What is this good news? That God sent His Son Jesus to save sinners and reconcile them to Himself. (Luke 19:10; 2 Cor. 5:18)
God
- God is the Creator of this world. He has created all things, with mankind being the glory of His creation. (Genesis 1-2)
- God is perfect, which means He is holy and without sin.
- He is loving and desires what is good for all men. (2 Peter 3:9)
- As the righteous judge over all he has made, God has authority over all creation and will judge each man justly, according to His standard of righteousness. (Psalm 7:11 and John 5:22-23)
Man and Sin
- All men have been created by God and know deep within their hearts that God exists. (Romans 1:19)
- All people are sinners. The Bible tells of the Fall of mankind in Genesis 3. God created the first people in perfection. But when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they plunged the world into sin. (Romans 5:12) Sin has a penalty, and that penalty is death. (Romans 6:23)
- Since the fall of man, there is no one who is righteous. There is no one who does good; each of us has turned to his own way. (Romans 3:10-12) We are all accountable to God for the sin in our hearts. As sinners, there is nothing any of us can do to avoid the penalty of sin. For the only way to avoid death is to live a completely perfect life in thought, word, and deed, which no person can do. (Romans 3:23) Left to ourselves, we are hopeless.
Jesus
- Yet in our hopeless and wretched condition, God provided His Son, Jesus, to be our hope. He alone is the one who could do what no other person could ever do. Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life. Jesus accomplished this because He is both God the Son and He is the perfect Son of man. God sent Jesus into this world to be our Savior, to be the One who would save us from our sins. Out of His love for His Father and for mankind, Jesus willingly lived the life of perfect obedience that we could never live on our own.
- At the cross, Jesus became the Lamb of God when He sacrificed His life for the sake of every sinner who would believe in Him. (John 3:16-18). Jesus bore the punishment for our sins and, in exchange, all believers receive the perfection of His righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21). Through the shedding of His blood (Colossians1:20), Jesus grants us forgiveness of sins and, because of His resurrection from the grave, He provides us the free gift of eternal life.
Man’s Responsibility
- If anyone desires to be saved from the eternal punishment of their sin, receive forgiveness, and receive eternal life in Jesus, they must repent. To repent means to turn away from sin and believe upon the finished work of Jesus Christ alone for salvation. The Bible says, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)
- Out of His great love, God demonstrates His mercy and kindness through Jesus Christ when He saves sinners who were helpless and hopeless by means of faith through His marvelous grace (Eph. 2:4-8). In the moment of salvation, we are justified as righteous in the sight of God and our salvation is secured by the seal of the Holy Spirit of God (Ephesians 1:13-14). We no longer fear death but live by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (I Corinthians 15:54-58). All who receive Christ as their Savior become a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17) and are brought into the family of God, which is His church (Ephesians 2:19).