From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Part 3 of a series. Read part 2.

The Gospel is the Gospel because God became man and died for sinners. 

As we consider our theme passage in 1 Corinthians 15, we see, first of all, that the essence of the Gospel is to be found in Jesus Christ. Paul begins by saying this in verse 3:

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ -

We must stop right there. Christ is the central focus of the Gospel. There is no Gospel without Jesus Christ.

He is the pre-existent God. John 1:1-2 tells us, "In the beginning was the Word," - Jesus Christ - "and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God."

This is the keystone statement in all of Scripture concerning the person of Jesus Christ. The theological liberals, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other false religions deny it. The Jehovah's Witnesses have perverted this statement by adding a word that does not appear in the original language, claiming that verse one reads, "and the Word was a god." But the Holy Spirit's declaration through the Apostle John is direct and unequivocal: Jesus Christ is God Himself. Much of the mountain of evidence for Christ's deity is to be found in the pages of John's Gospel.

Jesus Himself unequivocally stated that He was God. In John 8:58, "Jesus said to them, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.' " Here Jesus declared Himself to be Jehovah, the "I AM". In other words, Jesus declared Himself to be Yahweh of the Old Testament. Yahweh or Jehovah is the proper name for God that is translated "Lord" over 6,500 times in the Old Testament.

Throughout both the Old and New Testaments, God reveals Himself through His names. The focus of the New Testament is on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, God now manifest in the flesh. But in the Old Testament the names of God are manifold. Some of them are names that God uses to identify Himself. Others are names that are ascribed to God by men. The meanings of the names of God reveal Him to us. It is largely by His names that we understand who God is. It is by the names of God that we understand His character and attributes; we understand His decrees; we understand His ways of governing His creation; and we understand His ways of dealing with individuals and nations, both believers and unbelievers. It is also important to note that all of the names of God in the Bible are masculine names.

But among all the names of God in the Old Testament, there is actually only one proper name of God, and that name is Yahweh or Jehovah, which literally means, "I AM." By the name Yahweh or Jehovah, God identifies Himself as the self-existent One. He identifies Himself as the One who is eternal, immortal, and unchangeable. He is the One who is dependent on nothing else and on no one else. And thus, in Exodus 3:14-15, God declares to Moses,

"I AM WHO I AM." And He said, "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.' " Moreover God said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: 'Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.' This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations."

And it is by the name Yahweh or Jehovah that we understand the significance of the many "I AM" declarations that Jesus Christ makes in the New Testament Gospels, especially in the Gospel of John.

He says, in John 8:18, "I am One who bears witness of Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me."

John 6:35 - "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst."

John 8:12 - "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life."

John 10:9 - "I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved..."

John 10:11 - "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep."

John 11:25 - "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live."

John 15:1 - "I am the true vine..."

John 14:6 - "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

Jesus continually declared Himself to be the "I AM." He unequivocally declared His equality with Jehovah. And so it is that in John 8:58, Jesus is saying that He is the "I AM" - He is Yahweh - He is Jehovah - He is the one, true, living, and eternal God. The Jews who heard Jesus make this declaration immediately knew that He was making Himself equal to God. He was saying that He is God Himself. And that is why, we read in the next verse, John 8:59, they took up stones to try to stone Him.

Jesus Christ is also God the Son. His sonship has to do with His relationship to God the Father and not with creation. Jesus is not, as some false religions teach, a lesser deity or simply a unique human being who was created at a later time. He is the eternal God. He is one with the Father from all eternity.

"How can God have a son?" the Muslims protest. They consider this question to be their irrefutable argument against the deity of Christ and the teachings of Christianity. The problem is that the Islamic concept of sonship is strictly naturalistic. To produce a son, they say, God would have to engage in a physical relationship with a wife. They consider this idea the worst sort of blasphemy.

For this reason, Muslims respect Jesus - or Isa, as Jesus is known in Islam - as a prophet, but they reject His deity, and they teach that Mohammed is the greatest prophet, Jesus being subordinate to Mohammed. They deny that Jesus died on the cross or was raised from the dead. They confront Christians very aggressively on these points. All of this unbelief stems from what Muslims consider to be their unanswerable question, "How can God have a son?"

But Christians have the answer to Islam's "great objection" - in the infallible Word of God.

The Bible teaches that the sonship of Jesus Christ is relational, not naturalistic. God did not produce a son; God has always been the Son, the second person of the Trinity. Being born of the virgin Mary did not make Jesus the Son of God any more than it made Mary the wife of God. The purpose of Christ's virgin birth was to facilitate God's supreme act of mercy, the entrance of the eternally existent Son into the world in human form to die for sinners. As 1 John 3:8 tells us, "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested" - more literally, He was "placed on visible display" before the world.

And God the Son, Philippians chapter two tells us, came into this world, cloaking His glory, taking on the form of a servant. God the Son was obedient to the Father in all things. Jesus said repeatedly during His earthy ministry, "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me" (John 6:38).

As Jesus came to the end of His earthly ministry in John 17, He prayed, "Father, I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work that You gave me to do." As He faced the cross, He said, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:39). God the Son was obedient to the Father even to the point of dying on a cross for our sins. And that is what Paul is proclaiming here in 1 Corinthians chapter 15: "For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ" - God Himself - "died for our sins according to the Scriptures."  The deity of Jesus Christ is at the center of the Gospel.

But not only is the person of Jesus Christ of the essence of the Gospel. His work to save sinners is also at the center. We shall see this as we continue.

Next: The Essence of the Gospel is that "Christ Died"

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