The Gospel: 3
The Gospel Is:
The Risen Jesus
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
1 Corinthians 15:17-19
The Gospel is the risen Jesus. Pure and simple. If Jesus hasn’t been raised, then he wasn’t God. If Jesus wasn’t God, his death could not has any saving power. If Jesus’ death had no saving power then he didn’t take the full force of the wrath of God and the full curse of the law for our sakes. If we are still under the Law’s curse and the wrath of God, then we have a problem. In that case, we can expect only to perish in ‘our sins.’ We can only expect punishment, death and the fire of Hell.
If Jesus hasn’t been raised, our outlook is pretty bleak. It is more than a good thing then, that Jesus was raised from the dead. It’s an incredible thing. It’s the entirety of the gospel. That’s all there is to it in the simplest Biblical confessions: Jesus died, was buried and raised on the third day.
This is a problem in another way too. Without Christ, we’re dead. Utterly, absolutely and literally dead. We’re dead in our sins. This means we can’t escape from sin’s grasp under our own power. We’re dead in our transgressions, this means that the Law doesn’t give life to us, it only condemns. We’re dead, in that we are separated from life in Christ and from Christ himself. We’re dead because we’re in bondage, we’re slaves to sin. We’re dead because without Christ we won’t have life now or ever after. We’re dead because we are going to be judged guilty and then brutally crushed under the powerful foot of Jesus in the wine press of his Father’s wrath. Stone dead.
Christ is risen and exalted in Heaven. One day those in Christ will be raised on high and seated with him in heavenly places.
He promises us future life. He gives us life. He is life.
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