This Is the Gospel: What Every Christian Should Know, Believe, and Proclaim

By John Wallace

In This Is the Gospel, Pastor Wallace strips away all but the essentials of the gospel of Jesus Christ, revealing exactly what people need to know and believe in order to unleash the power of God to salvation in themselves and others. In this book, you will learn why religion cannot save you, but simple surrender to Jesus Christ at the cross can and will.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781512796179

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 John Wallace.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-9618-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-9619-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-9617-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017911213

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/19/2017

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: Christ

Chapter 2: Died

Chapter 3: For Our Sins

Chapter 4: In Accordance with the Scriptures

Chapter 5: Buried

Chapter 6: Raised

Chapter 7: Seen by Many Witnesses

Chapter 8: What Does It All Mean?

Chapter 9: Justified

Chapter 10: Sanctified

Chapter 11: Glorified

Chapter 12: What to Tell an Unsaved Person

Chapter 13: What to Do Next

Appendix A: Excursus on Religion

Appendix B: Excursus on Israel and the Church

Recommended Reading

Endnotes

Preface

J esus said to Pontius Pilate, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true (John 8:37).

Pontius Pilate had no idea how prophetic he himself was being when he replied, What is truth?

In this day of political correctness, cultural relativism, philosophy masquerading as science, and consensus thinking, it is impossible to say much of anything without offending someone. This is especially true when challenging people to examine their spiritual beliefs. My desire is to see people set free from anything that is preventing them from having a deep relationship with the living God. That relationship begins with surrender to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Given that we are all sensitive about our beliefs, something in This Is the Gospel may touch a nerve in you. If that happens, please give God a chance. Learn God’s truth, submit to Him, and His truth will set you free.

Thanks for reading.

John Wallace

<><

Acknowledgments

F irst and foremost, I thank my God for sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die in my place and for giving me faith to believe it so I have eternal life.

I thank God for my wife, who has been my steady partner in ministry and at home.

I thank my dear Christian brother Kenneth Allen for proofreading and reproofreading this book, and his son, Mark, for his useful stylistic suggestions. Any errors that remain are undoubtedly in sections I changed after their last review.

I thank the saints at Faith Bible Church for their support and encouragement.

My deepest thanks to those who cared enough about my soul to tell me the truth when I did not want to hear it.

May God richly bless each of you.

Introduction

T he gospel is the solution to God’s biggest problem. Yes, God has a problem!

In the beginning, God created the universe, including the heavens, the earth, and all that is in them. He created two genetically perfect people, Adam and Eve, in His own image. He breathed His Spirit into them, making them different from all the animals. He blessed them and gave them dominion over the earth and over every living thing. He made a garden for them to live in and walked with them there and taught them. God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good! Even Satan was good. He had been created as a beautiful angel, but he became proud and decided that he should be worshiped like God.

Filled with envy, Satan deceived Eve by getting her to question the truth of God’s Word, contradicting God’s Word, and replacing God’s truth with his lies. Moses wrote the following:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?"

And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’

But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:1–5, emphasis added)

Enticed by the false promises of the devil, Eve sinned by disobeying God, and Adam followed suit. Just as God had warned, they suffered spiritual death and their bodies became mortal. Since God had given them dominion, His perfect creation was also corrupted. Sin brought death to the human race and a curse upon all creation. Since then, every human being has been born as a member of a fallen race that inhabits a fallen world, full of death, sickness, corruption, and evil—all because of sin.

All people have sinned and continue to fall short of the glory of God. The proof that all have sinned is that all die a physical death (Romans 5:12–14). Even while physically alive, we are spiritually dead because of our sins. Therefore, we cannot make ourselves right with God.

God has a problem! He loves us and wants to be in fellowship with us. That is why He created Adam and Eve in the first place, but His love cannot override His other attributes. God is at all times perfectly loving, completely holy, absolutely just, and blessedly merciful. God is holy, so He cannot tolerate sin. God is just, so sin must be punished. God loves us and wants to be merciful. He does not want anyone to go to hell, but desires that all come to repentance and live eternally in heaven with Him.

Ignoring our sins would violate His holiness. If He were to give us a free pass, then it would compromise His justice. What is God to do?

Thank God for Jesus! God loves us so much that He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, to die in our place, taking the punishment for our sins and satisfying God’s justice. With payment made, God is free to pour out His mercy, forgiving our sins and blotting out the record of the debt we owed. Solely on the basis of faith in Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf, God cleanses us of all unrighteousness and allows us into His holy presence.

When we meet Jesus Christ at the cross in faith and repentance, He takes our sins upon Himself and covers us with His righteousness. This is the essence of the gospel, and it is the only possible solution to God’s problem—and ours.

The first words of the Lord Jesus Christ recorded in the gospel of Mark are as follows:

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel. …

Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men. (Mark 1:15, 17)

From the beginning of the church age on the Jewish Feast of Pentecost, seven weeks after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, this has been the pattern: hear the gospel, believe the gospel, experience Holy Spirit conviction and repentance, call on the Lord, be forgiven and transformed, go out and preach the gospel.

The word gospel is used so loosely today that it can mean almost anything. There are few professing believers who can even define it. And yet it is the gospel that is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16).

It is the gospel that Jesus commanded humankind to believe. It is faith in the gospel that brings us to our knees as we recognize our sinfulness and that then raises us up in newness of life, cleansed and forgiven. Working through our gospel faith, the Holy Spirit regenerates us, seals us, and guarantees that what God has begun in us, God will finish (Ephesians 1:13–14).

God exercises His power through the gospel to save and transform ordinary human beings who are dead in trespasses and sins into new creatures who are spiritually alive and righteous in Christ. All other miracles pale in comparison!

Salvation has always been by God’s grace through faith. There has never been another way. Four thousand years ago, Abram (renamed Abraham in Genesis 17:5), the father of the Jewish people, believed the LORD, and He counted it to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6). Abram did not merely believe in the Lord. Only the fool says in his heart, There is no God (Psalm 14:1). James wrote the following:

You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! (James 2:19)

Abram did not merely believe in God. He believed what God said. Abram heard the audible voice of God. We can hear the voice of God just as surely through God’s written word. The Bible separates false gods from the one true living God. We can learn general things about God by observing His creation, but it is through words that He reveals the specifics, just as He did with Abram. Most people will tell you they believe in something: a higher power, God, fate, luck, or some mysterious force. However, if you ask them whether they believe the Word of God, you will find that few do.

Abram believed God’s words, and God, looking forward to the cross, counted Abram’s faith to him as righteousness. Now, looking back to the cross, God counts our faith to us as righteousness. Without the events surrounding the cross—the gospel—no one in any age could be saved. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the central event around which God designed and built the universe.

What the unconverted—including the ones inside our church buildings—cannot understand is that faith in the gospel is not simply the affirmation of an idea. Agreeing with an idea intellectually has no permanent value and effects no lasting change. Such an idea only endures until we change our minds or die. Despite what we have all heard, one does not make a decision for Christ, like deciding what to have for lunch. Rather, one hears the Word of God, one believes God, and God makes one into a Christian. He causes us to be born again (1 Peter 1:3). It is a supernatural, permanent change that cannot be undone.

In the