If you’re around Christians for any period of time, you’ll definitely hear the word “gospel” tossed about. This obscure word seems to form the basis of a lot of what we talk about, if we’re honest. So what is the Gospel exactly? And why is this ‘Gospel’ important to us, Christians?
Simply put, the Gospel is the good news that God has come into the world in the person of Jesus Christ to save sinners and to reconcile the world to Himself. The Message of the Gospel is simple enough to be related in a few paragraphs, or even in a few sentences! But it’s also a message of hope, new life and reconciling generosity that has changed the lives of hundreds of millions and studied by the greatest minds of many generations for the last two thousand years.
Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” -Mark 1:14-15
“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…” -1 Corinthians 15:1-4
The word “gospel” itself means good news, in the sense that we’ve been waiting for a report from far away that gives us hope or a renewed anticipation. When this news comes to us, we may have been “waiting” so long that we’ve forgotten, or perhaps we just aren’t aware of the current state of affairs anymore, and the news doesn’t seem all that exciting. We need this good news to stir up our hearts, open our eyes and shake us awake. Some would even say that we need the Gospel to raise us from the dead!
So, what’s the content of this Good News then? What is it that the Gospel actually tells us?
First, we need some background!
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.” -Revelation 4:11
We are introduced to the Main Character of this Good News right at the start: God Himself. The underlying basis of the Gospel is that God is the one true, loving ruler of all things, by virtue of Him creating everything. Unlike many human rulers we deal with today, God is not corrupt or rotten. He is not self-serving and ultimately lives for and in pursuit of the well-being of others. He is a completely good and loving ruler, generous in His provision and always just and fair with His rule. All of Creation finds its Source and its Maker in God.
To repeat the point: this is God’s world. He made it, and He’s in charge. But here’s the fascinating side to all this: God wants to share all of this with us. In the beginning, God, in His loving care, and His desire to share His own life with others, created a wondrous world with many different creatures. From spiritual beings who resembled Him in might and wisdom, to the inhabitants of the seas and skies, to the land creatures we are all familiar with. And also God made us.
God created human beings and gave us a unique place in Creation. You’d expect that someone in charge would use his position to lord over others, but God is different, instead installing human beings as partners in ruling this world, working with Him to care for it, to be responsible for it as a way of honoring Him and obeying Him as our King and as thanks for His generosity.
But even though this is how God created things to be, it’s pretty clear that isn’t how the world is now. What happened?
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way -Isaiah 53:6a
To repeat: God created the world and installed human beings as his partners in ruling the world by his wisdom and love. But like in any partnership, this means that human beings will need to trust his wisdom over their own.
In our foolishness and rebellion, Humanity (as a species and as individuals) has demonstrated time and time again that we would rather do things our own way than trust God’s wisdom. Everything that is wrong in our lives and in the world stems from those wrong choices Humanity has made, not just corporately as a species, but individually as well. Rather than trust God and His Wisdom, we don’t want God to be our ruler. So we reject Him as God and try to determine good and bad for ourselves, deciding to live our own way.
In some way, we all do this.
Most of us just ignore God or keep him far away. I mean, we’ve got our own lives to live. We can’t have God complicate things even more, right? So instead of the intimacy and partnership that God created us for, we stay away and we rebuff His love for us. We don’t thank Him as we ought for being our provider and creator, and we certainly don’t honor or trust the instruction He gives us. Instead of trusting His goodness, we follow our own desires and priorities. Instead of allowing His wisdom to guide us, we live by the values we decide are best (whether religious, secular, or a mix of both).
The Bible calls this stance towards God “sin,” and we all operate in this stance in some way—whether we follow a particular religion, faith or law code, or follow none at all. In fact, you’ll notice that it’s not really the things we do, but that stance in our hearts (that give rise to those things we do) that so opposes God.
So we’ve gone from a world of creatures exalted into a grand commission by God to be His partners, His friends and His family to a world full of little rival “gods,” each of us doing things our own way, each of us trying to bend the world and other people to our own will. Each of us acting as if we’re in charge.
How can we be surprised when such an arrangement doesn’t actually work? In removing ourselves from God’s wisdom, and in trying to determine what’s good and what’s bad on our own terms, our autonomy and freedom falls flat. And as a result, even if God never stepped in at all, we would still suffer the consequences: the damage we do to ourselves, the damage to the people around us, and the damage to the world we live in. Worst of all, often we are even blind to this very damage around us.
So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. -Romans 14:12
Like any good ruler, God cares enough to take our rebellion seriously. He respects our dignity as individuals and thus, God holds us accountable for our actions. It really does matter to Him that we dishonor Him, that we treat other people so poorly, and that we ruin His world.
In other words, God won’t let our rebellion go on forever. It would be unjust of him to do so.
We experience God’s justice against our rebellion in the reality of death and all the forms that death takes.
God was very upfront with us, telling humanity that if we started to determine good and bad for themselves, we would die. And it’s true. When we trust our own wisdom over God’s we have an amazing track record of doing things poorly, causing our relationships with one another and with God to break down and die. Often we see this sort of death as violence or injustice to others. The natural end result of doing things our own way is the destruction of others, the ruining of our relationships and accruing of a debt that we have with God. Doing things our own way also means disconnecting from the source of Life in a deep way that brings physical death into our lives.
But there is further justice that we will face. God, being the good and just King of the world must deal with rebels in order to protect those who have remained loyal and to defend His honor. We will all one day stand before Him and give account to him for our lives: for the damage we have done, and for our personal rejection of him as our ruler.
The sentence God will enact on that day will be to give us what we have asked for: we haven’t wanted God as our ruler and have sought to replace Him with ourselves. We have rejected His wisdom, doubted His goodness and have been apathetic toward his generosity and love. In short, we have asked for God to go away. We have asked, in our rebellion, to not be a part of God’s life.
And so, He will cut us off from Himself permanently. But since God is the source of life and all good things, being cut off from Him means a destruction that never ends, a death that cannot be recovered from.
Falling under the sentence of God’s justice against our rebellion is a terrible thing. It’s an impending destiny we all face, because we’re all guilty of rebelling against God. This is hard to hear and accept. And it means that we are all in deeper trouble than we could ever imagine. But it’s not the end of the story, either.
God loves His Creation and, even more, He loves us human beings. God has firmly determined that human beings will always be an intimate part of His life, so He didn’t leave us to suffer the consequences of our rebellion, but He sent His own divine Son into the world, becoming a human being, to save us: Jesus Christ.
Unlike us, Jesus didn’t rebel against God. He always lived by trusting God’s goodness and generosity. Instead of trying to determine good and bad for Himself, Jesus always relied on God’s Wisdom. And in doing so, He lived a life full of love for God and for others, giving honor and thanks to God, and loving other people deeply, being moved to serve and help them.
Jesus was the faithful and loyal partner to God that all humans were created to be, therefore, He didn’t deserve God’s justice against rebellion in any way. He didn’t deserve to die.
But Jesus did die. Although He had all the power of God to heal the sick, call down armies of angels, restore families and even raise the dead, Jesus allowed himself to be executed on a Roman cross. Why?
The amazing part of the Gospel is that Jesus died as a substitute for rebels like us. Jesus took the justice against and the consequences of our wrongdoing on Himself by dying on the cross in our place. Death is the punishment for and the consequences of rebellion, and He died our death, for us as if he were one of us.
All this is entirely undeserved by us, after all we rejected God. But because of His great love, God sent his Son to die for us – a true gift to us.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead… -1 Peter 1:3
But there’s more to the story of course. Jesus didn’t just merely die, and that was it. God accepted Jesus’ death as payment in full for our sins, and raised Him from the dead. Jesus defeated death, and God raised Him from the grave up to be what humanity was always meant to be: the ruler of God’s world.
As God’s Chosen Ruler, Jesus has also been appointed as God’s judge of the world. When Jesus returns and He confronts the rebellion in the world with divine finality, Jesus Christ will be the one calling all humans to account for our mutiny against God.
But Jesus is not only God’s appointed king and judge; He is also the savior from judgment. Because of His death in our place, he now offers to forgive all our sins. (They’ve already been paid for after all.) We can now make a fresh start with God, no longer as rebels but as loyal friends, co-rulers with Jesus and intimate family, giving all thanks and honor to him.
In this life that Jesus offers, God himself comes to live within us by His Spirit. We can experience the joy of a new relationship with God. Through the Spirit we can become the same sort of faithful partners to God that Jesus is, trusting God’s Wisdom, relying on His goodness and generosity to fuel our love for Him and for others.
And when Jesus does return in all his glory, we can be totally confident that we will be acceptable to Him and to God—not because we deserve to be, like we’ve earned or worked out our goodness, but because Jesus took our punishment and the consequences of our sin by dying in our place.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. -John 3:36
So what do we do now? Well, there are two very clear roads stretching from this spot:
The first road is to continue living in rebellion against God—ignoring him and (trying) to run our own lives our own way.
The end result of living this way is the inevitable and rightful justice of God. We not only have to put up with the damaging consequences of rejecting God ‘s goodness and wisdom here and now, but we face an eternity of separation from Him.
But there is another road. If we turn to God and ask for forgiveness, trusting in Jesus as the risen ruler and savior, then everything changes.
To begin with, God offers us a fresh start. It’s like we become part of a Genesis 1 of a New Creation that isn’t quite here yet. He takes Jesus’ death as the full payment for our sins and forgives us entirely and unconditionally. God fills our hearts with His Spirit, allowing us to know Him and giving us new divine life that can’t be destroyed by death. No longer are we in rebellion, but rather, we become members of God’s own family, living under the rule and protection of His Son, Jesus.
If you’re not quite sure what to do next, that’s okay. You don’t have to have it all figured out today. But I encourage you to keep exploring, keep asking questions, and stay open to what God is saying to you by His Word and through His Spirit. It’s not just about hearing the message once—it’s about discovering what a life with Jesus truly looks like.
Have questions? Let us know and we’ll be here to walk with you along the way.
Inspired by the Gospel presentations of Two Ways to Live and BibleProject