1 Tim. 1:11: World English Bible: According to the Good News of the glory of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.

1 Tim. 1:11: King James Version:  According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my charge (1 Tim. 1:11)

Let’s face it: if it isn’t new to what went before then it isn’t news. So, if it isn’t new and different, then it isn’t a gospel, for evangelion, the Greek word it translates means “good news”. Thus, in 1 Tim. 1:11, the word gospel means “good news”. And it wouldn’t be news if it was something we’d heard before - I know because I’ve worked as a journalist much of my life.

Now, it comes as a surprise to some that there is more than one gospel in the Bible. In fact there are several because down the ages God has announced “good news” to every generation. And for each age the news was different. Thus we are told:

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings, that publishes peace, that bringeth good tidings (plural) of good, that publishes salvation; that sayeth unto Zion, Thy God reigneth (Isaiah 52:7, see also Nahum 1:15, Rom. 10:15)).

Yes, God is in the news and publishing business, just as I have been most of my life. What’s more, He actually creates the “new thing” the news is about before publishing it.

Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert (Isaiah 43:19).

It was a “new thing” that the Apostle Paul warned unbelieving Jews of in Acts 13:41:

Behold ye despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you.

What was the new thing? It was what Paul in Rom. 1:1 called the “gospel of God” and in verse 16 “the gospel of Christ”. Importantly, this gospel was limited to that “which He (God) had promised afore by his holy prophets” (Rom. 1:2). It was also limited “to the Jew first, and (only subsequently) also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:19).

Contrast that with the “gospel of the grace of God” which was news to those who first heard of it in Acts 20:24. Up to this point Paul had been preaching the “gospel of God” and the “kingdom of God” (vs. 25). Now he looks forward to “finishing his course” by preaching “the gospel of the grace of God”. Fact is, he did not start fully proclaiming it until he wrote Ephesians and Colossians years after the close-down of the Pentecostal dispensation in Acts 28:28.

What’s the difference?

1. The gospel of the grace of God does not fulfil the promises of the Old Testament prophets. It is a “mystery”, a long-held secret now made known, that was “hid from (previous) ages and generations but now is made manifest to his saints” (Col. 26).   It is a new dispensation, a new gospel, “which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit” (Eph. 3:5).
2. The “gospel of the grace of God’ does not make Gentiles an afterthought in preaching but treats all people equally everywhere (Eph. 2:13-16, Eph. 4:7, 16, 1:22-23).
3. The dispensation of grace (Eph. 3:2) brings in a new truth; now for all men the secret revealed is that “Christ (is) in you the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).
4. The gospel of the grace of God requires no works of man, nor attempts to save oneself by repentance, rituals or water baptism. Salvation here is the free gift of God “not of works lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8). By contrast the “Gospel of God” required both repentance and baptism.

But God had further good news for mankind when He caused Paul to publish “the gospel of the glory of God”. It is a separate and “new” gospel compared to those that were proclaimed before.

It is, of course, to do with the glory of God. The “good news” is that God now imparts to those who trust Him the very fullness of all that He is and does – the fullness of his glory which is his very essence.

So what has stopped the Lord from fully revealing his glory in men and women until now? The answer in one word is: idolatry.

I AM the LORD, that is my name, and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images (Isaiah 42: 8).

I suggest another reason God has been waiting for over 6,000 years now to show men and women the full extent of the love He has for them, that is his glory, is that few believe He will do so. Sadly, most Christians have idols. Many make the church, pastors, priests non-apostolic teachers and commentaries, rather scripture itself, that which they worship. And God, who is the Lord Jesus Christ, will not share his glory with anyone or anything else.

That is why it is a sublime blessing that the Lord now declares he will share all of his glory, all that He is, with us human beings who are wretched sinners by nature, by embedding Himself fully in us (Eph. 1:22-23). As Paul affirms:

When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, than shall ye also appear with Him in glory (Col. 3:4).

In Part II we will explore more fully the rich blessings to be found in “gospel of the glory of God”.

John Dudley Aldworth

Email: john.aldworth@hotmail.com       

May I invite you to visit the website Day of Christ Ministries for more Bible studies that will challenge and inform.