The Simple Gospel Message

• The first man and woman were perfect and associated with God in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2).
• They implicitly trusted God so much that they didn’t even know they were naked (Genesis 3:7).
• The first man saw the Satan tempt the first woman to defy God’s order to not eat the fruit to know morality, then he followed.
• God’s perfect attributes mean He can’t coexist with imperfection, so He exiled them from the Garden.

Some people say the creation story is merely symbolic, but its mythological phenomenology is still consistent with what we all know to be true.

• Women must endure extreme pain during childbearing and want to take over the man’s role (Genesis 3:16).
• Men must work very hard just to survive (Genesis 3:17–19).
• We’ve been exiled from God and have lost our connection with nature:
  • Most human experiences with God are deceptions.
  • We no longer have authority over other living organisms.
  • We don’t even connect well anymore with each other’s feelings and thoughts!

• At the moment they ate the fruit, our spirits died.
• The final consequence of sin is permanent, complete death (Revelation 21:8).
• It may feel unfair that we’re reaping our ancestors’ sins, but we’d all make the same stupid choice in their situation.
• If we had stayed in Eden and eaten the Tree of Life, we’d be stuck this way forever (Genesis 3:22).

• Judaism gives hundreds of clearly defined laws to follow in the daily life of the time (most of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy).
• God requires us to do all of them (Leviticus 19:2, Matthew 5:28, Romans 3:23).
• Even if we fully wanted to, we’re so habituated to our culture and its sins that following all the laws is humanly impossible.

1. Jesus died by public crucifixion, but they still haven’t found a body, even though the most powerful military unit at the time was stationed to protect it.
2. After Jesus’ crucifixion, his disciples and other followers had legitimate experiences of seeing Jesus.
   • If it was a cleverly designed hoax, every follower of Jesus believed they were real events, including high-ranking officials and tradesmen.
   • Jesus’ biological brother, James, had an experience he thought was a separate appearance of Jesus.
   • These people were driven by their experiences to leave their jobs to deliver his message.
   • Paul, a prominent Pharisee with nothing to gain from following Jesus, experienced what he believed was Jesus appearing, then converted to Christianity.
3. Within 1-2 years after Jesus died, thousands of people were following Jesus and preaching his story.
   • If Jesus was a successful scammer or magician, the hype would have died with him, or at least would have mostly died out.
   • Against all attempts to destroy or revise the Bible for 2,000 years, it keeps carrying on that same message across all languages and cultures.

• Declare Jesus is the Lord and believe He died for your sins to receive salvation (Romans 10:9), which has several components:
  1. Believe in God’s existence.
  2. Believe Jesus is the Lord of everything, which is essentially declaring that Jesus is God.
  3. Believe Jesus is your Lord, a form of fealty and submission.
  4. Believe that Jesus legitimately died, which means that Jesus had to have become a man.
  5. Believe God (specifically, Jesus’ “Father”) raised Jesus from the dead, which means that the definition of “God” isn’t so straightforward (i.e., discussions regarding believing the Trinity).
• Some Christians say purgatory will sort out sins that aren’t confessed, but the passage is vague enough to refer to the spiritually dead on this earth, and in a book some Christians declare non-canonical (2 Maccabees 12:39–46).
• The final salvation, however, is at the Great White Throne Judgment, where all sins will be eradicated with the people found guilty of them (Revelation 20:11–15).

Jesus promises an abundant remaining life on this earth (John 10:10).

All Christians receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16, 1 Corinthians 12:13).

Following Jesus is a living, dynamic relationship with the one true God (Romans 8:31–39).

God promises believers will receive an incorruptible and eternal crown of glory (1 Corinthians 9:24–25, 2 Timothy 4:8).

• This crown might be others brought to Christ through your testimony (1 Thessalonians 2:19–20).

• It is certainly true that simply believing and not acting isn’t really “belief”, but our merit or effort doesn’t determine who Jesus saves.
• Baptism is a symbolic act of devotion and not a condition for salvation (1 Peter 3:21).
• Praying a specific prayer shows commitment, but only through our sincerity in praying it.
• Other activities like communion/Eucharist and honoring the Sabbath pertain to your relationship with God and communal experience, but have nothing to do with attaining salvation.
• Speaking in tongues and baptism in the Holy Spirit are part of God’s work in us, but they’re not salvation (1 Corinthians 14).