https://youtu.be/apM-gCz2KSI
We are in a verse-by-verse study of the book of Romans and got through verse 1 with the expanded translation: "Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called an apostle, through having been appointed because of the Gospel from God."
In the verse we found 3 doctrines to explore: the doctrine of adjustment to God's justice, the doctrine of apostle, and the doctrine of the Gospel.
Last time we concluded the doctrine of apostle and started the doctrine of the Gospel/
We noted that the word "Gospel" actually means "good news." God's good news to mankind regarding eternal salvation is called the Gospel.
The Greek verb "euaggelozo" means to announce good news. It is translated in the Scripture to proclaim, to announce good news; to communicate. It started with the idea of bringing good news of victory, to declare good news of victory in a battle or war. But it finally came to mean to announce God's good news of salvation.
The Hebrew verb "basar" has the same meaning: to proclaim good news. The Hebrew noun "besorah" is equivalent to the Greek word "euaggelion"
In the context of Rom 1:1,16 "euaggelion" means the declaration of good news of our Lord's victory on the cross, where He was judged for the sins of every human being who ever lives in the devil's world as the strategic victor in the spiritual warfare in the angelic conflict.
The Greek noun "euaggelos" was used in the ancient world to describe a messenger who was bringing good news from a battlefield in a war. In the case of the gospel communicated is God's Word of truth in the battlefield of the devil's world in the war of the angelic conflict.
The noun "euaggelistes" is the Greek word for the gift of evangelist.
The Gospel is the communication of doctrine pertaining to salvation. The doctrines related to salvation are the best news fallen humanity could ever receive.
The Gospel is the doctrines pertaining to the work of Christ on the cross. The Gospel has always been available,( Gen 3:15; ) so that in every generation of every dispensation those who were positive could respond by believing. The pattern that is used to describe this is Abraham, Gen 15:6; cf Rom 4.
The context indicates what the good news is because it doesn't always refer to salvation. The various facets of the Gospel are stated in 1Cor 15:1-4;
Verses 1-2, "Now I communicate to you, brethren, the Gospel which I preached to you, which also you received in which also you stand, through which you are also saved, which doctrine I preached to you - if you hold fast [first class condition], unless you have believed to no purpose."
In this passage Paul was teaching a Greek audience in Corinth. He had to explain facets of the Gospel to them because some of the Greeks had accepted Jesus Christ as Savior but they were having trouble with a literal, physical, bodily resurrection because it contradicted the propaganda from their cultural belief system.
The concept of a bodily resurrection contradicted their demon-influenced culture. When there is a conflict between a culture and God's Word of truth God's Word is true regardless of he so called "truths" of the cultural propaganda. Today this propaganda is conveyed with multi-culturalism.
Verse 2 explains that they were saved but not executing God's plan of grace because they did not believe all of the facets of the Gospel because of the cultural propaganda they had believed.
Paul uses the debater's technique and the first class condition of "if", (if and it's assumed to be true for the sake of debate) to assume for the moment that the Corinthians' false belief from their culture that the Gospel did not include a bodily resurrection was true.
While faith in Christ is the only way of salvation, and the Corinthian believers had believed in Christ for eternal life and they now possessed eternal life, as Greeks these Corinthians were unwilling to accept the concept of a physical, literal resurrection of Jesus Christ because it was contrary to the propaganda that their culture taught.
This does not mean that the Corinthians were unsaved, but does mean that part of the benefit of their faith in Christ was inoperative while they rejected that facet of doctrinal truth. In this case they were rejecting the doctrine of resurrection that is a facet of the Gospel message.
Whatever facets of Gospel truth a believer rejects after receiving salvation through faith in Jesus Christa alone that area of unbelief is void of content and therefore does not fulfill its purpose. In other words, you're saved and going to heaven but unable to advance in God's plan as a believer and you will eventually become a reversionist loser if you do not reach the point of believing that facet of God's Word of truth.
Like epoxy glue has two components (resin and hardener), faith has two components (truth and belief). So for faith to work both components must be combined. The first component of faith is knowledge of God's immutable Word of truth aka Bible doctrine or "the faith" and the second is believing it to be true aka faith.
Doctrine is immutably true but in order to be compatible with God's grace policy it must be enabled by belief so even though true it is ineffective for the person who is functioning in unbelief. Mark 9:24; Mark 16:14; Matt 13:58: Rom 3:3;
Faith works in two ways. Positive volition or believing God's truth results in blessing from God and up trends of history; negative volition or unbelief results in conviction, discipline or judgment from God and downtrends of history. Heb 4:11-13;
The Corinthian believers were Greek so they had a problem with the propaganda from their cultural background. They viewed a physical resurrection as abhorrent so they were tempted to reject or deny that facet of the truth of the Gospel.
The Corinthian believers had eternal life on the basis of grace and faith in Jesus Christ alone but by rejecting resurrection as a component of the Gospel message they were missing out on the blessing and tranquility of soul that comes from understanding and having hope (confidence) regarding their own future.
They are also missing a point of God's grace, that resurrection is God's victory. We can do nothing to earn or deserve resurrection. T
he greatest illustration of grace is that the manner and time of both our physical death and resurrection are strictly a matter of God's sovereignty, and therefore are entirely God's victory 1Thes 4:13-18;
We see from the reaction to the Fauchi bug that too many believers in our country don't understand this either. Salvation is not the problem, the problem is post-salvation understanding of doctrinal truth.
After salvation through faith in Christ, rejection or neglect of Bible doctrine results in failure to enter into post-salvation renovation of the thinking means failure to execute God's protocol plan that leads to reversionism.
This failure means a miserable and frustrating life, characterized by all sorts of things such as worry, fear, anxiety, guilt and many other forms of demonic thinking from arrogance.
Failure to execute God's protocol plan is always the result of ignorance of doctrine. Ignorance breeds arrogance. Such believers become loser reversionists who are miserable for their entire life on the earth but they do go to heaven when they die.
It is important to note that for salvation you do not have to believe in resurrection but you do have to believe in the person and the work of Christ on the cross. The cross is the issue Gal 6:14; but resurrection is a facet of the doctrine of the Gospel.
This means that understanding the facets and scope of the Gospel help the believer to comprehend and appreciate salvation, and gives the believer assurance regarding the principle of eternal security.
Paul describes these facets of the Gospel to the believer not to the unbeliever in 1Cor 15:3-4; "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins on the basis of the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was resurrected on the third day on the basis of the Scriptures."
In verse 3 the phrase "for our sins" is the translation of the Greek preposition "huper" plus the genitive of advantage of" ego" and "hamartia".
"Huper" plus the genitive of advantage always expresses substitution. In this case, God's Word of truth teaches the substitutionary spiritual death of Jesus Christ as he was being judged for our sins on the cross.
This phrase is found in three other passage. One is Rom 5:8, "God commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died instead of us [in our place as a substitute for us]."
"According to the Scriptures" should be translated "on the basis of the Scriptures" ("kata" plus the accusative of reference from "graphe").
The salvation work of Christ on the cross is the issue to the unbeliever. He will often learn about resurrection later because resurrection is not generally explained in the communication of the Gospel.
Being buried refers to our Lord's unique, trichotomous physical death that followed His work of salvation on the cross.
The omnipotence of the Father and the omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit were the agents of His resurrection. That same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is the power now available for Church Age believers to execute God's post-salvation protocol plan.
"He was resurrected" is why Jesus Christ did not resurrect Himself. The passive voice of the Greek verb "egairo" means that Jesus Christ received the action of the verb.
He did not raise Himself with His own omnipotence even though He could have done so, as He stated that in John 10:17-18; but the passive voice says He did not, but instead He received resurrection.
Jesus Christ received the restoration of His human spirit to His body in the grave from the omnipotence of God the Father, an agent in the resurrection according to Acts 2:24; Rom 6:4; Eph 1:20; Col 2:12; 1Thes 1:10; 1Pet 1:21.
The omnipotence of the Holy Spirit who restored our Lord's human soul to His body in the grave was also an agent in His resurrection according Rom 1:4; Rom 8:11; 1Pet 3:18;
As an extension of the great power experiment of the Hypostatic Union into the Church Age, the power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is now available to us.
The scope of the Gospel starts with the saving work of Jesus Christ and terminates with His physical resurrection so the good news message of the Gospel extends from salvation through faith in Christ to the resurrection of the believer.
The fact that we are born spiritually dead and commit sins, though true and factual, is not the good news, so it is not a part of the Gospel.
In other words, preaching sin to sinners does not result in salvation. The Gospel is preaching God's solution to sin. 2Cor 5:18-21;
Gospel begins with Christ being judged for our sins for our benefit. He took our place and was judged in our place. This means that preaching sin is not preaching the Gospel. Sin is a fact, and we need to realize that we are spiritually dead from birth and that we do sin, but it is not the Gospel.
Preaching the Gospel is the explanation of salvation in terms of reconciliation, unlimited atonement, redemption, and propitiation.
The unbeliever cannot make a decision for eternal life until he hears that Jesus Christ took his place on the cross and became a substitute for his sins. That is where sin is brought in. Sin is not to be emphasized independently of our Lord's saving work, but is to be related to it because it is why Jesus' work was required for God to be propitiated. 1John 2:2;
Jesus Christ was our substitute and was judged for all of our sins. Jesus "despised the shame of our sins" (Heb 12:2), because of this we have no right to have shame or guilt regarding our sins. If we do we are functioning in arrogance.
Resurrection is a part of the Gospel that is sometimes understood before salvation but more frequently it is not understood at the time of Gospel hearing.
That begs the question of what must a person know to be saved? The information that you need to know to be saved is something about the substitutionary spiritual death of Christ on the cross so that, as an unregenerate person, you can respond to the pattern of Eph 2:8-9. "For by grace are you saved by faith, and that not from yourselves; it is a gift of God, not from works lest any man should boast.
This means that most of the Gospel, including resurrection, is not understood until the person becomes a believer and possesses eternal life. The more information that is understood the better but most people are eternally saved on practically no information.
This emphasizes the importance of simply believing in Jesus Christ for salvation. How much faith does it take to be saved? Just a little bit more than no faith at all because the power is not in the believing it is in the doctrinal truth contained in the Gospel message. Rom 1:16; As always tie issue is always doctrinal truth.