How did people respond to the good news of the gospel in the first century? Jesus commissioned His apostles to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mk. 16:15). How were they told to respond? Jesus said, “He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned” (vs. 16). The acceptance of the good news of Jesus Christ involved belief and baptism. They didn’t quibble, “Do we have to be baptized?” Instead, they joyously submitted to the conditions of the gospel.
Things have not changed. God still requires us to obey the gospel of Jesus Christ in order to be saved from our sins. If the gospel is the death, burial and resurrection of Christ (1 Cor. 15:1-4), how do we obey it? We obey the likeness of the gospel in the act of baptism. Paul writes, “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection…” (Romans 6:3–5). In baptism, we are united with the death, burial and resurrection of Christ and, thereby, become recipients of the glorious blessings of the gospel. This is why baptism is always an occasion of great rejoicing.
Obeying the gospel is the responsibility of every accountable human being. In coming to Christ, one must exercise faith in the working of God by being buried with Christ in baptism and raised up with Him to walk in newness of life (Col. 2:12). Then, as Christians, we must walk “in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ” (Ph. 1:27).
Good news demands a response. When we were dead in our sins, Jesus died in our place and was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. But Jesus did not remain in that tomb. He conquered death and rose on the third day! He is our hope that, we too, can overcome death through the power of His atoning blood. That is good news — the kind of good news that can save our souls!
— Glen Elliott —