As a Matter of Fact:
WHAT IS THE GOSPEL?
For many, we’ve heard the whole Sunday school spiel, “Jesus loves you and died for you.” While this is true, it sometimes gets overlooked as a mere “get-out-of-jail-free card,” which misses the point of the Gospel. It’s a personal, divine encounter and action to restore a severed relationship so that we can be wholly His.
The Greatest Need
We all can agree that nobody’s perfect, but this doesn’t excuse us from God’s standard of perfection (Matthew 5:48, James 2:8-11). Plus, only acknowledging imperfection is an understatement of the root of the problem (Romans 3:9-20, Psalm 14:1-3). It’s not just that we’ve acted wrongly, and we can simply flip a switch to something more desirable. It’s intricately rooted in our hearts (Jeremiah 17:9). We can’t say that we’re for God when our hearts are turned against Him.
Here lies the fundamental problem of all humanity: our foolish absurdity to refuse God to be God. It’s rebellion against God, with every generation being born on the enemy’s sides, each encouraged to build up their tiny kingdoms, giving rights to anything but Jesus to rule over their lives. In this state, it’s reasonable to conclude that we are His enemies and rightfully condemned. Like being sentenced for treason, we are held fully accountable (1 Thessalonians 2:16, Ecclesiastes 3:15). Because God is perfectly righteous, just, and holy, He must deal with sin because it simply cannot exist in His presence. It requires judgment, and it is the death penalty (Romans 6:23).
He’ll be your attorney but unlike any other attorney would, He’ll take your death penalty upon Himself.
His Greatest Love
Because justice must be served according to God’s perfect, immovable standard, we are in a hopeless situation indeed. We’re like convicted criminals without recourse to vindicate ourselves from the death penalty. But God did something so radical and powerful that it fundamentally altered the course of history, and the effects are still felt worldwide today. He came, lived the perfect life, and then, “At just the right time, while we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly…But God proves His love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8).
Jesus extends an offer. He’ll be your attorney but unlike any other attorney would, He’ll take your death penalty upon Himself. And then He did what no one has ever done before or since, He defied death and rose again from the grave. Because He now lives, He can justify us and intercede on our behalf (Romans 4:25, Hebrews 7:25), exchange our spotty record with His perfect one, and remove the condemnation of our past, present, or future sins (Romans 8:1)! There’s no longer a barrier between God and us in this life or the next. We can have complete access to God without shame or fear (Hebrews 4:16). But the “catch” is that we have to accept His offer before it can be a reality in our life. You have to want Jesus.
The Greatest Offer
Acceptance is as simple as repentance and belief in Him as Savior and Lord. Repentance means stopping, turning around, and walking toward Him. In other words, it’s by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9) that we can be saved and established in a life with Jesus. A life transformed by Him will then unfold as it’s aligned under God (Matthew 22:37). It’s now a life beautifully intertwined with His (John 15), and we’re no longer enemies. Instead, we are finally free to enjoy Him as wholly His in this life and then into the afterlife. This is the good news of the Gospel.