The Gospel and Conversion
GBC Stands on the gospel of Jesus Christ. But what is the gospel of Jesus Christ?!
The word “gospel” means “good news.” In 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 the apostle Paul summarizes the gospel in this way:
“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.”
Paul here refers to the gospel as a ‘word’, or message that was preached and received, grasped and believed. But he also says that believing this message – holding fast to it – leads to our being saved – our salvation depends on faith in the gospel!
In vv.3-4 Paul breaks the gospel message down for us:
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received”
In using that term – ‘first importance’ – Paul’s pointing to the core of the gospel message he received and passed on to the church:
“that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…”
The first element to note here is Christ. The gospel’s about the second person of the Trinity – Jesus Christ. According to the Scriptures, God the Son – who’s always been God – took on humanity through miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit, and was born of the virgin Mary two thousand years ago. As a human He was tempted in every way as we are, but lived a sinless life of perfect obedience to God. The last three years of His life were spent doing good, and through His teaching and life, perfectly revealing God’s nature to humanity. Jesus’ ministry is reliably recorded and divinely preserved for us in the Biblical Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
A second element of note here is that Christ Died for our Sins in accordance with the Scriptures. The Bible shows us that Jesus was put to death on a Roman cross. He really died! To the point that when His body was taken down, it was buried in a Jewish tomb. But Jesus’ death was not an accident – it was the predetermined plan of God, revealed through the Scriptures of the Old Testament.
The word “for” in this phrase means “in the place of.” The death Jesus died was a substitution – He died in place of someone else.
All of us were born with an inclination to sin – to rebel against God’s just rule, to reject His boundaries in favour of going our own way. All of us have sinned through our actions, words, and thoughts.
In Gen 2:17 God told the first man, Adam, that if he sinned, he would surely die – the penalty for all sin is death. God’s holy and just judgment is that you and I – who are sinners – deserve death.
But the message of the Gospel is that because God loves us, and desires to forgive, and redeem, and shower His love on us despite our rebellion and guilt, Jesus came to die in our place. He took our sins on Himself and suffered the punishment of God in our place. Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the Scriptures.
But there’s a third element of note here – Jesus didn’t stay dead! We read in v.4 that He: “…was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…”
God’s giant stamp of approval on what Jesus did for us was raising Him from the dead. Jesus was resurrected on the third day and appeared to many of His disciples to prove it. Jesus' resurrection is the most impactful miracle in human history – a historically verifiable event on which history hinges (BC - AD). By raising Jesus, God made clear that the full price for sin had been paid by His Son.
These elements form what Paul describes as the core message of the gospel. But notice he doesn’t just speak of preaching and delivering this – he points to a response from the Corinthians: they receive the message, they stand on it, they hold fast to it through believing, and thus they’re being saved. Which leads to our second consideration – ‘conversion.’
The message of the gospel isn’t just information. God calls everyone everywhere to respond to this message, firstly through repentance – which means agreeing with God that we’re sinners, renouncing our sins and turning our back on our old way of life. And secondly, God calls us to respond to the gospel by believing it – which means putting all our trust and confidence in the person of Jesus as our substitute, whose death was enough to rescue us from the hell we deserve.
Scripture calls this response ‘faith’ – believing the gospel and turning to build our lives on its truth and implications. Through faith we’re forgiven from the penalty of our sin and reconciled with God. But Scripture also asserts that when we put our faith in Jesus – when belief and repentance meet gospel truth – something spiritual and invisible, but very, very real – happens inside us: God’s Holy Spirit rushes into our heart – not the ticker, but the emotional and intellectual core of our being – and He makes His home inside us. When this happens, God gives us new spiritual life – He changes our hearts from stony hearts enslaved to sin, to soft hearts that become responsive to God’s work, and long to please Him. Through His Holy Spirit, God adopts us as sons and daughters, He transforms us into new creatures – this is salvation. True, saving faith in Jesus will inevitably, unstoppably, & always lead to the outworking of this new spiritual reality in our lives.
We can’t open someone’s chest and look into their hearts to see faith, but the fruit of faith can’t remain hidden – that’s impossible. Saving faith transforms us. Scripture refers to this transformation as ‘conversion’, or ‘regeneration’ which means ‘new birth’ – being born again, being made new, being made alive in Christ. This is the core of God’s desire for all people, this is the purpose of the gospel, and this is the heart of God’s redemption in this world. This is a free gift of God, received through faith in the gospel.
Apart from this new birth – we may have everything else the world has to offer, but we will have nothing!
Lots of people’ve heard about Jesus, and may even believe the accounts of His life are true. But no one is saved until they turn to Jesus in repentance and faith, call on Him to save them, and are born again through faith and by God’s Spirit – until conversion becomes reality in their lives.
Once God’s saved us, the very first thing we ought to pursue is baptism.
The word “gospel” means “good news.” In 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 the apostle Paul summarizes the gospel in this way:
“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.”
Paul here refers to the gospel as a ‘word’, or message that was preached and received, grasped and believed. But he also says that believing this message – holding fast to it – leads to our being saved – our salvation depends on faith in the gospel!
In vv.3-4 Paul breaks the gospel message down for us:
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received”
In using that term – ‘first importance’ – Paul’s pointing to the core of the gospel message he received and passed on to the church:
“that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…”
The first element to note here is Christ. The gospel’s about the second person of the Trinity – Jesus Christ. According to the Scriptures, God the Son – who’s always been God – took on humanity through miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit, and was born of the virgin Mary two thousand years ago. As a human He was tempted in every way as we are, but lived a sinless life of perfect obedience to God. The last three years of His life were spent doing good, and through His teaching and life, perfectly revealing God’s nature to humanity. Jesus’ ministry is reliably recorded and divinely preserved for us in the Biblical Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
A second element of note here is that Christ Died for our Sins in accordance with the Scriptures. The Bible shows us that Jesus was put to death on a Roman cross. He really died! To the point that when His body was taken down, it was buried in a Jewish tomb. But Jesus’ death was not an accident – it was the predetermined plan of God, revealed through the Scriptures of the Old Testament.
The word “for” in this phrase means “in the place of.” The death Jesus died was a substitution – He died in place of someone else.
All of us were born with an inclination to sin – to rebel against God’s just rule, to reject His boundaries in favour of going our own way. All of us have sinned through our actions, words, and thoughts.
In Gen 2:17 God told the first man, Adam, that if he sinned, he would surely die – the penalty for all sin is death. God’s holy and just judgment is that you and I – who are sinners – deserve death.
But the message of the Gospel is that because God loves us, and desires to forgive, and redeem, and shower His love on us despite our rebellion and guilt, Jesus came to die in our place. He took our sins on Himself and suffered the punishment of God in our place. Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the Scriptures.
But there’s a third element of note here – Jesus didn’t stay dead! We read in v.4 that He: “…was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…”
God’s giant stamp of approval on what Jesus did for us was raising Him from the dead. Jesus was resurrected on the third day and appeared to many of His disciples to prove it. Jesus' resurrection is the most impactful miracle in human history – a historically verifiable event on which history hinges (BC - AD). By raising Jesus, God made clear that the full price for sin had been paid by His Son.
These elements form what Paul describes as the core message of the gospel. But notice he doesn’t just speak of preaching and delivering this – he points to a response from the Corinthians: they receive the message, they stand on it, they hold fast to it through believing, and thus they’re being saved. Which leads to our second consideration – ‘conversion.’
The message of the gospel isn’t just information. God calls everyone everywhere to respond to this message, firstly through repentance – which means agreeing with God that we’re sinners, renouncing our sins and turning our back on our old way of life. And secondly, God calls us to respond to the gospel by believing it – which means putting all our trust and confidence in the person of Jesus as our substitute, whose death was enough to rescue us from the hell we deserve.
Scripture calls this response ‘faith’ – believing the gospel and turning to build our lives on its truth and implications. Through faith we’re forgiven from the penalty of our sin and reconciled with God. But Scripture also asserts that when we put our faith in Jesus – when belief and repentance meet gospel truth – something spiritual and invisible, but very, very real – happens inside us: God’s Holy Spirit rushes into our heart – not the ticker, but the emotional and intellectual core of our being – and He makes His home inside us. When this happens, God gives us new spiritual life – He changes our hearts from stony hearts enslaved to sin, to soft hearts that become responsive to God’s work, and long to please Him. Through His Holy Spirit, God adopts us as sons and daughters, He transforms us into new creatures – this is salvation. True, saving faith in Jesus will inevitably, unstoppably, & always lead to the outworking of this new spiritual reality in our lives.
We can’t open someone’s chest and look into their hearts to see faith, but the fruit of faith can’t remain hidden – that’s impossible. Saving faith transforms us. Scripture refers to this transformation as ‘conversion’, or ‘regeneration’ which means ‘new birth’ – being born again, being made new, being made alive in Christ. This is the core of God’s desire for all people, this is the purpose of the gospel, and this is the heart of God’s redemption in this world. This is a free gift of God, received through faith in the gospel.
Apart from this new birth – we may have everything else the world has to offer, but we will have nothing!
Lots of people’ve heard about Jesus, and may even believe the accounts of His life are true. But no one is saved until they turn to Jesus in repentance and faith, call on Him to save them, and are born again through faith and by God’s Spirit – until conversion becomes reality in their lives.
Once God’s saved us, the very first thing we ought to pursue is baptism.
Partners
Guelph Bible Chapel is an affiliate member of The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC), the national association of evangelical Christians in Canada. The EFC provides a national forum for Evangelicals, fosters ministry partnerships, conducts research on religious and social trends and provides a constructive voice for biblical principles in life and society.
We are committed to accountability and transparency in our finances and are a member of the Canadian Council of Christian Charities. Financial Statements are available upon request.
We collaborate in ministry with other organizations in support of our mission and vision, including Celebrate Recovery Canada, Precept Ministries Canada and Vision Ministries Canada.