Gospel truth

 

The Evangelism of ‘Acts’ is followed by the ‘Doctrine of the Gospel’ in the Bible book called Romans. ‘Acts ‘ describes God using humans to spread the Gospel far and wide.

‘Romans’ is the situation on earth as God sees it (helicopter vision).

It begins with God assessing His creation, His creatures. The humans were designed to worship Him, but the evidence is that they had rebelled. Even the enlightened and religious had lost their way. The divine conclusion is:

“All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” – all guilty.

But God is not defeated by human failure. He is a God who intervenes, coming right into the situation with the solution.

The remedy for this extreme malady is Jesus Christ the Lord. He became a man. He appeared as a Saviour, not a judge. He gave His life up to achieve redemption, atonement, propitiation, forgiveness, reconciliation,  freedom, justification, salvation and more.

But God knows the incapacity of humans to choose well or to pay enough or to pray intelligently or to overcome sin.  So He chose to give freely. This great salvation He decided to give to all who believe in Jesus, His very special Son. Faith in Jesus, makes no room for boasting in self – it is a trust that is focused on Jesus Christ and what He has done.

But God wanted to richly bless all believers. So the doctrine of the Gospel spells out God’s love at work, making peace, spreading His love upon and into believers, changing them from Adam’s family to being ‘in Christ’. Chapter 6,7 describes God believers free from the habit of sin, and free from the law that stands ready to condemn.

But God does more! He sent His Holy Spirit to live in all believers so that they have identity as God’s children and  live as God’s children. They have hope for the future and they are intimately joined to God in His love (Chapter 8)

All this is called GRACE – God giving much more than we deserve!

But God has more – He chooses , He calls people both Jews and Gentiles to have Faith in His Son:

“If you will confess with your mouth that Jesus Is LORD, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” ( 10:9).

Enough – no. – God by His Spirit enlightens to create faith.

But God also enables believers to have faith to walk right as Jesus did. Chapter 12 is not so much commands,  but rather the call of mercy and grace to total surrender – the complete person yielded to the will and way of God. Then is described how a Christian ought to live – motivated by love, letting God be the judge, treating others well even with cultural differences.

 

Finally the conclusion God has been working towards – Chapter 15:13

“So I pray that God who gives you hope, will keep you rejoicing and full of peace as you believe in Him. May you overflow with hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

God is not defeated, rather God is victorious and we are victorious in HIM.