The Lost Gospel?

By Matt Rose
http://www.mattrosewritings.net/

"The days are coming," declares the LORD,"when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them," declares the LORD.
"This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time," declares the LORD.
"I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor or say to one another, 'Know the LORD,'
because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD.
"For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." (Jeremiah 31:31-34, NIV)
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. (Ezekiel 36:25-27, NIV)
Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." (Isaiah 30:21, NIV)
Have we lost the Gospel? Are we missing the point? As I look around today, I think that, at least on some level, we have. And if we aren't hearing the Gospel, then what are we hearing? It's a frightening question.
Let's go back to Eden for a moment. God's creation was very good (Genesis 1:31). In fact, the Hebrew word translated "very" could be translated "vehemently" as well. In other words, God's creation was much, much more than just good. When our first parents walked in that garden, things were as they were meant to be. God had breathed the breath of life into Adam, and He had created Eve from one of Adam's ribs. They both had God's breath in them. God's Spirit. God's life. They lived because God's life was in them. It's hard to even wrap our heads around a very good (understatement) creation, because we've only lived on this side of the tree. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Here's the thing. God never intended for us to have to know the difference between good and evil. And God never intended for us to have to pick between the two. At first, Adam and Eve had God's life in them, and everything was good. God gave Adam and Eve the capacity for pleasure, and when they enjoyed God's creation, they enjoyed God Himself. No matter what they did, whether eating and drinking or walking and talking, it brought them pleasure, and their pleasure glorified God and brought Him pleasure.
But when the serpent tempted them, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and suddenly they had an awareness of both good and evil. For the first time, they knew nakedness. For the first time, they knew shame. For the first time, they wanted to do something to make themselves look good before God, when only moments before, every single thing they did was good. Because His life was their life. But in one moment, everything good became stained with sin--with evil. In one moment, a burden was placed upon Adam and Eve--and now upon us as well. A burden God never intended us to carry. The burden of knowing both good and evil. The burden of having to choose between the two. The burden of having to try to please God by our actions.
It's not much different today. "Do you still sin even though you've prayed the 'sinner's prayer?' Then try harder. Be determined. Be disciplined. Work harder." Is that really the Gospel?! Is that the abundant life Jesus promised us?! Dear reader, that is not any sort of good news, and it is definitely not God's Gospel!
In the old covenant, God gave a written law to His people. Ravi Zacharias has described the Law as a mirror: you can look into a mirror and see the dirt on your face, but you cannot put your face against that mirror to get rid of the dirt. This was the way the Law worked; it told the people the difference between right and wrong, but it was powerless to help them pick what was right. It was powerless to make them righteous.
This is why the verses at the top are so significant. God promised His people that one day they would have God's Law written on their hearts and minds instead of tablets of stone. God promised that He would give them His Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit would cause them to follow God's Law.
The beauty of the Gospel is this: Jesus Christ has taken our unrighteousness and has given us His righteousness instead. He has also given us His Holy Spirit, and, based on the Scriptures above, that means we will keep the Law. Not because we focus on the rules--on what's right and what's wrong. But because God's life--God's Spirit inside us will lead us to do the things God desires for us to do.
Paul Washer once gave an illustration that describes perfectly the idea of following rules instead of being led by the Spirit: Suppose you are a shepherd, and there is a wolf that keeps attacking your sheep. You decide to build a cage, and you capture the wolf. What great news! The wolf is no longer eating sheep! But what do you suppose might happen if you let that wolf out the cage? That's right. He would go back to eating sheep. Even though you were able to keep him from eating sheep while he was in the cage, you could not change that wolf's desires. In the same way, we can use rules as a cage. We can keep ourselves from "sin" by following all the rules, but that does not mean we are saved. It does not mean our hearts have been changed. It does not mean that we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts and leading us to follow God's Law.
Think of Jesus' words in Matthew 5. "You have heard it said, [...] but I tell you [...]." He said it's not enough to say you haven't murdered if you've hated someone in your heart. It's not enough to say you haven't committed adultery if you've looked at someone lustfully. Following the rules is not enough. Your heart must be pure. And this will not happen unless you are regenerated (brought to spiritual life) by the Holy Spirit. This is why salvation is a greater miracle than any healing, greater than a gift of tongues, greater than anything else you can think of. Because nothing is more miraculous than taking what was spiritually dead and bringing it to spiritual, everlasting life!
Are you alive because God's life is in you? Or are you the wolf in the cage, fighting your nature to follow the rules? Are you trying to do all the right things to prove to yourself--and everyone else--that you are a Christian? God sent His Son to set free those who were captive to sin and death, not to lock them in a cage, making them choose right over wrong by sheer willpower. God sent His Son to bring us back to Eden. God sent His Son so we could have life. God's life. And if we have God's life in us, we can trust that what we do is good, "for it is God who works in [us], both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13, ESV).
http://www.mattrosewritings.net/