Chapter 1
What Exactly Is the Good News?
As I mentioned earlier, I’m a church kid, born and raised. I’ve been in and around the church my entire life. I’ve participated in all the Sunday-school classes and church youth groups and missions trips. Maybe you have, too. My church friends (the “churchies”) and I were part of a fun little fraternity growing up. In between the Goldfish crackers, the puppet shows, and the silly songs, we were soaking up some really important elements of the faith. We learned early on that the answer to every Sunday-school teacher’s question was Jesus, the Bible, or God. And as the years passed, we inherently knew that the word gospel meant “the good news.” We picked up on these core pieces of our faith very quickly. With passion and enthusiasm, every little evangelist who grows up in the church is equipped with this very basic definition: The gospel is the good news. Period.
The Greek word for “gospel” is euangelion, which means “good news” or “good message.” But what exactly does the “good news” mean? Why is it good news? For whom is it good? And what makes it good? Excellent questions! Let’s see if we can find some answers.
Good News or Bad News?
In the fall of 2009, the New York Yankees played in their 321st World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies. (That’s a slight exaggeration, but the pain and frustration over the outcome of that matchup have clouded my memory.) Hideki Matsui, New York’s power-hitting outfielder, had a night for the ages, going three for four and driving in six of the Yankees’ seven runs. Thanks to Matsui, the Bombers closed out the Fall Classic without breaking a sweat. When the dust settled that evening, the Yankees had defeated the Phillies 7–3 and hoisted the World Series trophy for the twenty-seventh time. Matsui, the series’ MVP, took a ride around the field on his teammates’ shoulders, grinning from ear to ear. There was much rejoicing, partying, and fanfare in the city affectionately known as the Big Apple. This was good news!
But just two hours south on I-95, in the City of Brotherly Love, Phillies’ fans were having a very different reaction. The Phillies’ hopes for a second World Series title in as many years had come to a screeching halt at the hands of Matsui. Their postseason run was over, and they walked off into the night having fallen short yet again. To Phillies’ fans (including this author), the Yankees’ victory wasn’t good news. It was a horrible but familiar fate for the Phillies—all hope and promise but no delivery. (It’s difficult, but I’ll spare you the boring details of other disappointments I’ve endured with Philadelphia sports teams over the years.) The point is this: Good news is subjective. We can’t know whether news is good or bad for us unless we have enough information.
It’s the same with the gospel. If we define the gospel merely as “the good news,” we aren’t providing enough information for others to know what that really means. Our Sunday-school definition may be a handy, concise description of the gospel, but it’s entirely too narrow and limited to give people a clear grasp of what the gospel is all about and how it applies to their lives. But how can we define the gospel more clearly so that people will understand it, see that it really is good for them, and take a step or two closer to faith? How can we help others see that the good news can flow straight from the pages of the Bible into their lives?
One way is to expand the definition of gospel, to present it in broader terms so that people will not only grasp the big picture but will also understand why the gospel is good news for them personally. With that in mind, I’d like to offer this expanded definition: The gospel is the good news of what God did in Christ on my behalf.
Now that we have a broader definition to work with, let’s explore it in depth and find out what it means for us personally.
The gospel is the good news of what God did in Christ on my behalf.
It’s All about God
The first thing we need to understand about the gospel is this: It isn’t about us, even though we benefit from it. It’s about what God has done. If we’re honest, in the church we typically think of the gospel as something we believe. It’s an idea or a concept that unlocks grace and forgiveness when we accept it by faith. But if we aren’t careful, we may miss the truth that this good news of Jesus isn’t only about something we believe; it’s about something God has done—a beautiful and grace-filled work we’re privileged to benefit from. Regardless of our awareness of it, or our faith in it, the good news is still about what God has done.
It’s important to remember (or to realize for the first time) that the gospel wasn’t plan B for God. He never had an “Oh no!” moment that we all have when our first choice blows up in our faces. There was no emergency council of the Trinity (God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) to figure out what to do after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the garden (Genesis 3). God’s plan from the very beginning was to send his only Son to die in our place as a spotless sacrifice for our sin (our failure to measure up to his perfect standards). The apostle Paul wrote about this divine plan in his letter to Timothy:
[God] has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 1:9–10, niv, emphasis added)
As difficult as it is for us to wrap our minds around, this was God’s sovereign plan before Adam and Eve ever came on the scene, and God was “pleased” to execute it (1 Corinthians 1:21). In fact, this perfect plan of redemption forms the story line of all the Scriptures.
God’s plan from the very beginning was to send his only Son to die in our place.
As God revealed his Word—the Bible—to us, he shared it in the framework of this plan. God, the righteous and holy Creator, promised his wayward children that our acts of rebellion (or sin) and the consequences of our disobedience wouldn’t hold us in bondage forever. He would raise up a Deliverer, Judge, Prophet, and King to free us once for all from the penalty of sin and self-worship. This beautiful plan, revealed in the pages of the Bible and foreshadowed in Genesis 3:15, was fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus.
The gospel tells us that God himself did the work of saving us, and you know what? We needed him to do it! That’s what makes the gospel good news. Because every one of us (the entire human race) is utterly incapable of fixing our sinful condition!
It’s culturally and politically incorrect to say this, but I’ll take the plunge anyway: The Bible teaches that we were born sinful, broken people (Psalm 51:5). Ephesians 2:1 says that we were “dead in . . . trespasses and sins.” Our sin has separated us from a holy (pure and perfect) and righteous (just and upright) God (Colossians 1:21; 2:13–14). Not only are we separated from God because of our sin; we’re as far away from him as we can possibly fathom, “without hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12).
The Greek word for “sin” (hamartanō) literally means “to miss the mark.” It describes someone who shoots an arrow at a bull’s-eye but misses not only the bull’s-eye but the entire target. (This is pretty much what happened the first time I ever shot an arrow. But the dog wasn’t injured that badly—and she recovered quickly!)
We often see ourselves as pretty good people, don’t we? With our good intentions and morally good deeds, we figure we just need a little help to reach the mark of God’s holiness, or perfection—like my two-year-old son who needs a boost to reach the sink at night to brush his teeth. We tend to think that we just need a boost, a lift, a little help to close the gap between us and God. How foolish and deluded a thought! Instead, we ought to think of ourselves as shipwrecked souls marooned on a tiny, deserted island in the middle of a vast sea, and God as the mainland a million miles away from us.
We find ourselves not needing a “boost” but totally depending on someone to pluck us off this isolated island. We’re lost and hopeless, desperately needing to find some way back home. But the truth is, on our own we can’t get there from here. As humans, we’re all in the same condition—dead in trespasses and sins, wandering in our own stupidity and rebellion, pursuing not our God and his desires but our own sinful lusts and passions (Ephesians 2:3). But just as we’re about to give up hope on that isolated island, languishing in the darkest conditions, God intervenes. The apostle Paul put it this way:
You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Ephesians 2:1–3)
Quite a grim picture, isn’t it? A picture of hopelessness, desperation, and need—until God acts on our behalf.
Why is it important to remember God’s work in the gospel? Because we had no legitimate hope of doing anything about our “helpless estate,” as the hymn writer expressed so powerfully.1 Into our brokenness and darkness came the glorious light of the gospel—the message of God’s plan for redeeming the human race, rescuing us from our hopeless, desperate condition as sinners. God dreamed up this plan and brought it to life in Christ. The gospel is about the work God alone accomplished on our behalf.
Into our brokenness and darkness came the glorious light
of the gospel—the message of God’s plan for redeeming the human race, rescuing
us from our hopeless, desperate condition as sinners.
Jesus Is the Only Way
To understand the good news, it’s also important to remember—or learn for the first time—that what God did on our behalf, he chose to do in Christ. Jesus is the only way we can be reconciled (brought back into a peaceful relationship) with God. God’s plan wasn’t a choose-your-own-adventure novel with multiple routes to the same end. To return to the example of being stranded on that deserted island, there aren’t a few dozen seaworthy vessels waiting to carry us safely to the mainland. God has provided only one way to get there.
Jesus boldly declared, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). This may offend our anything-goes cultural sensitivities today, but this is the biblical plan of salvation. In his grace and goodness, God chose to deliver, or rescue, us through one person: Jesus Christ.
God chose to deliver, or rescue, us through one person: Jesus Christ.
A quick scan of the Old Testament alone shows us that God has repeatedly chosen to work through one person—a single man, leader, head, or deliverer—to accomplish his purposes:
Ÿ Adam was the “head” of the human race, and in his single act of disobedience, he brought all of humanity under the curse of sin and death (Romans 5:12–19).
Ÿ Noah was the head of his family, and through him, they were all saved from the flood and given a new world to fill and populate (Genesis 6:9—9:1).
Ÿ Abraham was the recipient of the covenant God established to bless all the nations of the earth (Genesis 12:2–3; 17:1–7). Abraham was declared righteous because he placed his faith in God (Romans 4:3), and he became the father of all who believe in Christ (Romans 4:11; Galatians 3:29).
Ÿ Joseph was God’s point man and deliverer in a time of famine when his father, Jacob, sent Joseph’s brothers to Egypt in search of food. God preserved and protected his people through Joseph (Genesis 41:56—42:3; 43:4–8; 44:4–5) so that they flourished and became a great nation.
Ÿ Moses was the deliverer the Hebrew slaves had prayed for as they groaned and struggled under the weight of their slavery in Egypt (Exodus 2:23–25; 3:9–10).
Ÿ Moses was also a prophet who spoke God’s words to the Israelites (Exodus 24:1–3), a priest who interceded on their behalf before God (Exodus 32:11–14), and the mediator of the Law, who revealed God’s righteous standards to them (Exodus 20:1–22).
Ÿ Joshua, whose name means “savior,” was the point man through whom God led his people into the Promised Land (Joshua 1:1–9).
Ÿ The judges of Israel were a succession of deliverers whom God raised up to liberate his people from oppression (Judges 2:16–19).
Ÿ David was a man after God’s own heart (1Samuel 13:14), the king God sent into battle to deliver God’s people from their enemies and bring them unity and prosperity (2 Samuel 7—8).
All of this fascinates me. First, it shows me that God was working through his representatives, deliverers, judges, kings, and prophets to carry out his plan for his people. And this plan, regardless of cultural or political trends, moved on unhindered by circumstances. This gives us hope that in the chaotic and unpredictable world in which we find ourselves, God’s plan will still be brought to completion, no matter what.
Second, each of these examples provides us with a pattern, a “type” as theologians like to call it, that points us to God’s plan to rescue humanity through his Son, Jesus. Through that one sinless Man, the free gift of God’s grace shattered the darkness of sin and “ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9). In stark contrast to Jesus stands the first man, Adam, who rebelled against God. In Romans 5 we see the consequences of Adam’s act of disobedience compared with the results of Jesus’ act of obedience:
As one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s [Adam’s] disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s [Christ’s] obedience the many will be made righteous. (Verses 18–19)
This one act of obedience—Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross for our sin—was God’s plan for reversing the death curse he had pronounced on Adam after he sinned (Genesis 3:19). In a beautiful and poetic turn of events, this second Adam, Jesus, who was acting as the Head of a new race, succeeded in all of the ways the first Adam failed. Jesus was obedient to the Father; he lived a holy, sinless life; and he didn’t give in to temptation. Jesus’ success in living a righteous life as a man gave Adam’s disobedient offspring (you and me) our only hope of being set free from the curse.
Through Jesus, the holy “offspring” or “seed” referred to in Genesis 3:15, God did an amazing work of reversing the curse and reconciling the world to himself. Jesus alone carried out the plan God set in motion from the very beginning of time, erasing Adam’s failure and winning the victory over sin and death.
Jesus made this agonizing decision to submit himself to his Father, even if it meant dying on a cross, and his single act of obedience changed the course of human history forever.
This reminds me of a life-altering decision I had to make in 1998 when I was just twenty years old. I was studying history at Liberty University, minding my own business, when I began to sense God’s “call” to ministry. It was one of those line-in–the-sand moments, if you know what I mean. I felt the weight of that decision like nothing I’d ever wrestled with before. But submitting to God and deciding to obey his call would set the course of my life on a radically different path.
It would have implications for marriage, since I couldn’t date and marry a girl who wasn’t willing to be in ministry. It would also have significant consequences for my children, who would be thrown into a “fishbowl” without any choice in the matter. They would discover very early in life what it means to be a pastor’s kid. Not an easy assignment! (My poor kids have found themselves featured as heroes in my sermon illustrations more often than they’d like. But our church has been great to them—gracious and understanding about this very difficult road they have to walk as pastor’s kids.)
Just as my decision to follow God’s call into ministry would impact my life and the lives of many others along the way, Jesus’ decision to follow God’s call to the cross has impacted millions of people across the span of time—and into eternity!
God Did It for Me
In the first two parts of our expanded definition of the gospel, we discovered that God alone came up with the plan to deliver us from sin, and he accomplished that plan through his Son, Jesus. This brings us to the final part of the definition: What God did in Christ was done on my behalf. What does that mean? Simple. What God did through Jesus on the cross was accomplished for you and me—not by us, not with us, not because of us. It was done for us.
Let’s return to the illustration of my chubby two-year-old son who can’t quite reach the bathroom sink. Before we’re saved through faith in Christ, we’re like my son. We aren’t in need of just a little boost when it comes to reaching the standard of perfect righteousness (or upright living) that God requires of us. We aren’t anywhere close to reaching it!
Romans 3:23 is pretty clear on that front: “All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory” (emphasis added). It isn’t that we’re good people who fall an inch or two short of the goal. We’re not anywhere close to the goal! Or to use another analogy, we haven’t just swung and missed the fastball; we’re not even playing on the same field. Instead, we’re lost and helpless as though we’re marooned on that isolated desert island I mentioned earlier, with “no phone, no light, no motorcar, not a single luxury.” (Forgive the Gilligan’s Island theme-song lyrics—it’s been a long night.) As we’ve already discovered, we simply can’t get “there”—God’s standard of righteousness—from “here”—our inherently sinful condition. We, dear friends, are in trouble.
Rescued!
Stuck on that desert island out in the middle of nowhere, we don’t need help; we need to be rescued. We don’t need someone to come alongside us and encourage us to just keep going so we can reach our goal. We’ll never reach the goal; we need someone to reach it for us. We need someone to step in and do the job we can’t do ourselves.
Enter Jesus.
In God’s plan and by his grace, Jesus comes along and saves us precisely because we can’t do it ourselves. We’re hopeless and helpless and will never reach God’s standard of perfection because of our sin and rebellion against him. This is, by the way, the classic understanding of the doctrine of depravity: that on our own, we can’t do anything to earn the favor of a holy God. The only way we can gain God’s favor is if he gives it to us. This is where the gospel becomes really good news for you and me!
In God’s plan and by his grace, Jesus comes along
and saves us precisely because we can’t do it ourselves.
What we’re talking about here is that Jesus acts as our substitute. In theology books, this is called “penal substitutionary atonement” and “vicarious” death. What this means in laymen’s terms is that we owe a debt for our sin that we can’t pay, but Jesus paid the debt for us. We stand guilty before God, condemned to death because of our sins, but Jesus stood in our place and took the penalty we deserved. Not only that, but the benefits and blessings of his death on our behalf—forgiveness of sin, new life in him, and eternal life with him when we die—have been given to us through faith in him. It’s as if we’ve been convicted of committing a capital offense and are waiting on death row for our sentence to be carried out. But then Jesus comes and not only pardons us and wipes our records clean, but he also accepts the death penalty for us.
At this point you may be thinking, Now wait a minute! I’m basically a good person. I’ve never done anything really bad. Certainly nothing deserving of death. What’s this penalty thing all about? It’s simple, really—not popular, but not complicated. Over the course of our lives, all of us have accumulated a crushing debt of sins, faults, and shortcomings. As we read earlier, the Bible declares that each of us has fallen short of God’s righteous standard (Romans 3:23). Every failure on our part to match God’s standard in word, thought, or deed produces another penalty that’s applied to our mounting deficit, until we find ourselves with a debt so staggering that even the US government would be shocked. Our debt is so huge, we can’t possibly pay it. Not now or ever! Not only is the debt too costly, but we aren’t even dealing in the proper currency.
Logic would have us believe that if unrighteous acts and attitudes produce a debt, then righteous acts or attitudes would help reduce or balance out our debt. If we follow this line of reasoning, every righteous thing we do would be applied to our “account” as a sort of payment, closing the gap between us and God. But the biblical truth is that our acts of righteousness, goodness, and morality are actually offenses to God; in fact, the prophet Isaiah said that “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Isaiah 64:6)!
So, what do our “righteous deeds” do for the debt we owe? Absolutely nothing! The Central Bank of Righteousness rejects our payments outright as worthless, as though we attempted to purchase a $250,000 home with a pocket full of lint, two BIC pens, and a pan of Mama’s homemade lasagna. They simply don’t help the cause.
Therein lies the great deception of every pagan cult and false religion that has ever existed: the belief that somehow, with good hearts, good intentions, and good deeds, we can pay down our debt. But God’s Word tells us that “no one does good, not even one” (Romans 3:12). We can’t do anything on our own to get rid of the debt we owe. For those who haven’t accepted Christ’s payment on their behalf, the penalty is going to fall on their heads someday in the form of God’s judgment. Their debt isn’t going to magically disappear. They can work tirelessly their entire lives in an attempt to sway God’s opinion and secure some kind of loan modification that puts the payments within their reach, but it will never happen. They’ll simply be wasting their time, and before they can even begin to reconcile the debt, they’ll breathe their last and slip into a Christless eternity, regardless of how many good deeds they’ve done.
In all honesty, God is completely unimpressed with our good deeds and unmoved by our good intentions. He isn’t enamored with our church attendance, our committee involvement, our community service, or our Sunday-school teaching. The only thing that moves the heart of God to pardon, or forgive, the debt our sin has created is the perfect and complete righteousness of Jesus. The most amazing part of the gospel for you and me is that when Jesus died on the cross as the Lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice for sin, he took on himself our unrighteousness, sin, rebellion, hatred, rage, and all our other shortcomings. He shouldered that staggering debt as only he could. He wrote the check and paid the penalty. His righteousness has been applied to our “account” by grace through faith in him. And the Central Bank of Righteousness has stamped “Paid in Full” on our account statement. In the words of the old hymn writer, “Hallelujah, what a Savior!”2
The work God did in Christ on our behalf is the gospel’s most precious truth for sinners. We should never let the wonder of this escape us! The reason the gospel is good news for us is that we never could have done it on our own.
The work God did in Christ on our behalf is the gospel’s most precious truth for sinners. We should never let the wonder of this escape us!
All Expenses Paid!
A couple of years ago, my wife and I were getting ready to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. At the time I was settling into a new home that needed a lot of repairs, starting a new ministry position as a very young senior pastor of an established church, and attempting to be a good father to our three children. An elaborate, or even minimal, anniversary celebration was going to be outside our grasp that year. And then, on New Year’s Eve, we got a call from some great friends who invited us on a cruise to Cozumel—all expenses paid. “Come with us, cruise with us, kick back and relax in the Caribbean sun with us,” they said. “We’ll foot the bill!” Obviously, my wife and I jumped at the opportunity. (Did I mention we live in Upstate New York, and the cruise was in the dead of winter?)
A month later we left subfreezing temperatures and record snowfalls in New York and headed for Tampa. We boarded an elaborate floating resort in the seventy-five-degree Florida sun, with thousands of other vacationers who had sacrificed time, comfort, eating out, and other travel plans to save the money to go on this cruise. They had paid a steep price for this time at sea. Me? I was like a kid in a candy shop. I was blown away by the generosity of our dear friends, marveling at this free gift of grace they had given my wife and me. I knew we were there only by someone else’s favor. We didn’t deserve any of it—the meals, the service, the hand towels ornately folded to look like elephants, the exotic locations, the private beach clubs, the excitement and joy. We had earned none of it, paid for none of it. I was struck over and over with a sense of gratitude for the kindness and grace of our friends. Apart from their free gift, my wife and I wouldn’t have been there. We couldn’t have paid for the trip. It wouldn’t have happened if it had been up to us.
The gospel is like that. Our debt was paid for us. On our behalf. Not to “help” us, give us a boost, or offer us a “hand up,” but precisely because we were, on our own, beyond help. We didn’t deserve what Jesus did for us. And we could never have paid for it. Yet here we are, at this party, totally on Christ’s dime. It’s good news for that very reason. When we understand it that way, the gospel is the heart and soul of our joy in Jesus.
The gospel is the good news of what God did in Christ on my behalf!
Insert video “GospelChapter1.mp4” here
Chapter 1 wrap up (3:54)
(If your device does not support video content, go to http://www.eciple.com/eciple-gospel to view this clip)
Discussion Questions
1. How would you define the gospel? What part of our definition of the gospel most resonated with you? Why?
2. Why do you think it’s important to remember that God alone was the Designer and Architect of the plan of salvation?
3. The gospel informs us that Jesus is the only way to be reconciled to God. There is only one remedy for our sin: Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross. Why do you think it’s so difficult for people to embrace the exclusivity (or only way-ness) of the gospel? Why is it hard to think that other religious beliefs are wrong in light of Jesus’ claim?
4. What does it mean for you personally that Jesus died on your behalf? In what ways is this act significant for you?
5. The death of God’s Son was a steep price to pay for our redemption. How does understanding the price Jesus paid to save you impact your life today?