The Everlasting Gospel

Part 1What the gospel is

Paul summed up the gospel he preached in a single sentence:

“For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how 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.”

1 Corinthians 15:3–4

The gospel is about a Person and what He has done. It is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16) — not a power we supply, but His. Jesus began His ministry with the same message: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15).

One gospel from the beginning

The gospel did not begin in the New Testament. The first promise of a Saviour was spoken in Eden, on the very day sin entered the world, when God told the serpent that the woman’s Seed would crush his head (Genesis 3:15). Scripture says the gospel was “preached before … unto Abraham” (Galatians 3:8), and to Israel in the wilderness: “For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them” (Hebrews 4:2).

There has only ever been one way of salvation — by grace, through faith, in Christ. That is why Revelation calls it “the everlasting gospel” (Revelation 14:6), and why Paul is so firm that there is no other:

“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.”

Galatians 1:8

Part 2The problem: sin and death

Good news only makes sense against bad news, and Scripture is honest about ours:

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”

Romans 3:23

The Bible defines sin plainly: “sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4). It is not merely a mistake or a weakness. It is rebellion against God and His law of love, and it has two results.

• Separation. “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you” (Isaiah 59:2).
• Death. “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

And we cannot fix it ourselves. The law shows us our sin, but it cannot take it away: “by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20). A mirror can show a dirty face; it cannot wash it.

Part 3The love of God

Salvation does not begin with us reaching up to God. It begins with God reaching down to us:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

John 3:16

God did not wait for us to become lovable. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The cross was not the Son persuading an angry Father to love us; it was the Father’s love in action: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

Part 4Christ in our place

Seven centuries before Calvary, Isaiah described what the Messiah would do:

“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Isaiah 53:5–6

This is the heart of the gospel: Christ took our place. He lived the perfect life we have not lived — “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15) — and He died the death we deserved. “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24).

And the exchange goes both ways. He took our sin; we receive His righteousness:

“For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

2 Corinthians 5:21

Every lamb offered in the sanctuary since Eden pointed to this moment. When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

Part 5Risen and interceding

The gospel does not end at the tomb. Without the resurrection there would be no good news at all:

“And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.”

1 Corinthians 15:17

But He was raised. He “was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Romans 4:25). The empty tomb is God’s declaration that the sacrifice was accepted and that death has been defeated.

Christ’s work for us also continues today. He ascended to heaven as our High Priest:

“Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.”

Hebrews 7:25

“And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). The One who died for us now pleads for us.

Part 6Justified by faith

How does what Christ did become ours? Not by earning it, but by receiving it:

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Ephesians 2:8–9

To be justified is to be declared righteous — forgiven, accepted and counted as though we had never sinned. Scripture says we are “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24), and that “a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:28).

This is good news for the worst of sinners, because God “justifieth the ungodly” (Romans 4:5). Our past does not disqualify us. Our good deeds do not qualify us. Christ alone qualifies us.

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Romans 5:1

And there is no other way. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Part 7Repentance and the new birth

Faith in Christ is never alone; it comes with a turning of the heart. “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out” (Acts 3:19). Repentance is not making ourselves worthy. It is agreeing with God about our sin and turning from it to Him — and even that is His gift (Acts 5:31; Romans 2:4).

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

1 John 1:9

Jesus told Nicodemus, a deeply religious man, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). The gospel does not merely improve the old life; it begins a new one. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

God gave baptism as the outward sign of this inward change. When the crowd at Pentecost asked what they should do, Peter answered: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38). Baptism by immersion pictures the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, and our own death to the old life and rising to the new (Romans 6:3–4).

Part 8Grace that changes a life

The grace that forgives is also the grace that transforms. God promised it long before the cross:

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you … And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”

Ezekiel 36:26–27

This is the new covenant: “I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts” (Hebrews 8:10). The law that once only condemned us is now written within us, and kept not to earn salvation but because we have been saved. What the law “could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh,” God did by sending His Son, “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:3–4).

We do not do this in our own strength. “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). Paul described it this way:

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

Galatians 2:20

Part 9Common misunderstandings

The gospel is simple, but it is often confused — sometimes by adding to it, and sometimes by taking away from it.

Part 10Assurance

God does not want His children to live in constant doubt about whether they are saved:

“And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life.”

1 John 5:11–13

Our assurance does not rest on how we feel or on how well we performed this week. It rests on Christ and His promise. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

And the One who began the work is able to finish it: “he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). He “is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 24).

Part 11The Sabbath and the gospel

The Sabbath and the gospel are not opposites. The Sabbath is one of the clearest pictures of the gospel in all of Scripture.

• It is a sign of God’s work, not ours. God gave it “that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you” (Exodus 31:13). It is He who makes us holy.
• It celebrates deliverance. Israel was to keep the Sabbath remembering that “thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand” (Deuteronomy 5:15). Redemption, not merely Creation, stands behind the commandment.
• It is rest in a finished work. “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:9–10). Each Sabbath we stop our own works, just as in the gospel we stop trusting our own works.

Christ Himself made the invitation: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). The Sabbath is that rest, given a place in every week.

For the full case for the seventh-day Sabbath, see The Sabbath Still Stands.

Part 12The everlasting gospel

In Revelation, God’s final message to the world is the same gospel, carried to everyone:

“And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.”

Revelation 14:6–7

Jesus said that “this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14). The gospel looks forward as well as back: to the day when Christ returns for His people. “I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:3). That is our “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13).

Until then, the invitation stands open to anyone who will take it:

“And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”

Revelation 22:17