RECEIVING THE GOSPEL
Richard J Gray
1 Corinthians 15: 1-8
Colossians 2: 5-7
Acts 2: 37-39
I felt impressed to speak about the way the gospel is to be received. What is it that we receive? Speaking very simply, the gospel is not just a passive thing. It involves what God has done, a great and wonderful thing, but it also involves movement on our side: it is to be received. We are to receive the blessing. Paul says to the Corinthians, “I make known to you, brethren, the glad tidings which I announced to you, which also ye received”. They had received the gospel. He goes on to speak about what he himself had received from the Lord: “For I delivered to you, in the first place, what also I had received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures”. We are indebted to the apostle Paul for the light of the glad tidings that we preach, Paul’s glad tidings. In that way we see Christ in glory. Paul received it. He says elsewhere that he “was not disobedient to the heavenly vision” (Acts 26: 19); he was faithful to pass on the gospel that he had received. The other apostles had preached as well. They had received things directly from the Lord. Paul particularly received light from the Lord; it is for the gentiles; you might say for persons such as you and me, that we might come into the blessing of the glad tidings. The thought of reception, of receiving the gospel, is very important. It is not just that we hear the word and say that it is good and important, and we agree with it; the question is whether we have received it. That is my simple impression.
I was thinking firstly of the greatness of what God has given. If we receive a gift, we think about the gift itself and the giver; the Giver is God Himself. Paul speaks here about what he had received as to the glad tidings, “Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he was raised the third day, according to the scriptures”. Paul does not enlarge upon it here, but reading these verses you get a sense of the scope of what has been given, the greatness of the sacrifice that was involved in the work of Christ. How remarkable that is when you think of the gospel going out. How great the need of man, your need and mine as sinners. Paul presents One who has died for our sins; how remarkable! The gospel message is well known to us, but it should never cease to amaze us that God has moved in this way in order to bring about salvation for guilty sinners. It says in Romans, “we being still sinners, Christ has died for us”, chap 5: 8. How impressive that is. The giving involves that One has taken your place and died in your stead: “which also I had received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures; and that he was buried”. A great cost is involved in the gospel going out and salvation being available to all: the Lord Jesus bore sins in His body on the tree and went into death. Burial was really the complete matter; the One who had been here went out of sight in burial.
He teaches His disciples as to the way He would be rejected and “delivered up into the hands of sinners, and be crucified, and rise the third day”, Luke 24: 7. You think of the Lord Jesus being buried, a very sobering thought, that He should go into the heart of the earth. Jonah speaks of that prophetically:
I went down to the bottoms of the mountains;
The bars of the earth closed upon me for ever,
Jonah 2: 6.
Burial is a final matter. Man is a sinner, he has to go completely out of sight, and the Lord Jesus took all that matter on: He was buried. It is as if the apostle, as setting out the gospel, received a sense of the greatness and completeness of it; that the matter of our sins was dealt with on the cross and the question of death was dealt with. I speak carefully; it was no light matter; the Lord Jesus was buried and then “he was raised the third day, according to the scriptures”. The Lord Jesus has shed His precious blood; He has been raised the third day; He has broken the power of death. The scripture tell us He has been raised up, and has ascended to the highest place of glory, Eph 4: 10. That is all involved in what God has given.
Paul says to the Romans, “He who, yea, has not spared his own Son”, chap 8: 32. God has not held anything back. The giving was complete, so that we might come into blessing. What could we do, what could we give? The Lord Jesus asks, “what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”, Matt 16: 26. We were guilty sinners, undone and away from God; God has given all this so that we might come into blessing.
To emphasise the reality of it, Paul then says the resurrection was witnessed. There was testimony as to it, Acts 17: 31. As many as five hundred brethren saw the Lord Jesus in resurrection. Paul is seeking to stress the reality and greatness of the glad tidings. John in his gospel bears witness to the shedding of the blood of the Lord Jesus. He says that “his witness is true” (John 19: 35), and so the gospel has come down to us. We hear it on the faithful testimony of these apostles. That is what God has given; how great it is. My simple exercise is to ask what the answer has been in our hearts; has it has been received? Has the greatness of the glad tidings had an effect in our hearts and in our consciences?
The apostle says he “announced” the glad tidings. They were glad tidings; how joyful this message is, an answer to the need of the sinner. There is One who has borne the judgment, One who has broken the power of death. What good news it is; but then Paul adds, “which also ye received”. In the first instance this must involve the matter of repentance. If we are to receive the gospel we must come to God’s view of ourselves, we must come to God’s view of the work of Christ and that we need it, that we need salvation, and we must turn in that way to God, on the principle of “repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ”, Acts 20: 21. There must be an active answer; we come into blessing on the basis of repentance and faith in Christ. That can be the portion of all here down to the youngest. You recognise that you are a sinner, the blessing is presented to you, and you are to receive it. You are to receive it on the basis of repentance and faith in Christ; how simple it is. The gift is presented. We all know about giving and receiving; something is given to us and we have to accept it. You have to accept the gift that is given to you and you must receive it. What a simple principle that is. God has drawn near to us on that basis, He has provided everything for our salvation, and we are to receive it.
I was thinking of the great blessing of receiving the Saviour personally and receiving Him into our hearts. As we think of our need, and think of the work of Christ, we are brought into touch with the Saviour Himself. It is not only that there is an answer presented, and we just have to take it. But it is all presented to us in a Person; all in Christ Himself. We are to receive Him; He is to come into our hearts. Our conscience is affected as we think of our sins and our need. We should be affected by the greatness of the work that the Lord Jesus accomplished, and that He was prepared to stand in the breach. He did not leave the matter to anyone else. Who else would do it? Who else was qualified to take up the question of our sins? It was only the precious Saviour Himself. If we are to receive the gospel, we must come to Him, and we must receive Him into our hearts. What a precious thing that is. I am sure that is what the Corinthians had done. As Paul preached to them, they received the word; and they received Christ into their hearts.
He goes on to say, “in which also ye stand”. That is where we come in on this basis of repentance and faith. As we look away from ourselves and look to Christ and His precious work, we come onto solid ground in our souls. It is solid ground for our souls, that One has taken our place, that One has satisfied all God’s holy righteous claims as to our sins, and as to the whole question of sin. As we accept that He has met all our need, and that He has met all God’s holy claims, we come onto sure ground. We come on to this standing as others have spoken of it in Christ: “in which also ye stand, by which also ye are saved”. You get a sense as you read these verses of how sure the apostle was as to the truth of it. He was sure of it for himself; and he desired that the Corinthians too should be brought on to certain and sure ground. I trust that is the position of each one under the sound of the gospel tonight that you might receive Christ, and that you might have peace with God as recognising that your position before Him as a forgiven sinner is not because of any merit or worth in what you are or what you have done, but because of the worth of Christ and because of all that He has accomplished. What a position to come to in faith in our souls that we are settled in Christ. It is “by which also ye are saved”.
We need eternal salvation, and that is to be found in Christ, but we also need present salvation and the present service of the Saviour if we are to be maintained in a hostile and dark world. The apostle makes it very pressing and current; it was not only something that they had stood in, but they were standing in it. He says, “by which also ye are saved”. The Corinthians were in the present good and gain of the glad tidings which the apostle preached.
I would like to emphasise what Paul says to the Colossians. He rejoiced “seeing your order, and the firmness of your faith in Christ”. You might ask, ‘How was it that the saints could exhibit such firmness?’. What was it that meant that they were so firm and immoveable? It goes on to explain that they had “received the Christ, Jesus the Lord”. That would be my appeal, that we might receive Christ. Everything for our blessing eternally, and for our present enjoyment and blessing, is to be found as we receive the Lord Jesus. The Colossians had done that; they had “received the Christ, Jesus the Lord”. Then Paul exhorts them to be “rooted and built up in him”. They had made a good start; they had come to Christ, and they had received the blessing of salvation. If they were to be maintained in the firmness of their faith in Christ, they needed to be rooted and built up in Christ. How important that we listen to the gospel regularly, that we might be increased in our attachment to the precious Saviour, and that we might be built up and assured in the faith. It is very interesting the way Paul credits the saints he writes to with the certainty of their faith. He speaks about “the firmness of your faith in Christ” and that they were to be assured in the faith, “abounding in it with thanksgiving”. The gospel has come down to us; I am impressed by that. The gospel that was presented by the apostle in its clarity and simplicity still shines in the greatness of what it brings, and it must be received. We too can receive the Lord Jesus and all the blessings that are available in Him. It is only on that ground that we can become persons who are assured, built up, rooted in Christ and assured in the faith. May we increasingly know the greatness and the blessing of it.
I read in Acts, because I was thinking of the reception of the Holy Spirit. Peter says in this preaching that it is an answer to persons who are exercised. “They were pricked in heart”, their consciences were affected, and the answer is that they were to “Repent, and be baptised, each one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for remission of sins, and ye will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”. I have been impressed with the greatness of that gift; the greatness of receiving the remission of sins and the greatness of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Paul speaks elsewhere of “his unspeakable free gift”, 2 Cor 9: 15. How great it is that God should give such a gift. We were impressed in our earlier reading by the way that the Holy Spirit would be a Comforter, One who would assure us in the absence of Christ. He would not exactly take the place of Christ, because we have the Lord Jesus also; but He is “another Comforter”. I would leave the question with all of us as to whether we have received this great gift, the gift of the Holy Spirit. One thing that should be true of any gift is that are we conscious of having received it. It is not a passive thing that we receive something and we are not aware of it, or unaffected by it. You think of the great blessing of receiving the gift of God’s own Spirit, One who would bring the glories of Christ before us and give us a present insight into heavenly blessings. He would give us peace and joy in our hearts, and give us a present link with the precious Saviour where He is in glory. That gift is to be received. I cannot tell you of any greater gift than what God can provide by blessing us in Christ and giving the gift of the Holy Spirit. It would raise exercise and challenge us in our own hearts and consciences as to the place that we give to the Holy Spirit and how much we are in the present gain of having received Him. It is a gift that is to be received. God has given everything from His side. He is the giving God, He is the Saviour God, One “who desires that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth”, 1 Tim 2: 4. On our side we have to be exercised to receive the word.
In 1 Thessalonians Paul says that they had “turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God” (chap 1: 9), but then he says, “for this cause we also give thanks to God unceasingly that, having received the word of the report of God by us, ye accepted, not men’s word, but, even as it is truly, God’s word, which also works in you who believe”, chap 2: 13. It is God’s word that comes to us in the glad tidings. We are to accept it, accept it on the principle of faith, and we are to receive the precious Saviour. What a blessing, what joy on that day when we receive Christ for the first time. We are to be “rooted and built up in him”. We are to go on and grow in our knowledge and appreciation of the One who has been provided as the Saviour and we are to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. How wonderful the giving is; how important that we should receive it.
May we be encouraged for the Lord’s Name’s sake.
West Norwood
10th November 2019