This is the Gospel
The gospel is the good news of what God has done for guilty sinners in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Bad News
Why do we need good news? Because first there is bad news: men and women are in a terrible mess because of their sin. Sin means breaking the law of God, and we’re all guilty of it. ‘All have sinned’; ‘There is no one righteous’, says God in the Bible (Romans 3). Sin isn’t something which holds us against our will, but rather, says Jesus, ‘men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil’ (John 3:19). Our sin puts us under the wrath and judgement of the Holy God. Make no mistake about it: God will not tolerate sin.
Clearly this is very bad news, and we need to believe it if we are to benefit from God’s good news, the gospel.
Good news
The good news is that ‘God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life’ (John 3:16). God’s love was not empty pity, but a love that did something about our terrible condition. God gave his Son to take our guilt and punishment and die instead of us. The gospel is the message which explains all that’s involved in God saving sinners.
Romans 1:1 talks of ‘the gospel of God’. This means it’s not down to what we can achieve if only we try harder, but what God himself has done for us. The gospel originates in the heart of God, and is all about what the love and grace of God have done for guilty sinners. The Bible also tells us that the gospel is to do with God’s Son. It tells us of the uniqueness of Jesus. The gospel reveals him as the only Saviour.
Who is Jesus?
Right in the very first chapter of the New Testament, in the book of Matthew, we are introduced to the Saviour. Matthew uses two names for him, ‘Jesus’ and ‘Immanuel’. These names immediately show us the glory of this amazing person.
JESUS means ‘saviour’—this shows us what he came into the world to do.
IMMANUEL means ‘God with us’—this tells us that he was no ordinary man. The apostle Paul enlarges upon this in the book of Colossians: ‘For in him all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.’ Jesus is God.
The gospel
The good news is that when Jesus died on the cross, he did so in our place, to save us from God’s anger against sin and the judgement we deserve. He alone was innocent of sin and could act as our substitute—he stood in our place and took the punishment we deserved.
The cross was God’s supreme act of love and grace.
At the cross, we see God, in all his divine holiness, dealing with human sin.
At the cross, God removed the sin that separates us from him by making his Son, the Lord Jesus, responsible for our violations of his law.
At the cross, God put our sin and guilt on Jesus, while giving Jesus’ righteousness to us.
At the cross, God’s wrath fell on his Son instead of on us.
Sin is punished as God determined it should be. There is now nothing further that divine justice can demand, because Jesus has paid the debt in full. The Bible says of Jesus Christ that ‘Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved’ (Acts 4:12).
This is the gospel.
Come
Jesus urges sinners to come to him—then he will deal with their sin and make them acceptable to God. To ‘come’ means believing in Jesus as God’s only remedy for sin and the only way in which guilty sinners can be forgiven. It means trusting what he did on your behalf on the cross, and looking to him alone for forgiveness and salvation.
Peter Jeffery
© Day One Publications, www.dayone.co.uk