The Essence of the Gospel

Rom. 1:16–"For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and then to the Greek also."

1 Cor. 2:2–"For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

The heart of the Christian message is often misrepresented as a sort of cartoon caricature of social concern loosely mixed with some poorly interpreted verses of Scripture and some famous historical quotes like, "God helps those who help themselves (a Ben Franklin creation)."

In truth, though, Christianity is based singularly on Christ.  Even more directly, Christianity is about Christ crucified and resurrected.  And, as Paul asserts above, not only is this the essential message of Christianity, the Gospel as it were, but this Gospel is, in fact, the very power of God.

It is because of this, therefore, we should not ever forget the simple and offensive essence of Christianity, which is Jesus Christ crucified.

Galatians 2:20–Crucified With Christ

Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

When reading this verse, my thought is: "What if I haven't been crucified by Christ?"  The truth is, in order for Christ to live in me, as this verse asserts, I must be brought into His crucifixion.  Unless I take part in Christ's death, I can have no business in His life.  It is by way of His death that we are given His life eternal.  In the eternal sense, you cannot have life without death.

This is the depth of the second part of this verse.  It is by faith in the Son of God that life is imparted to the believer.  But this faith is not faith in some abstract sense and it is certainly not a faith spiritualizes, as in, a faith that spiritualizes Christ without considering the historicity of His life, death, and resurrection.  No.

Faith of the right sort is a faith in the crucified Messiah, the risen Lord.  This faith forms the foundation for a life lived by faith, one that is dependent on the reliability of the Word of God and the historicity of Jesus of Nazarene.  The risen, living self is thus founded on the risen, living Lord just as the sin flesh is put to death in the crucifixion of Christ Jesus.  Amen to God that He has orchestrated such an amazing wonder as this!