Yesterday’s news isn’t news the next day, even though some media think it is. As a journalist for over 50 years I know, as any reporter worth his salt knows, a new angle is needed to keep even the hottest running story in tomorrow’s headlines.

And if that’s so for the worldly issues of the day, then it’s just as true of whatever “good news” God wants to bring to our attention. That’s why the New Testament actually contains several different gospels, a statement that’s true though sure to meet with a knee jerk denial from those who hold “there is only one gospel in the Bible”.

But there isn’t. Here are some of the main gospels in the New Testament. Notice they are successive, each one adding a further instalment of “good news”.

1. The gospel of the kingdom preached by Jesus and his disciples, then the good news of the Lord’s resurrection from death proclaimed by the 12 apostles.
2. The gospel that “through this man is preached forgiveness of sins and justification from all things for those who believe” (Acts 13:38-39).
3. The good news that even those “dead in sins” can be saved by grace through faith “which is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:5-8).
4. The gospel of the grace of God and the mystery, hitherto hidden but now revealed to the Apostle Paul. Its essence: that all men (Eph. 3: 2-6), may be counted righteous, according to the “promise in Christ by the gospel”.

And there’s at least one more gospel. It is the good news that God has appointed a day in which He will “judge the world in righteousness by that (resurrected) man”, i.e. Jesus (Acts 17:31). This “day” will be a centuries-long age of putting everything back to what it was before sin brought death to man and the Flood spoiled the earth.

What’s more, this “day of Christ” (1 Cor. 1:8, Phil. 1:6 and 10) is when Israel’s hope of restoration will occur. But the “day of Christ” will first minister to the Gentiles, lifting the curse of sin, disease and ending war and poverty. It begins with the realisation of our “blessed hope” that Christ will appear from heaven bringing a blaze of glory upon earth and ushering in his heavenly kingdom (Titus 12:13). As the Old Testament prophets declare this day will be when the curse of unbelief, sin and darkness will be lifted and the earth restored to its pre-Flood pristine beauty (Numbers 14:21).

And, if that isn’t news, and good news at that, I don’t what is. Yet, as said before, because of ignorance of the truth many still insist “there is only one gospel in the Bible”. So let’s study what a “gospel” actually is. Found over 100 times in the New Testament “gospel” translates the Greek noun euangelion and the verb euangelizo. Both mean simply to bring good news.

In ancient Greece an “evangelist” was a messenger bringing news of victory or personal or political news that brought joy. Importantly the content of the message had to be news – that is something not told or known beforehand. Thus, to truly be gospel the news must not only be good; it must also be something “new”, something unrevealed hitherto. In Bible terms it must be an entirely new statement by God Himself the words of which must come freshly spoken from his mouth.

And it is these “freshly spoken words” that man is to live by. No less a person than the Lord Jesus says so: 

It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4).

Notice it is the current word now spoken by God that gives life; yesterday’s commandments and gospels were truth in the time they were spoken but it is what God is saying and doing right now that really saves and redeems us.

So, as believers we need our “daily bread”, emphasis on the word daily. Manna was the miracle food God daily fed Israelites on their wilderness journey. Left uneaten it had worms the next day. Ever wondered why Jesus took up 12 baskets of leftovers from his feeding of the 5,000? My suggested answer: Because it would have spoiled by the next day.

Scriptural fact is that you and I can only be nourished and sustained by the word that right now is “proceeding” out of the mouth of God. To refuse the latest truth spoken by the Lord and cling to truth valid in previous dispensations but now superseded by the Lord’s latest pronouncements is equivalent to telling God to “shut up”.

For example, Noah was told to build an ark the size of an ocean liner but that doesn’t that mean that today you have to make one in your backyard. Obviously not. Jewish people were told by the Apostle Peter to “Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38).

But in sharp contrast Gentiles chosen by God in the current “dispensation of the grace of God” (Eph. 3:1-4) and the “mystery” are told: “And you hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins … even when we were dead in trespasses and sins (He) hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace are ye saved) (Eph. 2: 1 and 5). No repentance or baptism mentioned or required.

Today Christendom longs for but doesn’t see revival. Why? Because almost without exception churches and ministers are feeding the flock “stale bread”, not the fresh-from-his-mouth “good news” God has revealed through the Apostle Paul in his “prison” epistles. The first chapter of Colossians explains this latest gospel which blesses us with:

FORGIVENESS from all sin.

The HOPE laid up for you in heaven.

REDEMPTION from all consequences of sin.

The GRACE of God in TRUTH.

RECONCILED to God though once enemies.

Being MADE MEET to be saints in light.

DELIVERANCE from the power of darkness.

TRANSLATION into the kingdom of “his dear Son”.

Importantly, this gospel is now preached to “every creature under heaven” (Col. 1:23). In Col. 1:5 the apostle calls it “the word of the truth of the gospel” and “the grace of God in truth”.

In short it is the greatest, latest news from God that now there is a “hope laid up for you in heaven”, that is the hope of being raised to live with Christ in the heavens and world to come.

John Dudley Aldworth

You’re welcome to contact me at the email address below.

Email: john.aldworth@hotmail.com

Website: https://www.dayofchristmnistries.com/rss/all.xml