1505 - Q & A, The Nature of the Gospel.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1505.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Well, it's Friday, and we have come through another week by the grace of God, and he has been good to us. You know that and I know that no matter what kind of week we have had, God has been gracious and loving and merciful and generous to us, and we need to thank him and praise him. And we're coming to the end of the week, and I pray that you take some time to rest, recuperate, refresh, restore all of the rewords, all of the things that we need to do every week, so that we can reset our clock, so that we can allow our minds, our emotions, even all of the decision making, our volition, that we have time to rest. If God Almighty set aside a time to rest, you and I should do the same thing. Now he did it so that we would have a pattern to follow, so that we would understand the principle that a man cannot go seven days a week. You cannot and I cannot and do God's best. That's just the way it is. And by the way, if I'm talking to pastors, you better listen. I've heard many people say and they've been listening to too many people in conferences. Well I had rather burn out than rust out. Well why not just do what God does and what God wants us to do and what he says to do, and you won't rust out or burn out. You will end the way that God wants you to and finish well and finish strong. Well on Friday I answer questions, and I try to listen as people ask me questions throughout every week, throughout every month, throughout every year. And we have had a lot of questions about the nature of the gospel and the substance of the gospel. And with all of the talk show hosts that have now chimed in from every walk of life and every denomination since the death of Charlie Kirk, and the fact that he talked about Jesus so much and he talked about being a man of God and being the kind of man and woman that God has made. How is it that we enter into a relationship with Jesus? Well, the apostle Paul lays that out more clearly than anywhere else in First Corinthians chapter fifteen. And he does it through a series of verbs. Now in the Greek language the verb is the main word and verbiage in the sentence, because it is what everything else is built around. The subject is contained within the verb itself, and it is many times identified and even solidified by using other nouns and pronouns to enhance and to emphasize, but the verb contains all that we need in a sentence because it is an inflected language which has the tense, the mood or mode, the voice, the person and the number. We used to say in Greek class TVMPN, tense, voice, mood, person, and number. All of that is within the verb of the Greek New Testament. And so when you open up the scripture to 1 Corinthians 15, you have a series of verbs that are very instructive for us about the nature of the gospel. And so let's look at that and maybe we can get some real help from 1 Corinthians chapter 15. What I want to do is just read the first few verses and this will help us. Paul said, Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preach to you, which also you received in which you stand, by which also you were saved if you hold fast that word which I preach to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve, after that he was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that he was seen by James, then by all the apostles, then last of all he was seen by me also as one born out of due time. Now what I want to do is go back through these verses and explain to you how Paul presents the Evan, the gospel, the good news. Moreover, brethren, I declare now Paul says I'm doing this presently. I am doing it with certainty. I am actively doing that. I declare to you the Euangelion. That is a compound word. It is the word angelos, that's the root, a messenger in this particular form. It is the word for a message, not the messenger, but the message. Then it has the EU on the front, which means well or pleasing, translated good here. The good message, the good news, for I declare unto you the Euangelion, the gospel, the good message. And I preached it to you. That is a point in time. It was a word and a way of speaking. It's called the Aristot A O R I S T. And the Arist is not having to do simply with past time, although it is, but it is really the kind of action that's the primary importance in the Greek language. Not the time of action, as it is so much in our language in English, but it's the kind of action. Aristance is, yes, something that happened in the past, but it is a snapshot of an action. It's not moving. It is something that has happened, and it many times it emphasizes the whole nature of something, something that took place that affected everything. And so he says, and I preach this unto you. This is, again, it's the indicative mode. That is the mode of reality. This is very important. So Paul said, I preach this unto you, I myself, his middle voice, which also you received. That is, just as he preached it in time past, and he did that as an action as a whole, they received it at a point in time. That's the whole aspect. He said, I preached it to you at a point in time, and you received it at a point in time. You see, salvation, yes, yes, it has a present reality to it, but it happens at a point in time. There may be a lot of things leading up to it, but there is a point when you receive the gospel. You're not born into it. You're not born into a Christian family, and therefore, like the Jews, you are the DNA of your father and mother, and therefore you are a Jew. Oh no, no, that's part of the fallacy of covenant theology. I'm sorry if you are a covenant theologian. You believe that you're born into a Christian family, and your family can promise to bring you up so they sprinkle you or immerse you depending on your denomination, and then later at age twelve or whatever, you confirm that, you affirm that. No, no, no. No, you're not a child of God until you yourself receive the gospel for yourself. Your parents cannot do that for you. You don't have a spiritual DNA. As a matter of fact, you are born with a propensity and a nature that will cause you to run away from God, not run toward him. It doesn't matter what kind of family you're born in. If you're born into the family of man, of humanity, you are a sinner and you will sin as soon as you're capable of doing that. So he said there was a point in time that you received it. And he said, in which you stand, in which you stand, this is an amazing thing because this is not an Arist tense or a present tense or a future tense. It's a perfect tense. And the perfect tense is very precise. That means it was an event that took place at a particular point in time, but has abiding results. It has abiding results. You see, Jesus changed your life when you met him and you remained changed. You were given a new standing when you were saved, when you gave your life to Christ, when you repented of your sin, when you received the gift of eternal life by placing your faith in him, all of that by grace, you stood then and you will stand from then on. Why? Because it is abiding results, that has remaining results. And then it says, by which also you were saved if you hold fast that word which was preached unto you. Actually, it says, unless you believed in vain. Seven different verbs in just these two verses. And so he says, Which you received, that again is a point in time, in which you stand, that means you're standing then in the past, and you're still standing, by which you were saved. That is again a present reality, and you are saved. This is not active. This is passive. This means that you're saved by someone else, not by yourself. That's what when it's a passive voice, that means that you're not acting, you're being acted upon. Now you say, well, this is like a Greek class. Well, that won't hurt you. And by the way, language is important. Words are important. They mean something. We're not living in the days of the uh 90s when we're debating what is is. We know what is is. And so he says, if you hold fast that which uh I preached unto you, and somebody will come back and say, Well, wait just a minute, see, uh salvation's conditional. Oh no, this is a first class conditional sentence or a first class condition. And what that means is it is every one of these words are in the indicative mode. That means the mode of reality. And so a first class conditional sentence could be translated sense, if in the sense of, yes, it is a condition, but it's like saying if you go out in the rain and you stand in the rain, you're gonna get wet. That's the natural condition. You say, no, if you stand under no, I'm talking about, don't get ridiculous. If you're standing out in the rain, you're going to get wet. That is a reality assumption. So it is the mode of reality. And so he says, in which you stand, by which you were also saved, if you hold fast. The assumption is that everyone's going to, because the you here, listen, the you here is for everyone. Uh it is you as in plural. The assumption is that you're going to continue what God has uh started in you. He's going to bring you through. This is why Paul said in the book of Philippians to the Philippians, he said, He that has begun a good work in you, he who started the work in you is going to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. That's positive. That is reality. And this is a solid statement. What God starts, he's going to finish. And everyone he starts with, he's going to finish with. Because you see, he is able to save to the uttermost those who come into him. Why? Because Jesus is going to be praying for you. He's going to be making sure you follow through, because he is more interested in finishing than you are, because he promised that he would get you to the end. This is the gospel. And what is the gospel? Look, Paul said in chapter 14, he said, I would rather preach five words that could be understood in the church than to speak with tongues of men and of angels. What are those five words? Look at verse three. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received. Here it is. Count them. Christ, Messiah, Christos, the anointed one. That's it. One died, two, four, three, our, four, sins, five. Christ died for our sins. That's the gospel in a nutshell. That he died as a substitute for our sins. But that didn't stop there. If that was it, then we would still be in our sins. Why? Because he was buried, but he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. And there's evidence of that, eyewitnesses of that. Hundreds saw him alive at one time. That many people are not going to die for a lie. It never has been that way. And it never will be. When people know that they have been deceived and that what they're dying for is not real, that's not going to happen. No, they died for Jesus because they truly saw him alive and they could not deny it. They saw him die, they saw him buried, and then they saw him alive again, and they saw him ascend into heaven. Hundreds saw him. And so this is very important. Jesus died for our sins. He was buried and rose again the third day. Now I heard someone say the other day, Don know better. Well, that's not all the gospel. That's the gospel. Now that doesn't mean that's the end of our walk with God. No, that's just the beginning in receiving the gospel. But the good news is that Jesus died for our sins. Jesus didn't just die to make you a better person. Jesus didn't die to give you a better life. Jesus didn't die to give you riches and wealth and health and all of the. Jesus died to pay for your sins and mind. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. That's the gospel in a nutshell. On the way, this is Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org, then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.