What Is The Gospel?

God has a portion of His Word that He calls the Gospel of Christ. There are several Gospels in the Bible. The word Gospel means the Good News or Good Tidings, but the Gospel that affects you and me today is the Good News about salvation, freely given by God’s grace through faith alone.

Sinners cannot save themselves or make themselves worthy enough for God to save them.

Salvation is not for the righteous or the good, but for the unrighteous and the ungodly. The truth is that there is none righteous, and all have fallen short of God’s glorious standard, and we see this in Romans 3:23,

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Salvation is the saving of a person’s soul and spirit from the eternal, spiritual death that is the wages that every person is due for sin. Salvation is being saved from that penalty through the sacrifice of a perfect and innocent life, the life of God Himself.

There was never a time when salvation from sin could be given to anyone apart from God’s grace, or to men who did not have faith, and without Christ’s death, blood, burial, and resurrection being accomplished.

This was a future event people trusted in before Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, and a past event people trusted in after.

God has somehow, mysteriously and miraculously, woven and embedded within that word, that Gospel, His power unto our salvation.

If we believe that message, He’ll do the very thing the verse says. He’ll save us.

The power of God unto our salvation is not in Genesis chapter one, or in Ezekiel chapter twenty-eight. It is not in the book of Revelation, chapter fourteen, and it’s not in the Gospel of John. It’s right here in Romans 1:16-17, where it begins to be preached and goes all the way through to Romans 3:26.

In that gospel, in Romans 1:18-19, God tells us that we deserve his wrath,

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

In his sight, you and I are guilty sinners by nature, and the only reason why we’ve not yet received his wrath is that He, in his long suffering and grace, is withholding His day of wrath, and He’s giving us an opportunity to be reconciled to Him and to escape His wrath.

The second thing God teaches us, beginning in Romans 2:1 and running through to Romans 3:20, is that there is not one single thing we can do on our own to escape His wrath. He teaches us that it is humanly impossible, which leaves only one alternative: He’ll have to do it all for us. He’ll have to save us and give it to us as a free gift since it’s impossible to earn it, and, from Romans 3:20 to Romans 3:26, He tells us that that’s the very thing He’s willing to do.

The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God who took on the form of humanity, died on the cross of Calvary two thousand years ago. And when He did, He paid for everything that was wrong with us. He took the debt and penalty of our sins upon himself as our substitute Redeemer. He suffered the debt and penalty of those sins in His torture and death on the cross at Calvary, was buried and raised again from the dead the third day, having completely satisfied the justice of God in connection with our sins.

He propitiated or satisfied God’s justice based on that.

God’s able to freely forgive us our sins and give us an absolutely free gift of righteousness, justifying us unto eternal life, based on the Lord Jesus Christ’s willing sacrifice.

The only condition is that we accept that death payment with full persuasion in our mind that it is totally sufficient, just like God the Father Himself has done.

We have to believe in Jesus. When you believe in someone, you trust in them completely to do for you what you could not do for yourself. That’s what believing in Jesus means.

In Romans 3:26, Paul says,

To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

God is just in offering us salvation because the penalty for sin has been paid, and we can have it simply by believing in Jesus. And, once again, that means we trust Him and Him alone, and what He’s done for us, for our acceptance with God.

If you’ve never settled that issue, if you’ve never allowed God to save you by His grace, you must know that the only thing that’s stopping you is your own refusal.

However, you can stop refusing right now. There’s no aisle to walk down. There’s no ceremony to go through. There are no rites for you to submit to. Nothing like that.

He told you there in Romans 1:16, that the Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes.

Believe that message, and at that very moment God will forgive you your sins. He will impute, or charge, or attribute, or account Christ’s righteousness to you, and you’ll be saved from the death penalty of your sins.

Why would you refuse a gift like that, the most important gift ever offered to mankind?

If you have taken that step, believed and put your trust in the Gospel of Christ, the power of God unto salvation, there are two verses in Romans you should read, realising that what they say is now true of you, as it is true of every single one of us who’ve already done that.

The verses are Romans 5:1 to 2,

THEREFORE being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Notice the “we have”. This is not something we “will” have at some time in the future; we have it from the moment we believe, and it can never be taken away from us. We are fully secure and sealed, as 2 Corinthians 1:22 tells us.

That’s the best news any human could ever hear.

The first thing God wants to effectually work within you after the gospel you just believed is that He wants you to realise that having justified you, you now have peace with Him. You won’t feel anything in your body or experience anything supernatural, but your trust will give you peace and the hope of the glory of God.

As you study God’s Word to you, the Bible, you will understand more and more the incredible redemption you’ve received, and you’ll come more and more into the knowledge of God. Start by digesting slowly and completely Paul’s letter to the Romans. Romans is a sort of condensed summary of the entire Bible, with particular emphasis on the age we live in today. It is a critical part of your walk through this life.