THE GOSPEL
[p. 157] THE GOSPEL
Luke 2: 8 - 14; 2 Corinthians 4: 3 - 8
The gospel is a very wide term; many passages speak of the gospel, but no one passage teaches in so many words what the gospel is, or attempts to define it. The expression has become conventional in contrast to law, and we speak of the gospel of Luke or of John, etc.; we get law and prophets in the Old Testament, but we have the gospel in the New Testament. The gospel is the approach of God to man for man’s salvation. God being in the light is the foundation of it; God approaches man in grace and truth and in that very approach He makes known what He is. “The only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”. The moment God comes near in the only-begotten Son, He is declared in the One who is full of grace and truth.
The gospel is very little understood by many believers. The defect is in preaching the benefits of Christ’s death instead of CHRIST Himself. If anyone asked me what the gospel was, I should say, ‘CHRIST’. God addresses Himself to man in the Son (Hebrews 1). There is a great lack of apprehension of what is bound up with Christ — that Christ is the centre and head of a system of things. God is not labouring in connection with this world, but in connection with that system of things of which Christ is the Head. The Christ is an official title, He is the Anointed of God. Jesus is His personal name, and Christ is occasionally used personally, but generally it is the Christ — the Messiah — which is an official title. Many might be anointed besides Christ, but He is the anointed Man, which indicates a position which is established and maintained in Him. The prayer in Ephesians 3 is “that the Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith”; without the article it might be personal, but “the Christ” is official. Then again the Christ is the Head of every man.
[p. 158] God is not exactly a personal name; Jehovah or Almighty would not be strictly personal. God is the supreme Being in contrast to man; He is the Author of man and of everything; it is the term or title of supremacy. There is one God in three Persons; to speak of the Father or the Son, or the Spirit conveys a personal idea. “Father” and “Son” are relative names; “Christ” is not exactly relative, it is the anointed, and we too come under the anointing; it is not relative to any other person like “Father”.
Ques Is not the mystery of the Christ the church?
No, it goes much wider than that; the body stands in relation to Christ, the church is part of the mystery of the Christ, but that mystery takes in all that will come under Christ — the universe of bliss. Everything will take its character from Christ, and will express Christ. There is but one Man before God, and everything which comes within the universe of bliss will take its character from that Man.
The angel said, “I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people, for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord”. The angel announced glad tidings to all the people — that is, of Israel — but when the heavenly host come in they carry the thought wider, and speak of “good pleasure in men”; the gospel could not be confined to Israel. It is “good pleasure in men” by Christ; it refers to what is said in Psalm 72, “men shall be blessed in him”, they are blessed in Christ.
Ques Is Christ as the new Head on the line of purpose or of responsibility?
On the line of purpose. God set forth the responsible man first, but then He sent forth His Son, the Man of His purpose, and the universe of bliss; although it is the witness of how God can recover from all the ruin that has come in, is the fulfilment of purpose. Nothing was accomplished in man himself, in Abraham or in David; all was accomplished in the Son of man, the Son of [p. 159] Abraham, the Son of David. God ever had in view the incarnation — the living bread come down from heaven. The real reason of Christ becoming man was that He might become the Head and centre of the universe of God. That is the first principle of the gospel. The gospel is sent to man that he might be delivered out of the present course of things, which is dominated by Satan, and be brought into relation to the Sun of righteousness, who is the centre and Head of the universe of God. This is effected in two ways — by faith and by the Spirit.
We have to apprehend the light in which God views man, the position in which man is in regard of God. God has the right to the supreme place in the affections of His creatures. But man is under death and in sin, and he is liable to judgment, and in bondage to a system which is controlled by the power of evil. If God is going to approach man in grace, He must take account of what man is; not what man is in his own estimation, but as God sees him. God’s grace is adapted to man as God sees him; it really meets all that was raised by the question, “Where art thou?” Three great things come in to meet all this. God comes in, first, that a man may be relieved of the fear of judgment, and secondly that be may live, and then, thirdly, that he may be delivered from the bondage in which he is held.
God delivers man first from the fear of judgment; he gets forgiveness so that he may never come under judgment; then secondly God provides that he may live — he is under death here, but God provides that he may live; and thirdly, he gets salvation. Righteousness meets the question of the judgment; life meets the question of death; and deliverance meets the question of bondage. These three things are good news. We cannot get salvation until we get life. It is first righteousness, then life, then salvation.
Ques. Why is man lost?
Because he is in utter bondage to a system which is ruled by the power of evil; that is the position of a man [p. 160] in the eye of God, and he needs to be delivered from it, and that is salvation. The light of God comes in first as to righteousness; that is the first point, God declares His righteousness. God comes forward in Christ, and presents Him as the commencement of a new order of things. He is the beginning and centre of another world. Paul preached Christ crucified, the end of the old man, but he also preached Christ as the wisdom and power of God, the Last Adam and the Second Man.
Ques What is it to preach “Christ Jesus the Lord”? 2 Corinthians 4: 5.
To make known that all the authority and power and glory of God is set forth in His face.
Ques What is the meaning of the previous verse — “the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ”?
Why, He has got the place of pre-eminence in the universe of bliss; He is the Head and centre of that universe. Adam was the centre and head of this universe, but all that has ended, and Christ is the beginning and Head of the vast universe of bliss.
Ques What is the meaning of the figure — “the Sun of righteousness”?
Christ is the Sun of righteousness, and the figure is used because what the sun is to this system, Christ is to the universe of bliss. The sun rules everything in the solar system, all is held in place by the sun; and that is just what Christ is in the universe of bliss. There is light and warmth — that is righteousness and love — and He gives colour to everything.
Ques What is the ministration of righteousness?
The ministration of righteousness shows how you are put in righteous relation to God; the purpose of the gospel is to put you into relation to Christ who is the centre and sun and head of the universe of bliss. In Romans you do not get life until the eighth chapter, and you get salvation there too. Salvation and deliverance are very near akin. You have to put Romans 6, Romans 7 and Romans 8 together to get salvation.
[p. 161] People learn the gospel through those who preach, so what I want is that the preachers should preach an intelligent and intelligible gospel; but the fact is I have first to correct myself. We have no right to quarrel with a man’s service, he stands or falls to his own Master, but we are entitled to see that the gospel is really known; the principle is that we speak that which we know. These three points have to be kept in view in regard to man’s position — judgment, death, and bondage. I might say responsibility first, perhaps, but then responsibility is enforced by judgment. Then death is man’s state in the eye of God, and he is in bondage; these things are not to be gainsaid. The gospel meets responsibility by righteousness, and death by the Spirit, and bondage by salvation. The last two have been too much omitted in preaching, and people have sometimes thought that they needed salvation in regard of God. This is a mistake.
Ques Where do you touch life in the type of Israel? “Thou hast guided them by thy strength unto the abode of thy holiness” (Exodus 15: 13). The springing well is a clear type of the Spirit, and when the Spirit of God is brought in you touch life. You get salvation in Exodus 14, and life is suggested in being brought to the abode of God’s holiness. As to the children of Israel, they got salvation, and yet after all God was testing them after the flesh. You must remember that the two parts of Numbers (chapters 1 - 20 and 21 to the end) are contemporaneous in the history of the christian. One does not follow the other, but they go on together, The latter part of Romans 7 does not contemplate a christian; it is before a person has become a christian in the true sense. John 3: 16 is a statement of the mind of God; it speaks of eternal life, but the subject of righteousness is not touched.
Ques What is a christian?
A man is a christian when he has the Spirit. “If any one has not the Spirit of Christ, he is not of him”. The purpose of the gospel is to bring you to God in righteousness — to put you in relation to Christ the Sun [p. 162] of righteousness. Righteousness is relative, and we are estimated as righteous when we stand in relation to Christ as the earth does to the sun or the moon to the earth. It is in Christ we stand in righteousness, and that is brought about by the Spirit. When there is faith in Christ a man is justified, but there is a point further, the man must stand in relation to God.
Ques Does that bring in the thought of the Head?
Exactly, you are justified in Christ, and Christ is the end of the law to every one who believes. Redemption is in Christ who has taken up the liabilities of men, and believers in Christ are justified. It is not a thing of sight, but a thing unseen, and we only get the good of it by faith. Redemption is in Christ Jesus, and man is brought to God in being brought into relation to Christ; being brought to Christ he is brought to God. Man meets God in Christ; God presents Himself to man in Christ, and meets man there.
In that which Christ has accomplished God has taken up His rights over every man; no one can deny that God has a right to every man, and God has taken up those rights. No doubt on the part of God the gospel goes forth to bring to light the elect, but still God has rights over every man. If a man does not believe in Christ he will get no good from the gospel. In much preaching of the gospel the great defect has been in failing to set forth Christ as He is in the mind of God — the head and centre of a whole universe. If I am not in relation to that Man I am not in righteousness. I want people to apprehend Christ as the head of that system; this present system is all effete, it is all tinsel and death, and it all came to an end for God in the death of Christ, Now everything for man depends on standing in relation to that Man who is head and centre of God’s world. Abraham, Noah, all the Old Testament saints, stood in relation to that Man. Any man who is in bondage to the world system is lost. A man in Romans 7 is looking to himself for righteousness, but the only thing is to be in relation to Christ. Christ is [p. 163] the justification of the world to come; not one word of reproach will ever be spoken against the world to come, because all is justified in Christ. We stand in relation to Christ now, and therefore come into justification. Christ is at present hidden beneath the horizon, but He is there; He has not yet arisen to Israel or the world, but He is the Sun of righteousness to us; He is the true light — “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” — and He is our justification.
Ques Are there not three kinds of gospels: the gospel of the kingdom, the gospel of the grace of God, and the everlasting gospel?
There is only one kind of gospel at the present moment; there is only one Sun.
Ques Why do you say that Christ is the justification of the world to come?
He takes up the world to come as having, in the grace of God, tasted death for everything; He takes all up on that ground, and therefore is the justification of everything. The righteousness of God is established in that Man, but then He is great enough to establish righteousness for all else. Man was under death, but Christ has tasted death, and now righteousness is established in a Man who is competent to impart His Spirit to others.
Ques What does Paul’s expression, “My gospel” mean?
It is an enlargement; Paul gave an enlargement to the facts. What he preached was that Christ died for our sins and rose again. The gospel is all founded on the death and resurrection of Christ. What was preached even in the lifetime of Christ anticipated what was coming out in His death and resurrection.