Two weeks ago, I gave the first of four talks titled ‘the gospel.’ I said that the word ‘gospel’ means ‘good news.’ What is this good news? We looked at a passage in John 6 in which Jesus said, absolutely clearly, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes HAS ETERNAL LIFE.’ Jesus then basically repeated this several times. His meaning was absolutely clear.
But not only does Jesus hold out this extraordinary, almost unbelievably good prospect for the world to come, he offers extraordinary blessing for our present life. When Jesus started his ministry, he went to Nazareth, the town where he’d grown up, and preached a sermon. I’m reading Luke 4:17-19, and I’m going to read from the New King James Version.
And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
In case you’re wondering why I read from the New King James Version, it contains the line ‘He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted.’ Some versions of the Bible leave that out, but it’s in the passage in Isaiah which Jesus quotes, and it’s certainly true. Jesus heals the brokenhearted, as well as proclaiming liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind and so on.
Doesn’t that sound great? Jesus’ good news relates to this life and the life to come.
And yet, to say that this is the gospel, the good news, isn’t really accurate.
People dream of winning the lottery. In 2016 a lady called Jacqui Shannon won a million pounds in the EuroMillions lottery. She played online, but she didn’t bother to read her emails. It was only three weeks after she won that she actually opened one of the emails and realised that she had won an amazing prize. Is that what the gospel is like? Is it the good news that you have won some sort of heavenly lottery? No, I don’t think we can describe it that way.
The good news is not that we have won a vast sum of money. The good news is that there is a way to fix our broken relationship with God. Once that is fixed, then extraordinarily good things follow.
Let’s go back to where I ended in my first talk. Genesis 3 set out the basic problem of the human condition. In Genesis 3 we find the story of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve knew what God had told them but they did the opposite. God then drove them out of the Garden of Eden. We don’t know if Adam and Eve eventually came back to God, but the Bible gives us no reason to think they did.
Sin had entered the world, and with it, death. Like a virus, sin spread rapidly. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve ate some fruit. But at the beginning of Genesis 4, Cain kills Abel. At the end of chapter 4, Lamech tells his wives, ‘I have killed a man for wounding me.’ Sin got a lot more serious very quickly. The world was not at all what God had intended.
In my first talk I said that there were now three problems to deal with.
Problem One: Adam and Eve had done what THEY wanted rather than what GOD wanted. After God rebuked them, neither Adam nor Eve said, ‘We’re really sorry, God. We won’t do that again.’ IN THEIR HEARTS Adam and Eve did not respect God enough to obey him, and there was no indication of REPENTANCE.
Problem Two: Adam and Eve had disobeyed God. If you break a law, there’s a penalty. Adam and Eve HAD A DEBT to pay.
Problem Three: GOD WAS ANGRY with Adam and Eve.
How could these problems be fixed? I’d like to try to answer that by telling a story.
...
A man, Peter, goes into a shop with his two sons, Joe and Fred. Joe has been very troublesome recently. Today, on a trip to the shops, things come to a head. Joe starts to push Fred around. Peter tells him several times to stop. Then Joe pushes Fred again and he falls into some kitchenware. Both Fred and the kitchenware land on the floor. The kitchenware is broken and Fred has a nasty cut on his head. The store manager arrives.
‘You’ll have to pay for the broken dishes’, he tells Peter.
Peter pays £102.47 and hauls Joe and Fred off to the car. On the way home there is silence. Peter is very angry. When they get home, he takes Joe to one side and gives him a massive telling-off. He tells him there will be a punishment. Among other things, Joe will not be coming on the trip to the circus with them at the weekend.
...
The problems for Joe are just the same as in the case of Adam and Eve.
Problem One: Joe had not listened to his dad. After he behaved badly, he didn’t say sorry.
Problem Two: Joe’s bad behaviour had produced a debt of £102.47.
Problem Three: Peter was very angry.
The gospel tells us that the relationship we are in with God is the same as Adam and Eve were in, and the same as Joe was in, in my little story.
How can these problems be fixed? Let me continue with my story
....
Later that evening, Fred knocks on his dad’s study.
‘Hi Fred’, Peter says.
Fred shows his dad a big glass jar containing a mixture of notes and coins.
‘I’ve counted up all the money I’ve saved’, he says. ‘I’ve got just over £100. Would you take that to pay for Joe’s debt?’
‘Wow’, Peter says. ‘That’s very big of you.’
‘There’s something else I’d like to ask’, Fred says.
‘Oh yes?’
‘I’d like you not to be angry with Joe. I want him to come to the circus with us.’
Peter looks at his son and the glass jar with all the money.
‘OK’, he says. ‘But there’s something Joe needs to do.’
Five minutes later, there’s another knock on Peter’s door. It’s Joe.
‘Dad’, he says, ‘I’m really sorry…’
Peter looks at Joe and knows that he means it. He gives Joe a big hug.
‘Sorted’, he says.
...
This is, basically, the gospel, the good news. Joe was in a bad relationship with his father, but Fred helped him to fix it. Joe completed the process by saying sorry and meaning it. We are in a bad relationship with God our father, but Jesus has intervened to fix it. Jesus has paid our debt, and his action has turned away God’s anger. But we still have to do something. We have to say sorry – and mean it. We have to change our ways and respect what God tells us.
Let’s take a look at each of those.
I’m going to take Problem Two first: there was a debt to pay.
We saw from just looking at Genesis 3 and 4 how serious sin is. In Genesis 3, two people had eaten a piece of fruit. In Genesis 4 Cain kills Abel and we discover that Lamech has killed someone. In Genesis 6 we read that ‘the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth.’
Sin is really serious and God cannot tolerate it. It wrecks what he wishes to create. It kills those in whom it resides. The Bible teaches that ‘the wages of sin is death.’
God starts to show how he will deal with it in the story of the Passover.
I imagine you know the story. God has been trying to wrest the Israelites out of the grasp of the Egyptians. The Egyptians are being very stubborn. God sends nine plagues to persuade them to change their mind. They don’t. God then sends one final plague, which would cause the death of the firstborn in each household.
In Exodus 12:23 we read: ‘For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians.’ We know this means that God will kill the firstborn in each Egyptian family. However, Moses told the Israelites to put the blood of a lamb on the lintel and doorposts of their homes. Let’s continue. ‘…when he [that is, God] sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door.’
The blood of a lamb on the lintel and doorpost would avert the death which would come otherwise.
The Egyptians had been very stubborn. But by default, BOTH Egyptians and Israelites would die when the Lord passed through. The Israelites wouldn’t be spared on account of their righteousness. The Egyptians and Israelites were all sinners. The only way they could be spared was if something else were to die instead. That was the lamb. God was starting to show the Israelites how he would deal with their debt. They were deserving of death – but a lamb could die instead.
But this was only an initial picture, a foretaste of what would be needed. Many years later the prophet Isaiah had his amazing insight into the full picture. Isaiah wrote:
But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah looked forward to the time when Jesus would die on the cross to pay the debt which should fall on us.
An illustration that helped make things clear for me goes like this. My right hand is me. Up above me is God. At present there is no barrier between me and God. However, when I commit sin, the sin creates a barrier between me and God. I can represent that with a book [I lay a book on my right hand]. How can this barrier be removed? My left hand is Jesus. He is without sin. He is in perfect relationship with God. The passage in Isaiah tells us: ‘and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.’ [I remove the book from my right hand and place it on my left.] Now Jesus is bearing my sin and HE is cut off from God. He cries out on the cross, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ The curtain in the temple is torn from top to bottom. The debt is paid. The way to God is now open.
Let’s go on to Problem Three: God is angry.
If sin was like coronavirus then God could be like a doctor. He wouldn’t be angry that we had contracted this disease of sin. But the Bible tells us that it isn’t like that. God is angry with us.
However, the Bible teaches that Jesus’ death on the cross NOT ONLY settled our debt, IT ALSO appeased God’s anger. The technical word for this is propitiation. The dictionary tells us that ‘propitiate’ means, ‘To make well-disposed or favourably inclined; to win or regain the favour of...’ Propitiation is a rather technical word and some English versions of the Bible avoid using it. But it’s the best word to translate the original.
The New Testament uses the word propitiation four times. Here are 1 John 2:2 and 1 John 4:10:
‘He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world’; ‘In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.’
In my little story, Fred offered all his savings and asked his father to look favourably on Joe. But in Jesus’ case, Jesus offered himself. That really is love. How can we not respond to such love?
Finally, we can come back to Problem One. Adam and Eve didn’t respect God as God. Initially, Joe didn’t listen to his father. God can cover the debt. His anger can be appeased. But something is still needed. WE have to say sorry and say sorry like we mean it. This is what the Bible calls us to do.
John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
When Jesus began to preach, he said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
On the day of Pentecost Peter said to the crowd, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”
There is a way to a restored relationship with God. Jesus has made it possible. But there is still a step we have to take. Like Joe in my story, we have to say sorry – and mean it. We have to repent. Having said sorry, we have to respect God as God. Then the relationship with God is restored. Then we get the trip to the circus! Actually, of course, we get much, much more. Good parents look after their children but no one looks after his children like God.
That is the gospel, the good news. Christ has paid the debt that was rightfully ours. He has propitiated God’s anger. There is just one thing you and I have to do. Like Joe in my story, we have to knock on our Father’s door and say, ‘I’m sorry.’
God and Jesus are giving us the warmest invitation to return to him. God said, ‘Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth!’ Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden.’ He said ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.’ His most famous invitation is probably Revelation 3:20. Jesus said:
‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me’
The invitation is open to all. I accepted the invitation when I was quite young. I opened the door of my life to Jesus. He entered, and I’ve never regretted it.
It isn’t just good news. It’s the best possible news. If you haven’t yet responded, then I’d simply say, do! Accept the invitation! Open the door!
Talk given at Rosebery Park Baptist Church, UK, 25/10/2020
