The First Evangelist

The very first preacher of the Gospel in the New Testament was the Angel of the Lord who appeared to the shepherds at the time of Jesus’ birth, saying fear not, for I bring you good tidings of great joy. Whereas it was the custom in Israel to fear the appearances of the Angel of the Lord because God told Moses that he would die when he looked in His face, the first thing the angel said was “do not fear”. Thus the first thing to become clear about the Gospel was that man will be able to behold the Divine face to face and not die but live. This was to be the new face-to-face relationship with God wherein we will be ever-increasingly changed from one degree of glory to another. The understanding of the all-encompassing love of God had come to cast out of the human heart the fear of judgement, The second fear which would be eradicated, was the fear of death, because the law of sin and death was about to be replaced with the law of life in Christ Jesus – the reign of grace. The pre-eminent emotion of this gospel was to be great JOY. When we understand that we have been declared righteous through Jesus’ sacrifice, our first reaction is peace because we are reconciled to God, followed by a deep, Holy Ghost inspired joy. This pure, holy joy is also tied to the understanding of God’s glory. Joy came as well because God was proven to be faithful, since His favour is now resting on us. We are being totally redeemed and have a saviour who is prophet, priest, king, and lord. The angel sent the shepherds to a stable to see the new-born king and the ordinariness of His birth was proof that our salvation, miracles, etc are all ordinary, natural, simple, accessible by faith, without having to go through pomp or ceremony. The supernatural has entered the ordinariness of our lives and then the ordinary became extra-ordinary, demonstrating God’s power.