Proclaiming the Gospel

From chapter 4, which is J. I. Packer’s classic introductory essay for John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. (The quotes in this quote are from Owen.)

What does it mean to preach ‘the gospel of the grace of God’?  …According to Scripture, preaching the gospel is entirely a matter of proclaiming to men, as truth from God which all are bound to believe and act on, the following four facts:

1. that all men are sinners, and cannot do anything to save themselves;
2. that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is a perfect Savior for sinners, even the worst;
3. that the Father and the Son have promised that all who know themselves to he sinners and put faith in Christ as Savior shall be received into favor, and none cast out - which promise is ‘a certain infallible truth, grounded upon the superabundant sufficiency of the oblation of Christ in itself, for whomsoever (fewer or more) it be intended’;
4. that God has made repentance and faith a duty, requiring of every man who hears the gospel ‘a serious full recumbency and rolling of the soul upon Christ in the promise of the gospel, as an all-suffcient Savior, able to deliver and save to the utmost them that come to God by him; ready, able and willing, through the preciousness of his blood and sufficiency of his ransom, to save every soul that shall freely give up themselves unto him for that end.’

The preacher’s task, in other words, is to display Christ, to explain man’s need of him, his sufficiency to save, and his offer of himself in the promises as Savior to all who truly turn to him; and to show as fully as he can how these truths apply to the congregation before for him.

Criminal Record Nailed to the Cross

Had we been among the watchers at Calvary, we should have seen nailed to the cross Pilate’s notice of Jesus’ alleged crime. But if by faith we look back to Calvary from where we now are, what we see is the list of our own unpaid debts of obedience to God, for which Christ paid the penalty in our place. 

—J. I. Packer in the intro to In My Place Condemned He Stood.

Blood-Bought Blessings

From The Great Exchange, by Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington: 

The cross is not a mere first step toward spiritual development; is is the all-encompassing foundation for Christian growth. ..[I]t first provides complete forgivenss of past, present, and future sins, and then it becomes a means of the deliverance by which we are freed from bondage to sin….

 
By tying the transformation of the believer to the cross, Paul makes his point aboundantly clear: everything we need for life and eternity is provided by virture of Christ’s great atonement. Furthermore, in everything God is for us; he is for us in Christ wisdom instead of ignorance, justification instead of condemnation, sanctification instead of sinfulnees, and redemption instead of slavery. “[God] is the source of [our] life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and santification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). In view of this, it is no wonder Paul is adamant and unwavering regarding the centrality of the cross of Christ. The fulfillment of every hope we have is blood bought by the atoning work of Christ on the Cross. And the work of Christ on the cross must remain our only hope.

Expect a review of this book to be posted here soon.