The Gospel in a Nutshell
Part Two in a Series of Three
We find the whole plan of salvation “in a nutshell” in Ephesians 2:4-6. In the first three verses of this chapter the apostle Paul paints a very dark, dismal, and hopeless picture of mankind. He does this because the good news of salvation that God obtained through Jesus Christ is not for good people; it is for sinners who need a Savior.
In 1 Timothy 1:15 Paul says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” He is talking about sinners, one hundred percent sinners, as we all are. For us to receive the gift of salvation and to make the plan of salvation, obtained in Jesus Christ, effective to us individually, God first has to destroy all confidence that man has in himself in terms of salvation.
Sin is a deceiver. It deceives us into thinking that we can save ourselves by our good works. But the Bible is clear: “There is no one righteous, not even one … there is no one who does good, not even one” [Romans 3:9-12].
Discouraged?
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians was a prison letter. He had been the pastor of Ephesus for about three years, but now he was imprisoned in a Roman dungeon for preaching Christ. Many of the members of the Ephesus church became very discouraged. They thought, If God is not able to protect our pastor, the great apostle Paul who is languishing in a Roman dungeon, what hope is there for lay people like us?
So Paul wrote this wonderful letter, which some call the “queen” of Paul’s epistles. In Ephesians 2:1-3, he reminds the Ephesian Christians that they were not saved because they were good. They were sinners, both by performance and by nature — but they were saved by grace. https://seconcoming.org
The church at Ephesus was a mixture of Gentiles and Jews, and in Ephesians 2:1-3 Paul is addressing the Gentile believers. “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.” In other words, they had no spiritual life before they were converted. The King James Version adds, “And you hath he quickened [made alive],” but you will notice that those words are in italics, which means this is a supplied statement and is not in Paul’s original text.
In verse 2, Paul goes on to speak of their former sins “in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient [to the gospel].” He is saying, You were sinners by nature, as well as you were sinners also by performance. Whichever way you want to look at it, you were sinners.
In verse 3, Paul says to his fellow Jews, “All of us also lived among them at one time [not only you Gentiles, but even we Jews who lived among you Gentiles], gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects [children] of wrath.” In other words, our condition as Jews is the same as that of the Gentiles. We, both Jews and Gentiles, are sinners by nature and sinners by performance. Also, in Romans 3:23 Paul says, “There is no difference [between Jew and Gentile], for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Alive from the Dead!
After painting this dark, dismal picture, Paul introduces the wonderful news of salvation in Ephesians 2:4: “But [in spite of the fact that we are all sinners, worthy of condemnation and death] because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved.” According to this verse, it is because of God’s great love for us that we have been redeemed in Jesus Christ. The foundation, the source of our salvation, is the love of God.
An Alien Love
Here is where a major problem exists, because the word Paul uses for love is a word that does not have an equivalent in our English language. We have only one word for love in English. Whether we talk about love between husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend, love we have for our pets or food, or the type of love displayed in fiction and movies, we use the same word.
Therefore, when we read 1 John 4:8, “God is love,” we project these human ideals of love onto God. The moment we do that we pervert the biblical concept of God’s love, and by extension we pervert the gospel. The word Paul used is agape, one of four words in the Greek language that he could have chosen for “love.” To define God’s love he chose the noun agape, which was obscure among the secular Greeks, but is the word used in the New Testament to describe God’s love.
“God is agape,” and it is this agape that is the foundation of our salvation. It is extremely important that we understand agape love because it is upon this basis that God saved us. If we project human love onto God, it is guaranteed that we will pervert the gospel; we will fail to understand the infinitely good news of salvation. There are two major areas in which human love and God’s love are not only different, but are exact opposites. It is only as we understand the love of God as revealed in the New Testament that we can understand the good news of salvation, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f7mBt-hcLE&list=PLzdrN4ZnrM5Y3-3rnnzyl5ToI-0WuXGPj&index=2
- Conditional Love (“I’ll Love You If…”).Human love is conditional, which means that it depends on beauty or goodness and, therefore, it needs to be aroused. Human love does not love another automatically. The object to be loved has to be good or appealing to us because human love expects some benefit in return. We love only if we are loved. If we become enemies, our love disappears.
Human love is the wrong foundation for the gospel because if we project this kind of conditional love onto God, then the gospel is no longer good news. It becomes good advice, telling us that unless we are good, Jesus will not take us to heaven. This contradicts the good news of the gospel.
- Unconditional Love (“I Love You in Spite of…”).In complete contrast to conditional human love, God’s love (agape) is unconditional; it is spontaneous; it is uncaused and independent of our goodness. Paul explains this love of God when he tells the Christians in Rome: “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” [Romans 5:5]. Then he explains this love of God in a unique way by contrasting it with human love.
Powerless on Our Own
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless [or helpless], Christ died for the ungodly” [Romans 5:6]. The word “ungodly” means “wicked.” We were helpless, incapable of saving ourselves, but Christ died for us because Christ’s love is unconditional.
In Romans 5:7 Paul describes human love: “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.” Human beings have been known to lay down their lives for a loved one, a friend, or their beloved country, but even this is rare.
In verse 8, he describes God’s love in complete contrast to human love, which is limited only to those who are good: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Christ died for us while we were help less and wicked. He redeemed us. This is the incredible truth about God’s love.
In verse 10, Paul goes one step further: “For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled [past tense] to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” That is why God’s love, which is unconditional, is the foundation of our salvation. Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:4 that it is because of this love that God is able to redeem us.
Beyond ‘Until Death Do Us Part’
Human love is changeable as well as conditional, therefore it fluctuates and is unreliable. Peter was sincere when he told Jesus in the upper room, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you” [Matthew 26:35]. But when the human love that he had for Christ was tested a few hours later, he disowned Jesus, not once or twice, but three times, the third time with cursing and swearing.
It is because human love is changeable, unreliable, and fluctuating that there is so much divorce in our country. Men and women fall in love with each other and get married, but within a few years end up in the divorce court. But God’s love is changeless. In Jeremiah 31:3 God says to the rebellious Jews, “I have loved you with an everlasting love” [emphasis ours].
In 1 Corinthians 13:8 we read, “Love [agape] never fails.” In John 13:1 we are told that Jesus loved his disciples to the very end, in spite of the traitor Judas and the self-centered motivation of the rest. In Romans 8:35-39, Paul says, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” He says that in times of crisis we will feel forsaken, but the fact is, “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The Upside Down Kingdom
God’s love is changeless, unconditional, and finally, self-emptying. It seeks not its own. Because of this love, Jesus, who him self is God, stepped down lower and lower. He became a human being and then stepped down even lower to be obedient to the death of the cross so that you and I might be saved. He loved us to the very end. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8:9, “Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”
Paul tells us in Philippians 2:6-8 that he “made himself nothing” in order to be our Savior.
In complete contrast, human love is self-seeking and egocentric; therefore it is always seeking a higher place. Economically, religiously, educationally, socially, man is always trying to raise himself higher and higher because he wants to be number one. In complete contrast, God stepped down lower and lower for us. That is the basis of our salvation.
But the fact that God loves us unconditionally is not enough to save us. God is holy and righteous; therefore, he cannot justify the sinner without maintaining His integrity regarding His law.
“The Gospel in a Nutshell” J. Sequeira
