CHRIST’S GOSPEL TO ALL
18/08/24 07:55
At the back of the chapel at the college I attended as a youth there was a large map with the words, ‘The Gospel to all the world in this generation.’ The trouble was it was not Christ’s Gospel. There are pseudo-gospels that by some small alteration and eccentric perspective, deplete, muffle, degrade, suffocate and degenerate the Gospel of Jesus and the apostles, so that the life of Jesus in those unfortunates enough to believe the lie are degraded in their being and hindered in their spirit.
THIS GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM
If our Gospel is the Gospel of Jesus Paul, John and the apostles, we can be confident that in ministering this we will be Enlargers of Christ’s life among people. If not we will wither them because our message suffocates the Spirt of Christ in those who hear it. Over time such teaching produces well-rehearsed, twisted verities that are regarded by the unfortunate as truth, with the result that people live as normal a gospel that makes them un-dead instead of alive.
ON ACTUAL TRUTH
Christian Kettler writes, “Ministry needs to be based on the actuality of God’s revelation of grace. Only such a ministry is worthy of participating in the continual ministry of the Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ.” (1) This is why Paul wrote, ‘He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life’ 2 Cor 3.6 NIV. Clearly ministry from the law is deadening and not life-giving, which is why we need to teach the Gospel of the apostles, Church Fathers and Reformers and not some derivation of our own.
SHELL GOSPEL. SHELL PEOPLE
If we rely on ourselves to make us worthy of Christ/God, we are on a path of misery and frustration in which we live our religion as a shell instead of a state of being in which we are free of condemnation and free to be ourselves as we minister Christ’s life out of who we are as persons. The foundation of life-giving in this manner is this.
YOU HAVE AT-ONE-MENT WITH GOD IN JESUS
(1) “The heart of the Father as the beginning of the atonement,” (2) “The incarnation of the Son as the ontological reality of the atonement,” (3) “The vicarious humanity of Christ as the atoning Godward response on behalf of humanity,” and (4) “The forgiveness of sins as the vivifying center of the actualization of the atonement in the life and ministry of the church.” (2) I would add the incarnation of Christ in us as the transforming grace in our lives.
(1) Kettler, Christian D.. The Breadth and Depth of the Atonement: The Vicarious Humanity of Christ in the Church, the World, and the Self: Essays, 1990–2015 (p. 4). Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
(2) Kettler, Christian D.. The Breadth and Depth of the Atonement. Ibid (p. 4).
