What is the Gospel?
What if we have misunderstood the Gospel story?
If you ask the average person who grew up in church, in fact… even if you were to ask someone who didn’t grow up in church what is the gospel story, they might say something like this…
God created Adam and Eve and they lived in a beautiful garden. God told them they could eat anything in the garden except fruit from this one tree. Then they were tempted by this snake and they took a bite out of an apple. They did the one thing they were NOT supposed to do… so God kicked them out of the garden and sin entered the world! Because of their sin, God had to send His Son into the world to die on the cross so that we could be in Heaven with Him one day when we die.
How many of you, that pretty much sums up the gospel story you’ve always believed?
I’ll be honest, this is what I always thought the gospel story was all about. We sinned and our sin separated us from God so God had to come up with a plan to save us.
The Expectation of Perfection
Somewhere along the way we believed the lie that perfection was the expectation.
And since Adam and Eve were not able to be perfect, because they sinned, now God had to come up with a plan to save us from sin and death. To save us from Hell!
And by the way, just to be clear, if Adam and Eve hadn’t sinned, I’m sure one of us would have messed it up!
Maybe this is why so many of us struggle with wanting to be perfect, with being frustrated because we feel like failures.
Maybe this is why we sometimes doubt the goodness of God. Because we believed the lie that perfection was the expectation. And because we can’t be perfect, we’ve let God down. Because we weren’t able to be perfect, Jesus had to die.
But what if perfection was never the expectation?
What if we have misunderstood the Gospel story?
The Story BEFORE the Story
What I want to suggest today is for you to consider this… What if the gospel story didn’t start at creation?
What if it didn’t start when Adam and Eve sinned?
What if the gospel story actually started before time began, before sin entered the picture, before the Garden of Eden?
We’re going to look at two different passages. Let’s start in Luke 24.
Luke was a doctor, an educated man who became a follower of Jesus. He went on multiple mission trips with the Apostle Paul. Luke wasn’t one of Jesus’ original followers, but he interviewed every eye witness he could talk to about the life and ministry of Jesus then wrote those stories down here for us to read and learn from.
Luke is the only gospel writer that gives us this story found in Luke 24.
For the sake of time, let me catch you up on where we are in the story.
It’s Sunday
Jesus has already been crucified, buried in a borrowed tomb, and now it’s Sunday and Jesus has risen from the grave.
According to Luke, several women had come to the tomb that morning to finish the burial process for Jesus but… He wasn’t there! Two angels appeared to these women and told them that Jesus had risen from the grave! They rushed back to tell the other disciples what they had seen and heard!
Later that day, two of Jesus’ disciples were walking to a village named Emmaus which is about seven miles from Jerusalem.
As they are walking along they are talking about all the events that had just happened. They believed Jesus was God’s Messiah, but now… as far as they know, Jesus is dead. Remember, nobody comes back from crucifixion!
As they’re walking to Emmaus, Jesus joins them and starts walking with them, but they don’t know it’s Jesus. They don’t recognize him.
Jesus asks them what they’re talking about. And I love their response.
“You must be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard about all the things that have happened there the last few days.” – Luke 24.18
They start explaining to Jesus everything that had happened. How they believed Jesus was Messiah, but now he’s dead, but some women went to the tomb this morning and his body is missing, two angels said he is risen, how Peter and other disciples had ran to the tomb and sure enough… Jesus is gone, and now they don’t know what to do or what to believe!
Jesus Explains the TANAK
After hearing all this, Jesus speaks and listen to what he says…
25 “You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. 26 Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?” 27 Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. – Luke 24.25-27
Did you hear what Jesus did?
Torah
Jesus walks these two disciples through the writings of Moses, these are the first 5 books of the Old Testament. You may have heard it called the Torah. As he walks them through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy he’s teaching them “the things concerning himself.”
In other words, Jesus is in the first FIVE books of the Old Testament.
Neviʾim
But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He walks them through the prophets, what’s called the Neviʾim. These include the historical books like Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, as well as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and what we call the twelve Minor Prophets.
In other words, Jesus is also found in the historical books and the prophets of the Old Testament.
Ketuvim
But Jesus didn’t stop there! He continues to walk them through the “Scriptures.” That word Scripture is capitalized there because it’s not just referring to the Old Testament, it’s referring to what’s called the Ketuvim, the wisdom writings. This includes Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, and others.
In other words, Jesus is also found in the wisdom books of the Old Testament.
The Torah, the Nevi’im, and the Ketuvim together make up what is called the TANAK. The Jewish Bible also known as your Old Testament.
Jesus walks these two disciples through the entire Old Testament and shows them all the places where the story, History, His-Story, points to Himself!
Maybe you thought Jesus was ONLY in the New Testament. But according to Jesus, He was present in the Old Testament as well.
Reading the Old Testament through the Lens of Jesus
And as you read the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus what you discover is this Red Thread being pulled all throughout the story, woven through the fabric of time, God’s redemptive Plan always at work for the salvation of the world!
You see, Jesus was present in the garden with Adam and Eve, and he was there at the altar with Abraham and Isaac.
He was in the desert with Israel when the people of God were snake bit yet again, and he was present with a foreigner named Ruth who was welcomed into His family tree.
He was in the fire with Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego who would not renounce His name and He was called out of Egypt by prophets who could barely conceive the truth they were proclaiming.
The Red Thread shows up with saving power hanging from a wall in Jericho when the walls fell down and then again sprouting from a stump in Israel.
Over and over again, Jesus is present in every generation, in every part of the story.
But this Red Thread didn’t just start at creation. If you fast forward from this walk on the Emmaus Road to the ancient city of Ephesus, you find a church there started by the Apostle Paul.
Paul writes a letter to this church and he wants them to know this truth about the great love of God. That God’s plan to save the world did NOT begin in the garden. That may be where sin entered the story, but that’s NOT the starting point for God’s Plan to save the world.
Before Time Began
Paul writes in Ephesians 1.4-5:
4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
Did you hear what Paul said… BEFORE God made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.
God decided IN ADVANCE to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.
THIS is the Gospel Story.
That word gospel literally means Good News. And this actually sounds like good news. You see, perfection was never the expectation. God didn’t send Jesus to die on a cross for you and for me because we were unable to live up to the unattainable standard of perfection.
No! Here’s the good news… before there was a garden there was God with a heart full of LOVE. Before there was temptation there was Jesus with incarnation on his mind.
The Courtroom and The Bridge
What if you’ve misunderstood the Gospel story?
Imagine your standing in a court room. There’s a judge sitting behind the bench dressed in those judicial robes. There’s a prosecutor. And there’s a defense attorney. There is no jury. This is a bench trial. The judge will decide if you are innocent or guilty. That’s right, you are the one on trial.
Maybe you’re wondering what you did, what crime you’re being accused of, what the accusations are against you. Actually, it’s not one thing, you’re on trial for everything you ever did. Every mistake, every bad decision, every wrong.
If the prosecution can’t prove that you ever did anything wrong, you’ll be off the hook and you’ll get to go to heaven. You guessed it, you’re on trial to decide your eternity. And you know that the prosecution won’t have any trouble proving your guilt.
Even though you tried to live a good life, you failed more than once. And even if you could somehow try to explain it away, rationalize those things you did that you’re not so proud of, it wouldn’t matter. They’ve got you on video. There’s a screen by the bench where the judge is going to watch a highlight reel of everything you ever did!
At this point, you know you’re doomed. You’re not even sure why you have a defense attorney. It’s hopeless.
We live in a world that loves to see things through this legal lens.
Maybe you’ve heard it this way. Our sin separated us from God. So Jesus died on the cross to build a bridge over which we could cross this great divide that we caused so we could go to heaven one day.
The Actual Gospel Story
These analogies sound convincing because they have traces of the truth. But the story they are unable to tell is the actual Gospel story. That before time began there was God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Before time began God had already decided to welcome humanity into this Divine Community.
Unhindered relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit has always been the plan. So before God planted a garden God made a decision for redemption. God knew sin would be a part of our story, but it would not be the headline of our story. Of His Story. The defining part of our story would be our redemption through Jesus so that we could be welcomed into relationship with the Divine Community.
So let’s go back to that courtroom. Something happens that no one saw coming. After examining all the evidence, after the judge dropped his gavel and… he lays his hands on you and heals you.
You are HEALED.
You see, sin wasn’t a crime that needed to be punished, it was a disease that needed to be healed. And by his wounds we are healed! – Isaiah 53!
At the cross a way was made for us to be remade, recreated through death and resurrection. In our baptism we become a new creation. Our sins are washed away. Our wounds are healed!
This is what happened at the cross.
Seated with Christ
That’s why Paul says in Ephesians 2:4-6
4 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, 5 that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) 6 For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.
For those who have put their faith in Jesus, been buried in the waters of baptism and resurrected to new life… you are ALREADY seated with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit in the heavenly realms. You are already united with Christ.
This is the Good News, the Gospel!
Before sin entered the story, God had a Plan in place to undo the sin that we have done! The curse has been reversed. And we are reunited with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
We are welcomed into His family, adopted as sons and daughters, and loved eternally.
The expectation wasn’t about perfection, it was always about relationship.
Believe It
What do you do in response to this great love?
This week, can I ask you just to do this?
Believe it. Rest in it. Accept it. Don’t DO anything.
You’ve spent your whole life trying to do good things in order to please God and somehow get to heaven. But the gospel story isn’t about what you have to do, it’s about what God has already done!
Before time began, God started pulling this red thread. He pre-decided, you might say he predestined you and me for Adoption. To welcome us into His Divine Community.
Breath Prayer
So here’s the Breath Prayer I want to encourage you to pray this week:
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, gather me to be with you as you are with me today.
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