What is the Gospel?

Salvation starts with understanding our chief problem – sadly, their are many that can not get past this first step. Here’s our chief problem: We all live a lifestyle so offensive to God, that the scriptures describe us as hostile towards God – virtually, enemies of our Creator. (Rom 5:10) Wow! Pretty shocking isn’t it? Takes a lot of humility to come to the point of agreeing with this teaching. I didn’t have ill thoughts towards God, I never considered myself an enemy of God – yet this is the clear teachings of scripture (Col 1:21). And from studying the Bible, I’ve come to understand that this shocking statement is true. This begins to demonstrate just how different God’s ways are from our ways. For example:  

1. We ignore God, we do not naturally think about Him … even though He created us. (Rom 3:11-12)

2. We justify our wrongs. We say or believe things like:

• this is really a small thing, it’s not all that bad a sin … everyone does things like this
• I’m not as bad as others, I mean, it’s not like I murder or rape
• we cite things we think are good and believe these things should cancel out wrong actions

Our way of thinking is in desperate need of correction. Why? Because as enemies of God, we are headed towards judgement from God’s perfect wrath because of our lifestyle. Since the fall, our view of ourselves has become corrupted with errors. The Bible gives us a correct perspective of ourselves. It’s hard for some to agree with the teachings of the Bible, but it’s a necessary first step towards being restored to a right relationship with God. The Bible teaches that if we’re putting our trust in how good we are in order to enter heaven then our “goodnesss” must reach absolute perfection. In fact, the Bible says that if we break just one law … we’re guilty of the whole law. That’s right, we get only two possible grades: 100 or zero. It’s a very sad thing that most do not see themselves as enemies of God, and they think that basically they are “pretty good” and should be allowed to enter heaven when they die. However, is grossly different from the teachings of scripture!

So … this is our problem … the Bible correctly gives us our spiritual eyeglasses so that we can see ourselves as God sees us … and then tells us that we are headed towards judgment from the wrath of God. Many refuse to believe this. However, there is good news for those that do …

When we read the teachings of the Bible, we gain an understanding of just who God is – and how perfect He is. We also gain an understanding of what His Son, Jesus Christ has done for us, according to His plan.

Here’s what the Bible teaches that God has done for us:

Jesus Christ, the supreme object of God’s Love(Jn 17:26 | Lk 9:35), the only begotten Son of God, voluntarily left the glories of heaven, laid down all His rights and privileges of Deity, and came to the earth on a great mission of mercy (Phil 2:6-8). He was born as a man, He lived among us, as one of us … but there was a great difference in Him and us, He never sinned … He never lied, never lusted, was never selfish … He was always fair, always shared God’s word with love to people, He was filled with compassion for people. He did all these things that pleased the Father, because it was His nature to do them, indeed He is the very Son of God. He lived His entire life in preparation of one great event – the event of all history. When the time was right, it happened … shockingly and remarkably … The object of God’s love, the Son of God who humbled Himself in the form of a man, who contained the heart of God, who lived His entire life in a blameless, perfect relationship with God the Father … volunteered to receive the full wrath of God in our place. He suffered spiritual separation and abandonment from God the Father, this was shown when we read that he cried out on the cross in His death: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”! He suffered extreme pain and torture, dieing a humiliating death. He suffered mentally, having previously been perfectly unstained by sin … now he bore every sin ever committed in His body. He truly received the full wrath of God for our sins.

Many times when may hear a Christian say: “Jesus died on the cross for my sins” … I hope you understand that statement glosses over much of what took place.

Now, why did Jesus do this? Because it was our only hope to be able to stand before God without receiving the judgment we deserve. God can not allow sin to go unpunished – that would be against what is the right thing to do. A judge has an obligation to the righteous victim to punish the person who assaulted them. God is righteous, we have stood against Him with our actions … His nature and perfection demands our sins be punished – or He would be like a wicked judge – someone who lets the wicked get off scott-free.

This was in the plan of God from the beginning after we fell from grace in the Garden of Eden. Jesus volunteered to do this so that God could display His love for us, and still be Holy. Receiving God’s gift of salvation has been called “The Great Exchange”. God offers us this unspeakable gift, a complete trade … we can trade our sinful morally corrupt state with God for the righteousness of Christ’s perfect life applied to our moral account before God.

Those that understand, and believe this ultimate truth of the Bible become so affected and moved by it, that they can take God, who never lies, at His word when He says that He loves us enough to offer this gift to us. When one truly understands this truth on a spiritual level, they demonstrate their understanding with repentance.

Repentance is something that happens naturally as a response to hearing the Gospel message. See if these things are describing what’s going on inside you as a response to hearing this message:

1. We understand, we sense, we know, that the Bible is correct in accurately relating God’s view of our sinful state before salvation.

2. We desperately long for forgiveness and a perfect standing-before-God … it’s the most important desire of our heart … it means more than anything else we could imagine. We are so desperately for this right-relationship with our Creator, that we gladly, automatically re-prioritize everything else in our life around this chief desire.

3. We fully trust Jesus – who is the Gospel Message – and His work on the cross alone as God’s free offer for our only basis for a restored relationship with God … And we want to please Him for this salvation by saying “Thank You” with changed attitudes of our hearts. ( Note: attitudes can be clearly seen in our lives … actions from the heart are called “fruits” … actions apart form our heart are called “works” … we are saved by our heart’s attitude changing … clearly seen by fruits in our life )

If you find that you’re experiencing repentance going on in your life as a result of hearing the Gospel Message of the Bible: then you can start a life with Christ right now – by simply calling out to God:

The Bible says: Whoever calls on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. You qualify if you know the Gospel message is true, and see that there’s an internal changed attitude taking place in your life as a result of hearing the truth.