The "Gospel" for Today

Yes I can. Let me pull up Act 2:22-24 again for you.

Here Peter proclaims Jesus death and resurrection. However his sermon focuses on his resurrection. And also on Jesus' Messiahship as the Jews were waiting for their messiah. Now the explination of attoning death may be skimpy but the proclimation is clear. However, at this point we don't know how much the crowd may have, without being made clear, the attoning aspect of Jesus' crucifixion.

 

I think that since the crowd was primarily Jewish that message which came accross was that Jesus was the Messiah sent to establish his kingdom whom they had killed in their arrogance. For me its a statement about the Church. For the Establishment of his Kingdom both temporal and plenary is the same as the Church.

 

This seems to follow

So yes I can agree with that.

 

Not exactly. This is due to audiences. Corinth is primarily Greek Speaking Non-Jews and must have had more to be explained however Paul makes it clear what the good news is

In Peter's case he's speaking to Jews and has obvioulsy taken certain things for Granted where as Paul could not do so with his audience. In Both Cases though Jesus is Lord.

 

That is irrelevant. There are many things we don't understand; and there are many things they didn't understand. Mary didn't even recognize Jesus standing in the garden, and the two on the way to Emmaus walked a long distance with Jesus. He expounded to them all what the prophets had to say concerning him, and they still did not recognize who he was! He was already risen from the dead when those things occurred.

But after the Day of Pentecost, when the believers were permanently indwelt with the Holy Spirit, things became different. They were able to understand the Scriptures more easily. The promise of Jesus was fulfilled that He would send another Comforter to help them understand.

The gospel was now complete. The death, burial and resurrection. And they understood it more fully now. Philip had the wherewithal to explain it--the filling of the Holy Spirit. What a difference it made in his preaching and teaching!

 

Could anyone be saved by an incomplete gospel? While I agree that Christ fulfilled the promise of the gospel preached since the garden of Eden, I don't believe for one second that what they preached was "another" gospel or an "incomplete" gospel in the sense of obtaining justification before God on the basis of the Messiah provision.

It seems to me the question is what is the essential understanding one must have of the gospel according to the progressive revelation prior to the cross versus after the full revelation in the cross.

As we study the gospel first delivered in Genesis 3:15 in its progressive revelation we find a steady source of added details as you travel through Genesis to Malichi.

I personally believe that Abel's sacrifice was accepted and Cain's rejected because Abel's sacrifice was patterned after what God did in the garden to provide the clothing for Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness. He covered them in another skin besides their own from head to toe - They were clothed in the symbolic righteous life of Christ in the skins of lambs. Skins come only by shedding of blood. I believe that God personally symbolicly demonstrated the death of a substitute for their sins by the shedding of its blood.

Abel believed in the same promise (Gen. 3:15) and manifested that belief in offering up a lamb unto God as a substitue for himself as a symbol of his faith in the preached gospel of the promised "seed" (Gen. 3:15).

By the time of Isaiah, the substitutionary atonement had been progressively revealed almost as clear as the Post-cross gospel (Isaiah 53) that Paul could claim that the preachers sent to preach the gospel could be exemplied by Isaiah's report of the gospel in Isaiah 53:1- (Rom. 10:14-16).

John the Baptist certainly understood the significance of the gospel as he preached faith in Christ for eternal life and remission of sins that provided justification from the wrath of God (Jn. 1:29; 3:36; Acts 19:4).

The apostles were the disciples of John prior to following Christ (Jn. 1:50-57). John would not baptize anyone who did not repent of their sins and trust in Christ to save them from sin (Jn. 1:29; 3:36; Acts 19:4) as his baptism was a baptism of repentance.

I contend that the apostles trusted in the gospel preached by both John and Christ for eternal life and salvation from eternal judgment.

Where their confusion existed was (1) They could not reconcile the coming Messiah as King to establish his kingdom on earth with the Suffering Messiah in regard to chronology and actual fulfillment; (2) They did not understand how death on a cross as a common criminal harmonized with the gospel they received.

John 6:67-68 make it clear that Peter prior to Pentecost trusted in the Person and message of Jesus Christ for eternal life.

Finally, it was not so much that they rejected substitutionary atonement by Christ but rather they could not harmonize the means chosen by God (cross) and predicted by Christ with what they perceived to be first the kingly coming of Christ to overthrow Rome and establish his kingdom on earth.

 

Pauls method ,as well as all apostles/successors , of teaching was ; ' I preach " notice it is preached not read , the vast majority of new converts were illiterate, so the only way to convey the message of the "Good News" was by a method called Apostolic Oral Teaching/Tradition , you won't find it explained in the Bible anymore than the word Trinity or Bible, but accept it , because that is a true fact.

 

Mt 12:3 But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him;
Mt 12:5 Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?
Mt 19:4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
Mt 21:16 And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?
Mt 21:42 Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?
Mt 22:31 But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying,
Mr 2:25 And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him?
Mr 12:10 And have ye not read this scripture; The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner:
Mr 12:26 And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?
Lu 4:16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.Lu 6:3 And Jesus answering them said, Have ye not read so much as this, what David did, when himself was an hungred, and they which were with him;
Joh 19:20 This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin.
Ac 8:28 Was returning, and sitting in his chariot read Esaias the prophet.
Ac 8:30 And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest?
Ac 8:32 The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth:
Ac 13:27 For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.
Ac 15:21 For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.
Ac 15:31 Which when they had read, they rejoiced for the consolation.
Ac 23:34 And when the governor had read the letter, he asked of what province he was. And when he understood that he was of Cilicia;
2Co 1:13 For we write none other things unto you, than what ye read or acknowledge; and I trust ye shall acknowledge even to the end;
2Co 3:2 Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:
2Co 3:15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
Eph 3:4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)
Col 4:16 And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea.
1Th 5:27 I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.