12 Essential Elements of the Gospel – Why God Is Restoring the Elements to the Church

It is the mind and will of God to restore the church to the understanding of the exact knowledge of each of the 12 essential Elements of the Gospel. I remember writing these Elements on a chalk board in a school where I worked as a janitor in the mid 1970’s. I was in an American Literature classroom when I began to use the chalkboard to work out the Elements. I was intrigued at how God designed them and knew that there had to be a central Element that tied them all together. That is the Element Grace.

I felt a strong presence of God as He began to develop the understanding of the Elements in my mind. He made me to know both the binary and proclitic relationship of the Elements and made me to understand why they are defined as a synergistic work that can only be observed in the eco-system of His truth. God also made me to understand that each Element is a Spiritual Unit of Measure (SUM) that allows us to accurately measure our faith to Jesus Christ.

By the hand of God upon me I understood these 12 Elements to be the spiritual foundation of our faith in Jesus Christ and to also be the 12 stones of the altar of Christ necessary for each believer to function in their spiritual priesthood.

It is vital that the church go back to the basics-back to the 12 essential Elements of the Gospel. By doing so, we will restore the testimony of Jesus Christ to our faith.

The testimony of God is in all Creation

All creation testifies of God, that He is the life giver.”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were created by HIM–by the Word of God, and without Him was not anything created that was created. In Him was LIFE.” (John 1:1-3)

All creation carries a tradition of likeness according to the pattern of their creation. In other words, everything God created carries the likeness of the physiological and chemical patterns He established for it. Fish swim, birds fly, and trees grow leaves and fruit. We see in the likeness of the bird the pattern God established for it. And by this pattern the birds carry the testimony of God as His creation and glorify God by fulfilling His design for them.

The Heart of Man Must Carry the Testimony of God

Man must also testify of God by carrying His likeness. The problem is, that Adam and Eve, our first parents, decided to reject the knowledge God gave them and to accept the knowledge Satan gave them. This decision resulted in Adam losing the likeness of God and inheriting instead the darkness of Satan.

The human race inherited this history and each person carries this testimony of Satan and carries this image of darkness upon the mind and soul. The deception began with knowledge and this is why people today still follow the pattern of Satan’s lies and still carry his likeness. Adam took on the knowledge of darkness and his soul reflected the pattern of that knowledge.

Do you see…The knowledge of this world holds the pattern of darkness.

A Tradition of Likeness Through Knowledge

God’s plan is to return the soul to the likeness of God. He sent Jesus Christ to atone for man’s sin by dying on the cross to shed His blood for a new covenant and by this He established a new tradition of knowledge for us to experience His likeness.

The likeness of Jesus Christ is expressed through each of the 12 essential Elements of the Gospel. The sign and seal of ownership is in this pattern of knowledge because God uses it to restore man to His image and likeness.

It is through the pattern of this knowledge that God restores His testimony to your soul and that you are restored to your true history.

It is through the pattern of this knowledge that God expresses the life of Christ in you. The likeness of Christ being expressed is healing your soul.

The 12 Essential Elements of the Gospel

(1) Grace (2) Faith (3) Righteousness (4) Justification (5) Sanctification (6) Holiness (7) Peace (8) Rest (9) Charity (10) Truth (11) Regeneration (12) Renewing of the Mind

The likeness of Jesus Christ is in the pattern of this knowledge. If you want to live according to the power of God you must live according to the pattern of these Elements.

We carry the likeness of God now in knowledge. We were created by God, for God, and this is why faith pleases God. Faith restores the likeness of God to the soul.

Just as God provided a pattern for all life to follow, so He also provided a pattern for faith to follow. Just as the Spirit of God moves upon the pattern of nature to give life, so the Spirit of God moves upon the pattern of His knowledge to give life to your soul.

The 12 Essential Elements Defined

Grace – Grace is the 1st essential Element of the Gospel and shares a binary relationship with Faith. Grace is the voice of the Lord giving expression to Christ. There are 5 distinct definitions of grace and 9 distinct operations of God in grace resulting in 9 distinct fruits of the Spirit that express the virtue of Christ. These fruits are: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.

This is the testimony God is returning to the heart. This testimony is Christ and you carry this testimony as you carry the Element of Grace. The likeness of Jesus Christ is expressed.

Faith – Faith is the 2nd essential Element of the Gospel and shares a binary relationship with Grace. Faith is our obedience to the voice of the Lord. God initiates grace and man responds in faith. If our obedience to God is not drawn from grace God does not recognize it. By this design of faith being a response to grace we learn that God desires us to reciprocate His likeness.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for (Hebrews 11:1). Jesus our Messiah is now giving substance to the soul as the Holy Spirit moves upon His knowledge. The likeness of Jesus Christ is expressed.

Holy Knowledge – It is because faith reciprocates the likeness of Christ that we understand the knowledge of Christ to be “holy” knowledge.

Binary Elements – It is because grace and faith share this binary relationship that we understand the pattern, God initiates towards man to draw from man a response that God call reciprocation in kind.

Righteousness – Righteousness is the 3rd essential element of the gospel and shares a binary relationship with Justification. Faith must be measured to Jesus Christ alone. He is the spiritual measure of our faith. Jesus Christ is the only standard God uses to measure your faith. By looking at what your faith needs and at how God provided Jesus Christ to fill that need we understand what a spiritual measure is. Your faith needs these things:

1. Your faith needs grace to express the likeness of Christ.
2. Your faith needs to be sustained by God’s power.
3. Your faith needs to labor with the knowledge of Christ.
4. Your faith needs to build your understanding by the Spirit.
5. Your faith needs to remain free of Satan’s knowledge.
6. Your faith needs to remain separate from the world.
7. Your faith needs to be tested for reward.
8. Your faith needs to overcome the contradiction of this world.
9. Your faith needs to produce the fruit of the Spirit.
10. Your faith needs the priesthood of Jesus Christ.

When Christians say, “I don’t know how to walk in righteousness. I live in defeat!”; What they are actually saying is, “I don’t know how to measure my faith to Christ. I do not possess the likeness of Christ.”

Justification – Justification is the 4th essential element of the gospel and shares a binary relationship with Righteousness. Your faith must be free from condemnation, free to act in God’s interest. God qualified you to be worthy of Him by placing Christ in all the spiritual tools of His covenant for you to see Him. Jesus Christ is the perfect measure of your faith. When you use the tools of the covenant you see Christ, and when you measure your faith to Jesus Christ, God looks at your faith and sees an image of His Son. He says, “You have met My standard and I declare you righteous.” That is God’s promise to you: “I will accept you on the grounds of My Son.”

Justification is how you wrestle with grace for reason of faith to stand in that worthiness. Your faith has to be competent, and Jesus makes it competent. So you need to stand in the testimony of His Son, and accept that your equity stands in Him, your peace is in Him, your joy is in Him, your victory is in Him. This is the purpose of the tools of the new covenant, to provide this experience for you. You reason with grace to stand in your faith. Your soul carries this testimony of Jesus Christ. The likeness of Jesus Christ is expressed.

Sanctification– Sanctification is the 5th essential Element of the Gospel and shares a binary relationship with Holiness. Sanctification is defined as God separating you from the world unto Himself for the purpose of empowering faith, and forming Christ in your inner man. The likeness of Jesus Christ is expressed.

Holiness– Holiness is the 6th essential Element of the Gospel and shares a binary relationship with Sanctification. A severing has to take place. We, who believe in Jesus, must take on God’s perspective and identify with Christ. When we were sinners we took on the perspective of the world, and now that we are born again into God’s house of the covenant we take on God’s perspective. Holiness means that we reciprocate to God. He separated us from the world to Himself and we reciprocate in kind. We separate ourselves from the world unto God. Your soul carries this testimony of Jesus Christ. The likeness of Jesus Christ is expressed.

Peace – Peace is the 7th essential Element of the Gospel and shares a binary relationship with Rest. Peace is the power of God that acts as a buffer to stabilize our emotions during the test of our faith. The peace of God assists us through the transition. In this manner the element peace expresses the likeness of Christ. When we talk about peace we are talking about this pattern and this record, this fingerprint of God upon our faith. The likeness of Jesus Christ is expressed.

Rest– Rest is the 8th essential Element of the Gospel and shares a binary relationship with Peace. Rest reflects the image of Christ in that we cease to labor with the knowledge and tools of iniquity when we choose instead to labor with the knowledge and tools of Jesus Christ.

This speaks of a separation doesn’t it? Can you see the element sanctification also in action. This also speaks of the voice of Christ to which we are yielding. Can you see the elements of grace and faith also in action? Now you can understand why I use the word “synergy” when teaching about the Elements. The Elements of the Gospel act upon each other. They can only be understood as they are observed within the environment where all the Elements are working together to express Christ. Your soul carries this testimony of Jesus Christ. The likeness of Jesus Christ is expressed.

Charity– Charity is the 9th essential Element of the Gospel and shares a binary relationship with Truth. Charity is the God kind of love. God defines His love in John 3:16 by identifying Jesus Christ. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” God set the pattern of His love in Jesus Christ.

We can understand why charity is one of the stones in our spiritual foundation, for we must receive the love of Christ in the pattern of the covenant, knowledge, tools, and priesthood before we can reciprocate that love back to the Father in the same way in which He gave it to us.

Truth – Truth is the 10th essential Element of the Gospel and shares a binary relationship with Charity. Truth is our response to God’s love. We must love God by keeping his new commandments of truth. This we do by taking on the yoke of His knowledge, these 12 essential Elements to build faith in the likeness of Christ and to reciprocate that likeness to the Father. This is the action of truth. Your soul carries this testimony of Jesus Christ. The likeness of Jesus Christ is expressed.

Regeneration– Regeneration is the 11th essential Element of the Gospel and shares a binary relationship with Renewing of the Mind. You want to experience the new creation of Christ in you and this is the Element that God designed to carry this pattern of Christ.

Renewing of the Mind – The Renewing of the Mind is the 12th essential Element of the Gospel and shares a relationship with Regeneration. Our response to regeneration is that our thinking changes. Our thinking changes as a direct result of the work of the Spirit in every Element to bring forth the image of Christ in us. Your soul carries this testimony of Jesus Christ. The likeness of Jesus Christ is expressed.

The Essentials of the Faith Show us Our Participation

I want to show you that each Element that God established for our participation is an action step we take:

Faith– We yield to God’s grace.

Justification– We labor with grace to stand in His worthiness.

Holiness– We separate ourselves from the world to God by using the very things He us to separate us from the world to Himself.

Rest– We cease laboring with the knowledge and tools of this world to express ourselves.

Truth– We keep His commandments by using the pattern and record of Christ to worship Him and glorify Him. We testify of Jesus Christ by carrying the stones of His altar in our heart. As you give expression to His truth with your lips to reciprocate to God His knowledge, that is you functioning in your priesthood. God assigned the priesthood as a gift for you to rehearse and reciprocate the testimony of Christ in each of the 12 essential elements.

Remember when I said in another lesson that the new covenant is the vehicle that carries Christ? Now you can make the connection between the image of Christ in each element and the work of the Spirit to effect Christ in you. Now you can understand why God is restricting Himself to the Vow He took to engage with you only on the grounds of this covenant. There is no other way for you to fellowship with God or experience the salvation of Christ apart from the Oath of this covenant.

Renewing of the Mind– We take on the mind of Christ. We accept His perspective.

If You Deny Me I will Deny You

Many times people say that faith is not dependent on anything we do because it is a gift from God. But we have clearly seen that the gift is in the ability to reciprocate. If we deny God the likeness of Christ in reciprocation, He will deny us His life. It is really that simple.

“…if we DENY him, he also will DENY us…” (2 Timothy 2:12)

Let’s explore this a bit and tie it to the need for us to understand and work with each of the 12 essential Elements of the Gospel:

I want you to imagine God saying to you, “Don’t deny your love towards Me.” That may sound strange and may cause you to say, “But how Lord? How have I denied my love towards you?”

Let’s explore how God would answer. Keep your eye on the essential Elements and reflect on both their binary definitions and synergistic actions:

• “If you deny yourself Grace, you deny yourself Peace. I cannot give you that which you deny yourself.”
• “If you deny yourself Rest, you deny yourself Regeneration (fruit). I cannot give you what you deny yourself.”
• “I cannot give you a purged conscience (Justification) if you deny yourself Sanctification (the priesthood).”
• “I cannot give you the power of my love, peace, and joy if you deny yourself Faith.”
• “I cannot give you eyes to see Christ and a will that is strengthened for Faith if you deny My Grace.”

We come back to the terms of the New Covenant. I hear many of you say that there are no terms. That would unfortunately mean that God has provided no design, no pattern, no record for your faith. On the contrary, God had to show you how to express Christ, how to love Him, how to work with His Spirit, how to remove yourself from Satan’s knowledge, now to enter into the rest of Christ by ceasing to labor with the things of this world for your peace. God had to establish a pattern for the Spirit to work with and for you to work with.

The essential Elements of the Gospel is the path back to the Father’s bosom and Jesus is the door for this knowledge to express His likeness. When God says to you, “Live!” He is saying, “Take on the yoke of My knowledge and learn how your faith is to be expressed.”