Saturday, March 22, 2014

The Good News

The gospel is not a myth or fable invented by some genially imaginable people for entertainment. Rather, it is the facts which had happened in history. 

Why do humans need the gospel? Because without it we are doomed to total confusion and darkness. What we are seeing and touching is all but the manifestation of what is not seen and touched. 

What is the gospel? Jesus is. The One the scriptures prophesied to come through the seed of David. He equals with God yet emptied Himself to become in the likeness of man and laid down His life ti obey the will of the Father who accepted His blood and death as the propitiation on our behalf. 

Why is Jesus Christ the gospel? More specifically, His death and burial and the resurrection from the dead. Because Christ died for our sins and buried and rose again for us. His death is sufficient enough to quench the wrath of God on man's sin. The temple's curtain was torn so that the pioneer of faith entered into the throne of grace.   

Jesus' death is the substitution of our own death. Though it is a mystery, we died with Him. We buried with Christ and rose from the dead with Him. It means once for all our sins has been forgiven and clothed with the righteousness of God. So, we are allowed to enter into the throne of grace with confidence and boldness not with our own but with His righteousness. That's what has happened to everyone who believes in Jesus Christ. 

"Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. (Romans 6:8-10 NIV)

Why do we need then come to the Calvary's cross over and over again. It doesn't mean that Jesus Christ dies again and again but that we relate to Him and remind of the facts that we died with Him and rose from the dead with Him. Because Christ crucified is the only way to the Father in heaven. There is no other name in heaven and on earth given other than the name of Jesus. He is the truth and the life. 

Anyone who comes unto Him shall be filled for out of rivers of living water will flow from within him. The Holy Spirit has come in the heart of man who received the Lord Jesus. 

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” (John 7:37, 38 NIV)

Why is always the bloody cross of death? Because without death no life. The evil must be put to death first in order to have life. The evil deeply embedded in our humanity must be exposed as Lord Jesus became the public spectacle of shame and guilt and despair in our place. 

"And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Colossians 2:15 NIV)

The scriptures confirm unanimously that Christians rejoice in the sufferings. Here is why Paul expounds. 

"Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. (Colossians 1:24 NIV)



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