What is the Gospel or the good news?
As Christians, we automatically assume we know what the Gospel is. So when faced with such a question, our response is usually; Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for your sins. If you accept Him into your heart, you will be saved.
But what does it mean to “accept Him into your heart”/”ask Him to come into your heart”?
In Biblical times, they believed the heart was the center of all our emotions and thought. So when they spoke of the heart, they referred to what we today know is the intellect and mind. So when we say we need to “accept Him/invite Him into our heart,” we are saying we have to accept Him into our mind.
This gives us another question, how do you “accept Jesus into your mind/invite Him into your mind”?
Here we have two options on how to answer this question. We can either go by what the Bible says or what we believe. We should always choose to go by what the Bible says, not what we believe in this ministry’s opinion.
The Bible says, in John 3:36, If we believe in His teachings, so we obey them we have accepted Him into our minds.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus continually told us to repent and obey the written law of Moses. He continually told us to reject man’s teachings and traditions in favor of the written law of Moses. (Matt 23:2-4) So if you have accepted Jesus into your mind, you have to believe what He taught us to do and show that you believe by obeying Him.
This, of course, shows us one crucial thing; praying the sinner’s prayer does not save you. What saves you is your repentance from lawlessness to law and what reconciles you is your acceptance of the Blood of Jesus as atonement for your sins. But as Paul says in Romans, only those who repent of their sins can atone for their sins. So repentance comes first, then atonement by the Blood.
So what is the Gospel?
Now that we understand the Gospel to include obeying the law of Moses, we know the Gospel is not something new. The book of Hebrews says Moses and the Israelites heard the Gospel in the desert, but they did not obey it, so they did not reap its benefits. This is one more confirmation telling us the Gospel involves us hearing the law and obeying the law, and by obeying it, we show we believe in the law.
Where does the cross fit into all of this?
When we read Paul’s letters, we seldom hear him focus on the cross, and he never denies it, but it is not the main focus of his messages. Instead, we see him concentrate on Jesus, crucified but now living. So Pauls focus is on the resurrection, not the cross. Why is this important?
When Paul focuses on the resurrected Christ, his message to us is this: If you identify with His death, you should now identify with His life and imitate His life.
How do we identify with and imitate the life of Christ? By living as He lived in every way, so if He obeyed the law of Moses, then we have to follow the law of Moses.
So what is the Gospel?
The Gospel is the law of Moses which gives us life AND the death, burial, and resurrection of Yeshua (Jesus), who reconciles us to Yehovah.
So how do you respond if someone asks, does this mean you can be saved by keeping the law?
Keeping the law is required, but keeping the law will not pay for the crime you committed in the past. Your past sins still have to be paid for, and no matter how much you keep the law from now on, it will never pay what you owe to God. So you have two choices, either pay it yourself or believe Jesus did it for you. So it is never enough to keep the law, but keeping the law is required to be saved.
So the answer is no, keeping the law can never save you because the law can never pay for what you have done. But if you believe the Blood of Jesus is your atonement and pays for what you have done, then you are obligated to keep the law from now.
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