What Is  The Gospel?
By Jim Golden

Installment #1 — The Overview

The word Gospel means good news. It is the kind of phrase that someone would use to make an announcement like, "I have good news, Terry and I are going to have a baby!" Or, "I have good news, I just got a $3,000.00 a year raise, a company car with a gas allowance and a $1,700.00 per month expense account." So when God chose to make the announcement concerning his plan for creation he called it the Gospel or good news. It almost seems absurd to place God’s Gospel in the same category as a company car or an expense account, but never the less his Gospel is truly Good News. Just how good is seldom realized or embraced by mankind until its truth becomes a living reality. These installments are designed to try and not only reveal the full impact of the good news of God, but to help make it a living reality in our lives.

For just a moment let us go back in time approximately 2000 years to a small town in Judea, where the most incredible event ever conceived was getting ready to take place. The human race was about to be invaded by an alien life form. This life form was the only one of his kind. He had no recorded beginning, was absolutely omnipotent and existed outside of time and space. Months earlier he had implanted, in the ovulating human know as Mary, his seed, the seed of an uncreated indomitable life form. And now the time had finally come for her to birth this alien child. He would appear to be a human male child from all outward appearances, but the force of his life would be absolutely not of this world. He would become the progenitor of a new species of beings that had never before existed. While a special place of honor was reserved for him, he, never the less, was to be the prototype for a new race that he would birth. He would walk among these humans, share the frailty of their outward form, become fully acquainted with their pain and suffering, but he was not of this world.This sounds almost like a science fiction novel, yet it is much closer to the true Gospel than the one we have heard preached for generations.

Almost every Christian ministers gives an invitation at the end of their message inviting anyone who wants, to come to Jesus and get saved, but what they are really saying is come to Jesus and get forgiven. I do not want to minimize forgiveness, I simply believe it is tragic that for many it ends there and we stop so short of what the sacrifice of Jesus is really meant to accomplish. It is partially the fear of being heretical that causes us to stop so short of proclaiming the full message of the Gospel. Do we dare proclaim that we are to be just like Jesus in every way? I am not merely speaking of imitation, but transformation. The full Gospel answers so many unanswered questions. Questions like why can’t we heal like Jesus did? Why do we seem so powerless to perform the "greater works" Jesus spoke of in John 14? Why are so many sick, diseased and even dieing among the household of faith? Why aren’t more coming to Christ? Why don’t we love with the same intensity he did?These are all valid questions that we, as "good" Christians, are often afraid to ask. Could it be that we don’t really want to hear the answers? Yet many are beginning to muster the courage to ask them, even if it is under their breath out of pain or frustration. While I have by no means fully experienced the metamorphosis that Paul speaks of to the Corinthians, I have on occasion been allowed to enter this realm that Jesus lived in and I have seen the blind receive their sight and the dead raised to life.

I am therefore compelled to write of these concerns in the hope that the Holy Spirit will begin to activate whatever truth there is in these writings within our lives. While it may be difficult to overcome the indoctrinations of the past, with God all things are possible. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word. How shall we be saved if we do not hear and how shall we hear if there is no preacher? Someone must take the risk of being ostracized or called a heretic to proclaim this Kingdom Gospel of metamorphosis continually until the transformation begins to overtake us. This Pentecostal generation birthed when Peter stood and declared, "This is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel" must live in the NOW of the Word as they did. We must embrace the true reason we were forgiven and what it really means to be made whole, today. Jesus said that his disciples were not of this world though they were in it. He often spoke metaphorically, but I believe this statement was more literal than metaphoric.

The disciples lived a life of intense love and devotion just like him, talked like him and did the works that he did. Could it be that they had understood and embraced the deeper truth of the Gospel? They didn’t just stop at forgiveness or even being healed and delivered, but went on to be transformed into the alien children of God. We must be brutal in our assessments of our salvation experience and ask ourselves, "do I have Jesus or does Jesus have me?" The whole creation groans and travails to be delivered into the hands of these alien creatures — these sons and daughters of God. This is not a new doctrine it has always been in our Heavenly Father’s heart. There is one out there who has done and will do everything he can to hinder the preaching of this Gospel, but he will not win. In fact, he has already lost, Hallelujah! We were forgiven and cleansed that we might be inhabited by this incredible life form we call God. And he is rewriting our DNA at the molecular level until anyone who is in Christ will truly become a NEW CREATURE!

It is important to note than when Jesus referred to the Gospel he also added, of the Kingdom. That was what the Gospel was going to produce.  It was the Gospel of the Kingdom that had to be preached to the all nations and then the end would come.  When he cast out demons with the finger of God then the Kingdom of God was in their midst.  He spent his last forty days on earth after his resurrection revealing to them the Gospel of the Kingdom.  Then after his ascension he sent them the Holy Spirit to continue to reveal to them the truth.   He would, the Spirit, take what was his, Jesus', and make it known or reveal it to them.  I have often wondered what those days of instruction were like.  I personally believe that what he was telling them that they were becoming was so absolutely beyond their grasp that it took all of that time to awaken their hearts and minds to this amazing plan and work of God.  I wonder how long it will take this generation to come into their reality. (Installment Two - The Progenitor) 

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