A WORD OF WARNING TO READERS:
The gospel of Jesus is an idea about which most Christians are very passionate. It is predictable that this series of page will arouse those passions. This arousal will happen because Christians strongly believe that their idea of the gospel is absolutely correct and because what they will learn in this series of pages is that their idea of the gospel is not the same as God’s idea.

These pages will arouse anger in many Christians because God’s word is a consuming fire and a refining fire. Anger, therefore, is the predicted response that Old/First Covenant religious people will experience when they compare the true gospel identified in these pages with the false gospel that they have believed in.

Some, perhaps most, readers will get angry and quit reading. And a few will be humbled to learn God’s idea of the true gospel. Those who are humbled are submitting to God’s plan to refine them by giving them the ability to hear his spoken word. Those who get angry or are unaffected by what they read will remain sick, blind and deaf in their religious convictions.

GOSPEL WORD STUDY
The word “gospel” appears in the New Testament ninety-four times in the NASB version. Gospel does not appear at all in the Old Testament, but the phrase “good news” appears five times.

In the New Testament, the Greek word Euaggelizo is a verb that conveys the idea of bringing or preaching good news or preaching, speaking or bringing the gospel. This word appears fifty-two times.

Another Greek word Euaggelion is a noun that is translated as “good news” and “gospel.” This word appears seventy-three times. The gospel that is a noun, therefore, is a thing, or an idea. And the gospel that is a verb is an activity (i.e. something you do). Together these words convey God’s idea of a dynamic, active gospel — not just an idea.

When Christians think of the gospel, they commonly use it in the noun form:

• • • The gospel is a doctrine about Jesus (i.e. birth, death, and resurrection.)
    • The gospel is the facts of good news about Jesus’ death and resurrection.
    • The gospel is the first four books (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) of the New Testament.
    • The gospel is summarized in a doctrine called the “four spiritual laws.”
    • The gospel focuses on the events of Easter (i.e. Jesus’ death and resurrection.)
    • The gospel in a nutshell focuses on Jesus’ death and resurrection.
    • The gospel is totally oriented to personal salvation and eternal life in heaven.

Christians talk about preaching, sharing or bringing the gospel to lost people. But the gospel they share contains only facts about Jesus. Bible facts are what religious people use to create and promote religion. Bible facts are received and processed in the natural mind, and then acted out in religious activity. This is very different from the true gospel which is communicated by the spirit of God, received in the heart, and activated in spiritual life. Facts bring death, but the spirit brings spiritual life.

Here are the main differences between the Christian gospel and the true gospel:

• • • The false gospel about Jesus results in religious rituals and tradition.
    • The true gospel results in worship in spirit and truth in the heart.

Christians rarely think of the gospel as a verb (i.e. something you do.) And Christians rarely — except for Old Testament prophecies about a messiah — think of the gospel in terms beyond the first four books of the Bible where they learn facts about Jesus. Everything Christians believe hinges on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus found in those first four books. For Christians, the Old Testament is almost irrelevant because it does not include clear references to the human called Jesus. This attitude contrasts with the attitudes and beliefs of New Covenant disciples. The Christian gospel produces fake disciples and the true gospel produces true disciples.

This narrow, exclusive understanding of the gospel gives Christians license to ignore most of the Old Testament. Of course they acknowledge the creation story and the Ten Commandments; they like the idea of tithes and offerings; and they like their favorite stories (e.g. Moses crossing the red sea, Noah and the flood, David and Goliath, etc.). But, beyond these few examples, they do not see the Old Testament as relevant to their idea of the gospel — or to their religion in general because it does not fit neatly into their idea of the gospel.

When Christians profess that all scripture is God-breathed and useful for training in righteousness, they effectively reject what God has said in the new Testament about Old Testament scriptures in the New Testament. Even though Jesus often quoted Old Testament scripture, Christians rarely quote it or read it — except for their favorite stories which change little from what they learned in Sunday school. They say they believe the whole Bible but their reading and preaching habits show that they don’t really believe what they say. They are hypocrites. They are constrained by their narrow concept of their idea of the gospel of Jesus contained in the literal,  written, first four books of the Bible, and never entertain the idea of the true gospel: The full, unlimited expanse of God’s spoken word.

One of the reasons the Christian idea of gospel does not adequately represent God’s concept of gospel is that the Christian gospel does not include the active, “doing” quality that God wants to communicate through Euaggelizo and Euaggelion. Thus, the Christian gospel is exceedingly narrow and limited to a few historical facts about a human person called Jesus. It is not at all like the the word of God which is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword that pierces the heart and reveals the differences between soul and spirit. It effectively says that the all the good news in the Bible is found in the first four books of the New Testament. This is totally wrong thinking.

Here are a few reasons why the Christian gospel is wrong thinking:

• • • • • It implies that the Old Testament has little or no application to salvation and eternal life because it does not directly reference Jesus. (This attitude is reflected in Bibles that only contain the New Testament.)
        • It is an elitist, religious belief that effectively says that Old Testament characters never had access to salvation because they did not know about Jesus.
        • It is an elitist gospel because it says that only Christians have salvation because they believe in Jesus and that no persons, dead or alive, including Jews, have salvation because they do not believe in and trust Jesus.
        • It is a dispensational view of religion that does not understand how God sees time.
        • It says, in effect, that the heroes of faith recognized in Hebrews 11 had faith but did not have salvation because they did not have Jesus.
        • It ignores many Old Testament scriptures that promised salvation to Israelites who were born before Jesus’ time.
        • It implies that faith in the person of Jesus has power for salvation that Old Testament faith does not have.
        • It allows Christians to ignore the two-thirds of the Bible that does not include direct references to Jesus.
        • It ignores the truth that spiritual life is found in words that come from God’s voice.
        • It is based on literal interpretations of the Bible and does not reflect the symbolism of Death, Resurrection, New Life, Salvation, Forgiveness, Heaven and Hell.
        • It does not include God’s requirements for repentance and humility.
        • It ignores God’s many commands to do justice.
        • It ignores the greatest commandments to love God and our neighbors as ourselves.

For all these reasons and more, the Christian gospel is a false gospel.