Good morning. Now back to Paul’s description of what is meant by
the Gospel: for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received,
that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried,
and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that
He appeared to Cephas, then to the 12. After that He appeared to more than 500
brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen
asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all,
as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. The gospel (good news) is:
First, He died for our sins. We don’t have to do anything else other than to
believe and receive it. That was especially good news for the Jews because they
believed they had to do all the sacrifices and to “earn” their salvation.
Second, He was buried for three days and nights. He didn’t just pass out and
later revived. He was “most sincerely dead“. Third, He did not stay in the
grave, He rose again. Him dying for our sins was great, but we could not have
lived the Christian life without Him rising from the dead. Fourth He appeared
to many different people; the exact ones is not necessarily important; that He
did is. Since they saw Him, we can believe their witness that He actually rose
from the dead (in that sense it was important, because we know which ones we
can believe). He includes some accounts of Jesus’ appearances that are not in
the four Gospels. That does not make him wrong. Father thank You that we have
heard and received the Good News. Help us to spread it to everyone around us.
Unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God
Good morning. While Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. Jesus was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men. Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. It doesn’t say, but I assume it is still during this time of the Passover. This man came to Jesus by night. Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do the signs that You do unless God is with him. It just said that the people believed in His name because of the signs He was doing; yet it does not say what those signs were. Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. That is why unbelievers cannot tell what is of the kingdom of God and what is not – they’re not born again. Nicodemus doesn’t have a clue. How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he? Unless one is born of water and the Spirit ...
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