This is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the Prophets. Where did it ultimately and first begin? The gospel of the grace of the Son of God, where was the beginning of the beginnings? Where first did the gospel begin?
Was it when Paul preached it as he defined it in the fifteenth chapter of the Corinthian letter? Did it begin there, the preaching of the gospel of the Son of God? No. No. Where was the beginning of the gospel of the Son of God?
Was it at Pentecost, when Simon Peter delivered the message of the Lord? Is that the beginning of the gospel of the Son of God, the preaching at Pentecost? No.
Did the gospel begin in the day of the cross when the Lord said, “This is My blood of the new covenant shed for the remission of sins”? [Matthew 26:28]. When He bowed His head and cried, “It is finished,” and dismissed His spirit to God [John 19:30], was that the beginning in the day of the cross of the gospel of the grace of the Son of God? No. It was before that.
Then did the gospel begin in the Prophets, as in Isaiah? Nay, it was before that.
Then where did the gospel began? Was it in the heart of the psalmist David who cried the very bitter tears of the cross, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani”? [Matthew 27:46]. “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Did it begin there in the heart of David, in the cries and tears of the psalmist singer of Israel? No, it was before that.
Then surely the gospel must have begun in the night of the first Passover when the blood of the lamb was spilled? No, it was before that.
Then where did the gospel begin? Surely then in Abraham, on the day when he offered up Isaac? No, it was before that.
Then it must have been whispered in the ear of Enoch in the days before the flood? No, it was before that. Then where did the gospel begin?
It began surely in the Protevangelium in Genesis 3:15 when the Lord said, “Satan may bruise His heel, but He, the Seed of the woman, will crush Satan’s head.” Surely that is the beginning of the gospel; nay, it was before that.
Then where could it have begun? It began in the heart of the Lord God before time was. It began in the existence of God, who never had a beginning. Our minds cannot fathom the mystery of the heart of God. At the center of this universe is God, and in the center of God is redemption, grace, forgiveness, atonement, and beyond that, our minds cannot enter. We just look in wonder, and our wonder turns into awe and worship and speechlessness. The beginning of the gospel of the grace of the Son of God in the heart of the Father, in the eternity of the eternities, purposed, elected before the foundation of the world [Ephesians 1:4]; oh, the mystery of the unfathomable depths of the riches of the grace of God in Christ Jesus, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God!
W.A. Criswell
SCRIPTURES FOR THIS SUNDAY
Read Mark 1:1-8 and take some time to consider the gospel – that you a wretched sinner, though deserving of God’s full and just wrath, could be the recipient of the great mercy of God through the gift of his Son as your all-sufficient redeemer.
