An announcement of good news
Remember, the word “Gospel” means good news, and there is a lot of it.
The Gospel is a message – an announcement. In its simplest form, it can be said like this: God saves sinners. You can be set free from your slavery to sin.
Jesus came to us
This is why Jesus, the God-man, came to us, because we could not come to God. God told us what the standard of good and evil is, the standard of right and wrong – it is His Law.
But because of sin, no one is able to keep His Law perfectly. And the Bible says if we sin in one point of the Law, we are guilty of all of it (James 2:10). Because God is perfect, and holy, and completely set apart from His creation in His perfection, any small amount of sin is enough to separate us from Him eternally.
The incarnation
So Jesus took on human flesh – we call this His incarnation – and he was born of a virgin and grew up among us. He did this all as the Old Testament scriptures had described hundreds of years before His birth. He walked on this earth, and worked as a carpenter, and taught disciples just as a rabbi would in his day, and He preached this Gospel message, according to the Gospel of Matthew:
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew 3:2).
A sweet invitation?
See, I think most people who have heard about the Gospel think that it is something like a sweet invitation to come check out something nice. Like we're inviting you to an open house, or a motivational speech that will inspire you to have your best life now.
No, actually the Gospel message that Jesus preached was an announcement, and it was a command.
What does repent mean?
Repent means to turn away from sin – to hate those violations of God's Law, and by God's gracious help, to walk away from them.
Repent and run to God
This is the core message of the Apostle Paul when he preached in the Greek city of Athens on Mars Hill:
"In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead" (Acts 17:30-31).
So as a minister of this same Gospel message which has been preached not just since Jesus walked the earth 2000 years ago, but actually all the way back to the beginning of human history: You need to repent from your sin. Turn away from these things that enslave you. Run to God because He is rich in mercy.
A day of judgment coming
You must repent, because if you are not found in Christ, there is a day of judgment coming for every single one of us. There is a record of each one of our lives, and we are storing up the wrath of God for that day – unless – we have come to the foot of the cross of Jesus and have been covered by His blood atonement.
How does the cross help anyone?
But how does that work? Most people know that Jesus died on a cross. How does that help anyone?
Jesus lived a perfect life. He was perfectly obedient to the Law of God and never sinned. Because the wages of sin is death, the Bible says that God made Him who knew no sin to be made sin for us (2 Cornithians 5:21).
In other words, Jesus became the substitute for every single sinner who God would forgive and bring from a state of spiritual deadness to spiritual life.
Jesus died in the place of sinners, becoming a curse for us on the cross, so that all the perfect and holy justice and wrath of God for our sin was brought down upon a perfect man, the God-man.
Love and justice
God did this out of love for His people in order to satisfy the just demands of the Law of God. The Bible says in this way God could be both just and the justifier of His children (Romans 3:26).
A great exchange
God Himself – the Son of God, Jesus Christ, took our disgusting sin upon Him at the cross, and in exchange for bearing that great burden which we could never survive, He has covered us with His righteousness. All who bow the knee to Christ are given a perfect, clean record in the sight of God.
When God looks upon us, He no longer sees a sinner but one covered by the obedience of Jesus.
Why Jesus saves us
God doesn't save us because we are good, but because He is good and full of mercy.
Jesus didn't come to make bad men good, but to make dead men live.