The Gospel. Part 2: The Solution

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.