The Gospel of God

Romans 1:1-2  Paul… separated unto the gospel of God, (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,).

Paul's life calling was to preach the gospel of God. It's a common misconception that people in the Old Testament were saved by works and in the New, saved by Grace. No doubt, there are two covenants (that's the whole reason it's called the Old Testament and the New Testament), but that doesn't mean that God changed his mind about the way people are saved.

In the Old Testament, the people of God offered sacrifices after the pattern of the Heavenly. The sacrifices pictured the way God would redeem His people. Moses was saved by grace, through faith, like all other of the saints of God. The Old Testament sacrifices, ceremonies, prophesies, and poetry, pointed God's people to the future Messiah. God promised to save his people from the very start. When man fell in the Garden, God cursed man, women, the earth, and the serpent. In the judgment of the serpent, in Genesis 3:15, God said, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." This is a promise. God promised that through the seed of the woman, a man would come to crush the serpent. The Devil will be defeated. All things will be made right by this man. This is the first gospel. The first "good news" and who preached it? God.

Listen to Christ Jesus Himself. After his resurrection, on the road to Emmaus, Jesus met with some disciples and began to preach to them. In the gospel of Luke 24:26-27;44, it says, "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." Then later he said, "These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me." Jesus started in the Old Testament, and opened up the Scriptures, from every book, and taught and expounded how Christ suffered and entered into His glory. The Old Testament is about Jesus. The Old Testament preaches God's gospel.

Do you read your Bible like Jesus? Do you see God's gospel in the Old Testament? Do you take the light of the New Testament and see the glory of Jesus Christ and his gospel in the Old? Yes, Paul gets very deep, and very specific in His teaching in the epistles. It's not a different gospel, it's a deeper examination of the gospel of God. It's always been there, we just have more light. Paul gets very deep,  in the epistles, but it's not a different gospel, it's a deeper examination of the gospel of God.