What is the good news?

Something you may have heard about Christianity is “the good news of Christ” or simply “the good news.” Well, what is it?

Simply put, the good news is this: Jesus, the Son of God, became a man on Earth, lived a perfect life, and then died an unjust death for your sins and mine so that we could be forgiven and be with God the Father in Heaven. But Jesus didn’t stay dead! After three days in his tomb, Jesus arose, coming back to life, showing his power over death. His resurrection power is offered to us; all we must do is accept the gift of his sacrifice, put our faith in Christ and have a relationship with him.

If you are unfamiliar with the good news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, you likely have some questions.

What is sin?

In the garden of Eden (story found in Genesis) Adam and Eve lived sin-free lives because they lived in accordance with God’s rules. When they did the one thing that they were told not to do (eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) sin became a problem for all of mankind.

Sin is an enemy that every human being is locked in confrontation with. Everything we do that is not in accordance with God’s rules (think Ten Commandments, but there are more) is sinful. The obvious sins are murder, stealing, and adultery, among others, but when Jesus came he clarified that any time we fail to love God with all our being and to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves, we aren’t square with God!

Why is sin a big deal?

What’s the big deal with sin? Everybody makes mistakes, right? Well, yes, everybody makes mistakes, but sin is more than just a “mistake.” Accidentally dropping your mother’s favorite dish is a mistake. Lying to your mother about how it happened is a sin. So there is a distinction, but what difference does it make? When we sin, we are not just hurting ourselves or other people (which is bad enough), we are also rebelling against God.

You would not sin if you were not the tiniest bit rebellious toward your Heavenly Father, but despite everything He has done and is doing for you and I, despite making us in His image, giving us life, and forming this beautiful world we live in, we are not satisfied to do what he asks us to do. And when we rebel against an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect and just being (and God is the only one) then we are committing an act that is far more grievous than we could ever imagine. According to the Bible, the just punishment for sin is death, not simply death in this life, but death to God (complete separation from Him and everything good He wants for you).

Why did Jesus have to die?

Sin was not God’s intent for the world! In ancient Israel, the way to deal with sin was to have the priests make sacrifices for the people. The rules were complicated and confusing, and we do not have much to compare them to in our society, but basically on regular intervals you needed to select an animal from your flock or herd to sacrifice to the LORD. This animal needed to be perfect and spotless, the best of the bunch, and the animal would be slaughtered in recognition of how (again) the punishment for sin is death. It sounds archaic and strange, but so were a lot of things back then!

When the time was right, God sent his own Son, Jesus, to live in the world. Jesus lived a perfect life by doing what no other human had ever done before: Jesus never sinned. This means that Jesus always loved the Godhead with His whole being, and He loved everyone around Him more than Himself. Always. Jesus was a perfect, spotless lamb, and He, like all of the sacrifices made before him, was led to the slaughter for the sins of His people. By His death and resurrection, He atoned (which means he dealt with) for the sins of the entire world, past, present, and future.

What does Jesus death mean?

By dying on the cross, Jesus paved the way for sinners, unholy people like you and I and every other person that has ever been born, to come before an infinite, perfect, and good Father. Jesus death means we no longer have to live in sin, nor do we have to suffer for the sins we have committed, because Christ’s death pardons us from the wrath of God. We no longer have to fear God’s judgement, because God is satisfied to look on Jesus’ sacrifice, on His death, in place of our own.

In Christ we have an amazing freedom. This freedom comes from living in accordance with the guiding truths of reality, knowing Christ personally, and through Him having a relationship with the Father. Because we are made righteous through Jesus, we are promised to live in Heaven with God, where he will dwell among us, care for us, and show us the real reason for our creation. We have not yet begun to understand the gravity of what has been done for us, or what has been promised to us, but it is greater than we could ever ask or imagine, and somehow greater still than that!