The Gospel
- orospress
- Feb 23
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 14
Many have heard about Jesus, or about Christianity, or the church. But few understand what Christianity is all about, or who Jesus is and what He has done.
The Bible begins in the book of Genesis. God creates humans and the world, and God says, "It is good." But then, sin entered into this world. This is referred to as "the fall of man." Sin is not just wrongdoing, but us choosing our will over His. Humans rebelled, sinned, against God and caused a separation between a righteous and loving God and fallen, rebellious humanity. God is holy, He cannot sin. God is also righteous, He must always come against sin. God therefore cannot dwell in the presence of sin and He is separated from man after the fall. This division between God and man also led to a division between man and man. The evil we see in the world today is a result of the fall of man, the result of our sin.
The great question of the Bible is this: If God is holy and can have nothing to do with sin, and God is righteous and must always come against sin, how can sinful man ever be reconciled to God? The Bible teaches in Romans 3:23 that "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."
How can sinful man ever be reconciled to a just God, whose justice demands that they be punished? How can man find salvation? The answer is found in Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches that God is a trinity; God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit. The Bible also teaches that to bring about the salvation of man, God would do something miraculous.
God shows us His miraculous love in this: In His righteousness, God condemns our evil. But in His love, God becomes a man, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus lived the perfect, sinless life that man could never live. He is the only one who has ever perfectly fulfilled God's Law and never sinned. He was tempted in every way to sin, but lived a perfectly righteous life. Despite this, He was sentenced to death on a Roman cross.
Jesus was crucified, and killed, although He was the only man to ever live not deserving of death. On the cross, all of our sins, all the punishment of a holy and righteous God, was laid upon Jesus. On that cross, Jesus bore the punishment for our sin. In Matthew 27:46, Jesus cries out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus suffered God’s wrath to its fullness, and just before He died, he cried out "It is finished."
We owed a debt to God because of our sin, and that debt is death. Romans 6:23 teaches us that “...the wages of sin is death.” We are condemned to death for our sin. None have escaped it, except for one, Jesus Christ. On the cross, God Himself took our place, and bore our sin, and suffered the punishment that we deserve. And on the third day, Jesus rose from the dead and He ascended to heaven, where He sits at the right hand of God. By rising from the dead, Jesus defeated sin and death, proving that the payment was accepted and that eternal life is real. The Bible teaches that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and that no man comes to the Father except through Him. There is one God, and one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ.
So, what must we do to be saved?
It is simple: believe. Trust in Jesus Christ. Trust in Jesus Christ, in His person and in His finished work on our behalf. John 3:16 teaches that "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." To believe in Jesus is not just to agree with the facts, but to turn from trusting in ourselves and to trust fully in Him.
We are not reconciled to God by any virtue or merit of our own, but rather we are reconciled to God through the virtue and merit of His Son Jesus Christ. Other religions claim we can go to heaven by our works and our merit, but Christians know that our merit is like "filthy rags" to God.
We have assurance that we are reconciled to God because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died in our place and paid our debt. We do not trust in ourselves, our good works, or our religious duties, or our church, but in the finished work of Jesus Christ. We all have sinned so much — but Jesus' death is more powerful than any sin we could have committed. His death is sufficient to pay for all our sins.
If you have never trusted in Jesus, today is the day of salvation. Cry out to God, confessing and forsaking your sin, your rebellion. Trust in what Jesus did for you, for your salvation. He will not turn away anyone who comes to Him in faith.
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