Image Born Gospel

What is it?

The good news is that:

• The one and only God who is holy made us in His image to know Him (Gen. 1:26-28).

• But we sinned and cut ourselves off from Him (Gen. 3; Rom. 3:23).

• In His great love, God became a man in Jesus, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross, thus fulfilling the law Himself and taking on Himself the punishment for the sins of all those who would ever turn from their sin and trust in Him (John 1:14; Heb. 7:26; Rom. 3:21-26, 5:12-21).

• He rose again from the dead, showing that God accepted Christ’s sacrifice and that God’s wrath against us had been exhausted (Acts 2:24, Rom. 4:25).

• He now calls us to repent of our sins and trust in Christ alone for our forgiveness (Acts 17:30, John 1:12). If we repent of our sins and trust in Christ, we are born again into a new life, an eternal life with God (John 3:16).

• He is gathering one new people to Himself among all those who submit to Christ as Lord (Matt. 16:15-19; Eph. 2:11-19).

Where is it in the Bible?

Romans 1-4 contains one of the fullest expositions of the gospel in all of Scripture, and 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 contains a succinct summary of the gospel.

Why is it important?

• A biblical understanding of the gospel is important because the gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, and it is the only way for sinful people to be reconciled to a holy God.

• Not only that, but everything in a church flows from its understanding of the gospel, whether preaching, counseling, discipleship, music, evangelism, missions, and on.

CRU (www.cru.org) says it this way:

God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life!

Man is sinful and separated from God. Therefore, he cannot know and experience God's love and plan for his life.

Jesus Christ is God's only provision for man's sin. Through Him, you can know and experience God's love and plan for your life.

We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Then we can know and experience God's love and plan for our lives!

Here's why the singularity of Jesus matters (By A. M. LaMouria):

There is One God who has always existed, always will; created all that is, and rules with absolute goodness, righteousness and justice over all.  His name is "The Lord God Almighty" or Yahweh!

God created the first man and woman in His own Image for the purpose of glorifying Him through the expression of their lives and the stewardship of their gifts and responsibilities.

There was one restriction placed on the first man and woman in their perfect existence, to abstain from eating the fruit of a certain tree.  I don't think it was a test. Leviticus 19 and Revelation give us reason to reflect that either the tree or the humans weren't ready for consumption of the fruit yet, but whatever - God had His own reasons for this.  We do know that abstaining for that time was necessary for a perfect relationship with God.

The woman was seduced by Satan to reject Gods command as good.  The man followed his wife and directly disobeyed God's command to abstain.  In doing so, Man was disobedient to God and woman was deceived.  Both sinned by placing their own rational thoughts and desires above God's command, thus rejecting His absolute authority in their lives through pride.

The first man and woman "fell" from a state of sinless perfection where they were able to reflect the Image of God as perfectly as God intended.  The result of this fall was a state of "broken" existence, where they no longer bore the Image of God as He intended them to.  They also surrendered their position as prime "rulers" of the earth, to the one who tempted them, Satan.

From that point on, what was broken became worse.  Broken Images gave birth to broken Images which grew in their separation from God.  Only God's direct intervention prevented mankind from becoming completely defiled and worthless.  Mankind became more and more broken, or "depraved".

Every human since, is born into and remains in this depraved state of brokenness, unable to honor, glorify, or have a relationship with God.  This includes you and me.  There is no hope for us to better our situation.  We are destined for a punishment of eternal consequence, which the Bible describes as a destruction by "fire" and a "lake of sulfur".

In the fulness of time, as He had always intended, God took on human nature while maintaining His divine nature - in order to restore the Image of God in humanity and bring this spiritual regeneration to those He elected for salvation.  This salvation results in eternal life in what will be a perfect New Creation with Christ as King. The Bible calls this the New Heavens and the New Earth.  Our hope as Christians is not a life in the clouds as angels with harps - it is a literal life on a literal earth, only new and perfected in every way under Christ's eternal reign.  But why the assertion that Jesus is the only way to get there?

The question is more clear when asked this way: Why the God-Man?  

It was necessary for God to become human in order to provide an acceptable sacrifice for humanity through His own death.  Only a human could permanently provide an acceptable sacrifice for humanity.  Only a perfect Image could redeem an Image Bearer.  However, it was also necessary that the sacrifice be powerful and sufficient enough to be applied to (potentially) all of humanity.  Only God could be such a potent and sufficient sacrifice.  Thus the savior of Humanity had to be a God-Man (both God and man).  The God-Man incarnated is Jesus the Christ.  It is His Image we were made to bear.  Only Jesus could repair an Image that is His alone.  This makes Jesus the only acceptable and sufficient Savior for anyone desiring eternal life via a relationship with God.  No other religion or name of any other so-called redeemer or teacher offers such a holistic solution for man's problem with evil and sin.

It is only by the Irresistible Grace of God that any human being can realize this gift. It comes by recognizing their own brokenness, then expressing faith in Jesus, then trusting His sufficient sacrifice for their predicament, and then repenting and seeking fellowship with God via Jesus Christ.  This is only possible by the power of the Holy Spirit, not by human effort. Jesus said He would abide with us always, never abandoning us or forsaking us once this transaction has occurred. It will always remain based on His righteousness and completed work, not on our efforts to maintain it!

Once a human being has been offered this Grace from God, that human being is saved once and for all eternity.  There will not be any angry people in Hell who wanted to be saved, but couldn't be.  

Only God's grace can turn a depraved heart toward recognizing a need of salvation and desiring it.  If you have that sense, you can know it is God's call to you and nothing less.  His call and His grace is irresistible.  For this reason, a redeemed human being cannot be lost or lose their salvation, regardless of the state of their fellowship with God, because it was never yours to lose, it has always been completely in Gods hands and of His choosing.  When you realize this, you can understand why Grace is so moving and powerful.

It is important to note that we will all continue to sin, but our desire to sin will change into a desire to be righteous.  Being out of fellowship with God will happen sometimes.  It happens because of disobedience for a time and is a result of continuing to live in the broken world with our broken body and mind, even though our spirit has been eternally renewed.  We will not be fully freed from sin until Christ returns for us and we are physically and mentally renewed to match our spiritual renewal.  Until then, the Spirit of God will convict us of our sin and our desire will always be to turn back to God and have fellowship with Him - even if we don't want to do the thing being asked of us.  That is one of the ways we can be assured of our salvation!  This changed desire is what it means to be "freed from slavery to sin."

It is also important to note that immaturity of faith is not "lostness."  Immaturity can be because of newness to the faith or because of disobedience to learning the Word or absence of good teaching.

Likewise, Maturity of faith is not "salvation."  Maturity comes through obedience to the Word to learn the Word.  However, with deeper maturity will come stronger and stronger fellowship.  Fellowship is a sign of maturity in Christ and the understanding of salvation, but not a sign of salvation itself.  One can be saved, sing praise songs, read the Bible, and still go a long time without having fellowship with God.  

Strive to fellowship with Him.  This is the joy and source of being an Image Bearer. He is the only way!

May He cause His light to shine upon you, and may you live to glorify Him in response as the Image Bearer you were made to be.