Romans 1:16-17 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”
We were discussing together in our Bible Study group this last week, how the Gospel means “good news”. The word “gospel” is the Greek word “euangelion”, meaning the glad tidings of salvation through Christ. But, as we said in our Bible Study, this good news is good for us because there was first bad news. The late Pastor Dr. D. James Kennedy explained that the two most famous moments in human history are (1) the Fall of Man by sin in the Garden of Eden, and (2) the atoning death of Jesus Christ on the Cross at Calvary for sins of the world. The late Pastor Dr. V. Vernon McGee stated that we must begin by seeing mankind on our own as ruined creatures without God, helpless and hopelessly lost. The only remedy for our sin is the perfect remedy God provides in Jesus Christ for a lost humanity.
Romans 6:23 proclaims, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Dr. McGee continues that the apostle Paul says that the gospel of Christ is the power of God to save everyone who believes. You cannot work for or buy this righteousness from God; you only can accept it by faith. That is why Ephesians 2:8-9 declares, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Justification by faith means not only subtraction of sin, but the addition of righteousness in what Reformer Martin Luther called “the great exchange”, all so you might stand before God blameless and complete in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:21 clarifies, “For He [God] made Him [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” This message is God’s good news.
But like any gift, it must be accepted and received. In John 3:3 Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” What does that mean? Well, Jesus goes on to say in John 3:16-17 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” Believing that God sent Jesus from heaven of earth, God incarnate, to pay the debt of sin which He didn’t owe, because we had a debt of sin that we couldn’t pay.
Romans 3:22-25 affirms, “even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness.” Our sin must be paid for; either by Christ our Savior or by us. The bottom line is given in John 3:36, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” And this is repeated in 1 John 5:11-13, “ And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.”
Good news in Christ, Brian
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