The Gospel Story

In the beginning , God created the heaven and the earth. And because he is a God of love, he created a man and woman in his own image, so they might enjoy fellowship together with him. Now God was perfectly holy and perfect in his love, for by definition if he was anything less than perfect, he would not be God.  And man was created in such a way that his ultimate joy would be found in intimate fellowship and worship with his God. 

But God gave him a warning, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” But Adam was tempted and disobeyed God, in essence saying, “I will be God.” And so, death entered into man’s life, not only physical death but also spiritual death. And we, as his descendants, have been subject to the curse of physical and spiritual death since that day.  For as it is written, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…And the wages of sin is death.”

Now God was not only perfect in his love and his holiness, but he was also perfect in his justice. If you study the laws of the monarchy, you will find that once a king issues a decree, it cannot be rescinded. If he decrees the penalty for a crime is death, then when the guilty is condemned, the penalty must be carried out. Even if the guilty party should be his own son or daughter, the king cannot just look the other way and say, “It’s OK, I forgive you.”  For to do so would mean his justice would be not perfect and again, by definition, if God were to do so, he would not be God. 

So at this point, we are left with a problem. There is a world of people that God loves infinitely but who are separated from him and condemned to his wrath. Throughout history, mankind has created religion after religion in an attempt to work their way back into a relationship with God. They have done everything humanly possible to earn back his favor through their works of righteousness, but God says, “All your righteousness are like filthy rags.” Literally they are like used toilet paper in his sight. Think of a river a mile wide. You are one side and God is on the other.  In an attempt to reach the other side, some can jump 5 feet, some 10 and some even 15 or 20. But none reach the other side and all eventually drown. 

But God in his infinite wisdom, knew all this would take place before he created the world and so he already knew the solution to our problem.  What if someone could die in our place? What if they could take the punishment that we deserve? But that someone would have to be a perfect, spotless sacrifice. “According to the law almost everything must be cleansed with blood; without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

Because if they had either be born with a sin nature or committed just one sin, then they too would be guilty in the eyes of God. So God sent his own son, Jesus, to take the form of a man. As it is written, “The word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And we and we saw His glory, the glory as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.” So Jesus walked this earth for 33 years and then was crucified to pay a debt that we could never re-pay. “God showed His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us… He made him who knew no sin, to be sin for us so that we might be made the righteousness of God.”  Jesus not only paid the debt that we owed, but he also put as down as co-signers on his account so for those who surrender their lives to Christ, God looks at them and sees only the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  As it is written, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

  How do we know that God accepted the sacrifice of Jesus as payment for all of our sins? Because God raised him from the dead as proof that the decree of death, issued in the beginning, held no power over the sinless son of God. This is why Jesus said, “I am the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except by me.”  This is why all religions fail us. We cannot work for it. We cannot earn it. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one should boast.”  But if this gift is to be of any value to us, it must be received. I can give gifts to my children for Christmas or their birthday but if they sit under tree, unwrapped what good are they?  So the final question remains, “How do we enter into so great a salvation?”

It is written,  “If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved, for with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”  What does this mean? To confess that Jesus is Lord is not just acknowledgment that he exists as teacher or prophet. It means he bought you with the price of his blood. It means a total surrender of everything you are; your mind, your body and your will. It means you must repent and turn from the idea that you are God and acknowledge that he has the authority to guide your life from this point forward.  And in believing that God has raised him from the dead, you acknowledge that he is who he claimed to be; the very Son of God, the perfect sacrifice, capable of dying for our sins and bestowing eternal life. For as John wrote, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world…To all who received Him, He gave the power to become sons of God, to those who believed in His name.”