The Good News of Jesus Christ

by Grant Thorpe

Christians do not have a message of their own making, or an idea which is better than all the others. Very simply, they have been encountered by God–through hearing the word of Jesus Christ. More than this, through this Christ, they have been reconciled to God. The anger they maintained towards him and the threat under which they lived have been dissolved.

Because God has done this, and ensured that his message is announced everywhere by those who love him, no-one needs to be unaware of God or ungrateful for his favour.

The following is a brief statement of the things which Christians believe and proclaim.

The Bible references included are guidance for further reading. They are not a full documenting of what is said as this would require a longer article.

Jesus Christ is the Son of God

When Jesus came into the world, he spoke constantly of God as his Father–and this angered his hearers. He was claiming to be able to speak and act for God. He said that God was ruling wherever he was present.

John 5:16-30; Luke 17:20-21

But what he did was good. Many people were miraculously cured. Many others began to think of themselves quite differently because he loved them. He spoke the truth and did not get trapped by selfish agendas. He assured some that their sins were forgiven. He did not only speak of ‘my Father’ but of ‘your Father’–opening the way for us to know God as he knew God and to rely on him in the same way.

Acts 10:34-40; Luke 7:44-50; John 20:17; 16:23-24

It was because he went on insisting that he was the Son of God that he was crucified. His fellow Jews hated him insisting that he was the one they had to follow. They denied that such a person could fulfil the promises made by God to their patriarchs and prophets.

Mark 14:61-65

So they staged a ‘set up’ court proceeding and persuaded the Romans to execute him–by crucifixion.

God–the Father of this Son–reversed the decision of the people by raising him from the dead. The true identity of Jesus Christ was declared by this. Everything he said must be true. He must have power to put into effect everything that he said God would do through him. We are not just called to believe in something about Jesus but to call on his name. Jesus can act for his Father. He can bring us into relationship with his Father.

Acts 2:32-36; 13:26-33; 22:16

If God can reverse the human decision to kill Jesus, he has also opened up the opportunity for us to choose again. Who is he?

Christ died for our sins

The first apostles said that Jews killed Jesus Christ. They did not hate the Jews in saying this. They were bringing good news. They also said that the Romans rulers and all the nations were included in killing Christ. They could see that what had happened in Jerusalem was not just a revelation of Israel’s blindness but of the hatred of the human race. We don’t want a rival. If Jesus Christ is God’s Son then we have to take notice of him.

Acts 4:26-28

Many things we do show that we are not what we should be. For the most part we are able to hide these things–though others may see them readily enough! God shows us what we are by what we have done to his Son–and what we do to him now by ignoring the one God has honoured. Why do we reject God and his Son?

John 8:39-47

While God wants us to know how bitterly we have hated him, he does not do this to show that he has rejected us. The death of his Son was the revelation of his love for us. We spent our rage on him, but God poured out his love in freely giving him up for us all.

Romans 5:6-8

We may struggle to understand what was happening on the cross but Jesus was clear enough. While he was dying he called out: ‘Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.’ Later, he said: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Then he said: ‘It is finished’ and ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit’. He was on the cross to bring God’s forgiveness to us, to be forsaken by God in our place, to make an end of our sins and establish righteousness and to rely on his Father God to vindicate him.

Luke 23:34, 46; Mark 15:34; John 19:30

After the resurrection, the apostles announced that we may receive forgiveness of sins through calling on Christ’s name. The resurrection is not just God telling the world that his Son was true and right, but it is telling those who trust in Jesus Christ that God has made them right with himself. He approves us as he approves his Son.

Luke 24:47; Acts 10:43; 13:38-39

Christ was raised from the dead

The resurrection enables us to believe in God. Death, and the sin that caused it, is something with which we all have to deal, and if nothing had been done about death, we are still locked into the cycle of wrong doing and its effects.

I Corinthians 15:17; I Peter 1:18-21

Some have said that Christians should abandon faith in a physical resurrection and retain the idea of a resurrection. But the whole point of proclaiming the resurrection is that it happened. The idea is no good to anyone. We live in this world and in this flesh and in the presence of its evil. If nothing has been done about that, nothing of consequence has happened. Evil has triumphed rather than God, and we are left with our endless attempts to mend ourselves and our world.

The lives of many people are terribly mis-shapen by things that have happened to them or things they have done. There seems to be no power to stop the effects of what has happened. Some have become hard or angry, others shallow or uncaring or perhaps despairing.

To have hope for humanity, we must have hope in God. We cannot make it for ourselves. This hope has been brought to life by God raising Jesus from the dead.

Ephesians 2:12-14; I Peter 1:3-5

Christ has been revealed as Lord over the wrong that happens in this world and the death we must all face. What a relief to the uneasy conscience and the wearied ego to discover that someone else has done something for us, taken our place, died in our place, and been raised to declare a new future, for us, and for our race!

Ephesians 1:18-23

Because Christ has been raised from the dead he has been appointed judge of all things. Someone like us, who must die, can’t argue with someone who has been dead and been raised up again–by God. It is God’s will that Jesus Christ have the last word about what happens to us.

Acts 10:39-43; 17:31; Romans 14:9; II Corinthians 5:10; II Timothy 4:1

God has made him Lord over all things

The Roman governor who tried Jesus asked him if he was a king. He said he was born for this and that all who wanted the truth would come to him. After he was raised from the dead, Jesus said that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to him and that his followers were to teach all nations to obey him. His apostles proclaimed that God had made Jesus Christ Lord. Jesus had not just been raised from the dead but was raised to sit at the right hand of God. From there, he poured out God’s Spirit to bring life to those who believed in him.

John 18:37; Matt. 28:18-20; Acts 2:32-36

The authority of Christ is not for changing structures, or solving problems or to fulfil any human agenda. Christ came to make us children of God and to fulfil all God’s promises to the world. Structures may change and problems may be solved when people yield to him but this will be the outside of his working, not its heart. The Son understands all the Father wants for us and his world and will move heaven and earth to give it to us and to the Father. It is the authority of love and works by love.

John 1:11-12; I Corinthians 15:24-28; II Corinthians 1:18-20

While he was among us, Jesus encountered the evil powers that oppose God. He cast out evil spirits from people. He released those who had been bound in sickness by them. He submitted to their rage in his own death. By being raised from death, he has been declared Lord over all the powers that have set themselves against God.

Acts 4:24-31; 10:38

Those who know Christ is Lord know their shame is ended. They are content in the knowledge that their present life is under the authority of Christ and that he will lead them. In this way, they will share in the victory of Christ. They cannot be pressed into pretending they are something they are not. Rather, they have the love of God in their hearts.

Romans 5:1-5

If all this sounds too amazing, there is more. Christians know that only God could do what Christ has done. They have seen the glory of God in the face of Christ. They worship him as Lord–one with the Father in being God.

II Corinthians 4:3-7

Jesus, the Lord, will return in our history, to bring it to its goal and to subdue all the enemies of God. Jesus assured us of this himself. It is the hope all Christians have.

Matthew 25:31-46

We can and must change our minds

We need not have any hazy ideas about God. We do not have to guess or ponder or reason or meditate or formulate. God has spoken to us.

We may have feared to enquire or to come. There is no need for this. Our God is for us, not against us.

We may have thought our life was too bad or too settled or too far removed from God. This is not so. Our Lord, Jesus Christ, has taken all that we were–to die for us, and risen from the dead to give us ourselves back–purified and belonging to the Father.

Change your mind! Believe in God–through Christ. You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and all these things will be yours. You will know the truth, not as a spectator but as one who participates in the family of God.

Acts 3:19