The Lost Gospel of Jesus, part 2

(This is part two of the Lost Gospel of Jesus series, part one is here.)

The Gospel that Paul preached.

        Let me start at the end and work backwards, by looking at the Gospel the Apostle Paul preached and working my way back to the Gospel which Jesus and his disciples preached.  I want you to see that as far as Jesus, the disciples and the Apostle Paul were concerned there was only one Gospel message.

        In the letter which Paul wrote to the Christians who lived in the city of Rome, what we call the Epistle to the Romans, Paul tells the Roman Christians that he desires to come and preach to them.

Romans 1:11 For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; 12 That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.

Paul says he wants to impart a spiritual gift to them. The words Paul uses here, are the same words he uses to refer to the spiritual gifts he mentions in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. These gifts are what we could loosely call miraculous or supernatural gifts, e.g. healings, working of miracles, words from God. Paul is, in essence, saying he wants to come to Rome to preach to the Roman christians and work miracles among them.

        Paul considers miracles, healing, and deliverance to be so closely associated with the preaching of the Gospel that later on in the Epistle to the Romans, he calls the manifestation of these things, “fully preaching the Gospel.”

Romans 15:18 For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, 19 Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.

He mentions the same idea in the Epistle to the Thesalonians:

1 Thessalonians 1:5 For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake.

And in First Corinthians:

1 Corinthians 2:4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: 5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

        I want you to see the relationship between preaching the Gospel and the manifestation of God’s supernatural power, they go hand in hand. For Paul, Jesus and the other disciples preaching the Gospel wasn’t just sermonizing, it wasn’t just delivering information, it was creating the conditions for the manifestation of God’s supernatural rescuing power. The act of speaking the words of the Gospel in faith caused God's supernatural power to come on the scene. Preaching the Gospel causes God’s supernatural power to show up. We’ll see this again later. 

        I also want you to take note of the phrase, “mutual faith” The impartation of these spiritual gifts isn’t just dependent upon Paul’s faith but upon the mutual faith, of Paul and the Roman Christians. Just store that in the back of your mind and we’ll get back to it eventually, or you may see it before we get back to it.

        Next Paul says:

Romans 1:15 So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Paul says “also” because he has preached the gospel elsewhere and he intends to preach that same Gospel to the Romans. Paul didn’t preach different gospels in different places. Put another way, as far as the Paul is concerned there is only one “the” Gospel. So, if we can find out what Paul preached elsewhere we’ll discover what he meant by “the Gospel.”

        Paul says he’s not ashamed of the Gospel. Why? Because it does something. When you believe something works you like telling people about it. What is it the Gospel does? It’s the power of God unto salvation. When we read the word “salvation” we tend to think ‘going to heaven when you die,’ but the word means much more than that.

What does Paul mean by salvation?

        The Greek word (The oldest known copies of the New Testament are in the Greek language.) translated “salvation” here is “sōtēria.” It originally only meant some kind of physical deliverance or rescue as in the following scriptures:

Acts 27:34 Wherefore I pray you to take some meat: for this is for your health: for there shall not an hair fall from the head of any of you.

The Greek word translated “health” here is the same word translated “salvation” in Romans 1:16.

Philippians 1:19 For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,

Paul isn’t saying here that he needs to be "saved" as we Christians now use that word, but that it will turn to his deliverance from prison.

Luke 1:71 That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us;

Here "saved" means being delivered from those who are oppressing you.

        Many Greek Lexicons give deliverance, preservation, safety, health, well being as the primary meaning of soteria, the word translated in Romans 1:17 as salvation.

According to Liddel-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon the word translated salvation in Romans 1:16 means: I. a saving, deliverance, preservation, safety, Lat. salus,… 2. a way or means of safety… 3. a safe return, II. of things, a keeping safe, preservation,…2. security, guarantee for safety, 3. security, safety,

The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, pg. 1132, has it as: “ 1. Saving. These terms first refer to salvation (human or divine) from serious peril. Curing from illness is another sense.…2. Keeping. The meaning at times may be that of keeping alive, e.g., pardoning, protecting, keeping from want…3. Benefitting. The idea of rescuing from peril disappears when the idea is that of keeping in good health, or benefitting, or when the noun means ‘well being’…” 

Thayer’s Greek English Lexicon pg. 612, says: 1) deliverance, preservation, safety, salvation a) deliverance from the molestation of enemies b) in an ethical sense, that which concludes to the souls safety or salvation 1) of Messianic salvation 2) salvation as the present possession of all true Christians 3) future salvation, the sum of benefits and blessings which the Christians, redeemed from all earthly ills, will enjoy after the visible return of Christ from heaven in the consummated and eternal kingdom of God.

The Latin Vulgate  translates it with the word “salutem” the root, I take it, of the spanish word, “salud.” The definition of salutem is, apparently: health , soundness; safety, welfare, well-being, salvation; a wish for a person's welfare, salutation, greeting.

The original Scofield Bible’s reference notes for Romans 1:16 say this about the word salvation (Scroll down for Schofied’s notes.): “[1] salvation The Heb. and Gr. words for salvation imply the ideas of deliverance, safety, preservation, healing, and soundness. Salvation is the great inclusive word of the Gospel, gathering into itself all the redemptive acts and processes: as justification, redemption, grace, propitiation, imputation, forgiveness, sanctification, and glorification. Salvation is in three tenses:”

        Now, I went through all that to make it clear that the word “salvation” literally means more than just going to heaven when you die. The “salvation” Paul is talking about, produced by the power of God, which power is manifested through the preaching of the Gospel and the faith of the preacher and the hearer, is real life, deliverance, rescue, healing, for the right now as well as for the future.  Put another way, salvation, rescue, deliverance doesn’t just apply to the next life but to this life as well. God’s power to save begins now, not just after you’re dead.

        Paul is not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God unto salvation and by “salvation” Paul means being saved from anything you need to be saved from. By salvation Paul means rescue from anything you need to be rescued from. By salvation Paul means being delivered from anything you need to be delivered from. You can see that’s what Paul means because that’s what happened when he preached the Gospel, people got “saved” in the here and now.

Acts 14:7 And there they preached the gospel. 8 And there sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother’s womb, who never had walked: 9 The same heard Paul speak: who stedfastly beholding him, and perceiving that he had faith to be healed, 10 Said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked.

        A man, who had never walked, listened to Paul preach the Gospel. While listening to the sermon the man came to believe that he could be healed. If the Gospel Paul preached was what most Christians understand as the Gospel, it would no more have occurred to this man that he could be healed than it occurs to the average Christian, in the average church, on an average Sunday morning, that he can be healed. Can you see that the salvation that Paul preached had to include deliverance, healing, rescue in the right now, for that man, crippled from birth, to conclude from the Gospel message that he could be healed?

        When Jesus, Paul and the other disciples preached the Gospel, healing, miracles and deliverance from demons happened. It seems reasonable that when Paul says the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation, that the “salvation” he refers to is the healing, deliverance from demons and miracles that accompanied his, Jesus’ and the other disciples preaching of the Gospel. This seems especially reasonable since that is what the word translated “salvation” literally means. If we want this power of God unto healing, deliverance, rescue, producing of well being, to show up then we need to preach the same Gospel Paul preached, we need to hear the same message that the crippled man heard.
 
        Understanding what Paul means by, “the power of God unto salvation,” gives us an important clue to finding the lost Gospel of Jesus. The Gospel of Jesus must be different from what most Christians think of as the Gospel, because the preaching of what most Christians think of as the Gospel doesn’t result in God’s power for healing, deliverance, or rescue to show up. Put differently, the message Paul preached led the man, crippled from birth, to believe he could be healed, we’ll know we’ve found the Gospel that Paul, preached when we find the Gospel that gives crippled men faith to be healed.

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