The gospel
The most important thing we could ever tell you is the good news of God's grace for you in Christ.
We call this good news the gospel - it is the proclamation that Jesus Christ has done everything necessary to pay the price for your Sin and to give you his own perfect righteousness, so that you can know and enjoy the God who created you for just that purpose - forever.
We find the gospel foreshadowed, referenced, and spelled out throughout all of Scripture.
For an expanded overview, it helps to think in four parts - Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration.
Keep reading below for more!
Creation
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
Genesis 1:1
"For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through him and for him."
Colossians 1:16
The triune God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, One God in three Persons - eternally existed before all things in holy perfection, unity, and glory. All of Creation - everything that is, that ever has been, and that ever will be - finds it beginning in God. He is the Creator, Sustainer, and Lord of all.
God created all that exists to reflect His glory, a task that is evident in the universe around us (Psalm 19:1-4; Romans 1:19).
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He created men and women, unique from the rest of Creation, in His image (Genesis 1:26-27). This means that, unlike anything else in all Creation, humans have the ability not only to reflect God's glory, but to know Him in a personal way, enjoying His glory and living under His good rule. God placed the first man and woman, named Adam and Eve, in a perfect paradise, gave them everything they could ever need, and tasked them with multiplying and cultivating the Earth so that God's image and glory would be made more and more evident throughout all of Creation.
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For a time, Adam and Eve lived in this perfect paradise, called Eden, in the presence of their Creator, perfectly able to enjoy His goodness and do the good work for which they had been created. There was no sickness, suffering, or death. All of creation existed in perfect peace and harmony, just as the Good Creator had designed.
Fall
"The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it."
Genesis 3:6
"Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned."
Romans 5:12
God created man and woman to know and enjoy Him, with the responsibility to respond to Him in worship by trusting and obeying Him. In light of this responsibility, God wrote His law in their hearts and gave them the ability to fulfill it, but also gave them liberty of will to choose between obedience and rebellion.
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Genesis 1-3 records the following - God placed Adam and Eve in a perfect garden, full of trees and plants bearing good food for them to eat; but he forbade them eat from one tree - at the center of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil bore fruit that God told them would bring death if eaten.
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Satan, having set himself against God and His good creation, came into the garden in the form of a serpent to deceive Adam and Eve. He promised them that they would not die, but would themselves be like God, able to define good and evil for themselves. They would no longer have any need for God's oppressive rule. Unfortunately, Adam and Eve bought into Satan's lies, hoping to be their own gods, and rebelled against their Good Creator.
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In their sin, God's image bearers fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, bringing death on themselves and all who would follow, and breaking Creation from God's good design, so that the universe now reflects God's glory imperfectly, full of disorder, suffering, and death.
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When Adam sinned, all of humanity became stained with Sin, spiritually dead by default and enslaved to Sin, unable to live righteously according to God's holiness (Romans 5:13-14; Ephesians 2:1-3). Each generation since has followed his pattern, refusing the good rule of the One True God in favor of ill-fated attempts at being our own gods. In our Sin, we are not only separated from the God whose glory and goodness we are created to enjoy, but we are deserving of that good God's righteous wrath. We live in this life dead in Sin, destined to leave this life and suffer eternity in Hell as the just punishment for our cosmic treason against the King of Creation (Matthew 25:41-46; Romans 3:23, 6:23; 2 Thessalonians 1:3-12).
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Even worse, we are completely unable to accomplish anything that would ultimately correct our flaws, pay off the debt of our Sin, and attain any form of righteousness that would warrant God's approval and acceptance (Job 22:2-5).
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We find ourselves completely broken, desperately in need of someone who would pay for our Sin and provide for us a righteousness that we are incapable of earning.
Redemption
"But the gift is not like the trespass. For if by the one man’s trespass the many died, how much more have the grace of God and the gift which comes through the grace of the one man Jesus Christ overflowed to the many."
Romans 5:15
"But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!"
Ephesians 2:4-5
God did not leave His image bearers, nor His creation, to suffer under Sin without hope. In fact, even as He pronounced the consequences of Adam and Eve's sin, God proclaimed the hope of a Seed of Eve who would come to suffer Satan's attacks, but would ultimately crush Satan's head (Genesis 3:15). This promise continued throughout human history, recorded in the Old Testament, as God promised Abraham an Offspring who would inherit God's covenant blessing and pass it on to the nations (Genesis 22:17-18), the people of Israel a greater Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15), and David an Heir who would rule over God's people in righteousness forever (2 Samuel 7:12-16). Through all of these promises and more, God pointed the way to a Messiah who would come to deal with the Sin of God's people and cover them in his own righteousness.
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This promise was fulfilled in the advent of Jesus. God the Son, having existed with God and as God from eternity past, was born of a virgin, fully man and fully God, in the small town of Bethlehem. Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life, earning the righteousness required to stand before God and be deemed worthy of His affection. However, Jesus did not take advantage of this righteousness, but instead, betrayed and abandoned by his friends, took the death that we deserve by hanging on a Roman cross. The physical suffering of his crucifixion was brutal, but much worse, while on the cross, Jesus Christ absorbed the wrath of God for every sin of every person who would ever believe in him for salvation. Jesus died on the cross and was buried in a tomb sealed with an immovable stone and guarded by multiple Roman soldiers. Yet on the third day after his death and burial, Jesus rose again! He appeared to many of his disciples over the course of several weeks, teaching them and commissioning them to share this good news before ascending into Heaven to be seated at the right hand of God the Father. Before he ascended, Jesus promised that he would be with his disciples, and that he would return to judge the righteous and the wicked and to gather his people to himself, leading them into a glorious eternity of enjoying his good rule.
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The offer of the gospel is this - if you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that he has done all that is necessary for you to be saved and reconciled to your Good Creator, you can take hold of the new life and righteousness that Jesus has won for you by repenting and believing.
Repentance is turning away from your Sin and toward God - confessing that you have been wrong, that you rightly deserve God's wrath, and that He is the holy, righteous Lord who alone has the right to define good and evil in your life.
Belief, in the Bible, is more than just thinking something is true. Believing in Jesus means removing the weight of your life, your identity, your hope, and your eternal destiny, from whatever you had placed it on before, and setting that weight on Scripture's claim of who Jesus is and what he has done for you. It is to say, "Jesus, I trust in you only to be my life and righteousness, and I submit my life to you as Lord, to live for your pleasure."
Jesus accomplished all that is necessary for your salvation. Will you take hold of the life and righteousness that he has won for you today?
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Jesus promised his disciples that after he had gone to be with the Father, he would send the Holy Spirit, and that he would indwell everyone who believes in Christ for salvation, sealing them safely in God's grace, working to teach and sanctify them, empowering them to live as Christ's witnesses, and bringing them safely into eternity. That promise was fulfilled at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4), and the Holy Spirit now fills and seals every Christian at the moment of his or her salvation (Ephesians 1:13-14).
The Holy Spirit guides, keeps, and equips believers as we live as witnesses to the glory of Christ now and look forward to our hope in Christ in the future.
Restoration
"For the creation was subjected to futility ​— ​not willingly, but because of him who subjected it ​— ​in the hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children."
Romans 8:20-21
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away. Then the one seated on the throne said, 'Look, I am making everything new.' He also said, 'Write, because these words are faithful and true.'"
Revelation 21:1-5
The first advent (or arrival) of Jesus accomplished the salvation of his people, and began the restoration of all Creation. But Jesus promised a second advent. He did give not a time, or a timeline - in fact, he said that only God the Father knows how and when His plan will unfold (Mark 13:32). What he did promise, however, was a restoration of all things.
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Since Adam and Eve first sinned, humanity has lived in the brokenness that our Sin created. Even today, those who believe in Christ only know in part the glory of his kindness. Paul says we see the love of God like a reflection in a foggy mirror (1 Corinthians 13:12), but that one day, we will see Him face to face, and know His love completely.
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Jesus' promised return will bring with it a new Creation, a return to God's original design and purpose - that those who bear His image, who have trusted in His Son as Savior, will spend eternity enjoying the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:7). He will do away with Satan, Sin, and Death, and will rule over his people as the good King forever.
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However, for those not in Christ - those who have rejected the truth of who God is, and the salvation offered in His gospel - Christ's return will not be full of joy and hope, but sorrow and mourning. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10-11), but that confession will be full of regret and anguish for those who have rejected him as Lord until then. Those who finish this life, or meet Christ's return, in rebellion will suffer the wrath of God for all of eternity in Hell.
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To this end, and with eyes on the hope that he has set before, Jesus calls his people to leverage our lives so that every person alive hears the gospel. He calls us to plead with those destined for Hell to turn and enjoy the goodness of his grace. We do this trusting in the Holy Spirit's power to use the word of God to bring about the salvation of sinners, knowing that our task is to be faithful, God's work is to save, and we will be with Him in His glory soon.
If you would like to discuss the gospel,
or how to respond in faith, we would love to talk with you!
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