I Had Better Say Something More AGAIN About Euangelion Meaning Reward

It was a Sunday morning at the House of Praise in Kaimuki, Hawaii, 1975. Pastor Rod Wilson asked us to consider again what Jesus had done for us. I think Rod meant what Jesus had done for each of us individually during the last week's time, but my mind jumped to a larger picture. From a distance, and then from closer, in my imagination I saw Jesus tied to posts in Jerusalem, and Roman soldiers scourging and abusing Him. Beaten to a pulp, His back torn open like hamburger from the cat o' nine tails, the crown of thorns pressed upon his head. I watched the severity and intensity of it. They made Him shoulder the cross and drag it down the road to the place of execution. Midway, Jesus stumbled. He was going into shock from pain and blood loss. He was dying. They couldn't let Him die YET, so they gave His cross to another to bear.

Watching this, I was torn up emotionally, like His back. I desperately wanted to trade places with Him. It was MY sins Jesus was suffering for; MY wrongs were upon HIM. I - I should be the one being punished. Oh, how I wanted to somehow stretch into the scene and make it me and not Him. And then the Voice started talking to me. Jesus had to die for me, else I could never be saved. For I owed God a WHOLE perfect life, and I had already ruined what life I had had up until then. How was I going to come up now with a WHOLE sinless life, even if I lived every day for the rest of my life as a sinless saint? The wage of my sin was death. I had earned it.

The Voice explained that Jesus was willingly giving up His life in loving obedience to the Father "for the joy set before Him." The joy set before Jesus was His gaining the right, after His taking our suffering and death--all the punishment due us--of being allowed to forgive all the sins of every one who would believe on Him. This right to give us Life was His reward, given to Him for doing what I then saw Him doing.

We are Christ's reward. He came seeking us. Saved to the Milta, we become Milta. The Milta's greatest desire is to become the full and complete Manifestation of the great, mighty, holy, and perfect Ineffable Being. He is seeking that perfection. Nothing can compare to the wonderfulness, the glory, the love, and the joy--the absolute perfection of God. For the moment, we are the Milta's hold up in becoming that. We are a hiccup He is getting over.

Over the years I have come to understand the primacy of the Aramaic New Testament (the New Testament era was at the very least LIVED in Aramaic), and I have became an advocate for the Aramaic Scriptures and the Church of the East's perspective of them. I wanted to solve the riddle of why Jesus BEGAN His ministry with the announcement, "The Age has ended, and the Kingdom of God has arrived. Repent and believe in the Hope [of Salvation]." I.e., He said to believe in the Gospel, before there was the Gospel. In my infantile language research I discovered that the Greek word euaggelion originally (and did up until the time of the Gospels) meant THE REWARD GIVEN TO THE BEARERS OF GLAD TIDINGS. It is my personal belief that Jesus was telling His then present audience to believe in the arrival of a particular reward already known to them, a reward for which they were already watching. He virtually said, "Believe in the Reward, for its time is here."

What reward? I think it specifically is the one found in Daniel 9:24. According to Victor N. Alexander's translation from the ancient Aramaic, in Daniel 9 the archangel Gabriel is explaining to Daniel the things that will be accomplished in the forthcoming 70 x 7-year Season of Grace. These things include:

A) the obligations concluded
B) the sins curtailed
C) the abominations abandoned
D) the eternal righteousness ushered in
E) the vision and the prophets fulfilled
F) our blessings committed unto the Anointed One
G) the Manifestation shall return and rebuild Jerusalem to the end of the season
H) then the Messiah King shall appear
I) the Messiah King shall be killed, and Jerusalem shall not have Him
J) the Season of Grace ends, and then all hell breaks loose
K) the Covenant will be deepened for many
L) the sacrifices and offerings shall cease to be performed
M) there will be troublesome times
N) then the killings cease.

Okay, here is how Alexander translates the passage:

24. "Seventy seventies shall rest upon your nation and upon the town of your reverence,* so as the obligations may be concluded and the sins may be curtailed, so that the abominations shall be abandoned, and that they may usher in the eternal righteousness, such as the vision and the prophesies* may be fulfilled, and to the Anointed One we may commit our blessings.
25. "And you shall know and understand, from the emergence of the Manifestation, who shall return and rebuild Jerusalem, and the coming of the Messiah King, seventy sevens and seventy sixties and two; he shall return and rebuild Jerusalem, its streets and gateways, to the end of the season.
26. "And after the seventy sixties and two, the Messiah shall be killed, and [Jerusalem] shall not have him, and the holy city shall be devastated, together with the next king,* and its end shall be evacuation, and until the end of the war there shall be killing and desolation.*
27. "And the Covenant shall be deepened for many, [a period of] seven and half [the period] of seven, sacrifices and offerings shall cease to be performed,* and over the wings of evil* there shall follow the desolation,* until the killings shall cease,* and [the dead shall] rest* upon the desolation.*

In Daniel 9:24, Gabriel announced the reward Jesus was preaching about. It is the same message John had been preaching: the remission of sins, the Way of the Lord made smooth, the eternal righteousness ushered into Israel's lives, the revelation of the Coming One, and direct access to the Holy of Holies. The Gospel Jesus preached was this reward, His right to imbue us with the Holy Ghost.

The Greek word euaggelion (pronounced euangelion), which is translated as "gospel" throughout the New Testament, meaning "glad tidings," up until the time of Christ had meant the MESSENGER'S REWARD for bringing glad tidings. I.e, a euaggelion was "the REWARD, GIFT, or PRIZE given to the DELIVERER of glad tidings, a reward for bringing them." When people in a ruler's kingdom got good news, they celebrated and sacrificed offerings, giving a portion of them, the "euaggelion," to the one who had brought the good news.

Christ in saying "Believe in the Gospel," was saying: "Enter into the celebration. The Deliverer is here. The reward is assuredly received."