What is the Gospel? by Beauchamp Vick
Ed. note: Beauchamp Vick was the longtime pastor of the Temple Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan from 1952 to 1975, the largest church in the world at the time.

What is the Gospel?

Throughout the Word of God we find many declarations and affirmations of the Gospel, but in all the Bible we find but one definitions of the Gospel. That is recorded in the fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians, the opening verses.
"Moreover, brethren, Id eclare unto you the gospel." Then the Apostle Paul gives us the three primary elements of the Gospel. First, "How that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures." Second, "that he was buried," and third, "that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures."

DEFINITION

As you know the word "gospel" means good news, and the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, is just exactly that. It is the best news that sinners such as you and I have ever heard. The Gospel was heralded first back in the Old Testament by holy men of old as, moved by the Holy Spirit, they looked down th rough the dim vista of the coming centures and saw Him who was to be called Jesus for He would save His people from their sins.
It was the same blessed Gospel that the hearld angels sang on the first Christmas night tot he wondering shepherds keeping their flocks upon the Judaen hillsides. "Fear not for behold, I bring you tood tidings of great joy which shall be to all people, fo runto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."
That is good news.
This same blessed Gospel was the theme of all the Old Testament for every Old Testament writer looked down through the coming generations to the scene of Calvary and to the coming Saviour and His work of atonement.
Then ,ever since Calvary became a fact, all the Gospel story looks backward to the same blessed scene wherein Christ the Lord died for our sins according to the Scriptures. Therefore we can sing with the song-poet:

In the Cross of Christ I glory
Tow'ring o'er the wrecks of time,
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime.

THE SUPREMACY OF THE GOSPEL
I believe that the one supreme message that sinners today need above everything else is "how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures."
If today you are depending upon your own morality, your own good works, your church membership, your baptism or upon anything else other than the blod of a crucified, buried and risen Saviour to get you by, when the firebells of God's judgment ring, then you might jsut as well get your asbestos suit ready for you'll be in Hell before the undertaker hears of your death.
There is no other way of salvation. Therefore, the most important, the primary element of the Gospel is how the Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. No wonder then that the inspired Apostle Paul say, "For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth."
Yes, that Gospel has power. It has power to break the habits of sin, power to snap the fetters of sin an set you free. That saving Gospel has such power that it will make you a new creation in Christ Jesus, old things will pass away and all things will become new.
I am just trying to point you to Calvary, for I realize that is your only hope and mine. Listen as John describes that scene like this, "And he bearing his cross went forth inot a place called the place of the skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgatha: Where they crucified Him and two others with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst" (John 19:17, 18)
Out along the Via Dolorosa, the sorrowful way, the Lord Jesus dragged that heavy wooden Cross over the cobblestoned street. You remember then how He fell under the weight of that Cross, but yet, I believe it as not just under the weight of that Cross that He fell, for I believe, rather, it was the great burden of the sins of all mankind that pressed Him down. And as He fell, the Roman authorities conscripted Simon, a Cyrenian, to get under that Cross and bear it to the crest of Calvary. Don't feel sorry for Simon the Cyrenian. I consider him the most fortunate of all men present o n that momentous occasion. Wouldn't it have been wonderful could you and I have been there, could we have lifted from the bruised, bleeding, lacerated shoulders ofour Lord that heavy Roman Cross and borne it for Him yonder to Calvary?
I was not priviledged to be present there physically, nor were you, but the Lord Jesus Christ is still looking for people to bear His Cross today.

Must Jesus bear the Cross along
And all the world go free?
No, there's a cross for everyone
And there's a cross for me.

Let's come back to that scripture which we quoted a while ago. "For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth." The Holy Spirit through the inspired pen of the Apostle Paul tried to impress uon us the all-importance of this blessed Gospel when he said, "If any man come preaching any other Gospel than that which I have preached unto you let him be accursed." Then, as if to further underscore its importance, the Apostle Paul repeated those words almost verbatims as he said, "If I or even an angel from heaven should come preaching any other Gospel than that which I have given unto you, let him be accursed." That's the importance of this wonderful Gospel.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL

This Gospel is the difference between heaven and hell for every sinner. Your attitude toward the Gospel of Jesus Christ and toward the Christ of that Gospel, determined whether or not you will spend enternity younder where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth or else where there's ineffable joy and bliss with God as the ceaseless ages of eternity roll.
The Gospel and your attitude toward it spells the difference between eternal life and eternal death. Yes, the Gospel means the difference between salvation and damnation to your never dying soul. No wonder then, that the Apostle Paul said, "I declare unto you the Gospel." If it is that important we ought to give the more earnest heed thereto. We dare not listen carelessly, lightly or callously.

"HOW THAT CHRIST DIED"

What is the primary element of the Gospel? "How that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures."
Try to visualize that scene. Words cannot describe it. I suppose there have been more poesm written, more songs and more great paintings based on that sublime scene than perhaps any other in all the annals of time. And yet, no artist's brush, no writer's pen could ever do it justice.
You remember, of course, that when the Lord Jesus hung upon the Cross, dying, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, suddenly darkness began to cover the face of all the earth. The sun, which ha been created by those hands that were now nailed to the Cross, veiled its face in darkness and refused to look upon that scene. No wonder that the old earth reeled to and fro like a drunken man, for the hands that were now nailed to the Cross had, in creation's dawn, laid the foundation of the everlasting hills. Out of the midst of that darkness the Son of God cried with a loud voice, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
You who so carelessly reject the Song of God, you who so lightly esteem every claim of His over your eternity-bound soul; you who take the blessed, holy name of God upon your unhallowed, polluted lips so carelessly and lightly, it was for you that the Saviour prayed when He shouted, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."

THE LONELY SAVIOUR

Then out of the midst of the gatering darkness we hear another cry coming from the agonized lips of the Son of God. "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani," which is being interpreted, "My God, my God, Why hst thou forsaken me?" It was bad enough that the great mass of humanity rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. Those men for whom He came to die, those that He came to seek and to save-- when they forsook Him and rejected Him, that was bad enough. Gone were the great multitudes that He had healed. Gone were the thousands whom He had taught and to whom He preached. The multitudes He had fed with the loaves and the fishes by Genessaret's shore were gone. Certainly it was bad enough when the twelve disciples turned their back upon Him and fled. One of them had betrayed Him for thirty pieces of silver, and the price of a common slave; another had cursed and sworn and denied that he even knew the Son of God. That was bad enough. But though forsaken of men that was not the cause of the agonizing fourth cry of the Cross when Jesus cried, "My God, my God why hast THOU forsaken me?"
Did you ever stop to think that the fellowship and communion between the Father and Son had been sweet, wonderful and unbroken from the beginning of a beginning less eternity? But now Jesu was forsaken of God and man because He became sin incarnate. The Just One, the Holy One in whom there was no sin, was made to be sin for us that we might be made the righteous of God in Him.
Yes, He took the sinner's place and a just and Holy God could no longer look upon sin and the Father turned His face away. Forsaken of God and man, Jesus must tread the winepress of the wrath of God alone.

Alone upon the Cross He hung
That others He might save
Forsaken then by God and man
Alone His life He gave.
Can you reject such matchless love?
Can you His claim disown?
Come, give your all in gratitude
Nor leave Him thus alone.

Yes, He was forsaken of God and man and angles. You remember, of course, that on the first Christmas night when Jesus was born, God the Father had dispatched a convoy of winged angels all the way from the glory world and they hearalded the glad tidings of a Saviour born, but no angels were present to sing when He hung upon the Cross. Later on, after the Lord Jesus entered upon his public ministry and was baptized by John the Baptist in the rolling waters of the River Jordan, you remember He was led away by the devil into the wilderness to be tempted. After forty days of self denial and fasting we read, "And angels came and ministered unto Him," But no angels came now to stand by and to minister on that awful occasion when the Son of God hung dying, forsaken of God, men and angels.
During the public ministry of our Lord, trhee times the voice of God the Father had broken Heaven's silence. Once uon the occasio of His baptism the voice of the Father reverberated down through the vaulted heavens saying, "This is my believed Son in whom I am well pleased." Almost the same words were spoken upon the occasion when Greeks came from afar to inquire of Him. Then again the same words of approbation and love came from the Father when Jesus was with his inner circle upon the Mount of Transfiguration. But no voice of the Father came now and spoke words of love or assurance of His approval. Forsaken of God and man, the Lord Jesus suffered and died alone.
Then out of the darkness that shrouded Golgotha's brow that day I hear another cry issuing from the lips of the Son of God, "It is finished." What did He mean by that? The Lord Jesus Christ never does a half-finished job. He finishes everything that He starts to do. He is the perfect Son of God. Even there in the midst of the dying agonies of the Cross He cried, "It is finished." He meant that the sin-debt was paid to the alst farthing. The just demands of a broken law had fully met in His work of atonement.
All the way down through the Old Testament economy institude under the Law of Moses, every blessding sacrifice and every smoking altar pointed forward down through the ages to that one supreme, once-for-all sacrifice that Jesus Christ was now encacting upon the Cross.
Every just demand of a broken law had been met. The sin-debt had been paid. Every Old Testament type, and shadow, and figure had been fulfilled to the last detail. Yes, a new and living way was now opened up from earth to heaven and that new and living Way means that you and I, sinners though we are, can have access to God. We don't hve to be cut off forever by our sins from a just and holy God, but in the hame of the Lord Jesus Christ we ca now come to Him. We can ask for pardon, forgiveness, life eternal basee upon the realization that our sin-debt was cancelled, that our debt was paid not with silver or gold or corruptible things, but by the precious blood of Christ.
Therefore when we come to the Lord Jesus with simple trust in Him, basing our hopes upon the merits of His atoning work, upon His shed blood, we can now come asking as porr sinners, just as humble suppliants we can ask grace and salvation. That is the oly basis upon which any of us can come to God for salvation. It is based purely and simply uon the face that when the Lord Jesus Christ went to the Cross, He died in our stead. He was wounded for our transgressions, and the foundation stone of all the Gospel is "how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures."
Then out o the darkness of Golgotha we find that the Lord Jesus cries again, this time shouting, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit" and He yielded upon the ghost. Oh, if ever there were joy in the regions of the damned, demons must have danced in ghoulish glee, for seemingly hell had triumphed and sorrow in the courts of the redeemed in the City of God, angels must have hushed their angelic songs, cherubims and seraphims must have hung over the parapets of heaven with bated breath as they looked down on that scene and saw Him who was the chief jewel of heaven, the Crown Prince of heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the second Person of the Godhead murdered at the cruel hands of evil men.
This must have been unexplainable tot he angelic hosts who saw creation's morning, had ceased not day and night to sing His everlasting praises. But you know the most wonderful thing about the death of our Saviour was that He died not the death of a martyr, not merely setting up a good example, but that he died a vicarious, substitutionary, atoning death upon the Cross.
Isaiah described it fitly when, moved by the Holy Spirit, he looked upon that scene seven hundred years before it was enacted and cried, "But he was wounded for our transgressions; he ws bruised for our iniquites, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are heald." (Isa. 53:5)
When the Son of God died, He died not for any sins of which He was guilty, for He had no sins. He ws the spotless, blemishless, perfect Son of God. In Him there was no guile. But when He died bearing our sin, paying our penalty, all the accumulated wrath of God against sin from the first sin which was committed in the Garden of Eden down to the moent when time shall be no more, the accumulated wrath of God against sin, God's judgement upon sin, was poured out upon His Son, and He died, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.
Now what is the personal significance of the cruifixion? What does the Cross of Christ mean to you personally? This was the forcibly impressed upon me in perhaps one of the simplest ways possible, years ago. It was when my daughter was only about three years of age. At Christmas time that hear her mother and childish language. One day Evelyn Rae and I were driving down the streets of Fort Worth, Texas We stopped for a red light. Just she and I were in the car. She turned to me and a frown came over her little face as she lisped in her childish voice, "Daddy," she said, "it used to make me mad when I heard about those old mean men crucifying Jesus," and she shook her little head and her blode curls danced as she said, "but I didn't understand then, I didn't understand that if Jesus hadn't been crucified you and I couldn't go to heaven, could we?"
My friend, I though, "out of the moths of babes and sucklings has thou ordained strength and wisdom," for there is the Gospel in its simplest form. If Jesus hadn't been Crucified, you and I couldn't go to heaven, could we? If Jesus had not gone to the Cross dying a vicarious, substitutionary, atoning death, then you and I would have no hope in this world nor in the world to come. Our sin-debt would still be unpaid. We would still be in our sin. 
Now we come to the second element of the Gospel.

"AND THAT HE WAS BURIED"

After the Lord Jesus had bowed His head upon His pulseless breast and cried "father into thy hands I commend my spirit," He yielded up the ghost. Then that precious body was taken down from the Cross by the hands ofloving friends and laid in the rock-hewn tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea which was in the midst of anearby garden. Why is this particular clause included, "And that he was buried"? Would we not rightfully infer that if He died that He should be buried? Yes. Nevertheless, I am glad that the Holy Spirit guided the pen of the Apostle P aul to write down thses words, "and that he was buried."
Why am I glad? Because I believe that in the breast of every normal, natural person there is a shrinking back from the crumbling edge of the grave. I believe that is a perfectly normal, natural reaction. That is the reason many people do not even want to hear about death. They try to shut it out of their minds. Neverthelss, it is the greater part of wisdom for us to heed this solemn fact of the Scriptures: "And as it is appointed unot man once to die, and after this, the judgment." Thus it is the greater part of wisdom for us to prepare for an inevitable death.
"Man that is born of woman is of but few days and full of trouble." It is for us to realize taht death is a certainty. Nevertheless, we can be prepared for it. We need not fear. We need not live in a constant, haunting dread and fear of the tomb. Why? Because the Lord Jesus Christ Himself was buried. He has gone down into the Valley of the Shadow of Death for us. He has lighted the way on that last long journey from this world to the next. He came out safe and triumphant on the other side of the valley of the shands, therefore He is an all-sufficient guide for each of us when we, too, make that long journey.
Yes, I say that it is natural for every one of us to shrink back from the grave. Hambones, the coming character, expressed pretty well with sentiments of all of us when he said, "Heaven is my hom,e but I ain't homesick a bit." Nevertheless, if that journey is inevitable and if the Lord Jesus Christ delays His coming every one of us, too, in the fullness of time within the next few years will be embarking on that journey. However, now every child of God can know that death has been robbed of its sting and the grave of its victory.
"And that he was buried." Our Lord's body was taken down from the Cross, laid in the new tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea, and you recall that th enemies of our Lrod wen to the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate and said that when that impostor was alive, referring to the Lord Jesus, He said that He would come forth fro the tomb. "Now Governor," they said, "let us make this tomb doubly secure lest His disciples come and steal His tobdy away." Pontius Pilate replied, "Why certainly, I'll place a Roman guard at your disposal!" And it was because of this that every hour of the day and night those Roman soldiers, veterans of many a hard-fought battle, were standing, four of them facing the east, four facing west, four north and four south. This Roman guard was changed every four hours. Of course, those soliders would not have dared to go to sleep while on guard, for the penalty was death

III. "THAT HE ROSE AGAIN"

I am glad that the enemies of our Lord tried to make the tomb double secure. All that the mighty power of Rome could accomplish had been done. At the mouth of that tomb a great stone was rolled. That sone was sealed with Jewish hate and Roman power, guarded by the famous legions of Rome. All that the cruel evil hands of men, the murdering hands of Christ-rejecting men, could do had been done, and the Lord Jesus now was lying inside the dark tomb. But I thank God the story does not end there.

Low in the grave He lay--- Jesus my Saviour!
Waiting the coming day----Jesus, my Lord!

Vainly they watch His bed----Jesus my Saviour!
Vainly they seal the dead---Jesus, my Lord!

Death cannot keep its prey----Jesus my Saviour!
He tore the bars away, Jesus, my Lord!

Up from the grave He arose
With amighty triumph o'er his foes;

He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
And he lives forever with His saints to reign;

He arose! He arose!
Halleljah! Christ arose!

Have you ever stopped to think that the emply tomb of our Lord is the one supreme mark which differntiates Christianity from every false, pagan religion of all time? Call the roll of the pagan religionists of ages past if you will-- Confucius, Zoroaster, Mohammed, Buddah, all the others. They lived, they taught, they died and they remain dead, but only the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the Son of God, lived as never man did. He lived a perfect, sinless life. He taught with supernatural words, speaking as never man spake. He died a vicarious death upon the Cross and thank God, He arose from the dead. There is the one mark that differentiates Chrsit from the false pagain relgionists of al time.
Yes, thanks be unto God He arose. For He who was the Lord of life could no longer be held by the bars of death and He came forth triumphant over the powers of death, hell and the grave, leading captivity captive and bringing hope and immoraltiy to the sons of men. I thank God that the might power of God wrought in Him and He raised Him from the grave.
Oh, the modernists would laugh and mock and scoff at the idea of a literal, bodily resurrection. But I thank God it was not just the spirit or the ideals or the principles of Jesus that are immortal. That same body that walked the dusty highways of Judaea and stood upon the storm-tossed crest of Galilee's sea; that sme body that was nailed to a cruel cross and laid in the dim recesses of the tomb for three days and nights; that was the body that came forth glorified in triumphant power over death.
"....how say some among you that there is no resurrection from the dead? But if....Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain....we are all men most miserable (most to be pitied) (I Cor. 15:12, 14, 19). I love the triumphant surety as expressed in these words, "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that sleep." (I Cor. 15:20)
What does the expression, "firstfruits," mean? Go out into the apple orchards of Michigan in the early summer. You see one apple as it seems to ripen ahead of its fellows and you watch it. When it comes to full fruition you pluck that beautiful, luscious apple. You hold it in your hands and it says to you, "I am the firstfruits of all this tree. As I am, so shall all the rst of the fruit be, when in the fullness of time each of thse apples ripen one by one." That's what it means when it says, "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept." Just like Jesus Christ could no longer be held by the bars of death so everyone who sleeps in Jesus, every child of God who has died with hsi faith fixed unfalteringly in the Lord Jesus Christ as an all-suffiencient Saviour, will come forth in the morning of the first resurrection after the similutude of His glorious resurrected body. That which was sown a mortal shall be raised an immortal; that which was sown a corruptible body shall be raised an incorrupitble; that which was sown an earthly shall be raised an heavenly body.
The Lord Jesus could stand there in the motuth of that open grave, look back into the dim recesses from which he had so recently come forth, and He co uld shout as recorded in the first chapter of the Book of the Revelation. "I am he that...was dead; and....am alive forevermore....and have the keys of hell and of death" dangling at My girdle (verse 18). Yes, He can shout down through the ages to every believer of all coming time, "I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live" (John 11:25)
Now, personally, what does the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ mean to you? I'll tell you what it means to me.
In the hills of southern Kentucky there is a beatuiful little cemetery--if any cemetery can be said to be truly beautiful-- where so many hopes and tears are buried beneath the sod. Every once in awahile when I am on speaking engagements in that section of the country, I turn aside a few miles from the Dixie Highway, turn my car into the gates of that little cemetery in Russelville, Kentucky. There I stop besides two low mouns. At the head of those two graves there is a headstone with the names of my father and mother inscribed on them. As I stand there I lift my hat and thank God anew that though they did not leave much of earthly wealth to their children, yet I was born in a Christian home, I was nourished at the Christian mother's breast, and almost my earliest recollections of childhood were concerning the things of God, and in those things my father and mother set the example.
As I stand there my mind goes back through the years, through childhood's hapy memories. I think of the joyous gatherings of the family around the hearthside on the winter's night. I think of my brothers, and sister, mother and dad. I can close my eyes and almost hear those voices which now have been stilled, as far as earth is concerned, for thse many years. Death has thinned the family ranks. First my father was called after he had literally worn out his body in serving the Lord, in preaching the Gospel and in winning souls . Next, sister was called and then mother and then my older brother until now just one other brother and I re all that remain of the family of six. Yes, as I stand there beside those silent mounds, where we planted flowers and watered them with our tears, I think of the words of the songwriter:

If I should beliving when Jesus comes
And could know the day and the hour
I'd like to be standing at mother's grave
When Jesus comes in His power.

Certainly I do not know whether I shall remain on the earth until Jesus comes or not. I cannot know the time nor the manner of my homegoing. That is in the hands of God. I am not greatly concerned about that, though it would be truly wonderful if I could be here when Jesus comes. While I may not k nokw these things, yet there are some things that I can know and that I do know. I know that one of these days in the fullness of time I Thessalonians 1:16 will be fulfilled, and that "the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a hsout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first." As I stand there looking down at those two silent mounds I think of that time when Jesus shall split the skies and come back to earth to claim His own. I like to think that those loved ones of mine whose ears have heard no earthly sound for all these years shall hear the sound of the shout of the descending Lord and after the similiutde of His glorious resurrection body, they shall get up. Those graves shall burst open like the chestnut burr bursts when touched by the autumn frosts. For I believe the sure promise of our risen Lord when I said to His believers of all coing time, "Because I live, ye shall live also."
Yes, I love to think of the time when the Lord Jesus will appear in yonder glory cloud and His voice shall call from their sleeping dust your loved ones and mine who have fallen asleep in Christ. Then those bodies as they come sweeping out from the open graves rushing to the feet of the descending Lord shall look back into those graves from whence they have just come forth and they shall shout, "Oh grave, where is thy victory?"
Next we believers who are living on the earth when Jesus comes shall be translated in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed, and we'll answer back as we wing our way together with our resurrected loved ones toward the feet of the descending Lord, we'll shout, "Oh, death where is thy sting?" And then both togther, translated, living, glorified believers and the resurrected dead in Christ shall lift up their voices in a new grand note and we shall shall shout, "Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh, grave where is thy victory?" Thanks be unto God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.