The Gospel is Everything and Everything is about the Gospel

Before I get down to it, I want to clarify a position: I am not a universalist by any stretch of the imagination, so when I say “everything is about the Gospel,” I’m not affirming anything outside of Scripture. You see, we all fall in to two camps: those who are in Christ and those who are not. So when I say “everything is about the Gospel”, what I mean is this: our sin condemns us to hell, so if we’re outside of Christ, we’re headed for destruction, and if we are in Christ, He paid the penalty we owed and bore the weight of God’s divine justice on Himself so that we might be reconciled to the Father.

I say all of that because I truly believe we can turn church in to a divine show; we either say “look at how well I follow the rules,” or “I show up on Sunday, I say my prayers, and I put money in the plate,” or “I’m acknowledging God, even if I don’t believe His book,” and we’ll all ask of our efforts “isn’t that enough?” The fact is that anything we do is not enough. We cannot save ourselves. We are rebels against a pure and Holy God, and we have gone against our design by rebelling against our designer. We are all condemned, not because God is petty, or has a list of arbitrary rules, but He created us in His image, after His likeness, the only way to be in His presence is to reflect that image and likeness, and we destroy that image and likeness when we do anything contrary to His nature. On our own, we are doomed.

So, when I say that the Gospel is everything and everything is about the Gospel, I mean just that. As Paul said “I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God to salvation for those who believe” (Romans 1:16). We are saved by Jesus Christ, and Christ alone. Everything we do is in Christ, for Christ, and about Christ. He designed it all, and then went into His design, living according to the image and likeness as we should have. He was despised and rejected by men, and crucified for His efforts; BUT, that was the point! THAT was what He preached, and this was what He said He was here to do. You see, Jesus died on the cross for our sins. He was buried and rose on the third day, conquering the consequence of sin, which is death. Because He died and rose again, our sins have lost their power, and death has lost its sting, because He lives! We have hope for eternity, because His resurrection proves that all He said was true. The divine rescue plan was and is a success, but you must believe (And if we believe, if we love Him, He says we will obey His commands)!

So, the question shouldn’t be “When am I saved.” The Cross settled that. We should ask, as the Jews did on the day of Pentecost, “Brothers, what shall we do?” and listen to the Apostles Teaching: Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). And He will do as He promised in Ezekiel 36:26“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

Let us then make sure that we’re trusting in Christ, and we’re following Him according to His word. There is no other way to be saved. The Gospel is everything, and everything is about the Gospel.

Ephesians 4

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says,

“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,

and he gave gifts to men.”

 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.