gospel is merely something that\u00a0exhorts us to live a better life and to be good and kind, if it is but a social and\u00a0ethical scheme, something which primarily asks us to do something rather\u00a0than an announcement of what God has done, it cannot possibly evoke such\u00a0a response. It then becomes just one among a number of philosophies and\u00a0schemes of life which we may affirm, but it definitely ceases to be something\u00a0which breaks in upon us and overwhelms us with its majesty and its\u00a0graciousness. But such is always the effect of the gospel which announces\u00a0God\u2019s action. He amazed Abraham and Jacob and David and the prophets\u00a0and all the New Testament saints as we have already seen. Does what\u00a0you have always regarded as the gospel do that to you? Has the word of\u00a0God come to you and has it filled you with \u2018wonder, love and praise\u2019? The\u00a0apprehension of God\u2019s action always leads to that.<\/p>\n

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This article first appeared in the February 1995 edition of the\u00a0Banner of Truth\u00a0<\/em>magazine.<\/p>\n

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Of Further Interest<\/h3>\n