The Gospel

The Gospel means Good News, but in order for this news to make any sense we need to hear some bad news first.

So here is the background…

  • There is a God. He created the universe, which means he created you.
  • Everything he made was good.
  • The first humans were Adam and Eve, who enjoyed a perfect world and a perfect relationship with God.
  • But then something unimaginably bad happened; the one thing God told them not to do, they did. They were tempted by Satan to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and they gave in to temptation.
  • The result is the bad news;  because God is a just God and  they willfully rebelled against Him, He had to punish their rebellion, which the Bible calls sin. Their punishment was threefold a) they were thrown out of the garden of Eden and out of direct fellowship with God, b) that they would pay the price for their sin and die, c) that their offspring also now fell out of a direct relationship.
  • Since we are the offspring of Adam and Eve, we have inherited their fallen nature and are under God’s just wrath because we naturally rebel against Him. We are sinners, we are rebels and we deserve eternal separation from God, which is called Hell.
  • So the bad news is this: we are naturally sinners who love our sin and hate our God. As we are, we have no relationship with our Creator and ultimately, if we do not change, we will suffer an eternity of torment and punishment in Hell.

Thankfully this is just half of the story!

  • God is love, and so did not leave us in this hopeless situation.
  • Even though we have angered God and deserve nothing but His justified wrath, He has lovingly provided a way to be reconciled back to Himself. The way back is through His Son Jesus, who was born as a man, lived the perfect life that Adam couldn’t, and died on the cross in our place, bearing the wrath of God.
  • The result is that if we ask God to forgive us and become Lord of our life, He will look at you as if you have lived Jesus’ perfect life and look at the crucified Jesus as if he had lived your sinful one. Jesus becomes your substitute. It is a free act of His loving grace. He is love.