The Gospels

Text: Matthew 5:17–19

The term Gospel means good news and so it is that the prophecies and foreshadowing have finally arrived. The Gospels, Fulfillment, the Good News, Salvation. The Gospels are meant to showcase the life and ministry of Jesus Christ and the reason for his coming. Application Point: We can be confident in the gospel message because of Christ's fulfillment of the law and his work on the cross.

The Gospels are the culmination of all of the OT. We are watching the culmination since the fall of man reach its apex in the account of the Gospels.

From its Creation - Genesis 1

World of Sin - Gen 3:15

Destruction from Sin - Noah

Called out People - Abraham

Established into a nation - Moses

Made into a power - David

Shattered into pieces - Rehoboam

Then conquered - Prophets

The Gospels act as a bridge -

This is seen through the fulfillment of Jesus into the direct descriptions of Messiah.

Virgin Birth, Nazareth, Egypt, Caring for the needy, Betrayal and death all point to the person of Jesus. Along with this is the indirect prophecies from the words that Jesus would say and accounts given Many allusions to the OT give weight and credence of the Savior and his message.

Speaking of his message remember the Centrality of the “kingdom of God”. He is not divorcing the kingdom of God from the OT rather Jesus is explaining the Jew in the first century how they can rightfully and properly participate in the Kingdom of God. The kingdom of God was not some blood you have in your veins. It is about the absolute faith you have in the Messiah that God has sent to save his people from their sins.

According to Mary Fairchild and her article: “The Gospels, The Gospels tell the story of Jesus”:

The Gospel of Matthew presents undeniable evidence that Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah. This book forms the joining link between Old and New Testament, focusing on the fulfillment of prophecy.

Through a dramatic and action-packed sequence of events, the Gospel of Mark shows Jesus Christ as the suffering servant and Son of God.

Luke's Gospel was written to give a reliable and precise record of Jesus Christ's life, revealing not only his humanity but his perfection as a human. Luke portrays Jesus as Savior of all people.

The Gospel of John gives us an up-close and personal look at Christ's identity as the Son of God, disclosing Jesus' divine nature, one with his Father.

Mary Fairchild https://www.learnreligions.com/gospels-of-the-bible-700272

The four records comprise one Gospel: "the gospel of God regarding his Son." (Romans 1:1-3)

Romans 1:1–3 KJV 1900

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;

In fact, early writers referred to the four books in the singular. While each Gospel can stand alone, viewed together they provide a complete picture of how God became man and died for the sins of the world.

Probably not many have heard of the doctrine of Marcionism...

Marcionism: the doctrinal system of a sect of the second and third centuries a.d. accepting some parts of the New Testament but denying Christ's corporality and humanity and condemning the Creator God of the Old Testament

Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Marcionism

Marcionites held that the God of the Hebrew Bible was inconsistent, jealous, wrathful and genocidal, and that the material world he created was defective, a place of suffering; the God who made such a world is a bungling or malicious demiurge.

As you might be able to tell this is a heresy that finds those who hold it headed to hell.

But its ideas and principles are not done away with...There are modern preachers that are teaching something similar. Andy Stanly said in 2018 and since has walked back some of his statements said in a three part sermon series.

Albert Mohler addresses these comments…

Earlier this year, Stanley brought controversy when he argued in a sermon that the Christian faith must be "unhitched" from the Old Testament. He claimed that

"Peter, James, Paul elected to unhitch the Christian faith from their Jewish scriptures, and my friends, we must as well." - Stanly

Later, explaining his statement, Stanley told Relevant magazine,

"Well, I never suggested we 'unhitch' from a passage of Scripture or a specific biblical imperative . . . . Again, I was preaching through Acts 15 where Peter, James, and Paul recommended the first-century church unhitch (my word, I'm open to an alternative) the law of Moses from the Gospel being preached to the Gentiles in Antioch." - Stanly

Indeed, in the sermon Stanley did not argue that any specific Old Testament command should be nullified. Instead, he went even further and told his listeners that the Old Testament should not be seen as "the go-to source regarding any behavior in the church." In his view, the first century leadership of the church "unhitched the church from the worldview, value system, and regulations of the Jewish Scriptures."

"So the early church no one ever said in the early church, 'the Bible says, the Bible teaches, the Bible says the Bible teaches,' because there was no 'The Bible.' But the point of your question, there was Scripture but every time we see the phrase 'the Scripture' or 'Scripture' in the New Testament, as you know we have to stop and ask the question, what was this particular group of people referring to because there was no 'The Bible' and there was no book that contained all the Jewish Scripture because it was contained in synagogues and as you know virtually no one could read and write." - Stanly

Well, wait just a minute. It is true that Jesus and the Apostles did not have the Old Testament and the New Testament bound together in a book (codex) form. It is, of course, also plainly true that the New Testament did not exist until it was given, book by book, by the Holy Spirit to the church in the first century. But it is not true that references to "the Scriptures" or "the Scripture" by Jesus and the Apostles are any mystery to us. They are plainly referring to what we know as the Old Testament. There are references to "Moses and the Prophets" (Luke 16:29) and to the "Law and the Prophets"(Luke 16:16), but faithful Jews in the first century would emphatically have known exactly what the Scriptures are.

Luke 4:17–21 KJV 1900

And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.

Mohler continues…

He (Andy Stanley) spoke this way with Jonathan Merritt:

"I’m convinced that we make a better case for Jesus if we leave the Old Testament or the old covenant out of the argument." We can make a better case for Jesus than the case Jesus made for himself? - Stanly

But the embarrassment comes through clearly in Andy Stanley's comments in the interview. He spoke of people who have "lost their faith" because they read the Old Testament, and then said this:

"It's the same God. But he was doing two different things. All that differentiating between those things is so important. Again, in this sermon, I said, 'Hey, it's time that we face the facts and unhitch our faith and our practice from some of these Old Testament values that we can appreciate in their original context, but we really don't have any business dragging them into a modern context.'” - Stanly

https://albertmohler.com/2018/08/10/getting-unhitched-old-testament-andy-stanley-aims-heresy

Illustration of a bridge…

Topeka, KS when we got to the city.

Bridge collapse

Two days after I was born in 1981 a horrific bridge collapse took place in Kansas City KS. Hundreds of people gathered for a "tea dance" at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Kansas City, Mo., on July 17. Television crews were also at the Hyatt Regency that night to cover the social event in the hotel's lobby. There were a total of 114 people who were killed at the Hyatt Regency that night when two elevated walkways broke free from their support rods and collapsed onto the crowd below, injuring more than 200 and leaving a crumpled heap of rubble for rescuers to dig through.

The elevated walkways were held up with rods connected to the atrium roof. But the second-floor walkway was connected to the fourth-floor walkway — not the roof. That meant that the fourth-floor walkway was taking on double the intended load.

As the July 17 tea dance went on, the crowd grew in the lobby as well as on the skybridges, where onlookers gathered to get a bird's-eye view of the festivities below.

Then, suddenly, the second- and fourth-floor skybridges began swaying before collapsing and crashing down into the lobby, killing some revelers and trapping others beneath the broken concrete. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/17/1016603199/one-of-the-deadliest-u-s-accidental-structural-collapses-happened-40-years-ago-t

Bridges are valuable because

They deliver you to a destination…

They also keep you from the destruction that would come if you attempt without the bridge.

They also set a course by which you must follow or you will not make it across to the other side.

Jesus on the Bridge…

In Matthew 5:17–19, Jesus rejects the Pharisees' charge that he is trying to nullify the law. He responds by saying he is the fulfillment of the law, not a destroyer of it. This passage serves as an example of the bridge that the Old Testament has to the New. There is no discontinuity between the two; the Old Testament is still valid and needed, when understood and practiced correctly. This passage shows us that Old Testament theology is at the heart of the New Testament, and the Bible needs to be read as a whole in order to understand the story of God, his people, and his plan.

There is a bridge between the content of the Old Testament and the New; there was an impossible obstacle called sin that only the bridge of salvation offered through Jesus Christ could fix. And because of that, we have access to the other side of eternity.

Jesus proclaims that not one jot or tittle (v. 18) will pass away, which can be seen as an affirmation of the inerrancy of Scripture. He then goes on the explain the severity and importance of the Law and righteousness. Rather than rejecting the Law, Christ, throughout the Gospels, becomes the way individuals can meet the standard of righteousness through faith in him and becoming one with him.

Think of the Old Testament as a sketched outline of a portrait to come. The portrait is the shape of Jesus. When we color in the lines of the sketch, we can clearly and beautifully see Jesus. Have you sought to color in the pencil sketch of the Old Testament? Have you seen your Savior as you have read the Old Testament?

The Gospel is designed not just to inform us about the New life found in Christ. But rather they want us to be a part of the Good News of Jesus Christ.

It is not enough that we mentally follow the bridge from the History of the Old Testament to the time of the New.

It is not enough that we simply note the journey from OT worship to NT doctrine.

The Gospel writers were giving support to the risen Savior who offers all of us the opportunity to experience the Kingdom of God.

Through the assembly called the church.

Through the work of evangelism.

Through the joy of Eternal focus

Through the victory over compromise with the world and the flesh

Through the reflection of Him in your holiness.

You and I are like the bridge where we go. We will leave here tonight acting as the Gospel because of the work of the Gospel to bear testimony and be a bridge to those who need to come to him.