What is the gospel?

The gospel is the good news about Jesus Christ, his life, death and resurrection. Jesus became a man, a human being to represent us before God.

Adam, our first representative sinned and brought death, so death comes to claim us all, because we all have sinned. We accumulate the just wrath of God on us, because on daily basis we sin and never measure up to God's holy standard of his law in it's letter or the spirit of it, in our thoughts, words, deeds and intentions; in the bad we do, and in the good we aught to do, but end up not doing. We never love God and our neighbor as ourselves, perfectly as we ought to. But Jesus is the last Adam or a man, to represent us before God, because Jesus as a man obeyed God perfectly throughout his life and even unto death. There is no one who came after Jesus, and no one coming after after him to save us. He did it all himself, depending on his Father, in the power of God's Spirit.

We could say that his life and death was one act of continuous uninterrupted life of perfect obedience to God his Father and his holy law. In his life he obeyed God actively, and in his death he obeyed God passively. He obeyed the law of God which we left unfulfilled, and he took the punishment on himself for the law of God broken by us. Through his perfect obedience, Jesus has merited the perfect and everlasting righteousness which he gives as a free gift to those who put their trust in him alone to save them from their sins. So, we could say we're saved by works, not ours, but Christ's perfect works, which he did from the cradle to the cross. There is no place for us to add anything to it, or take away from it. Jesus and what he has done for us in his life and death, is sufficient and enough, and has taken us from under the just wrath of God, and has put us under the abundant grace of God, in which we now by faith stand forever secure.

His love for his children is everlasting, and our obedience or disobedience cannot alter his covenant love for us. It is his work alone which he began in his life as our representative, and finished it in his substitutionary death on the cross of Calvary, which can be properly called “the finished work of Christ”. All this Jesus did for us, or in our place us our representative and a substitute. So since we were dead, weak and sinful we were not able to save ourselves. So we are the bad news, but Jesus is the good news. What we should be now – perfectly righteous, though we are not, he, Jesus was, for us, and in him we are justified, or accounted righteous.

And his resurrection is the proof that God the Father was pleased and accepted his Son's obedience unto death, for us, or in our place. And as a resurrected and ever living Savior himself with the Father they now send the Holy Spirit into the hearts of those who have put their trust in Jesus Christ.

This same Spirit of Christ now takes the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ and teaches us and takes us deeper and deeper into who our Lord Christ is and what he has done for us, and works his righteous character into us, by writing God's holy law on our hearts and minds, to love God and our neighbor as ourselves. And this “continuous work of the Holy Spirit” of teaching the believers about Jesus Christ and his obedience unto death for us, will continue until we die, or until we see Jesus come back.

It is and will always be about what Jesus has done, rather than what we do or don't do. Our good doing which comes from the justifying faith in Jesus will always have some imperfections, since we are still in our human flesh, prone to wonder and leave the God we love. But our Father accepts our imperfect good doing not as our salvation, but as the fruit of our salvation, being justified by faith in Jesus Christ. He looks on the hearts of his imperfect children and loves them, not because they're perfectly obedient now, but because they don't trust in their own righteous works to save them, but they trust in the perfect obedience of their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to save them.

So by faith in Jesus we have been united to him, and are one with him in his life and death. In him we have obeyed, in him we have died, in him we have been raised from the dead, and in him we live now and forever. We have been spiritually united with Jesus by faith, or married to him, and our sin became his and his righteousness became ours.

“For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed —a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith." (Romans 1:17) And the great exchange has happened, through faith in Jesus.

What wonderful freedom we have in Christ Jesus, from the condemnation of the law, from needing always to measure up, from God's judgment, and accusations of Satan. What joy, what peace, and what great confidence and certainty we have in Jesus Christ to keep us and bring us home to be with him forever!

There is no faith, no religion, no god, no guru, no prophet who can give us and guarantee such a marvelous and surprising salvation for us as God the Father has done through Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit! Thanks be to God – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, forever! This great God is for us, and not against us! His mercy, grace and kindness endures forever! Our salvation is revealed in the Scriptures alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, for the glory of God alone!

Mark 1:1; Romans 5:12-21; Romans 3:5-20; Matthew 3:15; Matthew 5:17-48; Romans 8:31-39; John 4:34; John 17:4; John 5:19, 30, 6:38; Ephesians 2:8-9, 10; John 6:27-29; Galatians 3:10-14; Romans 1:16-17.