Page 43 - Discipleship Ministries Student E-Book

I Corinthians 15:3-4 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for
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our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in
accordance with the Scriptures…

Paul lays out the three elements of the Gospel. The first one is that Jesus “died for our sins.” Romans
3:23 tells us “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The first part of the Gospel informs
us the reason for Christ’s sacrifice…because of man’s sin. For the Gospel to become real, a person must
first acknowledge the hopelessness of guilt before God in order for forgiveness to take place. He must
understand that the “wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). This is the foundational truth upon which the
Gospel is built, and it is the starting point of sharing the Gospel with others.

Second, the person and work of Christ are the essential components of the gospel. Jesus Christ was
the Messiah, the “God-man” who became flesh. He lived a sinless life and kept the Law of God perfectly
on our behalf. Then he died as a lawbreaker, but his death was a substitutionary death, meaning he
died in our place. Sin against the God of justice required an infinite blood sacrifice. Man, who is finite,
could never pay the infinite debt owed, so Christ, who is infinite, paid the penalty of infinite hell for
every man. Jesus paid the debt we owe so that we might have the forgiveness of sin offered to us by
God.

The third aspect of the Gospel is the resurrection of Christ. Because Jesus was resurrected to life, we
now have proof in the power of God and in the Father’s acceptance of His Son’s death for us. Jesus
Christ transcended death and promises those who receive the Gospel by faith to do the same: to
transcend from earthly life to eternal life.

The Gospel is offered to every person as a free gift (Romans 5:15, 6:23) which cannot be earned by the
good works of the recipient. To work for a free gift negates the “free” and “gift” aspect of the Gospel. If
a person could work to obtain salvation, it would be a payment for the works. But the Gospel is a free
gift and cannot be obtained by any work of a person. And the Gospel is “the power of God that brings
salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, then to the Gentile” (Romans 1:16).

So, in a presentation of the Gospel, the sin of all men, the death of Christ on the cross to pay the penalty
for sin, and the resurrection of Christ to provide eternal life to those who follow Him are the essential
components. Any other message is a false Gospel. We will go into more detail of this aspect of
discipleship later in our study.

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