Day 28: Telling the Gospel

[Note: I want to rehearse the gospel, tell it to myself from time to time. I think that's a useful practice. I also know that one might find a certain inadequacy in each and every telling, because after all the truth of the gospel is hard to encompass in brief. So from one "telling" to another one might emphasize a piece this time that one failed to mention, perhaps, in the previous telling. So anyway, here's one telling. My previous attempt is here.[

What is the gospel?

I would put it this way. God, the creator all that is, has always had a plan for his creation, and that plan was to make it a place in which he might dwell with those whom he created, men and women. The creation, though, is not at present and never has been, not since Adam & Ever were expelled from the garden. So the plan of God for creation is a restorative plan, a plan to perfect something that at present falls far short of perfection.

The gospel, the good news, is really that God has enacted the crucial work of accomplishing what he has intended all along. That work is embodied in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The work of Jesus, his life, death, and resurrection, represent the very linchpin of the plan, without which nothing can go forward.

The crucial thing is that the people whom God created as the pinnacle of his creation must be restored, and this restoration begins with forgiveness. All of the Old and New Testaments comes back time and to this theme of forgiveness. It is utterly necessary if God's plan is to go forward.

And we all need it. This is because we all have sinned, as the Bible says, and fallen short of the glory of God. The cross of Christ, which you can read about in the four NT accounts known as gospels (the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), is the key to forgiveness. The standard way of talking about this is, Christ died for our sins. Those who put their faith in Jesus, who trust in the efficacy of what he accomplished by going to the cross, can be assured of their part in that ultimate plan of God for creation.

What we are talking about here is salvation (we are saved from a terrible fate), eternal life. What could be better news than that? Not only eternal, but eternally good. Eternally with God, who is love. Eternally satisfied. Eternally at peace. Eternally free of all that had once bound us. One could go on and on.

So there are things worth pondering in this story. The glory and goodness of God, the profound love displayed by Jesus through his life and especially at the cross, the nature of self-giving love, the awesome wonder in store for the world when the "new creation" is accomplished (we often say, when the kingdom comes). And something I have not mentioned: the Holy Spirit!

These things and so much more reward our contemplation. Our way into this story is to believe Jesus, to love him, and to want to follow him. The work of restoration has begun, God is on the move, the long-laid plan is afoot, and Jesus is both the means and the end of it all. For in that new world, that "kingdom," Jesus will be "all in all."

To conclude, it's really good news that we don't have to do anything more than to know our need and to trust in God's plan to meet our need in Jesus. We don't have to try to deserve it, we don't have to pretend to be better than we are. We just need to stand at the foot of the cross and recognize what is happening, and that it is happening for us. On our behalf. That what is happening is the key to everything.