For the next five weeks or so we are enjoying a topic that is both broad and specific: the Gospel. Many believers know what the gospel is, and many unbelievers think they know what the gospel is. We want to seek the Lord in His word to get a deeper understanding and appreciation of the gospel, sitting at the Lord’s feet to have His fresh speaking concerning what the gospel is.
The gospel is, in its basic definition, the glad tidings, the good news. However, in Rom. 16:25 we see that the gospel is the proclamation of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept in silence since the times of the ages. On the one hand, the gospel is something simple, but on the other hand, it is the revelation of the mystery.
The gospel is not something shallow. We are saved through the word of the gospel, and this salvation is not only initial: we are daily being saved as we hear the gospel and believe in the gospel. The gospel is not something preached to us once for all to repent and believe into the Lord; through the hearing of the gospel we are being saved in the divine life gradually until we experience God’s full salvation.
The Gospel is a great subject in the New Testament, where we read of the gospel of God, the gospel of the Son of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of grace, the gospel of glory, the gospel of peace, the gospel of Christ Jesus, and the gospel of the kingdom.
Once we enter into the gospel and know the gospel, we become a gospel preacher; we will then speak not a low of shallow gospel (such as you can hear quite often in today’s Christianity) but a complete gospel, a high gospel – the gospel according to the Bible, the pure gospel! Amen!
This week in particular we will focus on the Gospel of the Kingdom, and today we want to see that the gospel includes all the truths in the Bible, and so the entire Bible is the gospel of God!
The Gospel includes All the Truths in the Bible: the Entire Bible is the Gospel of God
What is the gospel? According to Eph. 1:13 and Col. 1:5 the gospel is not merely “the good news” or “repent, believe, and you will be saved from eternal perdition” but the gospel includes all the truths in the Bible; actually, the entire Bible is the gospel of God.
Many believers think that the gospel mainly refers to the first four books of the New Testament, and that the gospel is simply for man to believe into the Lord and be saved. But according to the divine revelation in the Bible, the gospel includes every truth in the Bible. The Bible is the gospel of God, and to know the gospel we need to enter into the Bible and know the truth in the Bible.
The truth is the gospel, and the light of the truth is the light of the gospel; the unique commission of the church today is to preach the gospel, the content of which is the truth (see Mark 1:1, 14-15; 16:15; John 8:12, 32; 1 Tim. 2:4).
We need to know the truth in the Bible and practice to speak the truth and preach the gospel, as the Lord has commissioned us, so that God may fulfill His heart’s desire to have all men saved and come to the full knowledge of the truth.
The whole earth is in darkness, and the Bible tells us concerning the light: the Lord Jesus is the true light, God is light, and light is the truth; the gospel is the light in this dark age. The society we live in is filled with superstition, and there is a dark multitude of people around us; what all men need is the light of the truth, the light of the gospel.
We need to be gospel preachers, that is, we need to proclaim the gospel and preach the truth; the content of the gospel is the truth. When men know the truth in the gospel, they are set free (John 8:32); the truth is the genuine gospel, and the gospel sets us free! When we speak the truth in the word of God, the light of the gospel shines and brings in the divine light in any dark situation, and the divine life follows.
The truth in the entire Bible tells us one main point: the Triune God is dispensing Himself into us so that our sins may be forgiven and we may receive God’s life and have God Himself in us for our transformation into the sons of God to express Him corporately.
We need to learn the truth, study the truth, pray much over the truth, and be constituted with the truth so that, no matter what situation we’re in and what others ask us, we would speak the truth and thus preach the gospel for the divine light to come in and bring in the divine life in others.
God’s desire is that all men be saved and come to the full knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4); to be saved and to know the truth cannot be separated – we all should know the truth, and this knowing of the truth causes us to have a real and genuine salvation.
Lord Jesus, we choose the best portion right now by sitting at Your feet to touch Your heart’s desire by listening to Your word. Lord, keep us under the hearing of the faith so that we may be infused with the truth, be filled with the truth, and preach the gospel wherever we may go. We love the truth, we love You, and we love Your kingdom. Remove all our veils, deliver us from any concept, open the eyes of our heart, and give us understanding that we may see that the gospel includes all the truths in the Bible!
The Gospel is the Fulfillment of the Promises, Prophecies, and Types in the Old Testament
The Lord Jesus came to preach the gospel of God; what is the gospel that the Lord has proclaimed and that He has commanded us to preach? According to the entire revelation in the Bible, the gospel is the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament; the gospel is the fulfillment of the promises, prophecies, and types, and it is also the removal of the law – this is a full definition of the gospel (see Mark 1:1, 14; Gen. 3:15, 21).
Many believers’ understanding of the gospel is very low and short compared to what the Bible reveals; the gospel includes all the truths in the Bible such as God’s creation, man’s fall, God’s incarnation, God’s dispensing, the Triune God, Christ, the Spirit, the church, the Body of Christ, the kingdom of God, and the New Jerusalem.
Every item of the truth is the gospel. The gospel includes the cleansing from sins, being accepted by God, being regenerated, being sanctified, being transformed, being glorified, and all the elements of God’s organic salvation.
Regretfully, because of the degradation of the church, the gospel preached today in general Christianity is low, diluted, and superficial, and because of this many reject the gospel, refuse to hear it, and even know how to refute it.
In the Lord’s recovery the Lord wants to recover the gospel according to the revelation in the Bible. If we have the proper view we will see that the gospel contains all the truths in the Bible, and the gospel is the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament. What we have in the Old Testament is not just history but many promises, prophecies, types, and the law.
First, the gospel is the removal of the law: Christ as a wonderful Person came to replace the law with Himself as the reality of God, the expression of God, and the definition of God.
The gospel is the fulfillment of the promises in the Old Testament, such as God’s promise to Eve for a seed – the seed of the woman (Christ) will crush the head of the serpent (the devil), as in Gen. 3:15.
The gospel is the fulfillment of the promise God made to Abraham for a seed – the seed of Abraham (Christ) is the One in whom all the nations will be blessed – see Gen. 14:4-7; 22:17.
The gospel is the fulfillment of God’s promise to David for a seed who will build His temple – the seed of David (Christ as the real Solomon) builds Gods temple (the church) and speaks the word of God in wisdom (Matt. 12:42).
Christ is the fulfillment of all the prophecies in the Old Testament; the prophets prophesied concerning Christ in many ways and with many details, and Christ Himself is the gospel to be the fulfillment of all the prophecies in the Bible.
Christ as the gospel is the fulfillment of the types in the Old Testament, from the type of the skins covering Adam and Eve (which are a type of Christ’s redemption and covering of man with Himself before God) to the type of the temple of God (which is Christ Himself and Him enlarged), the gospel is the fulfillment of the types.
We need to know the Old Testament and realize that the gospel is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament types, prophecies, and promises!
Lord, recover us back to the gospel according to Your word so that we may know the truth, be set free, be constituted with the truth, and preach the gospel to all creation. Lord, thank You for coming as the seed of the woman to bruise the head of the devil, as the seed of Abraham for all the nations to be blessed in You, and as the seed of David for the building up of God’s temple. Lord, You are the gospel, and You are the fulfillment of the promises, the prophecies, and the types in the Old Testament, and You have removed the law! Hallelujah!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, bro. Minoru C’ sharing in the message for this week, and Truth, Life, the Church, and the Gospel—the Four Great Pillars in the Lord’s Recovery, chs. 3, 8, 10 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Gospel (2016 International Chinese-speaking Conference), week 1 / msg. 1, The Gospel of the Kingdom.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic:
# An uplifted gospel have we, / One we’re not ashamed to proclaim. / Our gospel’s the highest of all, / For it is God’s goal and God’s aim. / No longer so lowly and poor, / We’ve found that we’re God’s holy sons. / No more will we preach as before; / Now each man on earth can be won. (Hymns #1292)
# ’Twas after we believed in Christ, / The word of truth, the gospel, heard, / The Holy Spirit us did seal / To show that we belong to God. (Hymns #1120)
# But the gospel is to me / The Triune God within humanity / As the Spirit reaching me to be in me / The one reality; / Love untold—Gospel Thee / Never getting old—story told eternally. (Song on an updated gospel)
About aGodMan
With the Lord’s word concerning the seed of woman in Genesis 3:15 we have a promise. But in the Lord’s action of making coats of skins and clothing Adam and his wife we have a type (Gen. 3:21). Abel’s sacrifice, a sacrifice which was accepted by God, is another type. The lamb offered by Abraham in place of his son is also a type….The gospel, then, is the fulfillment not only of the promises and prophecies but also of the types. Furthermore, the gospel is also the removal of the law. This is a full definition of the gospel. (Witness Lee, Life-study of Mark, p. 28)