The Gospel Message that brings Eternal Life
“If a man dies, shall he live again” (Job 14:14 English Standard Version)? To live forever has been the number one question of humanity since the beginning of time. Death is possibly the ultimate fear in a person's heart, and it is natural for one to want to live forever. As people question eternal life, their worldview will determine what they believe and how they will live their life to obtain it. The Christian worldview not only gives humanity a way of salvation, but it is also the only worldview that even offers salvation (Migliore, 2004). Hinduism offers liberation, Islam offers mercy, and Buddhism offers peace (Lamca, 2015). These other worldviews only offer good advice, but Christianity offers good news (“Lecture 5,” 2017). How does one obtain this eternal life? To the Christian, the Gospel message must first be proclaimed. Then, one must accept it, believe it, and trust it completely (Romans 10:9). But what is the Gospel? To some, knowing what the Gospel is can be confusing. To explain the message of the Gospel, it will be divided into four parts: God, humanity, Jesus, and the restoration.
God
The Gospel message always must start with God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth (Gen. 1:1). God has made Himself known to us through His Word. By the Revelation of God’s Word, we find God as the creator (Acts 17:24; Gen. 1:1; Isa. 64:8; Ps. 33:6), He is timeless (Ps. 90:4), He is personal (Matt. 10:30; Ps. 56:8; 147:4), He is Holy (1 Peter 1:15-16; Isa. 6:1-3; Rev. 4:8), righteous (Ps. 11:7), just (Deut. 32:4), and God is also love (John 3:16; Rom. 5:8). God in all eternity past one day created the universe, Earth, light, sky, land, stars, sun, moon, birds, animals, and finally humanity (Gen. 1:1-27). To the Christian, God is a triune God, which simply means God is of one essence or being but consists of three persons; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Merrick, 2015). He is one what and three who’s. As a triune God, He desires relationships, which is why He created man (Rev. 4:11).
God’s ultimate goal was to be glorified and known by man and to have a continual relationship with humanity. The crowning jewel of God’s creation was humankind, and God created humans in the Imago Dei, which in Latin means the image of God (Diffey, 2015). To be designed in the image of God simply means that humans have certain characteristics like God, such as a spirit but also to have remnants of God’s character, such as love, reason, and communication (“Lecture 2,” 2017). In theology though, theologians have different views on what it means to be created in the image of God. In Bird’s (2008) Evangelical Theology book, He mentions four different views:
1. Substantive View: Being created in the image of God means that humans share some of the communicable attributes of love. This shared quality can be “can be physical, psychological, or spiritual (Bird, 2008, p. 658). It also gives each human a soul which enables us to have rational discourse. Erickson makes a distinction about being made in the image of God is not what a human has or does, but rather it is what man is. He writes:
The image refers to the elements in the human makeup that enable the fulfillment of human destiny. The image is the powers of personality that make humans, like God, being capable of interacting with other persons, of thinking and reflecting, and of willing freely. (Erickson, 1998)
2. Relational View: This view is more popular among twentieth-century theologians and highlight that being made in the image of God is not attributes one share with God but rather it is one’s ability and capacity for relationships. This includes not only a vertical relationship with God but also a horizontal relationship with other human beings (Bird, 2008, p. 659).
3. Functional View: Perhaps the most convincing and biblical though is not carrying shared attributes or having the ability to have relationships but rather in terms of our function as exercising dominion over creation (Bird, 2008, p. 659). Bird (2008) goes on to write:
Both Genesis 1:28 and Psalm 8:5–6 emphasize humans as rulers of creation. The image then refers to humanity’s dominion over the created order, which is a reflection of God’s own dominion over the universe. God made humans to care for creation and to be representatives of God’s lordship over the lower orders of creation. (p. 659)
4. Royal View: This position modifies or adds to the functional view and further states that in addition to ruling over the Earth, humans are also royal, and they are created to rule (Bird, 2008). This position is built upon knowledge of Near East tradition on how monarchs were given the titles of being the image of God as they rule their kingdom (Bird, 2008). Instead of certain individuals being royal, all humanity is royal in God’s eyes due to being created in the image of God.
Truth can be found in all of these explanations of what being created in the image of God truly means. Once one has established the case for God being the creator of humanity and that human beings are created in the image of God, the next essential component of the Gospel is to mention the fall of humankind.
Humanity
Humanity was created perfectly and made by God. The Christian worldview believes that all humanity is born with a human nature and purpose. Human nature is made up of a body and soul/spirit, which are both created and formed by God (Bird, 2008). In Genesis 2:7 it says, “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” The breath God gives humans is one’s soul/spirit, and the physical body is created by God as well (Jer. 1:5; Ps. 139:13). When God created man, initially God said, “it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). Man was perfect, sinless, and originally did not have a nature which was going to perish. God did not stop at creating humanity; He also gave humans a purpose.
Humanity was created to work and serve God by keeping the Garden (Gen. 2:15; Diffey, 2015), and God commanded humanity to subdue and to have dominion over the Earth (Gen. 1:28). One of the greatest purposes God gave to mankind was to be fruitful and multiply (Gen.1:28). It was with this purpose that one day God would fulfill the Protoevangelium, which is the first Gospel message given by God in Genesis 3:14-15 (Diffey, 2015). With all the majesty that God created and all of the beautiful things that were made, God only demanded one thing from mankind, and that was complete obedience. God gave one restriction to man which would eventually lead to humanity’s fall.
Suffering, evil, and man’s inhumanity are all a result of the fall. It is due to the fall that pain, thorns, suffering, and even death were introduced to humankind (Diffey, 2015; Gen. 2:17; “Lecture 3,” 2017; Rom. 6:23). Immediately after the fall of man, in Genesis chapter four, humanity was exposed to the first murder of a man (Gen. 4:8). Paul stated that “sin and death entered the world through Adam’s sin, and because of this, as well as the sins each person commits, everyone is a transgressor, sinful by nature, and under the just judgment of a holy God (Diffey, 2015; Rom. 5:12-15, 18-21). This concept or doctrine is labeled as Original Sin by theologians (Bird, 2008; Diffey, 2015). This means that being created in the Imago Dei, due to the fall, everyone now inherits a sinful nature (Rom. 5:12). Despite this problem, God continues to pursue humanity providing a solution. That solution is the center of the Gospel message, and it is the person of Jesus Christ.
Jesus
Jesus Christ is introduced in a prophecy called the Protoevangelium in Genesis 3:14-15, which speaks of a descendant that will come and save humankind from death. This descendant will continue to be elaborated on throughout the whole Old Testament and be described as the Son of Man (Dan. 7:13-14), a prophet (Deut. 18:15), a king (Ps. 72), a priest (1 Sam. 2:35-36), the Messiah (Isa. 42:1) and the Savior (Gen. 3:14-15). The name Jesus Christ is a composite made up from His personal name Jesus, which in Hebrew means YHWH saves, and Christ which is a title that simply means the anointed one (Freedman, Herion, Graf, Pleins & Beck, 1992). Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the second person of the Trinity (Barry, et al., 2016). He was supernaturally conceived by the Holy Spirit and was born as a real human being from the tribal line of Judah. Jesus is fully divine, yet He is fully man, which makes him a 200% God-man called the hypostatic union (“What is the Hypostatic union," n.d.).
Jesus lived a perfect life (1 Pet. 2:22; 1 John 3:5; Heb. 4:15), performed many miracles as the prophet Isaiah foretold (Isa. 35:5-6), fulfilled prophecy (Luke 4:21), and forgives the sins of anyone who believes (Luke 5:20-24; Mark 2:3-12; Matt. 9:2). Jesus was born into this world with one main goal in mind, to die (Heb. 2:9-18). The whole purpose of Jesus’s birth was to be the propitiation for one’s sins (1 John 2:2), which would then satisfy the punishment and judgment of God which is death (Rom. 6:23). This act and work of Christ was the archetype of all the shadows of the sacrificial system (Leviticus) in the Old Testament and was fulfilled by Christ. This was the only way that humanity could be reconciled to a Holy God and escape eternal judgment, death, and eternal separation from God, which was due to the fall.
Without the identity of Jesus being God and the lamb who was to be slain and also the work He came to do which was to be our sacrifice, then man is left up to himself to be saved. Without Jesus, humans would be left dead in their sins, would have to face judgment, and would continue to be separated from God for all eternity. Christs’ work, from His birth, life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension is essential to the Christian world view since it provides the only way of salvation and restoration.
Restoration
Why does humanity need to be restored? Due to the fall, all of the creation, and specifically humanity has been separated from the worship of God (Merrick, 2015; Rom. 8:22-24). To be completely restored means that we as humans can have open access to God and have a relationship of worshiping Him again. The only person who was able to reconcile us unto God was Jesus Christ. It was Jesus’s birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension that brought justification and restoration (1 Cor. 15). Since man was unable to accomplish this on his own, God graciously provided a way for restoration. Grace is an unmerited and undeserved gift from God (Barry et al., 2016). Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” This gift that God graciously gave us is salvation and restoration through Jesus Christ. To gain this salvation and restoration, one simply has to believe in the Gospel by faith (Merrick, 2015; Rom. 10:9).
“Faith is not looking to oneself, and one’s good deeds or good intentions but looking to the work of Christ and humbly accepting God’s forgiveness” (Merrick, 2015, para. 15). Faith is denying self and realizing that one cannot achieve a renewed relationship with God on his power but rather on God’s power (Merrick, 2015). Hearing the Gospel, accepting it by faith and putting one’s trust and hope in Jesus is how actual restoration happens. This transformation puts one in a right relationship with God again. Furthermore, it gives them a new heart, mind, and provides hope that in the future God will bring everything back into perfect order (Merrick, 2015).
Analysis
The Christian worldview provides many benefits that other worldviews do not including assurance of salvation through Christ and being reconciled to God to worship Him freely again. Christianity is not a faith that is believed blindly. Christians hold firm to the reliability of scripture due to strong manuscript evidence, preservation of the scriptures, historical accuracy in archeology, and rivers of specific and detailed prophecies (Hiles & Smith, 2015). A Christian worldview provides hope for the afterlife and seeing God face to face. Although the Christian worldview has overcome the attacks of criticism, it nonetheless continues to be challenged. Evil, suffering, miracles, contradictions, slavery, exclusivism, eternal life, and many other things are the attack points of modern-day critics (Cupitt, 2000; Jibben, 2015). Others say the Bible is too confusing to understand and wonder how can Christians love and obey a triune God? Even though it is up to the Christian to have an answer and defend their faith, no one can deny a completely changed life that God does for an individual.
When one is born again, a Christian will want to live his life loving God and obeying His words (1 John 5:3). His Word will affect the way they think, act, speak, work, love, and every other aspect of their life (Col. 3:17). A Christian will treat life differently since Christians believe that life happens at conception, and everyone is created in the Imago Dei (Diffey, 2015). Christians have no Biblical grounds to be racist and are completely against things like forced slavery (1 Tim.1:10; Gal. 3:28-29). Atheists may not subject themselves to these standards since they believe they are a product of chance, have no real authoritative set moral law, and have no judge that will determine their afterlife in the end. They may simply live life as they see fit.
Reflection
As I ponder my own worldview, I hold fast and stand firm in the Christian worldview. To live out the Christian worldview one could ask, what is the purpose of a Christian? In the Westminster Confession this same question is asked, “What is the chief end of man” (“Westminster Assembly,” 1851, p. 387)? I would agree with its statement that it is to “glorify God and to enjoy Him forever” (“Westminster Assembly,” 1851, p. 387). I would also add that my purpose in life is to fear God and keep his commandments as Solomon says in the book of Ecclesiastes. Lastly, I would highlight that my goal in life is to make God known to others and make disciples. In fact, this is what our Lord told us to do before he ascended to Heaven (Matthew 28:19-20). Living out the Christian life is hard, especially during tragedy, suffering, and death. A Christian however has hope, especially in Jesus who says, “in the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
Conclusion
As one looks at the question of eternal life, one must seriously consider the Christian worldview. The Gospel message must be preached about God, humanity, Jesus, and restoration. This message has to be received by faith and trust in all that God has accomplished for humanity. Once one has surrendered one’s life to Christ and the word of God, that person can have assurance and hope of being restored to their God and spending everlasting life with Him forever. Some final definitions of the Gospel can be put this way,
The gospel is the royal announcement that the crucified and risen Jesus, who died for our sins and rose again according to the Scriptures, has been enthroned as the true Lord of the world. When this gospel is preached, God calls people to salvation, out of sheer grace, leading them to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as the risen Lord. (Bird, 2008, p. 47)
Another definition of the Gospel was given by Martin Luther. He said,
The gospel is a story about Christ, God’s and David’s Son, who died and was raised and is established as Lord. This is the gospel in a nutshell.… And I assure you, if a person fails to grasp this understanding of the gospel, he will never be able to be illuminated in the Scripture nor will he receive the right foundation. (Luther, 1960, pp. 118-119)
Finally, Bird (2008) summarizes the Gospel this way,
The gospel is the announcement that God’s kingdom has come in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord and Messiah, in fulfillment of Israel’s Scriptures. The gospel evokes faith, repentance, and discipleship; its accompanying effects include salvation and the gift of the Holy Spirit. (p. 52)
The Christian worldview can be trusted, it has been authenticated, and can be proven by countless changed lives all around the world. Do you have the promise of eternal life? C.S. Lewis once said, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important” (Lewis, n.d.). Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)
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