The Gospel

Definition

The word Gospel means “good news”. It is a term found in the New Testament of the Holy Scriptures and occurs 93 times. Since the New Testament was written in Ancient Greek, it is translated from the greek word euanggelion, which is where we get words like Evangelist and Evangelical.

So the gospel is in essence, the good news concerning Jesus Christ.

The following is a short description of the Gospel.

Who God is

• The Bible explains that God created everything including the universe, galaxies, the earth and everything in the Earth including us.

• As creator, God has the right to tell his creation how to operate. This is why we have the laws of physics and why from the small scale of the atom through the vastness of the universe, we can tangibly observe that order has been designed and built into it.

• As creator, God also has the right to tell his creatures how to live. This is no where more clearer than with humanity, whom God created in his own image.

• God gave us his laws on how to live, which in the Bible is summarised into loving God and loving other people. Since God is both loving, and righteous he expects us humans to be the same.

Man and the problem of sin

• Despite God creating us to love him and our fellow humans, mankind was tempted by the devil to sin and therefore rebelled against and rejected God.

• As a result of this original rebellion, sin has therefore corrupted every part of our existence including in the natural world.

• Within humans, our sin nature has passed down from one generation to the next and our entire being is under sin’s power. Our conscience testifies to our sin nature.

• There is therefore no excuse for mankind concerning sin with the due penalty being physical and spiritual death.

• Our final destination for a life lived in sin is to face God’s wrath in eternal and conscious judgement in hell. After all our crimes are against an eternal God.

Now if this is where we stopped the message. It all sounds bad and hopeless. But this is where the “good news” of the Gospel kicks in.

The good news of Jesus Christ

• Jesus Christ is God coming down in human flesh, being both full God and fully man.

• As a man, he came to die on a cross as a substitute for all people.

• As God, he took on the eternal punishment for sin on our behalf therefore paying for sin’s penalty.

• But the greatest news of all, was that Jesus did not just die, but he rose again from the dead (a historical fact known as the resurrection) assuring us that God’s wrath has been satisfied.

• This proved once and for all, that sinners can be freed from sin’s power and penalty and be reconciled by God through Jesus Christ.

Our response

• We must come to trust in the person and work of Jesus by faith and in doing also ask Him for the forgiveness of our sins and to help us turn away from our sin.

• When we repent and believe in Jesus, all our sin is placed on Jesus and his perfect life is credited to us.

• This is how we can escape God’s wrath, because God now sees the righteousness of Jesus when he sees us, because of what Jesus did on that cross and through the resurrection.