What is the Gospel? - Lesson 5

Dr. Marc Cortez
What is the Gospel?
th106-05
The Messiah has Come
Lesson Transcript

[00:00:01] The following lecture is provided by biblical training. More information is available at WW w dot Biblical training dot org. All right. So far in our progress through the gospel, we have seen God's good plan for creation. We've come to appreciate what God was about from the beginning in creating his land and his people to be a blessing everywhere to his glory. We've also spent some time reflecting on what a mess we've managed to make of things and how broken everything became when sin entered into the equation. Basically, as soon as humans decided that they knew better than God did, everything fell apart. So we spent some time reflecting on what does it mean when sin enters the equation and all of the destruction that results from that. And then last time we spent some time reflecting on the tremendous news that God remains faithful. Anyway, we should all be very grateful that I am not God because I simply do not have enough grace and patience for that. I probably would have been more than happy to just take out my pencil and my eraser, go like that, brush off the page and start over again. But that's not God. God remains faithful to his people and God remains faithful to his plans and purposes, because when God sets out to accomplish something, He does it. So the great news is that despite our sin, God is faithful. And so as we unpacked that faithfulness of God and we saw God continuing to remain faithful to having a people in the land as a blessing to his glory, we saw that God promised one who would come, one who would come and rescue His people out of their brokenness and out of their bondage, so that when this one comes, we saw tremendous blessings.

[00:02:05] Flow. We saw God's Spirit poured out on God's people. We saw God's people restored to God. Forgiveness. I mean, think about that forgiveness to this. People who had rejected God's purposes and had rebelled in the face of God and had offended the Almighty God. Forgiveness is extended to this, people. When this one comes and God's spirit poured out, restores all of creation so that shalom is restored, so that when this one comes. God's purposes and plans come to fruition. And yet we reach the end of our story. We reach the end of the Old Testament part of the story anyway, and this one has not yet come. At the end of the Old Testament really kind of hover on the edge of a of the of a precipice, as it were, anxious, waiting. And we're sitting on the edge of our seats thinking, God, you have been promising all along this one who would come? This one who would come to be our king, our prophet, our priest, our deliverer, our servant. Where is he? Why has not this one come? Where is the promised one? That's where we start our story for this session. Because the amazing news, the tremendous news is that this one has come. The Messiah has come. The one who will make sure that God's plans and purposes are accomplished has come. So we'll spend the next 30 minutes or so in this lesson really unpacking. What does it mean when the Messiah comes? Well, the good news when we get into the New Testament and we understand what does it mean when the Messiah comes is the good news is that the living God continues to rule over everything. And much of what we'll be doing in this lesson is just unpacking.

[00:03:58] What does it mean when the Bible calls something gospel? Good news. And one of the big things that the Bible tells us is good news in the New Testament is that God continues to rule over everything. Again. God remains faithful. And Romans 1015 A Paul right to us says, How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news? Well, why? Well, what are you talking about? It? What Paul's doing is he's referring back to an Old Testament promise from Isaiah 52. And the good news that's being proclaimed there in Isaiah 52 is at the very end, your God reigns. That's the good news. Why is that good news? Of course it's good news because the God who reigns as a faithful God is a faithful God who continues to work out his good purposes for his people in his creation. That's great news. If it was to Mother God, maybe that wouldn't be such good news. But it's not. This is our God who reigns and our God is a faithful God. So the fact that he is still ruling and reigning and in control despite the brokenness of creation that we see. That is tremendous news. Indeed. The good news that the New Testament gives us as well is that God's kingdom has drawn near. Well, according to Mark 115, the time is fulfilled. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel. The good news. And so Mark thinks that it is tremendous news and that the Kingdom of God is at hand. According to Matthew, the good news about the Kingdom is going to be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to the nations. So the good news of God's kingdom is, is that there is great news and it has to do with God's kingdom.

[00:05:56] But it leaves us wondering, so what is God's kingdom exactly? Well, what is a kingdom? A kingdom is simply an area over which a king rules. The kingdom is the expression of a king's rule or authority or reign sovereignty, as it were. So the good news is that God's kingdom, God's reign, God's rule is at hand. Now, you might be a little bit confused because, of course, the first good news was that God is ruling. The second good news seems to be that He will be ruling. And the answer is yes. God is ruling in that of course he is God and that he continues to work out his good purposes. He continues to make sure that his plans are moving forward. He continues to make sure that his people are moving in the direction that he wants them to to accomplish his purposes. God is ruling. God is still in control, despite, again, the brokenness and sinfulness of the world around us. God's rule continues. But the good news is also that a time is coming. A time is actually at hand when the full reality of God's kingdom, the full reality of God's rule and authority, when God's purposes are finally accomplished, when God's kingdom people lend blessing to the glory of God. When God's kingdom is finally realized, the Gospels are declaring to us that that is at hand. That kingdom in which God's purposes are accomplished is at hand. That is great news. That is amazing news that not only this God rule in the sense that he is working his purposes forward in his purposes will surely be accomplished, but that his kingdom in which those purposes are accomplished is at hand. And the good news is that the promised Messiah has arrived to save God's people.

[00:08:07] That's why the kingdom is at hand. Because the one who had been promised from ages past, so that when this one comes, all the blessings will flow out on God's people. The good news is that this promised Messiah, the one who will come, has come. Luke, Chapter two The Angel said to them, Fear not for behold. I bring you good news of great joy. What? What's the great news that you have for us? No, angel, For unto you is born this day in the city of David. A Savior Who is Christ Messiah, the Lord. The great news is that the one who will come has come. And so that with him, all of those tremendous blessings that we saw promised in the Old Testament, those blessings have come. He is the one who brings the kingdom. He is the one who brings about the accomplishment of God's purposes. So the next Chapter eight and Philip is preaching to the crowd. The crowd responds, and they believe Philip, as they preach the good news about what? About the Kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ is the one who brings the Kingdom of God that God's purposes might be accomplished because He is the promised seed of David. If we were to jump back to one of the Old Testament passages that you have from your hand out in the last lesson, the one who is to come will be the promised king. So one of things that we anticipate, the one who comes to be the king and that one is promised to be a descendant of David. So the fact that Jesus is a descendant of David is telling us he is the one that we've been waiting for.

[00:10:03] He is the promised king who will bring about the kingdom of God. According to Matthew, Jesus is asking the disciples, What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he? And they declare to him clearly the Son of David, because the Messiah, the promised one who we anticipate will be the son of David, because we know he is the one coming who will be king. So Jesus comes as king to bring about the kingdom so that he might be the hope of Israel and of the whole world. And at the same time, then he is the one who brings salvation, because as we've seen, God's people, really all people after the fall are trapped in exile. A cash from the land east of Eden, in the shadows to the side of Shalom. Trapped in exile, in bondage. In bondage. To their own sin. In bondage to the powers. In bondage to death. A trapped in exile. And the Messiah is the promised one who comes to free people from exile. That they might have salvation. So the good news is that the Messiah brings salvation. That new exodus that we talked about in the last lesson comes with the Messiah, that we might be freed from our bondage to sin and the powers and death. And the good news is that this Messiah is perfect. So Israel had been hoping for a messiah for a long time, and many people had come along who had claimed to be the Messiah, and none of them were. None of them were perfect. All of them were themselves locked and trapped in the spiral of sin and death and destruction. A messiah who's contributing to sin and death and destruction can possibly help free us from it.

[00:12:05] What we needed was a messiah who was perfect, a messiah who had the the ability, who had the power, who had the capacity to break us out of sin and death and destruction. He needed to be perfect. And the Messiah that we have is a messiah who is perfect. This Messiah is faithful to humanity's purpose. From the very beginning, Revelation one five calls him the faithful witness. John 1331 and 32 says, Now is the son of man glorified and God is glorified in him. And if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in himself and glorify Him at once. So that's actually a picture. If we think again, back to Genesis one and two, that's a picture of what God was about from the very beginning. Remember, God created a people to live in the land, to be a blessing to everyone, everywhere, to his glory. God's purpose for creating was to declare and manifest His glory throughout creation. And yet God's people rejected that purpose. Adam And He failed to enter into that purpose and live to the glory of God. But where Adam and Eve failed, Jesus did not because Jesus was faithful to the purpose that God has given us as humans. Jesus lived to the glory of God because Jesus was the perfect and faithful human He did for us what we could not do for ourselves. So Jesus comes as the perfect Messiah who lives the perfect human life, and He comes as a messiah who did not fail even at the end of his life, even as he faced a terrible death on the cross, painful, agonizing, excruciating experience that it was both physically and spiritually as he faced separation from God. He did not fail at the end of his life.

[00:14:08] This Messiah was a perfect Messiah who continued to live to the glory of God all the way to the very end. This Messiah is a messiah who came and did everything we could possibly hope for. He was a perfect messiah. The good news is also that this promised Messiah is the one who will pour out the Spirit again. Remember back to the Old Testament. This one that we've been waiting for. The one who will come. One of the tremendous things that we're anticipating is that when this one comes, he will pour out God's spirit on creation. And why is that such an amazing thing? It's because when he pours out his spirit on creation, that's when God's people are restored to him. That's when all of creation is restored to God's purposes. That's when forgiveness comes. When this one comes in, pours out the spirit on all of God's people. God's people become what God intended them to be from the very beginning. So pouring out the Spirit is an amazing part of the story. And the good news that we get from the New Testament is that this Messiah is the one who will pour out the Spirit. From the very beginning of his life, we see that this one comes, this Jesus comes as one who was filled with the Spirit at His baptism. In Matthew chapter three, he's getting baptized and he comes up in the spirit of God, descends like a dove coming to rest upon him, clearly marking him out as one on whom the Spirit particularly rested in Luke four one. It even says Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit and led by the Spirit. This one who came, this Jesus was filled with this spirit. And He walked with the spirit.

[00:15:53] And we just saw that he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. He's one who walked faithfully with the spirit of longs. And not only was he filled with the spirit, but he was led by the spirit. And because he was uniquely filled with the spirit and because he was uniquely led by the Spirit and because he was uniquely Jesus, he is the bestow or he's the one who gives the spirit to God's people. If you look at John chapter seven versus 38 and 39, we see Jesus saying, Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow. Rivers of living water. What do you mean by that? Jesus? What are these rivers of living water? Rose, 39. Now this, he said about the spirit, who knows who believed in him were to receive four. As yet the spirit had not been given because Jesus was not yet glorified. So in these verses we see clearly Jesus is the one who gives the Spirit. Those who believe in Jesus receive the spirit. Now, according to these verses, that hasn't happened yet because we're in the middle of the story of the Messiah and we haven't gotten to the end of the story of the Messiah. But in this part of the story, Jesus is clearly saying, I am that one. That one that you have been eagerly waiting for so long. That one who God promised would pour out the spirit that you might be restored to God, that creation might be restored to God, that you might be forgiven of your sins, that you might receive a new heart. I am that one. So Jesus is the one who gives the spirit. And the good news is that this promised Messiah, this promised Messiah who is perfect, this promised Messiah who brings the Kingdom of God, this promised Messiah who pours out the Spirit.

[00:17:45] The good news is that this promised Messiah is God himself. God didn't send an intermediary. God didn't send some other to go do his work for him. God sent his own son. The good news is that this promised Messiah is God himself. So go back to Luke 211, which we looked at a little bit ago, for Unto You is born this day. Remember, this is the good news the Angels are declaring in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. Don't grow too comfortable with those last two words. We tend to use the phrase Jesus is Lord or Christ the Lord so often that sometimes we lose the impact of those words. The Lord in the Old Testament. That's God. That is one of the main titles for God in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, the Lord is a main title for God. This isn't a throwaway line. This isn't Christ the guy who happens to be in charge. The good news is that the one who comes is Christ the Lord. The good news is that God didn't send another. The good news is that God sent His very own son. The good news is that God acted himself on our behalf. Now, certainly the Messiah is human. Jesus came as a human. We don't want to lose sight of that. If we look at the Luke in chapter two, when he's talking about what Jesus life was like early, says the child, Jesus grew and became strong and filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him. Jesus came as a child who could grow and develop and learn. Luke 252 He increased in wisdom, he increased in stature. He increased in favor with God and with people.

[00:19:58] Jesus came as a human so that He might grow, so that he might be one of us. Because, of course, to live the life of a human glorifying God. Jesus had to come as one of us to stand in our place, as Isaiah 53 promised that the servant would do. He had to be one of us. So certainly the Messiah came as human, but not just as human. Because the good news is that this Messiah is Lord. This Messiah is God Himself. God the Son. Born as a human, that God Himself might act on our behalf. That God Himself might stand with us, that God Himself might be all that we failed to be. So the good news is that this Messiah who had been promised, who has now come, is both human and divine. That's the Messiah. Talk about amazing news. The Messiah who came as God himself. Unfortunately, along with all of this tremendous good news that we have been unfolding and unpacking, the good news that the one who will come has come. The one who will be our king, who will be our priest. Who will be our prophet, who will be our servant. Who will pour out the spirit. Who will see that God's purposes are accomplished in creation. That one has come. That one has brought the Kingdom of God. That one has poured out the Spirit. That one has come. The bad news, unfortunately, is we killed him. Peter talking to the Jews on the day of Pentecost. Chapter two, verse 22 223 Does men of Israel hear these words? Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst. As you yourselves know, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

[00:22:21] This Jesus, this one that we have just spent so much time talking about, this one who we have been eagerly anticipating and waiting for for so long, this one who would bring these tremendous blessings. This one who would make sure that God's purposes and promises and God's kingdom would draw near. That one you crucified and you killed him. And now, of course, Peter is referring to the Jews who were around the day of Pentecost. But it's not limited to him because, of course, anyone who contributed to the destruction of Shalom, anyone who fell into the spiral of sin. All of us, in other words, contributed to the reality that when the promised one came, we killed him. We crucified and killed him. Luke 24 seven. He was delivered into the hands of sinful men and he was crucified. And the bad news is we killed him. The bad news is also that we fight against him. It, despite the tremendous promises and despite the tremendous blessings. The bad news is that we fought and continue to fight against him. John one five The light and the light in this versus Jesus shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it. Or in many other translations. The darkness did not understand it. But either way, the darkness is not welcoming the light. In the darkness, that shadow side of Salem, all that that realm of destruction and death and sin and decay and rebellion. The light enters into that and it shines in that darkness. And the darkness does not receive it. The darkness resists it. Its great news that the darkness doesn't overcome it. It's bad news that the darkness fights. It resists. It refuses to accept the light that shines in its midst.

[00:24:30] ROMANS 510 tells us that we were the enemies of Christ. Kagan That's so startling. It seems hard to believe if this is the one who was promised and if this is the one who brings all these amazing blessings, how could we possibly be his enemies? And again, it's because we love the darkness. We don't want to admit it. We want to believe to ourselves that we are fundamentally good, even if we make some little mistakes. The reality is, is that we live in the shadow side of shalom. We live in destruction. We like doing our own thing. We are alienated from God by our sin. We are his enemies. So the bad news is that when this one came, we killed him. When this one came, we fought and continue to fight against him. When this one came, we loved it. Instead. The darkness. John 319 And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because the works were evil. The bad news is we despised and rejected him. Again, going back to Isaiah 53, that tremendous promise of the servant. But what would happen to the servant? The one who comes to serve the people? The one who comes to serve the people in the brokenness? What happens to him? He was despised and rejected by men. There is tremendous good news. The good news is the one who was promised, the one who was promised and who would ensure that God's purposes in his plans for his people and his land would be accomplished. The good news is that one has come. And the good news is that when that one comes, when that Messiah comes, he will surely accomplish all that God had for Him to accomplish.

[00:26:28] And we know that because that Messiah was perfect. And we know that because that Messiah was God himself. So we know that when that one came, when that one arrived, he brought with him all of the promises, the spirit to be poured out, the restoration of creation, the restoration of God's people, the new heart, all of those tremendous promises. The Messiah brought those with him. And the bad news is we killed him and we fought against him. And we continue to fight against him because we love the darkness rather than the light. Now, again, if we were to stop here and put a period on this lesson, we would be ending in a rather dark and dismal place because the promised one came and we rejected and killed him. But again, this story isn't about us. So if this story is about God and God remains faithful to his people and his plans and his purposes. So as we move into the next lesson, we're going to see that despite this really terrible news of how we responded to the Messiah, despite that, God remains faithful. God was at work through all of it, ensuring that His purposes would be accomplished so that he might be glorified throughout creation by his people being a blessing everywhere. So as we move into the next lesson, we will get to leave behind some of the bad news. Well, we don't want to leave it behind. We want to remember it so that we can come to appreciate how great the good news is. Thank you for listening to this lecture brought to you by Biblical training dot org. Feel free to make copies of this lecture to give to others. But please do not charge for these copies or alter the content in any way without permission.

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