What Is The Gospel?

CreationFallRedemptionRestoration

The story of redemption can be thought of in terms of 4 major events in history, but in order to understand why it is called a story of redemption, we have to first understand why we need redeeming at all.

The story of redemption is the story of a just and loving God calling lost and rebellious creatures back to Himself. He has been writing this grand and glorious narrative of His goodness and grace since before time began. We urge you to explore this story further.

In the beginning, God created this world good and peaceful and offered us the opportunity of unbroken fellowship with Himself – for His glory; however, as Genesis 3 tells us, things went wrong. Through one man's disobedience, we fell from this joyful state of fellowship. Sin entered our hearts, and the world became twisted and fractured. The harmony and peace that creation once enjoyed were damaged by sin and broken in disrepair.

We might summarize it this way:

  1. In the beginning, we had it all.
  2. In our sin, we lost it all.
  3. By His love for us, He (Jesus) did it all.
  4. We get it all

By saying “we lost it all,” it simply means “we” (all humankind) lost it “all” (our perfection and everything else good) at the fall of Adam and Eve.

“He” refers to Jesus. He “did it all” by doing everything necessary for salvation.

Then “we” (those who are his children) “get it all.” We get everything necessary for our salvation and new spiritual life.

Sound good? Of course it does, but many of us don’t really believe this. Instead, we believe:

  1. We had a lot.
  2. We lost a lot.
  3. He did a lot.
  4. We get a lot.

Why do we believe that? Because we still believe that there is some good left in us, something that will still get us favor with God. But as Romans 6:23 reminds us, because there is sin in us, we deserve death. But Jesus lived the life we could not live and died the death we deserved to die. The good news of the gospel is that through Jesus we can have a restored relationship with God, our neighbors, and the world; and that one day we will see every sad thing be made untrue.

What God starts, He will bring to completion, and we pray that you would be woven into the narrative. If you feel Christ inviting you into this story – into restored relationship with Him – turn to Him in repentance. Put your trust in Him and the work He accomplished on the cross to redeem and save you.

(Image credit: @jseevers)