What did Jesus preach when He preached the Gospel?

Hey, thanks again for sending in questions related to our recent sermons. As you know, we’ve been going through Romans, and really every week we have said that Romans is about the gospel, what Jesus did for us to reconcile us with God, to give us a future, um, to give us worth, significance, meaning.

We’ll talk more about that this upcoming week. Um, so the question this week is, um, you know, Jesus, during his earthly ministry, in places like Mark 1, says, uh, or Mark reports in Mark 1 that Jesus came proclaiming the gospel of God. And this is Mark 1. Um, or over in Mark 8, Jesus says, whoever, you know, uh, loses his life for for me or gives up his life for me and this gospel, for this gospel will save it. You know, whoever tries to, you know, keep his life will lose it, whoever loses his

life will save it. Um, and so the question is, since Jesus uses the word gospel or good news early on in his ministry, how could the gospel then be referring to, um, his death and resurrection? That hadn’t even happened yet. Um, but Jesus is using the word gospel very early on. So maybe gospel doesn’t mean or doesn’t include death and resurrection.

Maybe it only includes whatever it was that he was referring to when he came, you know, Mark 1, proclaiming the gospel of God. How are we to understand this? Um, well, first, I would say the gospel is promised all the way back in Genesis 3. You know, uh, we’ve talked about this many times, that Adam and Eve sinned, God is cursing the serpent, and he says, you know, one will come from the seed of a woman who will, you know, crush your head. Um, the the idea being that the evil that we participated

in in the garden is what separated us from God. Someone will come to crush that evil so that we will be, uh, reconciled with God. Gospel’s promised all the way back in Genesis 3. So Jesus in Mark 1, proclaiming the gospel, um, of course, could include his death and resurrection, um, because that was promised long before Mark 1. Um, but more specifically, I would say the gospel is really everything that Jesus did to reconcile us with him.

We say he lived the life we should have lived, he died the death we should have died, um, and then he rose to life again. That whole thing. But not just that he did it, it’s that it is substituted to us. Um, so he lived the life we should have lived. He substitutes that to us. We get the credit for the life that he lived.

So the life that he lived is extremely important. Um, all the all all the ways that he acted perfectly, all the ways that he helped people, all the ways that, you know, he loved people, elevated people above himself, all of that, all of that is part of the gospel because it’s what we get credit for.

Then he died the death we should have died. Um, he takes the blame for the life that we live. That didn’t happen until the cross, but that is part of it. Um, it’s we substitute to him the blame. Um, we get the credit for the life that he lived. And then his resurrection, um, is like proof that he has conquered all of this, that he has rosen, that he’s risen in victory. Um, all of our sin and guilt and death went on him. Um, he took it into the grave, and if he had stayed dead, there wouldn’t be

any good news because it would mean sin, death, uh, our guilt is bigger than him. But he rose in victory over it, showing he is bigger than it. He transfers to us again, substitution, the new life that he has. All all of that is, um, is how the gospel like applies to us. Um, so he, when he comes proclaiming the gospel at the beginning of Mark, he’s telling some part of that story, his his life, um, what he’s earning for us. It throughout the gospels, he makes many mentions of his death, and so that’s

included as well. Um, so he he absolutely could have been talking about some part of the story that fits into the whole. Um, but ultimately, I would say, you know, it’s it’s like, it’s like a story, um, and the death and resurrection is the climax of the story. Um, and if you if you take the climax out of a story, then then you’ve really lost the whole story. That’s not to say other parts of the story aren’t important.

Whatever he was saying in Mark 1 is certainly part of the gospel, but you can’t disconnect, you know, the other parts of a story from the climax of the story. Um, and so I I know some people want to say, you know, the gospel is just Jesus showed us how to live a good life. And I’m like, okay, but that’s not how we read any other story. Um, you know, the big climactic finish in whatever your favorite movie is, if you said, if you said the movie was really about everything that happened before the

big climactic finish, yeah, it wouldn’t be the same movie, right? You can’t disconnect, uh, death and resurrection of part of the gospel, um, or is really, you know, the conclusion of it, the way that it all happens, the way that it all matters. Just like, just like if you remove the big climax from whatever your favorite story is, it would be a totally different story, right?

It would it would really have no ending. You would, you know, you’d have all kind of loose ends not tied up anymore. Um, and so if the gospel is what Jesus has done for us, uh, yes, it includes his life up until the the death and resurrection. But but we can’t, we can’t subtract death and resurrection, uh, from what the gospel is. Um, we hope that’s helpful.

We’ll see you next time.