This is our fifth and final look at the basics of the Gospel. The reason for this review is simple: If you want share Jesus with someone, you need to get the Gospel right. Few conversations are perfect, and sometimes we can only get in a thought or two, but if you have the opportunity to share the Gospel, these five things should be included:
1. Jesus is the center of the Gospel, just as He is the source and center of all things.
2. The holiness of God is essential in presenting the Gospel.
3. Man is sinful, corrupt, and lost. He is under just condemnation for rebelling against God.
4. The death of Jesus for sin is the only way provided by God for man to be reconciled to God. In Jesus, God satisfies the demands of His own justice.
And now for the last point,
5. The resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of our faith and the proof of His victory over sin and death.
Is the resurrection really essential to the Gospel? Yes! Absolutely essential. Jesus’ resurrection is the proof that His atoning death was accepted, and the historical proof that He is truly the Son of God. Paul wrote the Roman Christians that Jesus “was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4).
In Acts 4:33, we are told “And with great power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all.” There is a reason every Gospel sermon in the Book of Acts mentions the resurrection. It is the proof that this is not a mere story, or a beautiful ideal. It happened! Paul told the Athenians God “has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:31).
The resurrection is so important, that when the Apostles were seeking a man to replace Judas as an Apostle, Peter said it must be “of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us—beginning with the baptism of John until the day that He was taken up from us—one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.”
Although the cross is the basis for our forgiveness and we are right to emphasize it, don’t leave out the resurrection of Jesus.
Let me close with the words of J.C. Ryle:
“Let us cling firmly to the resurrection of Christ, as one of the pillars of the gospel. It ought to produce in our minds a settled conviction of the truth of Christianity: our faith does not depend merely on a set of texts and doctrines; it is founded on a mighty fact which the sceptic has never been able to overturn.”
Yours in Christ,
Originally printed in The AFBC Pony Express. Vol. XIII, No. 1, January 2020.