Most bible scholars refer to either the book of Romans or the book of Ephesians to understand Pauls gospel message. Romans is the traditional go to to summarize Pauls gospel and how to become a Christian. Often referred to as the Romans Road to Salvation. However I believe that the book of Ephesians contains a better record than Romans of Paul’s full gospel because of the reason that he wrote these two letters. Romans was a letter written to the Roman church that was written to help them with specific problems. The book of Ephesians was a general circuit letter intended to be read by all of the churches that Paul had planted. It was not a specific letter written to the Ephesian to help them solve specific problems. Which is the best source for us today? To understand Paul’s gospel that he used to plant churches and disciple new Christians? Well of course we need them both but I believe Ephesians summarizes it better and I think more than a few biblical scholars agree.
This is part II of a 2 part article about the Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and the Romans Road to salvation. Read part I of this post here:
If we can accept it, here is my paragraph-long summary of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ as preached by Paul, greatly condensed and paraphrased, taken mostly from Ephesians 1-3.
There is something of great importance that I feel I must share about why we exist, about the very meaning of life. I feel compelled to reveal this to whoever will listen. The Glory of God is now seen in the person, and presence of Jesus Christ. Humanity which had once fallen short of that irresistible glory of God no longer falls short of God thanks to Jesus Christ. He is the image of the invisible God and is the glory of God condensed onto and within a person. Human beings…you and I, are God’s chief creation, his chief work of art. He made us in his own image in order to expand the love and fellowship that he had, into a people and into this universe, it pleased him to create a family to dwell with. God chose people based on his own pleasure to be his very own adopted children. It was then we who turned our back on him, the entire human race repudiating the glory of God to his face. We chose sin and in doing we chose death, we chose and inherited hostility and rebellion against God and a snubbing of his greatness, his character, his love and his infinite wisdom. Then He decided to make peace with us which is now available freely through Jesus Christ.
He did this for several reasons: 1) in order to create a people who would be a display to all the earth as his redeemed children, believers become a display of his grace and mercy to the rest of mankind. 2) He also created a people in order to put on display his wisdom to all the authorities, men and spirits, both good and evil, and to all the people of the earth. 3) He also did this to make for himself a dwelling place on earth within the people he would create through belief in Jesus Christ. So that his kingdom would be on earth as it is in heaven, all things visible and invisible mesmerized, cooperating with and submitted to his glory.
When we believe in Jesus Christ we become set apart to God, we literally become God’s dwelling place, his new temple, his new home and his growing family on earth. When we believe in Jesus Christ we find new peace with God where there was no peace before, we are made members of God’s family, and we can now become near to God because of Jesus’ shed blood. Him taking our punishment and sentence, him killing off the old race of Adam & Eve, then creating a new race in himself.
Now we can fully know God and his thoughts and live by HIS life, and not our own life. We can approach him directly without a go-between. And we can know his great love, and be filled with the fullness of God; his great power is on display in us, the same power exerted when Jesus Christ was resurrected. When we believe in Jesus Christ we become a new kind of human being, not a Jew, not a gentile but a third race of human with God indwelling. When we believe in Jesus Christ our inheritance is great, beyond what we can even imagine, and we literally become seated with Jesus Christ in heaven.
We can see that the process to become saved as explained in the Romans Road is but a subset of this much-greater narrative. God planned all of this from the beginning. His plan was and continues to be a family, a dwelling place, a bride for Christ and a display of his glory… fortunately for us it also does include him bailing whoever will come to him out of the hell that was going to be our future.
Here is a link to the scholar NT Wright’s lecture about Paul’s explosive gospel.
English