The 'Everlasting Gospel'

The 'Everlasting Gospel'

According to Revelation 6:14 there is an “Everlasting Gospel, preached by an angel, to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, that dwell on the earth.
According to John 14:6 Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Yet, according to Romans 4:17-25 the man who never hears of Christ or the Gospel as we understand it in this modern age, is ‘excused’ if, from the message of creation which none can fail to receive, he worships the Creator God rather than created things.
Also, according to the long list of examples told to us in Hebrews 11 faith in such a call as God asks a man to obey, regardless of how farfetched the objective mighty appear to be was, prior to Christ, accounted to man for righteousness.

How do we reconcile those scriptures?

Easy IMO.

We do so by realising that nowhere are we told that man has to know about Christ’s sacrificial atonement in order for it to be efficacious for the man of faith in such as God has revealed to him, and that brings in Romans 1:17-25 and the pre Christ examples of faith in Hebrews 11.
What we allow to confuse us is the fact that for us, ‘such as God reveals’ is in fact the Gospel message telling us in more detail of Christ and his sacrificial death.
But that hasn’t been, and still isn’t, the case for the whole of mankind.
Hence the Everlasting Gospel preached by an angel, to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, that dwell on the earth.

continued next post……
 
…….continued from previous post.

Since general literacy in English speaking countries (the ability to read and write) is a relatively modern development, a relationship with God for the majority (until very recently) would have to have been based other than on personal reading of a Bible.
Six hundred years ago the ability to print words on paper had not been invented.
Five hundred years ago the first Bible was ‘printed’ but the vast majority would have been unable to read it.
Four hundred years ago there were no private or public schools to teach children to read and write.
Three hundred years ago the majority of marriage certificates were signed by a mark or a cross.
And two hundred years ago what we now call the age of enlightenment had only just begun in Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, plus most of Europe including the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russia, and Scandinavia, along with Latin America.

And then suddenly the Protestant Reformation, which had been begun by a minority of literate Churchmen, exploded with Mr everyman having learned to read, and having a bible in his hand for the first time, suddenly assumed the ability and right to reinvent his own version of ‘Christianity’

Now come on peeps…..pull the one that’s got the bells on it.

For over 1500 years the only two alternatives that existed for keeping Christianity alive were the literate priesthood of the state institutionalised Church or what I call ‘Christ Within the Heart of Man’.

Plus the ‘Everlasting Gospel’, preached by an angel, to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, that dwell on the earth.”

In the same vein it should perhaps be noted that it is generally accepted that the original Apostles were also not literate and that the reason why only four are accredited with writings that made it into the ‘Bible’ was because they are the ones who used someone with literacy skills, such as Silvanus, to take down notes of what they had to say and translate it into a Gospel or an Epistle.

Our God is far, far, greater than the ‘box’ into which we so often try to contain him.

Wots.
 
according to bible translation ministries there are still thousands of languages that have not had the bible translated into them .

i think the angel flying through the sky is still our best bet .
 
according to bible translation ministries there are still thousands of languages that have not had the bible translated into them .

i think the angel flying through the sky is still our best bet .

And I bet the poor old 'grunt only' Amazonian forest dweller will never get one that he can read.

wots.
 
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