The Distilled Gospel Message (Mark 1:15)

“The time has come near and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and put your trust in God’s message of good news.”

When we compare Christ’s gospel presentation to the ones that we favor today, we notice quite a few distinctions.

For one thing, there is a distinct lack of detail in the summary of Christ’s message as presented by Mark. It could be that this summary is just that… a mere summary of a larger message. However, nothing truly important is left out of this summary. The two elements that are included, repentance and trust, are about all that is essential.

Of course, our gospel presentations today tend toward the technical. They can often appear as diagrammatic explanations of the process that God has used to achieve salvation. It is, when you think about it, as if we have added a third requirement to the salvation process that Jesus did not put in His presentation. In addition to repentance and trust, we have decided that understanding is also required for salvation.

Is that really the case? In other places we read that Jesus said that our faith had to be like a child’s faith in order for it to be effective. That goes to an important aspect of faith in the Biblical sense. Whereas we emphasis the mental aspect of faith—what we believe—the Bible always sees faith as a trust issue—whom we believe in.

To use an age old illustration of faith, imagine a child in a second story window of a burning building. The child’s father stands below with arms spread wide calling for the child to jump to safety. Is the child going to jump because it understands the physics of the situation and the capacity of the father to safely catch its weight, or is the child going to jump because it believes in its father? More importantly, isn’t the child who doesn’t understand but simply trusts also going to jump to salvation? And, if trust exists, does understanding make a difference?

Jesus’ message was simple. Recognize that you have a problem and, trusting God, throw yourself on His mercy and grace.