Gospel

 

The Masked Metalhead And The Gospel

August 21, 2023

I love hard rock and heavy metal. That should be a given. Of course, I enjoy other styles of music from time to time too. I also love ministry—particularly reaching people with the Gospel.

For those who don’t know, the Gospel means “good news”. The good news has been preached for 2,000 years on every populated continent. What good news you might ask?

The good news is that Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, was put to death for your sins and resurrected to show He has power over life and death! So you too can be saved from your sins and its eternal punishment—death in Hell.

For those of you who are not familiar with church or the Bible, this good news may be like a “foreign language” to you. I used words and terms like sin, begotten, saved, eternal punishment, Hell, resurrected, and so on. Don’t fret, I’ll explain it for you.

But first, to understand the good news—you really need to understand the bad news, so that the good news makes sense. In other words, you need a good foundation to understand the good news—without the foundation, the structure on top simply cannot stand (aka, makes no sense). So let me explain who the God of the Bible is and why the good news that He is responsible for is so powerful.  

The God of the Bible is perfect, all knowing (omniscient; e.g., Psalm 147:5; Colossians 2:2-3), all powerful (omnipotent; e.g., Jeremiahs 32:27; Matthew 19:26; Mark 10:27; Revelation 19:6) and all present (omnipresent; e.g., Jeremiah 23:24; Hebrews 4:13). He is also the very definition of truth (John 14:6), the giver of life (John 14:6), the source of love (1 John 4:8), and is the Creator of all things (Genesis 1:1-2:3; John 1:1-3; Colossians 1:16-17, Hebrews 1:1-10). 

We know these things because God revealed it to us in written Word to man called the Bible. By the way, revealing things to mankind is not very hard for an all-powerful God.

Too clarify, when God created everything, like the universe (which was also all too easy for an all-powerful being), He also created time. The God of the Bible is not bound by time since He created it. So God can do things in an instant that would be an eternity for us.

This is also why God can predict the future and do so with absolute precision. The God of the Bible is amazingly accurate regarding fulfilled prophecy. God is also triune in His nature (three persons, one God)—the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

When a perfect God created everything, by extension it was perfect (Deuteronomy 32:4). That is what we expected from a perfect God and He even declared His creation “very good” (Genesis 1:31). There was no death (remember God is a God of life), no pain, and no suffering. The creation was indeed perfect.

Unlike angels, rocks, animals, or any other creation, God created man in His own image in the first chapter of the Bible (Genesis 1:26-27). This means mankind’s nature has a reflection of God (see also: Genesis 9:6 and the reflective triune nature of man in 1 Thessalonians 5:23). God is eternal—our souls are also eternal—they will go on forever (e.g., Matthew 25:46). God is a ruling God, so God gave us something to rule over and have dominion over (the world, animals, etc.; Genesis 1:26-28). God takes care in His creation so He gave mankind something to take care of (the Garden of Eden; e.g., Genesis 2:15), God relational and is love (1 John 14:16), so God gave man and woman to share a loving relationship within marriage (Genesis 2:24). This is just a taste of what it is like to be made in the image of God.

Now for the bad news. The bad news started a long time ago. Precious few commands were given to the first man and woman—our direct ancestors (whom the Bible lists as Adam and Eve). But one command was not eat from a particular tree (Genesis 2:17). Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate anyway. They essentially committed high treason against God. Their disobedience is called sin. When Adam and Eve sinned, they essentially defied a perfect God and assumed they were equal to or greater than God to make their own decisions regarding the fruit they ate (see the progression of sin in James 1:14-15).

Granted, Eve was deceived by Satan using a serpent but Adam ate with full knowledge that he was sinning (per Genesis 3:13, 2 Corinthians 11:3, and 1 Timothy 2:14). According to Genesis 2:17, the punishment for sin was death. Death has reigned from that point forward. Adam and Eve began to die.

In the same way, we all sin too because all of our lives came from Adam and Eve. Thus, we are all born dying. We have a sin nature that comes from Adam, but we also actively sin too. Sin is any thought, word, or deed that breaks God law. There are two types of sin: commission (doing what God forbids) and omission (not being or doing what God required).  

The point is that we all sin. And therefore, we will be judged by a perfect God on judgment day (e.g., Matthew 11:22-24; 2 Peter 3:7). Since God is perfectly just and we all deserve to die for our sin as well. By rights that is perfect justice—one sin against a perfectly holy (pure) God deserves to be punished since an God is truly just.

But it is much deeper than this. God is infinite and eternal and so the punishment from an infinite and eternal God is…by extension… an infinite punishment that would go on for eternity. This is why the death we deserve for sin is called an eternal death or everlasting punishment e.g., Daniel 12:2; Matthew 25:46). This is what Hell is—the eternal punishment or second death with the infinite wrath of God punishing the sinner forever (e.g., Luke 12:5; Revelation 21:8).  

Just to clarify—Satan doesn’t rule in Hell nor does he have any power there. He too will be undergoing the infinite wrath of God forever as a prisoner (Revelation 20:10)—Satan is not the warden, God is! Sadly, many metalheads make this mistake in the secular world.

But God is also a gracious, forgiving, and merciful God. So how can God enact justice while also showing grace, forgiveness, and mercy?

Now for the good news. God, in His infinite wisdom before the first sin was committed, already knew the path to salvation (being saved from the infinite wrath of God in Hell; e.g., Ephesians 1:4; 1 Peter 1:20). So what was God’s plan?

Well, the only One in a position to take the infinite punishment from an infinite God is God Himself. This is where the nature of the triune God becomes very important. There is one God (Isaiah 44:8; Isaiah 45:18; Deuteronomy 6:4; Malachi 2:10, James 2:19; Mark 12:29) but there are three persons of the Godhead. This is not contradictory by the way. If it were one God and three Gods—then it would be contradictory, but this is not the God of the Bible.

The second person of the Triune God took on flesh and became a man as the only begotten Son [as in taking on the flesh] to become fully man yet remaining fully God (e.g., John 1:14; 2 Corinthians 4:11; Philippians 2:6-7; Hebrews 2:14). He lived a perfect life without sin since God cannot sin (e.g., 2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 4:15; 1 Peter 2:22; 1 John 3:5). The Son of God, Jesus Christ, then laid down His human life to die the punishment that we all deserve (John 3:16-18; John 10:17).

When Jesus died on the cross, He endured the infinite punishment we deserve once for all from the infinite Father whose infinite wrath was poured out on Christ (Isaiah 53:3-11; Romans 6:10). Jesus is infinite and also the Creator of time itself and is beyond time, so His punishment engulfed an eternity at that very moment. So Christ took the infinite punishment we deserve for all time through His shed blood (Hebrews 7:27, 9:12, 10:10).

But Christ did not stay dead, instead He had the power to lay down His life and take it up again (John 10:17-18).  For He is God and knows all things and has all power; and He is the life and the one who sustains existence itself. In other words, you and this entire creation exist because Christ wills you to exist. So do not think for one moment you have no value. To Christ, you have an eternal value worth dying for—but also worth resurrecting for!

But it was Christ’s work that makes salvation possible—only through His death, burial, and resurrection. When we received Christ as Lord and believe in His death and resurrection, we pass from eternal death to eternal life (John 5:24; 1 John 3:14; Revelation 20:6) and one day we will have resurrected bodies too (Romans 6:5; 1 Corinthians 15:51-53) and come out of the grave (so long as Christ doesn’t return before that).

This is why those in Christ (those who believe in Him and what He did) get to live with a good and perfect God forever in heaven (technically a new heavens and a new earth (e.g., Isaiah 65:17; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1-4) enjoying his blessing for eternity. This is where you see the grace, forgiveness, and mercy shown through God’s justice.

As a result of Christ’s work and His ascension into heaven (Acts 1:9-11) to sit on the right hand of the throne of God (e.g., Hebrews 8:1, 12:2), Jesus now draws all people unto Himself (John 12:32). The Bible also says the Father also draws all people unto Christ (John 6:44). And by the power of the Holy Spirit people are getting saved and the church has grown from a few people in an upper room to become the largest religion and is the faster is growing by conversion in the world.

Every Hindu, every Muslim, every atheist…everyone has been drawn by God to Jesus Christ and no one has an excuse (Romans 1:18-20) but instead God says they try to suppress the knowledge of God in unrighteousness. Be praying that unbelievers would surrender to Christ—as we want all to receive Christ and be saved for eternity.

You see on judgment day, God sees all those in Christ as perfect because Christ’s perfection and righteousness is imputed (transferred) to us (e.g., Romans 4:23-24) so that we are seen as spotless and sinless and able to then enter into a perfect heaven (Revelation 21:27). By the power of the Holy Spirit you too can affirm that Jesus is Lord (1 Corinthians 12:3).

·        “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. John 3:16-17 NKJV

·       That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9  NKJV

·       And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Acts 16:30-31 NKJV

·       And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. Mark 16:15-16 NKJV

I want to invite you to consider the claims of Christ by surrendering and receiving Him as Lord and Savior of your life (John 12:48). When you believe in the Jesus Christ of the Bible you will be saved. This really is good news—the Gospel.

As a result of salvation, I want to encourage you to share this good news of the free gift of salvation (Romans 5:14-18; Ephesians 2:8) with others. I want to encourage you to turn from your sin (this is called repentance) and be sorry for your sin against God and against others; e.g., Acts 3:19; 2 Corinthians 7:10; 2 Peter 3:9). As we grow spiritually, this is called sanctification—working on being more holy where we purify ourselves by the power of the Holy Spirit (1 Peter 1:2).

When you believe in Christ, I want to encourage you to find a Bible-believing local church and enjoy fellowship with other believers growing in your faith as the Bible says (Hebrews 10:24-25) and having continual communion with fellow believers. I also want to encourage you to follow Christ in baptism, and have a blessed prayer life.

Blessings in Christ,

Bodi-wan, the Masked Metalhead