A MORE BEAUTIFUL GOSPEL

Did you know that when Paul preached the Gospel to Gentiles he never mentioned Hell or Sin? Sometimes he never even mentioned Jesus by name at all.

Instead, Paul told them about the God who “has shown you kindness” and who “fills your hearts with joy” and who was “not far from each one of us”.

Seriously.

Just read Acts 14 when Paul speaks to the Gentiles in Lystra, or Acts 17 when he speaks to the Athenians and see for yourself. No mention of Hell, no mention of their sins, and hardly any mention of Jesus.

What you’ll see is Paul expounding on this beautiful God who calls us “His children” and “in whom we live and move and have our being”. 

You’ll see Paul describe a God who is our Father, and who “gave rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying (our) hearts with food and gladness”.

You’ll hear Paul entice people to discover “the unsearchable riches of Christ” and to know a God who loves them more than they ever imagined.

Isn’t that refreshing?

Wouldn’t it be great if those people who hold signs and scream at people through megaphones were expressing these same ideas about a God who is good and who loves us? 

Wouldn’t people want to find out more about a God like that?

I know I would.

-kg

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“We are also men of the same nature as you, and preach the gospel to you that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In the generations gone by He permitted all the nations to go their own ways; and yet He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” [Acts 14:15-17]

““Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. ²³ For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. ²⁴ The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; ²⁵ nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; ²⁶ and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,²⁷ that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; ²⁸ for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ ²⁹ Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. ³⁰ Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, ³¹ because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” [Acts 17:22-31]

EQUAL TO

"The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word." [Hebrews 1:3]

We've looked at how Jesus was "Greater Than" Moses, and the Temple, and Solomon, and everything else. We've looked at how Jesus was "Less Than" the Father, and the Angels, and became a servant to all. But now, we want to explore the equality that Jesus has with the Father.

It's one of the great mysteries of the New Testament, actually. How could Jesus be "the exact representation" of God and still say "the Father is greater than me"?

Part of this involves the self-limiting nature of Jesus in His incarnation. Jesus was "in very nature God" but decided to lay all of that aside to become one of us. This is when He became "less than" the Father, and even the Angels. In fact, this is why the Incarnation is such a miracle. The creator became the created. The unlimited willingly limited Himself. The One who lives forever took on mortality and tasted death.

Why? Because He would rather die than to live without us. So, He laid aside His Glory, and took off His great power like a robe, and humbled Himself to become a tiny embryo nestled in the womb of a poor girl in Palestine.

His identity never changed, however. He was still God, but He had taken on flesh, and thereby had wrapped Himself in a single location in space and time. This is when He became "Emmanuel" which means "God with us". This is when "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." [John 1:14]

As Paul reminds us:

"[Jesus] Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing..." [Phil. 2:6-7]

And the Apostle John writes:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." [John 1:1]

So, Jesus is "Equal To" the Father in every way, and yet at the same time is "Less Than" the Father [in a different sense] and still "Greater Than" everything - and everyone - else in all Creation.

Meditating on these three characteristics of Jesus only makes us love Him more and fall to our knees as we begin to realize the "unsearchable riches of Christ" are even more astounding than we ever imagined.

"Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." - Jesus [John 14:9]

-kg