To the Jews Paul preached the good news or gospel that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (Acts 9:20:22). And the Jews who believed that truth were born of God and received life the moment when they believed (1 Jn.5:1-5; Jn.20:31).
So if a
gentile were to listen to the
Jewish gospel which proclaims
Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God" they would
not be saved? Why not? Why should the vital truth about
Jesus divine origin and relationship to the Father be withheld from Gentiles? Without this knowledge they might take Jesus to be a morally good man who offered his life as a noble act of self-sacrifice. That was not why He died. He was crucified for blasphemy, for making Himself equal to God. Also, why should Jesus' role as the Messiah be omitted? This is an important doctrine especially with regard to His
coming again to reign on the earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
To the Gentiles Paul preached a gospel or the good news that Jesus died for our sins (1 Cor.15:3) and those who believed that truth were saved the moment when they believed.
I find it amazing that you think Christ death on the cross for our sins was given to the Gentiles but omitted in any message aimed to reaching the Jews. The blood atonement for sin was in Old Testament prophecy and they would have certainly understood it. Jesus had been declared to be "The Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world" by John the Baptist at the very beginning of His ministry. The significance of His death at Passover, John's resemblance to Elijah would have been very rich symbols in the thinking of any Jewish person. It would also have been necessary to know they needed an atoning intermediary so they would not think they could approach God with good works.
Apparently in the MAD paradigm only
parts of the
truth had an effect on the respective groups. For some reason Jews and Gentiles were incapable of grasping or benefiting from the whole counsel of God. Yet I do not see
any reason why a complete message could not be preached. Why not preach that Jesus was the Son of God, that He was the sacrifice for sin, the promised King who would come again and that if they believed in Him they would be saved? This is the way the gospel is preached today and it is efficacious for Jew and Gentile alike. Unlike a dual gospel this one message would have had a unifying effect on a group all too prone to disunity
As more Gentiles were saved it would have been increasingly difficult to deliver these separate messages to different audiences. Dividing populations and messages would have encouraged division in a body where there "was no Jew nor Greek." Paul speaking to the Corinthians, a large group that consisted of both Jews and Greeks where Apollos and Peter had also ministered called what they taught "
The Word of the Cross" and, far from being adapted to suit any group it was "foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews (
1 Corinthians 1:22-24) So here we have an example of two audiences hearing one message which was unacceptable to the natural mind of both.
Anyone with the slightest degree of discernment knows that the "good news" that the Lord Jesus died for our sins is not the same "good news" that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
The term
good news comes from the Septuagint translation of Isaiah
61. 1
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
Because the LORD has
anointed me
To bring
good news (Greek "
evangelion")to the afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to captives
And freedom to prisoners;
2To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
This is a Messianic prophecy. The Spirit of the Lord would be upon the Messiah (
John 1:33). Because He would be a king he would be anointed but his anointing would include supernatual power by which he would do miracles. (
Acts 10:38) It is an extensive all-encompassing prophecy which continues until His second coming
Jesus Himself took the word "
good news" from this passage to describe
His own ministry and message yet MAD claims that Paul had a different "good news"
even though the term came from the very same passage. It it not sound hermeneutically to use such an significant word out of context and use it in an entirely different way. That is not the way to rightly divide the scriptures. According to the Bible The
Good News is the message Jesus proclaimed. He is the Messiah being spoken about in the Isaiah passage not Paul. You people say that Paul had visions did not merely clarify and deepen our understanding of Jesus gospel but supplanted it and made He (and Isaiah) said obsolete.
Again, Jesus died on the cross precisely because He said He was the Son of God. If he had not been He also could not have been the perfect sacrifice and mediator between God and man. Therefore one idea depends on the other.
