The Gospel of Jesus Christ

“The Gospel” is a term that seems to be understood a lot of different ways in today’s world. Some people speak of “Gospel Music,” referring to a massive industry of professional recording artists. Others use “the gospel” for anything they regard as the truth (as in “the gospel truth”) — which may have nothing to do with biblical truth, Jesus, or the Gospel of Scripture at all. Still others have their own ideas of what the Gospel is about. Some think it is the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, with its rituals, ordinances and traditions. Some think it is a commitment to join a church organization and attend meetings faithfully every week.

Whatever other ideas there may be about “the Gospel,” one thing is certain: none of these things has anything to do with the true Gospel message as Scripture presents it. The truth is, there is only one true Gospel of Jesus Christ. It has nothing to do with “Christian music,” nothing to do with attending religious services, nothing to do with any religion’s rituals — nothing to do with anything apart from the clear definition Scripture gives. And Scripture gives it simply, clearly and directly:

That is the simple Gospel Scripture teaches.

Jesus Christ was God, who robed Himself in human flesh (Philippians 2:7–8) and paid the price for our sins through His one sacrifice (Hebrews 10:12, 14), shedding His own blood on the cross. He did this because of His great love for the world (John 3:16; Ephesians 5:2; 1 John 4:10). Scripture teaches that all of us are sinners who have fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23). Remember the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2–3)? It all begins there. Adam came from God — fashioned by the hands of the Creator, made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26). God gave Adam a very simple instruction to live by, in exchange for paradise and the right to walk with God as a man walks with his friend. But Adam and Eve chose to disregard that instruction and go their own way.

Though both sinned in the Garden, God held Adam principally accountable, because he was the one to whom the instruction was given and the one placed in charge of the Garden. When Eve ate the fruit of the forbidden tree, Adam was there with her, and he neither warned her nor refused the fruit himself. As a result, he and Eve lost their former place in the Garden and their standing of right relationship with God. Scripture tells us that sin entered the world through Adam (Romans 5:18–19). Because a gap had been opened between man and God, the corruption was now present, and every man born through and after Adam came into that same corruption.

Because of that sin, none of us were able to enter into relationship with God; the bloodline had been corrupted. Whoever said a person’s individual sin doesn’t hurt anybody but themselves clearly doesn’t know the story of Adam and Eve. The effect of Adam’s sin was global. It changed everything. Because of it, our eternal destiny was to be separated from God forever — for God cannot allow communion with Himself where sin is present. He is perfect and holy; there is no corruption in Him.

Yet even so, God’s desire was to restore us. Across the timetable of history He introduced many opportunities to walk with Him, preparing the way for the coming of His Son Jesus (also known in Scripture as “the Second Adam”), who would set all things in their rightful order: where one man brought sin into the world through disobedience, Jesus brought life through His obedience and His sacrifice for sin. Along the way God gave His Law — a standard to follow, with the promise that whoever perfectly upheld it would enjoy great blessing from His hand. God’s desire was for a kingdom of priests (the King being God Himself), in which every man could commune with Him again. The Law also required blood sacrifices of unspotted animals to temporarily cover sin.

The one great “problem” with the Law was that it was perfect and man was not. No matter how hard he tried, man could not perfectly keep it. And the sacrifices could not actually erase sin — they only covered it, temporarily, and had to be repeated again and again. God never delighted in the blood of animals, but under His Law, without the shedding of innocent blood, sins could not be remitted. That endlessly repeated blood was both a constant reminder that man’s sin caused it, and a signpost pointing forward to the one final sacrifice to come in Jesus — to that glorious day when the last sacrifice would be offered for man’s iniquity: freedom from sin, relationship with God perfectly restored, and no more blood to atone.

The Law’s other inadequacy was that it dealt only with external actions. It had no power to change the conscience of man or reach the root of sin. And this too was part of God’s plan. From the very beginning He knew and ordained that the Law would be a temporary arrangement until the Messiah came. It gave His people a way to be reminded of their need for a Savior, and to look forward, with eager anticipation, to the day when all their sins would be washed away completely — not on the basis of man’s efforts, but by the grace of God. By design, the Law revealed to man that righteousness could never be attained by his own deeds, for he was imperfect. It showed him that he was not higher than God, that he was unjust and full of sin, and that he had no ground on which to boast before a holy Creator.

Still, man kept getting the message mixed up. Time and again, despite all God did to help him — even performing incredible miracles, defeating enemies, and granting supernatural provision — people fought and complained to have their own way. They willfully broke His Law, following other idols, indulging the desires of their flesh, living for themselves. They broke covenant after covenant. But God, in His mercy, kept taking them back. Again and again He likened His people to an unfaithful wife, and still He received her. Eventually, despite all His blessing and grace, they grew tired of God as their King. They wanted a human king like the other nations, and they complained until He gave them what they asked — though it broke His heart, and though He warned them, out of love, that it would come at a price. Human kings would sometimes be oppressive, unjust, and full of turmoil. Still they persisted.

As time went on, many became confused about the very purpose of the Law, and their leaders were little help. They added their own traditions to it and made it a heavy burden on the people. In his relentless effort to keep the Law, man came to believe his righteousness came through keeping rules and rituals. By the time Jesus arrived, the religious leaders were boasting in their own righteousness, priding themselves on the fine details of the Law they upheld. And Jesus — God Himself clothed in human flesh, completely perfect — presented the perfect Law of God to man, revealing even to the religious elite that they too were full of sin, for all their efforts to appear holy. He exposed their arrogance before the people: they had polished the outside of the cup while the inside stayed full of corruption. He showed that God requires not only outward observance but inner purity — that merely keeping rules was never enough to please a holy God.

To some who have not understood God’s purpose through history, this might sound as though God is unfair to expect so much of man. But this is exactly why it matters to understand that all of history is in His hands; nothing happens outside His foreknowledge. God’s purpose from the beginning was to reveal His great love and His power to save man from himself — but man has to learn to look with new eyes. The reason God shows us that there is no possible way we can measure up is so that He can show us how greatly He loves us: to the point that He would leave His home in heaven, come to this earth, walk in humility and poverty among the very creation that rebelled against Him and broke His heart, take all our sins upon His own shoulders, and let us reject Him again — even put Him to death on a cross — all of it part of His plan to pay the price for our sin with His own perfect blood. From that bloody cross, Jesus forgave those who rejected Him, even as they laughed and spat on Him. He is called “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” and this is exactly true: unlike the lambs offered under the Law, which could not wash away sin, Jesus’ blood dealt with the sin problem once and forever. Even while the people He loved tortured and killed Him, He was reconciling them to God the Father.

And still today many reject Him, because they do not understand God’s great plan of salvation and His amazing love for His creation. Even as man scoffs at God, His hand remains extended in grace and mercy. There is no more sacrifice to be made — it is done. For that reason, it does not matter what you or I have done. All of us have sinned; no one on this earth is righteous; we all deserve death. This is His world; He created us and set everything in motion, and yet some of us dare to call Him unfair. But who are we to judge the One who made us? He would have had every right to leave us to judgment. Instead, He died a brutal death on a cross we built for Him. He took the sins we should have answered for, and paid for them with His own blood. And then — as if that were not enough — He rose from the dead, to give us not only life with Him now, but eternal life with Him after this life is over. He not only makes us right with God; He invites us to walk and talk with Him, to speak with Him as a man speaks to his friend. He gives us every spiritual blessing, with no rules or rituals or perfect law-keeping required. Everything comes from His hand by grace. Nothing is held back. And the only thing we must do is believe Him. Isn’t it strange that some still find this too much, and unfair? Nothing we ever did to Him was fair. We deserve nothing good from His hand, yet His hand is wide open. Would you still turn away from His love? God is not asking for your religion. He is not asking you to join a program, or a cult, or shave your head. You do not have to do one single thing to try to measure up to His impossible standard. If you will simply believe Him, He will credit the righteousness of Jesus Christ to your account, and it is finished.

As we said: God the Father, in His great mercy, knowing our plight (which we brought on ourselves by our own disobedience), took it upon Himself to pay the price for our sins — giving the life of His Son in exchange for our freedom. Even before Adam and Eve sinned, God foreknew it, and had already purposed to send Jesus to pay that price. Even before Jesus arrived, God paved the way by making covenants with man in preparation for His coming. God was never caught off guard by Adam’s failure; His mercy was already at work before the foundation of the world.

Some might ask: if God can do anything, why not simply stop man from being able to sin? The answer is simple. God wanted man to have a free will. He did not want robots that merely obey commands; He wanted a being who could return the love He so desired to share. Jesus is the greatest example of that love — God’s perfect way of showing humankind how much He cherishes His creation. So much that He would jump in front of the speeding train of sin to push us out of the way.

Many people are angry at God because they don’t understand what He actually did for them. Part of that anger is understandable, because the world — and, sadly, the institutional church system too — has often sold them a skewed picture of who God is. Some who claim to preach the Gospel seem, at times, to have lost sight of what the true Gospel even is, and there is real hypocrisy in the mix — people who say one thing and do another, and who do not live the truth they profess. Instead of introducing people to the God who gave everything to save them, they introduce them to their churches, their programs, and their long lists of rules. It’s little wonder that so many don’t understand the Gospel.

But the deeper source of man’s anger against God is no one else’s fault. It is that man, by nature, is full of sin; his flesh fights against the Spirit of God. Many dislike the idea of “giving their life to God” because they don’t want to give up control. They think it unfair that God would offer a “free gift” yet receive it only on His terms — and they are strong terms: the complete yielding of your life to Him. What man forgets is that he did not create himself. He is a created being, whether he cares to reckon with that or not. God could have justly destroyed us all; it is man who rebelled, not the other way around. He is perfect, holy, just, pure and righteous; we are imperfect, unholy, unjust, impure and unrighteous. He fashioned the worlds for our pleasure and His own, and extended Himself to us in relationship. We were given everything, and we disregarded Him and walked in the arrogance of pride. Even then He did not destroy us, but made a way to bring us back. Yet men still hide in the dark with their sin, not wanting to be exposed in the light — failing to see that God will never cast out a repentant sinner. He looks for a broken and contrite heart that honestly admits its need for Him. God is not the enemy of the sinner; He is the cure. Again and again He grants man mercy and room to repent and enjoy the blessings of life with Him — and again and again man refuses. To be made right with God, the wonderful thing is, man doesn’t have to “do” anything. He doesn’t have to measure up, or be clean and perfect first. He need only come to God in humility, acknowledging that he is full of sin. God does not require penance, or rules and rituals; He does not demand church attendance or praying three times a day. He requires nothing but a repentant heart and a willingness to believe the good news that Jesus died for sinners to make us right with God. How simple can simple be?

Jesus died at the hands of sinners like us — yet in three days God the Father raised Him from the dead. Because of that victory, the gap of separation is completely removed, and Christ Himself stands as our bridge to God the Father. Because of Jesus, the sin problem is resolved. In His mercy, God chose to forget our sins, to put them away, and never hold them against us again. This is good news — and that is the literal meaning of the word “Gospel” as Scripture uses it: it means the good news. Because Jesus became a human being, died and rose again, we too will be raised to everlasting life with God when this life is over. And believe it or not, all of this only scratches the surface of what it is to walk with the Creator. From the moment a person gives their heart to God, a lifelong journey begins — to know Him closer and closer.

No one, in the end, goes to hell simply because their sins unavoidably separate them from God — for Christ has answered for sin. Only unbelief can keep a man separated from Him. If a man chooses to disregard the Gospel and will not believe it, he is condemned of his own accord; God’s forgiveness cannot reach a man who refuses it. God will not force Himself on anyone, and so, for all who reject His way of salvation, He resolves to give them only what they wish: separation from the Father. Eternal separation, then, is not the punishment of a cruel God, but the inevitable result of a man who will not have His free gift and clings instead to the old penalty for sin. The issue is not God sending people to hell; the issue is the reality that already existed before the grace of Jesus was poured out. God did everything possible — taking on human form and frailty, and being put to death, a blameless man at the hands of sinners — to pay their debt in full. He poured out His love through the most incredible sacrifice imaginable, so that man could be united with his Creator in intimate relationship: not only the promise of heaven after death, but the promise of peace, inner joy, and a vibrant walk with God every day, here and now. He takes away our filthy rags of sin and clothes us in the righteousness of Jesus. That is, Christ’s righteousness is credited to us — not that we suddenly “attain” righteousness in ourselves, but that God recognizes the debt Christ paid and accepts His righteousness in our place. All of God’s wrath against sin was fully satisfied in the sacrifice of Jesus. So He is not going to condemn anyone merely for being imperfect and prone to stumbling. Instead He pulls us close and longs to show us the secrets of His heart. His love for humankind is beyond words.

Once a person comes to Jesus, believing the Gospel, he is made entirely new. His old life of sin is forgotten by God, and he is washed clean in God’s eyes.

This is an amazing truth that even many church-attending Christians don’t seem to fully grasp. Those steeped in religion sometimes believe God holds grudges — that if you slip up once, you’ve moved from grace to God’s blacklist, and the only way back is to quickly repent, over and over, every time you stumble. But that is not faith in the finished sacrifice of Jesus; it is fear and unbelief. Either we accept that God has chosen to look upon Christ’s righteousness in our place and to forget our sins, or we do not. Some will say a statement like this hands everyone a license to sin — but that is only the spirit of religion talking. Religion wants to keep forgiven people under guilt, controlling them through fear and manipulation. The truth is, once we come to Jesus, we are clean. Yes, there will be times we still stumble; God is not surprised by our shortcomings. What matters to Him is faith. If we have embraced Him fully and are walking with Him, forgiveness is ours. Just as a parent does not scold a two-year-old for falling while learning to walk, so it is with God. He is rooting for us; He wants us to succeed. This may unsettle some of my church-attending friends, but God is not keeping short accounts with you — and neither should you. If your heart is to follow Him and know Him friend to friend, then live in that reality. To everyone saved by grace in Christ, God has given His Holy Spirit, who speaks in that “still, small voice” and works conviction in the believer’s life. That is why we don’t need religion ordering us around, telling us not to touch this or do that. God’s Spirit speaks to our hearts, guiding even the conscience, teaching us right from wrong and showing us where we have sinned. He is the communication line to the Father. Who needs the dictates of religion when the God who made you lives inside your own heart?

There is so much more about life in Christ than can fit in one article. But if you believe the Gospel, you will have the rest of your life in Him to discover all the wonders of His love and grace.

So let me say it again: the Gospel of Jesus Christ is good news. It is not a formula for earning right standing with God through your own works. You don’t have to attend church, follow rituals, do penance, sing hymns, say the rosary, confess to priests, attend Mass, or jump through any other religious hoops. God has made the way and paid every price in full. Salvation is the gift of God; no one can earn it by being good, and no one is disqualified from it for having been bad. God does not justify us on the basis of our works, but only on the finished work of Jesus Christ. He draws people to Himself and saves them by His own will and His own goodness; it is His righteousness, through Jesus, that brings us back into fellowship with Him. The only thing that pleases God is faith — all He asks is that we believe Him. And this is not “believe” in the way even many church folk have taught. Christians often present something they call “the Sinner’s Prayer,” imagining it a formula by which Jesus will come and make His home in your heart. But that isn’t so — for if it were, it would be a work. God’s grace is a gift. You cannot recite a magic prayer to invoke it, as though it were an incantation obligating God to save you. God has already made every provision, and it is He who draws you to Himself — so it is not even you who first chose Him. This may be a mystery, but the truth is: if you feel a drawing to come to Him, that is He drawing you — not your own wisdom or goodness. Every facet of His salvation is one hundred percent the gift of God in Christ Jesus; it has nothing to do with anything you accomplish along the way.

The good news is that you are saved — if you believe what Christ has done. And this is more than a casual, “Yeah, that sounds good; I’d like to cover my bases and make sure I get into heaven.” No — God wants pure faith. Do you truly believe His sacrifice? If you do, then you’ll take the time to count the cost. You must see that you are a sinner. To believe is to repent, for if you believe in Him, you must also believe that His way is true and that He has purchased your salvation with His own blood — which means you are no longer your own, but His. God, however, is no tyrant. He loves you. He made you. You can trust Him completely.

If you decide to follow Him today, know that it is He Himself giving you the faith to believe. That’s good news, because it means God has hand-picked you and called you out of darkness into His wonderful family. There is no special prayer to pray. Talk to Him as you would a friend; speak in your own words. He loves you. Believe His Gospel and receive His free gift. There is no pressure from anyone on the outside — and if any leader tries to guilt you into a hasty decision, don’t be distracted by it. God knows, from the foundation of the world, those who would answer His call; if He has chosen you to receive His grace, you will receive it.

I’d love for you to write me and share your decision to follow Him, so I can rejoice with you. And know this: should you come to Jesus and believe the Gospel, you have just entered the largest family on earth — a spiritual family whose names are written in heaven. Many call this “the body of Christ,” or “the Church.” But don’t be confused: many also call the buildings they attend week after week “churches,” and that is not the Bible’s definition of the Church. That doesn’t make such buildings sinful — only that some Christians will tell you to “get saved” and then “join a local church,” when the truth is that the moment you are saved, you are already part of the Church. You are instantly born into God’s family, and therefore a member of the only Church Scripture ever speaks of. The Church of Scripture is people — not an organization, a program or a building — people assembled together by a common unity in Christ Jesus, made possible by His Gospel.

The Bible teaches that you do not need a priest to go to God for you. In fact, it says that once you are “born again,” God makes you a priest unto Himself — which means you have the privilege of coming directly to God the Father through Jesus Christ. There is real benefit in surrounding yourself with other believers who encourage you in your walk, but don’t become overly dependent on men. Trust God. Ask Him to teach you to hear His voice — I promise you, He will lead you. And as you find yourself wholly given to Him, He will bring other believers across your path to encourage you, and to grow together with. Don’t feel you have to force it, and don’t let anyone pressure you into a program or a set of rules because they think you need it to grow. God will show you whom to trust, what kind of people to surround yourself with, and exactly what you need to grow in Him, one day at a time. And don’t get hung up on the sin you’ll still stumble with from time to time. Jesus does not condemn those who believe on Him. His grace covers everything you have ever done and everything you ever will. He is not surprised by our frailty. Yes, He wants to help us overcome sin — but He is long-suffering and patient. Religion often warns that if you still make mistakes, your salvation is in jeopardy; that is a lie. Once you have received His sacrifice for sin, there is no more cause for guilt. When you fall, run into His arms and let Him teach you how to overcome. As a baby learns to walk, so you learn to walk in the Spirit. Religion will sell you an experience, a program, a weekly ritual. Jesus isn’t selling anything. His life is a free gift to you — and if you trust Him, I promise He will lead you. If you have any questions, I’d love to talk with you. God bless you.