WHAT IS THE GOSPEL? WHY IS IT CALLED GOOD NEWS?
When we hear the word “Gospel” in the New Testament, it’s a word that means “Good News”. If you didn’t know, the New Testament was originally written in Greek. So this word “Gospel” in Greek is “Euangelion”. It’s where we get the word evangelist or evangelical from. But our focus today is the “Good News”.
I love doing these videos because even though I grew up in the church and then as a lot of you know I fell away for years, but even though I was raised around it Christians use a lot of “Christianese” if you will. There’s a bunch of words and lingo that you just say. But with these videos I want to ask the question “why?”. Why do we say the things we say? What do they actually mean? If I’m bringing someone new into church I want to be able to answer the basic questions that a lot of us may just have structured answers to, but we can’t truly explain the “why”.
So why is the Gospel “Good News”?
Well you gotta start by looking at the bad news.
Early on in the first part of the Bible called the Old Testament we learn about a man named Moses. Now at the time, the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people, were in slavery in Egypt. And God ends up using Moses to set the people free from slavery through a bunch of different miracles, which is basically God doing something extravagant that doesn’t make sense to our minds in the physical realm.
Once the people were free, God gave them what we know as “The Law”. Yes, the Law was a bunch of rules to follow, but that’s because of our sin nature at the time and God wanted us to live to higher standards. So it was more of a manual on how to live a holy life. The Law stated that the only way to be fully cleansed from sin was through the sacrifice of an innocent life. To us that sounds crazy, but at the time, that was part of the culture.
Eventually the nation of Israel fell away more and more and lost sight of the Law.
Then we get into the second part of the Bible called the New Testament and a man named Jesus enters the scene. He was announcing that the Kingdom of God is here and that God’s reign over Israel was being restored.
And it was going to be through him. This was the “Good News”.
But the political people at the time didn’t like Jesus’ message because it threatened their jobs. He was saying that God’s kingdom was going to take over. So they killed him.
Little did they know that this sacrifice of an innocent, sinless life is exactly what needed to happen to cover the sins of anyone that believed in Jesus and the message that he preached.
But he didn’t remain dead. Three days later he rose from the dead, proving that he was the true king and God’s kingdom reigned supreme.
And the best news of all is that Jesus offers to share this victory with us. That we are no longer held down by the Law, but we can be free and we can live for eternity in heaven and eventually a New Earth. That we can’t earn our salvation, but it’s a free gift. That’s the best news ever. That’s the gospel. And you get to choose whether or not you want to believe it and accept it. One thing I do know is that it’s God’s heart for you to choose life.
If you want to learn more about the Gospel, the first four books of the New Testament are actually called “The Gospels”. They’re from different perspectives of guys named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And then you can read the book of Acts to learn how other people began to spread this message of “Good News”. And now it’s on us to continue spreading it. So what are you going to do?
When we hear the word “Gospel” in the New Testament, it’s a word that means “Good News”. If you didn’t know, the New Testament was originally written in Greek. So this word “Gospel” in Greek is “Euangelion”. It’s where we get the word evangelist or evangelical from. But our focus today is the “Good News”.
I love doing these videos because even though I grew up in the church and then as a lot of you know I fell away for years, but even though I was raised around it Christians use a lot of “Christianese” if you will. There’s a bunch of words and lingo that you just say. But with these videos I want to ask the question “why?”. Why do we say the things we say? What do they actually mean? If I’m bringing someone new into church I want to be able to answer the basic questions that a lot of us may just have structured answers to, but we can’t truly explain the “why”.
So why is the Gospel “Good News”?
Well you gotta start by looking at the bad news.
Early on in the first part of the Bible called the Old Testament we learn about a man named Moses. Now at the time, the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people, were in slavery in Egypt. And God ends up using Moses to set the people free from slavery through a bunch of different miracles, which is basically God doing something extravagant that doesn’t make sense to our minds in the physical realm.
Once the people were free, God gave them what we know as “The Law”. Yes, the Law was a bunch of rules to follow, but that’s because of our sin nature at the time and God wanted us to live to higher standards. So it was more of a manual on how to live a holy life. The Law stated that the only way to be fully cleansed from sin was through the sacrifice of an innocent life. To us that sounds crazy, but at the time, that was part of the culture.
Eventually the nation of Israel fell away more and more and lost sight of the Law.
Then we get into the second part of the Bible called the New Testament and a man named Jesus enters the scene. He was announcing that the Kingdom of God is here and that God’s reign over Israel was being restored.
And it was going to be through him. This was the “Good News”.
But the political people at the time didn’t like Jesus’ message because it threatened their jobs. He was saying that God’s kingdom was going to take over. So they killed him.
Little did they know that this sacrifice of an innocent, sinless life is exactly what needed to happen to cover the sins of anyone that believed in Jesus and the message that he preached.
But he didn’t remain dead. Three days later he rose from the dead, proving that he was the true king and God’s kingdom reigned supreme.
And the best news of all is that Jesus offers to share this victory with us. That we are no longer held down by the Law, but we can be free and we can live for eternity in heaven and eventually a New Earth. That we can’t earn our salvation, but it’s a free gift. That’s the best news ever. That’s the gospel. And you get to choose whether or not you want to believe it and accept it. One thing I do know is that it’s God’s heart for you to choose life.
If you want to learn more about the Gospel, the first four books of the New Testament are actually called “The Gospels”. They’re from different perspectives of guys named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And then you can read the book of Acts to learn how other people began to spread this message of “Good News”. And now it’s on us to continue spreading it. So what are you going to do?
