THE GOSPEL:

[H. Richard]

NOTE: All scriptures from the NKJV Bible

Rom 3:23
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

A person must realize they are sinful and have no hope of being otherwise by their own efforts..

Rom 6:23
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

A person must realize that the wages for their sins is death. Wages are what they earn but salvation is a gift from God.

Rom 1:16 17
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith."

Faith = belief = trust = confidence

1 Cor 15:1 4
15 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand,
2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you — unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,

Jesus died for our sins.

Eph 1:12 14
12 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.
13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,
14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.

Rom 5:8 9
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.

Rom 5:20
20 Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, (abound = be plentiful = revealed)

Rom 10:8 13
8 But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith which we preach):
9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
11 For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame."
12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him.
13 For "whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Rom 10:8 13 is a promised from God and God will honor His promises.

It should be noted that there is no mention of church membership or church rituals such as water baptism, or sacraments in the above. Salvation is the work of God.

Rom 2:16
6 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.

Rom 16:25
25 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began

2 Tim 2:8
8 Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel,

 

[H. Richard]

The Gospel of Grace:
All scriptures from the NKJV

After studying the Scriptures for over 60 years and writing many articles contradicting the writings of those that place their faith in their religions and religious practices, I have concluded that most will not believe what I write here. However, I am going to write what I believe to be the true Gospel of God’s grace based on the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

The true Gospel of Grace is that God has now concluded ALL men are hopelessly lost and are continually sinful in the flesh. Since that is true, based on the law, then God is totally fair in offering salvation based on the work of His Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross. The blood of His Son, Jesus Christ, covers ALL the sins of anyone that will place ALL their belief, faith, trust, confidence, and hope in the work of God on the cross. These are betting their eternal life on the work of God and are made children of God in Christ.

It makes me sad to understand that most men/women do not really do this. They seem to place their salvation on religious activities and their works. They believe in the “social/moral gospel” taught by religions. In reality they place their trust in what they do, not what God has done. They cannot deny themselves and follow Jesus. They will not relinquish control of their salvation to God and, instead, place their bets on what they “do for God“, not on what God has done for them.

The following Scriptures show us that it is the work of God that saves.

2 Cor 1:20-22
20 For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.
21 Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God,
22 who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

Rom 8:35-39
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 As it is written:

"For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter."

37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,
39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

2 Tim 1:8-12
8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God,
9 who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began,
10 but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,
11 to which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.
12 For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.

1 Peter 1:3-5
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
4 to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,
5 who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

1 Cor 15:56-58
56 The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

1 John 5:4-5
4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith.
5 Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

All those that place ALL their belief, faith, trust, confidence, and hope in the work of God on the cross are kept by the power of God, not by their own power. Many do not believe this and I, personally, believe them to be hopelessly lost until they do.

 

[H. Richard]

The Gospel was changed by God:

The failure or refusal to discern the Pauline Gospel as a separate and new revelation, and not a “development from Judaism,” accounts for two-thirds of the confusion in many people’s minds today as regards just what the Gospel is.

Paul’s Gospel will suffer no admixture with works on the one hand or religious pretensions and performances on the other. It is simple and clear as the sunlight from heaven.

The end of man is where God begins (Romans 3), at what might be called the opening of the Pauline Revelation. Most unsaved people today believe in their hearts that the reason they are not saved is because of something they have not yet done, some step that remains for them to take before God will accept them. But this is absolutely untrue.

When Christ said “It is finished,” He meant that He had, then and there, paid the debt for the whole human race. “He gave Himself a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:6).

Now Paul, in his wonderful revelation declares, that Gad hath “reconciled the world unto Himself; that God was in Christ (at the cross) reconciling the world unto Himself, (II Corinthians 5:19). ---- Men do not know this, but they conceive that something stands between them and God, before God will accept, or forgive, them.

If you tell a man that God is demanding no good works of him whatsoever, no religious observances or church ordinances, that God is not asking him to undertake any duties at all, but that God invites him to believe a glad message that his sins have already been dealt with at the cross, and that God expects him to believe this good news and be exceedingly happy about it - if you tell an unsaved man such a story as this, he is astonished and overwhelmed - yet this is the Gospel of Grace!

Note: Taken from the “Bible Student’s Notebook” a wqeekly Bible study publication.
www.BibleStudentsNotebook.com

 

[Episkopos]

Jesus died because of our sins. His resurrection gives us the grace to walk as He walked...so that we stop sinning before God.

What Jesus did NOT do is come to earth to be mistreated by a people in order to give them a way to continue sinning. A house divided cannot stand.

No, Jesus gives us freedom from bondage to sin. That is the gospel...freedom from captivity. We who were once held captive to sin because of the sin within ourselves can walk in newness of life...and in the power of God (grace)....to walk as Jesus walked.

And WE are to be rewarded for something that Jesus did...IF we allow His life to overshadow our own so as to do the works that were prepared for us in advance, before the foundation of the world. So we enter INTO Christ to abide in Him and take refuge under the shadow of His wings.

 

[Nancy]

Jesus died because of our sins. His resurrection gives us the grace to walk as He walked...so that we stop sinning before God.

What Jesus did NOT do is come to earth to be mistreated by a people in order to give them a way to continue sinning. A house divided cannot stand.

No, Jesus gives us freedom from bondage to sin. That is the gospel...freedom from captivity. We who were once held captive to sin because of the sin within ourselves can walk in newness of life...and in the power of God (grace)....to walk as Jesus walked.

And WE are to be rewarded for something that Jesus did...IF we allow His life to overshadow our own so as to do the works that were prepared for us in advance, before the foundation of the world. So we enter INTO Christ to abide in Him and take refuge under the shadow of His wings.

And boy, does abiding take constant effort. Hoping one day it will be a well developed habit! ♥