Principles of the Gospel, Part 3
Ok, now we have the word Gospel defined as good news, and we saw the dilemma that though God loves us and desires us to always be with Him, our sin demands that an eternity’s worth of God’s wrath be poured out to satisfy justice. Now, let’s get into the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ says that Jesus wanted to be our Substitute and pay the eternal sin debt we owed. So the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, a virgin. Jesus was born of this woman. That made Him fully God and fully man. Jesus was tempted in every way we were. In some ways, His temptations must have been even worse, as Satan himself tempted Jesus. Despite all of it, He lived the sinless life we were supposed to live.
Jesus was envied by the religious leaders of the day. The religious leaders saw their power dwindling. They wanted Jesus destroyed. So they had to prove that He committed even the slightest sin. That way, all would know He was not the Messiah He claimed to be. Despite Jesus’ enemies' best attempts at finding even the slightest sin they could pin on Jesus, they failed. So when Jesus claimed to be equal with God, the religious leaders claimed He blasphemed. They stirred up a mob and demanded that the Governor, Pontious Pilate, crucify Jesus.
Pontious Pilate was desperate to find Jesus innocent as He saw no evidence worthy of crucifying Him. However, because he feared man more than God, he tried, convicted, had Jesus tortured, and then crucified.
While Jesus was hanging on the cross, desperate for His next breath, God transferred every ounce of sin debt we accrued and will ever accrue onto Him. Then God poured an eternity’s worth of His wrath onto Jesus. This eternal wrath must have been way more concentrated than anyone in Hell has faced, as it was completed in under six hours. Jesus then died.
Three days later, God raised Jesus from the dead, proving that the sin debt was paid in full. Jesus appeared to individuals, small groups, and even 500 simultaneously post-resurrection. He gave faith in this Gospel to some of these eyewitnesses.
He commanded them to share this Gospel as they went. Then He ascended to Heaven.
Through great persecution, Believers have spread this Gospel where they fled to. They translated the Gospel into the languages of those whose countries they fled to. They also passed down this Gospel through the generations.
Eventually, the Gospel got to us. Jesus gave us the faith to believe His Gospel. From the moment we did, all our sins were forgiven. We received Jesus’ sinless record, now it is as if we never sinned and will never sin, even though we do. We were adopted into the greatest family that has ever existed and will ever exist- the family of God. God gets what He wants. We will be with Him for all eternity. As a guarantee, He gave us the Holy Spirit to live in us forever.
There is nothing for us to earn. There is nothing for us to do. If we believe this Gospel, we will want to love the One who loved us at the cost of His life. We do that by obeying Him. We obey not to appease Him. We obey out of gratitude.
Now, we are to spread this Gospel as we go and down to the next generations.
Return to the first post in the series here. Return to the second post in the series here.
Prayer: Father, we deserve Hell. We earned it. We hated you. We did not obey you, and we still don’t obey you like we should. We can be so half-hearted. However, you love us with a love that doesn’t diminish. You saw our state. You saw that we were doomed. We couldn’t rescue ourselves. You saved us. We could not save ourselves. Thank you!
Chew On This:
What’s it like to you that Jesus loves you to the point of suffering and giving His life as your Substitute?