The Gospel
You may have heard that the word
gospel means "good news." But the Gospel is not just any good news. The good news isn't, for example, whether God wants you to be healthy and wealthy, or make all your dreams come true. The Gospel is the good news that God made a plan, before the world began, to save sinners like you and me. The good news is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, accomplished that plan when he died on the cross. He proved this when he rose from the dead three days later. The good news is that God has extended an offer of
free pardon to all who repent and place their trust in Jesus Christ.
All who believe in Christ are forgiven their sins.
The Bible proclaims that "God made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (
2 Corinth. 5:21). This accomplished two things: Sin was punished to the full,
and sin was pardoned to the full.
Sin was punished to the full when God made Jesus "to be sin who knew no sin." God punished Jesus, though he was sinless, as if he had committed the sins of every person who would ever believe. Jesus bore the wrath of God that was meant for us.
Sin has been pardoned to the full because God now forgives all those who have faith in Jesus. This was done "so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." In the same way that God treated Jesus as a sinner, even though he was sinless, God now treats those who believe as righteous, even though we are unrighteous. God treated his Son as if he had lived our sinful lives. In exchange, God now treats us as if we had lived Jesus' sinless life.
In all of this God has shown his love for us. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (
John 3:16).
Verse of the Day
2 Peter 3:8 KJV
| 8 | But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day [is] with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. |
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