CONSIDERING the gospel a little, a few points present themselves:―
1. “The gospel of God.”
God is its blessed source in which His righteousness is revealed putting a ROCK under our feet.
2. “The gospel of Christ.”
He is the subject of it, ousting law (Gal. 4.).
3. “The gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 15.).
God’s love asserting itself above man’s evil and alienation from Him.
4. “The glad tidings of Jesus” (15.)
That blessed One in the lowest humiliation“ His life is taken from the earth” — refused by Jerusalem the religious center, but “the glad tidings of Jesus” widening out to Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth, a sample of this being seen in the conversion of the Ethiopian, one of Ham’s cursed race, whose heart received the glad tidings of Jesus and so was won — going on his way rejoicing. God thus caring for the humiliation glory of His Son, the proud Jew having no discernment of this, or having no felt need of Him come in this way.
5. “The gospel of the glory of Christ” illustrated in Acts 9.
Man exalted and glorified consequent on his having glorified God here on the earth. In this aspect of the gospel we see in Him, Man gone up in righteousness. In the third and fourth points we see in Him God come down in love, He having fully expressed God to man, He having also fully expressed man to God.
No wonder in 1 Thessalonians the effect of “our gospel” is, How ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven whom He raised from the dead, Jesus our Deliverer from the coming wrath. W. J. C.