What is the Good News?
Christians talk about it all over the place, but it is not always explained.
The Good News is so big and so multi-faceted that is difficult to summarize concisely and clearly. That’s what the Holy Bible, the living book, is all about. The Old Testament of the Holy Bible lays the context for the Good News, and the New Testament of the Holy Bible reveals the fulfillment of the Good News. The best place to go to learn about the Good News is the Holy Bible, but I will try to give you an introduction here.
Four key topics help people to understand the Good News: A Holy God, A Helplessly Sinful Sinner, A Sufficient Savior, and Personal Faith.
A Holy God
God is good. Before the creation of the sun, moon, and stars; before He parted the seas, created vegetation, and every living thing on the earth, God was thinking about a forever relationship with you. All of life and creation is about Him. About knowing Him. About recognizing His goodness. About realizing Him as our greatest treasure, our source of goodness, our reason for being, and our ultimate purpose.
God is so good and so perfect that what is contrary to His goodness cannot be tolerated in His presence. God created the world as perfectly good; including the first two people in it. God created them to know Him, to discover His goodness, and enjoy His fellowship. The fruit of His Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance… (Galatians 5:22-23)
A Helplessly Sinful Sinner
People blew it. We all did. We are not perfect, but perfect goodness is required. We are already defiled. We violated God’s design. God created the world for us to live in fellowship with Him because He loves us. Instead of following His perfect design, all of us have decided we know better than God. We show it by doing things our way instead of His way. God is the offended party. God’s goodness demands justice. Furthermore, God’s love for our neighbors demands justice against our wrong-doing against them. From Adam and Eve to everyone living today, we have all chosen attitudes and actions that are contrary to God’s goodness. We cannot make ourselves perfectly good.
We are all born outside of perfect fellowship with God, and like the children of Adam that we are, we all show it in our thoughts, attitudes, and actions. We don’t always tell the truth. We deceive people. We hurt people. We take advantage of others. We live for our own benefit rather than the benefit of others. We take things that do not belong to us. We are unkind. We have inclinations toward adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like. (Galatians 5:19-21)
The penalty is death – separation from God’s goodness. Three facets of death are spiritual death, physical death, and eternal death.
- Spiritual death: We are already separated from God spiritually. We often don’t like what He wants us to do. We don’t act and think in ways that match His perfect goodness.
- Physical death: We are destined to die physically. Our soul and spirit will separate from this body. We get fatal illnesses, we have fatal accidents, or we get old to where our bodies no longer function. We die.
- Eternal death: Eternal separation is coming. The final penalty for our wickedness is being cast away from God forever, at the Great White Throne judgment, into the punishment of the lake of fire where we will be in eternal torment. (Revelation 20:11-15)
How can imperfect people live with a perfect God in a perfect heaven? Where is the hope of eternal life?
A Sufficient Savior
Jesus Christ solved the problem. As the triune God, by whom and for whom all things were made (Colossians 1:16, John 1:3, Romans 11:36), Jesus is the physical, earthly representation of God in flesh.
The virgin birth is about Jesus not being of Adam’s seed and inheriting Adam’s sinful nature, but being the only begotten of the Father by the Holy Spirit. He is fully human, being born of flesh into the world with the nature of his heavenly father. He was not formed from dust as was Adam but nevertheless conceived of the Spirit by the direct intervention of the Creator to be born in a completely human body of a virgin woman of the promised Davidic heritage who was named Mary. Christmas is about celebrating God’s promises to Adam, Abraham, and many others being fulfilled in the birth of Jesus Christ. Immanuel; God with us.
Being fully human, Jesus was tempted in every way that we are. Making no sinful choices, having no sin or sinful nature, He did not owe the penalty of sin: death. He lived a perfectly righteous life on earth, pleasing God the Father and obeying the will of the Holy Spirit at all times.
He died, not because death was due Him, but as a willing sacrifice to pay the penalty due to us. Being Creator God no man could take His life. He willingly offered Himself to die on a cross to fulfill all righteousness and satisfy the just wrath of a Holy God against the unrighteousness of sinful people. He died, He was buried, and He rose again from the dead on the third day exactly as God had promised. He demonstrated His great love for us in this way.
His resurrection proves His claim, proves God-the-Father’s acceptance of God-the-Son’s sacrifice and proves His ability to clothe imperfect sinners with His own perfect righteousness.
The Good News is that, by the gift of His own righteousness, He made a way for people to be brought into God’s Holy presence spiritually and physically, and to stand without condemnation. When all is accomplished He will restore all things to God’s perfect design.
A Personal Faith
A gift in the form of a signed check is just paper until it is used at the bank for a transfer or withdrawal. Personal faith is like cashing the check. That’s when what was done applies to you.
Biblical faith is simply this: Believing God. No one else can do it for you. The Good News is that God has provided a way for us imperfect people to be completely restored to Him by believing Him; by believing in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as sufficient to completely satisfy God’s wrath. Any person who places their faith, their trust, in the sacrifice Jesus offered can stand in the presence of a perfect, holy, righteous God without condemnation. Forever. Fellowship will be restored. We will be restored. Our bodies will be perfected. The earth will be restored. Eternity in the presence of His perfect goodness will be for all who believe Him. That is good news!
Forever Good
What will it be like living with God?
Revelation 21:3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. 4And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
5And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. 6And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. 7He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
Revelation 21:27And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
What will not be with us in God’s presence?
Revelation 21:8But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
1 Corinthians 6:9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
Kingdom
The point of all of this is that God is not finished with the people of earth. His purpose in Creation has not been thwarted. He still plans to fill the earth with people who believe Him. The earthly choice for each one of us is individual and personal. If we don’t want to live with God, recognizing His worth, and appropriating His righteousness, then He has prepared a place of torment in the Lake of Fire, after the judgment, in accordance with our desires. (Revelation 20:11-15) If we do believe Him and appropriate the gift of His righteousness, then we will live in the perfect goodness of His presence in the eternal Kingdom with new bodies, and new heavens on a new earth.
To make this point clear to His disciples, Jesus stayed around for 40 days after His resurrection, proving the reality of His resurrection and telling them about the Kingdom to come. (Acts 1:3) Those disciples then spent the remainder of their lives investing in other people so that, by believing, they, and we could join them.
I am writing this so that you can join us, too.
Will you believe Him and receive His gift? Today?
“And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Acts 2:21