2024-09-27: The Gospel
Here is a summary of the Good News that Christians love to proclaim: Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God Incarnate, has lived, died, and risen again to reign so that if you repent and believe in him he will bring you back to God.
"Gospel" is an English word that means "good news." The news about Jesus, how he lived, what he taught, how he died, and the fact that he rose again from the dead is GOOD news because it gives the only answer to the problem that all human beings are faced with—and that is, the combined problem of Sin and Death.
The real, true truth is that human beings did not happen "by accident" and not a single one of us is a cosmic mistake. We were created by God, the supreme being who made the whole universe we live in. And when he made us, God made us like himself and gave us a job to do, spreading his likeness and extending his rule all across our planet.
Sin is when creatures like us rebel against the God who made us and try to make something else (usually ourselves) our god in his place. Sin is a kind of spiritual insanity, because God is the source of all life and cutting yourself off from him is choosing to die instead. It's like a tree branch sawing itself off from its trunk. When human beings broke our covenant relationship with God, the only thing that could possibly result in is suffering and death.
Sadly, there was no fix for this bad situation. Human beings have been broken and sinful ever since our first father, Adam and our first mother, Eve disobeyed God and lost their place enjoying his presence.
But the good news about Jesus is that where there was no way to fix it, Jesus came and made a new way that no one expected.
Jesus lived a perfectly righteous life—something none of us could do—and then died the death our sin deserves, even though he had done nothing wrong. Now, because he has sent his Holy Spirit to change people's hearts, it is possible for us to enter a New Covenant relationship with him. In this relationship, our sin is paid for by his punishment, and his righteous life is credited to our account. That means we can come back again and be with God the way Adam and Eve were right after God created them. We become "attached" to Jesus, not unlike the way a husband and wife become "attached" to each other in marriage. Now, whatever happens to Jesus will happen to us as well—if we are covenanted to him by faith in his identity and actions on our behalf.
The good news of Jesus Christ is that we—sinful human beings, every one of us—do not, in fact, have to be doomed to the punishment of death that our faithless actions and the faithless actions of our parents deserve. By believing in Jesus—that he is the Son of God and that his work on the cross is enough to cancel out all our sin—and by turning away from sin to love him instead, we can live forever enjoying and serving God as a free gift from him that we must only receive to enjoy for all eternity.
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