Two Kinds of News, Only One is True and New

[HKHaugan]

Mark 1:1 The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The beginning of the Gospel---(the start of the good news---Gk.evangelion, good announcement). Here is the beginning of something new which, unlike ‘news’ in modern media, is what ‘new’ is all about. It hasn’t happened before. This is new in cosmic proportions because, as Scripture says, “There is nothing new under the sun (Eccl.1:9).” ‘Under the sun’ is context of the world, its condition and lostness. But over the sun? That’s another story.

So what is really ‘new’ here? While messiahs, legends, heroes and ideal people were hoped for and sometimes recognized in most every culture, there was something new about this ‘news’ and the reality behind it. It was a revelation of something new from another dimension. Philosophers and religionists speculated about this other dimension and that’s all it was, speculation. It covers what you can’t see but by experience you know it’s there. We know what good and evil are but can’t really see them except as they are acted out. Love, faith, goodness, hate, lust, greed, peace, compassion, all of these invisible ingredients that make up our invisible existence, are very real but beyond the physical senses and metered measurement.

The ‘new’ is that there is for the first time, definition, physical manifestation and demonstration of what lies in this other dimension. Until Jesus came along God’s Word was considered no different from any other writing that claimed it was the truth about this other dimension. It was part of the mass of religious writings contained in all religions. It was in Jesus Christ that God’s Word was authenticated as the one and only final truth. That was new. That was ‘good’ finally defined and understandable. That was the news about what was ultimately good. That’s what made it ‘Good News.’ It was a new way of seeing what real good was all about. Whatever was considered good as opposed to evil could be found fulfilled in the person of Jesus who believed His Father’s Word and lived motivated by it.

The Good News was that Jesus was the Messiah promised in Scripture who came to reveal the spiritual dimension and remove the guesswork about it. He came from it, was born in the physical, lived a totally visible experience in the physical dimension, was spiritually motivated in it and physically died as all people do eventually but unlike us He rose from the dead and returned to show His defeat of death and opened the door to eternal life in the Spirit of God. He exposed the source of evil as the devil, his reign through sin and the spirits that promote his agenda.

Another aspect of the ‘new’ is that everyone is unique to God. No one who has ever existed or will exist is the same. Each one of us is brand ‘new.’ The devil would try to ‘same’ us through his efforts to keep us self-centered so that life is ‘all about me.’ He has a squeezing agenda. Make everyone fearful about how they ‘fit in.’ Look good in the presence of others, play the conformity game, follow the trends of the world. Hold to the simple rule of using whatever you can to be number one. That’s the dark agenda from a dark kingdom perpetrated by a dark figure who wants to hide in his own darkness. Of course it is the dimension of the devil and his separation from God.

The spiritual dimension the Lord Jesus reveals is a personal dimension, a relational dimension, a dimension where light opens the heart to His light, His insights, His peace and the ability to be open before Him and others. This is new, always new. It is the opposite of the darkness of sin and evil, which always cause us to hide in fear.

This dimension of light lets us see that everything visible in the physical universe has a spiritual counterpart, a symbolic point of reference to the personal nature of God and ourselves. This is new. We may not understand all the fine points of physical existence but everything came from the spiritual mind and creativity of a personal God and has meaning and purpose.

Jesus further revealed that motivation is a spiritually sourced process behind our choices, our mental evaluations and physical behavior. He showed that personal sin with its self-centeredness and pride dominates our motivation and destroys us from within. He claimed He could save us from the devil and sin that wrapped the universe in death. He went to the Cross and allowed those factors in humanity to crucify and kill Him. His Resurrection was the proof of His claims and His offering of eternal life to all who believe in Him and about Him. He gave us the alternative to the devil, sin and death---a personal relationship with Him that would give us eternal life starting the moment we receive Him as Savior and Lord. All this was new and continues to be new for all who accept Him. This was, is and will be the real ‘good news’ until He returns.

But what gives the ‘good news’ it uniqueness is that every person born into this world can experience this newness for themselves. Everything before accepting Him personally is the old way of the world, the old way of fear and death, the way of compromise, manipulation, aloneness, looking for a place of significance, lack of purpose and meaning. It’s the way of survival emotionally and physically. The old way is the way of ‘me first.’ For each of us the ‘old way’ is the ‘bad way.’

What man does to offset his search for interior meaning is to invent or accept a system of thought that he can control. It’s called religion. Religion is basically the attempt to handle what we can’t see, morality, mortality and mystery. That’s the old way. The ‘Good News’ is that Jesus came to replace religion with relationship. That’s new for each person who is born into this world.

The Good News is that every next moment is new. In a relationship something new is always happening. The Lord through the Holy Spirit guides us relationally. Just the idea of the Holy Spirit was and is new, ‘good new,’ Good News. Our motivation finds a new foundation for action. It is to please and glorify a personal God who gives us His faith, forgiveness and love and encourages us to share them with others. The Lord wants everyone to experience spiritual newness. There is never a moment that the Lord is not giving us something new to experience. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2Cor.5:17 NIV)