The Gospel Way Peter Jeffery
D
o you understand the gospel? The question has to be asked because we are living in days when most people know nothing about the gospel. They may have vague notions about Christmas but that is all. The gospel is the good news of what God has done to save sinners, in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, from the consequences of their sin. It is not offering sinners hope if they will only try to live a better life. It is not holding up a standard to be achieved or a reward to be earned. Achievement and reward would immediately put it out of our reach. The gospel does not tell us what we must do, but what God has done. This is why it is good news and holds out to all sinners a hope of forgiveness and life.
So the first question to ask is who is this God? This is the all important question. If we get this wrong, we will get everything wrong. The gospel is about God so we
must get the answer right. The world is full of opinions about God varying from ‘there is no God’, to ‘all gods are the same”. So it is no use asking men and women about God because they would be as ignorant as you are. The only sensible thing to do is to listen to what God Himself has to say. God tells us about Himself in the Bible. There He provides answers for those who seriously want to know. They may not be answers you expect, but they are God’s answers, which is why the Bible often refers to itself as the ‘Word of God’. There we find that God is gloriously and wonderfully unique. There never was a time when God did not exist, for He created time and space and everything in them. If there had been no God there would have been no world and no gospel. The Bible shows us a God who is unique, unchanging and ever present. The greatest thing it tells us about God is that He is holy. Because He is holy He will not, and cannot, tolerate any sin in us. That creates an immense problem for each one of us because we are sinners and not holy. It is the holiness of God that makes the gospel necessary and the love of God that makes it possible.
So why does sin make such a difference? Your sin and rebellion against God has created an unbridgeable gap between you and God. The Bible says that because of your sin you are spiritually dead. You can do nothing to bridge the gap between you and a perfectly holy God who will not tolerate sin. This is the barrier, the blockade running between you and God. It is one you cannot dismiss or break down. Do you see the problem? How will the barrier be overcome? How can God be approached peacefully? The answer is the gospel. The gospel is God’s answer to the problem of human sin and it is the only answer. But because it is God’s answer it is infallible. It cannot fail. Sin is the breaking of God’s law and the Bible says that we are all sinners and the wages of sin is death. The story is told of an old Christian named Will who could be seen every Sunday morning walking up the valley to his
chapel. One Sunday two of the young men of the village were out in their car and thought they would have some fun with Will. They stopped the car and offered the old man a lift up to the chapel. Will said, thank you boys and got in the car. After a while one of the young men asked Will, “ If the devil was to stand in the middle of the road and stop the car, who would he go for first, you or us’. Will answered, ‘Me boys, he has got you already”. Sin enslaves even though a person may not know it. The fact is that there is no answer to sin apart from God’s answer. So who do you belong to? Becoming a child of God is the purpose of the gospel. It finds men and women as enemies of God. They are aliens to God and though some may have a superficial religion it is not the religion Jesus taught when He insisted that we must be born again. Being born again is the entrance into a new and living relationship to God.
What is God’s answer? God’s answer is Jesus. He makes Jesus the sinner’s substitute and Jesus pays the price of our sin on the cross. God set a standard He expects from us and He had the right to do so because he made us. The standard was righteousness, which was a conformity to the law and mind and will of God, but no one was able to meet this standard. So God meets the standard for us. He makes Jesus responsible for our sin and as our substitute Jesus dies on the cross facing the wrath of God we should have had to face. He pays the debt our sin incurred and God credits to us the righteousness of Jesus. The message of the gospel is that Jesus came to seek and save the lost. It wasn’t that we loved him, but that He loved us. And what love! Divine love is not an empty, sentimental pity, but it demonstrated itself in an act of sacrifice when Jesus died on a cross in the place of sinners. On the cross, bearing our sin and guilt, Jesus endured the
wrath of God in our place and paid the debt we owed to God for breaking His Holy Law. Jesus was born in Bethlehem. For thirty-three years He lived a sinless life, and then He died at Calvary in our place. He made it possible for God to pardon us even though we were sinners and had broken His Law. They are no longer condemned by God but are now justified and acceptable to the Holy God. Think of it like this. Some restaurants insist on a certain standard of dress, and refuse to allow a man in if he is not wearing a tie. Customers may object, but the proprietors have a perfect right to maintain their standards. There is a standard to be met however, as businessmen; they do not want to turn customers away. So when a man is refused admission, they will then say, 'Don't go away, sir. We will provide you with a tie!' Once this is provided and put on, the standard is met and there is no barrier to admission. The restaurant has set its standard, but then provides its own answer for those who fall short of it. Jesus gives a similar illustration. A man was found at a wedding not wearing the special garment provided for him (and every other guest) by the host. Because he did not
meet the dress-standard required, and refused to accept the host's provision, he was thrown out. Perfect righteousness or goodness is the standard God has set for entry to his presence. No one who sins will be allowed to know him or enter heaven. That effectively bars us all. But the gospel (the 'good news') is that God has met His own requirement, and provides the perfect 'garment' for us, namely, the righteousness of Christ.
peter@peterjeery.org.uk
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