The Gospel

These six points are explained below >>>

Jesus said Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Matt 5:6 I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Matt 9:13 Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. John 3:3

1. The Greatest Problem of Mankind: All Are Sinners Since the Fall

• God originally created man and woman upright and without sin (Ecclesiastes 7:29). God entered into a blessed covenant with Adam that if he walked in obedience to God’s moral law, God would confirm him and his posterity in righteousness and eternal life (Romans 7:10). However, if Adam disobeyed God’s moral law, God would bring the judgment of death and misery upon him and his posterity (Genesis 2:16-17; Romans 5:18).
• Adam sinned and broke God’s moral law by eating the forbidden fruit and was immediately separated from God due to his sin (Genesis 3:8-10). United to Adam by ordinary generation, we are all constituted sinners in his first transgression (Romans 5:19). We are infected throughout our whole nature with the corruption of Adam’s sin from the point of conception (Psalm 51:5). We each one have personally sinned by breaking God’s holy commandments in thoughts, words, and deeds (1 John 1:10; 1 John 3:4). As a result of this, we have all become sinners before a holy God
  (Romans 3:19,23).
• Because we are all sinners, God, the righteous Judge, declares we all deserve His righteous judgment (John 3:19). The judgment that falls upon us as sinners is that: (1) we are spiritually dead in our trespasses and sins and separated from God from the time of conception (Psalm 51:5; Ephesians 2:1); (2) we suffer the miseries of this life and physically die(Job 5:7; Hebrews 9:27); and (3) we are forever separated from God and suffer His righteous judgment consciously and
  bodily in hell eternally (2 Thessalonians 1:9).
• We are unable to save ourselves from this condition of death (Romans 6:23). We are (in ourselves and through ourown efforts) hopelessly condemned (Romans 3:20; Ephesians 2:12).

2. The Only Remedy Comes from God: God Sent Forth His Son.

• God the Father from eternity covenanted with God the Son (God the Holy Spirit bearing testimony to this covenant of grace) to save and purchase the salvation of certain sinners, who were in love chosen in Christ Jesus before the world began (Luke 22:29 [“appoint” is the word for “covenant”]; Ephesians 1:4-6).
• The coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to save His people was prophesied and typified throughout the Old Testament (Luke 24:44; 1 Peter 1:10-11).
• At the appointed time, the Son of God assumed to His divine person a human soul and body through a miraculous conception in the womb of Mary, a virgin, so that our Savior is fully God and fully man (John 1:1-3,14).
• Jesus lived a perfectly sinless life (Hebrews 4:15) and willingly suffered the punishment of God the Father for all of the sins of His people as He hung upon the cross, died, and was buried (1 Corinthians 15:4), thus setting them free from the guilt and condemnation of God now and for all eternity (Romans 5:8-10).
• Jesus, through His redemption, has secured all graces and benefits that are needed to live a godly life that is pleasing to God (1 Corinthians 1:30; 2 Peter 1:3).
• Jesus was bodily raised from the dead three days later to confirm that He was the eternal Son of God and that His perfect sacrifice for all the sins of His people was found acceptable to God the Father (Acts 13:30-34; Romans 1:4; Romans 4:25).
• Jesus ascended bodily to heaven and is seated at God’s right hand (Acts 2:32-36) to reign as the alone King over His church (Revelation 15:3) and to exercise dominion over all creation and all nations to the benefit of His church (Ephesians 1:20-22).

3. The Reception of God’s Free Gift: Faith.

• Because mankind is dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1-3), it is God through His Spirit that must give spiritual life (John 1:13) and faith (Ephesians 2:8-9) to all who are then enabled to receive Jesus Christ.
• Saving faith is receiving and resting upon Jesus Christ alone as Savior to rescue from the guilt and condemnation of sin and as Lord to rule over every area of one’s life (John 1:12; Acts 10:43; Romans 10:9-10).
• It is not by either good deeds or inward graces that one receives salvation through Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:9; Titus 3:5-6), for all of our outward deeds and inward graces are tainted by sin and unacceptable to an absolutely holy God (Romans 3:10-12, 19-20).
• Saving faith will always evidence itself by way of repentance for sin, love to God and neighbor, and new obedience in endeavoring to walk in the light of God’s good and holy commandments (Romans 8:1; James 2:17).

4. The Blessings of God’s Free Gift: Forgiveness, Righteousness, Eternal Life.

• The free gift of God given to all who trust in Jesus Christ and His gospel is:
  • Forgiveness – the pardon of all of the believer’s sins is accomplished immediately and forever (Acts 10:43; Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 2:13).
  • Righteousness – Christ’s perfect righteousness is accounted as the believer’s own righteousness immediately and forever (Romans 3:21-22).
  • Eternal life – the believer passes from a state of condemnation into an unchangeable and eternal state of glorious life and communion with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (John 5:24).

5. The Growth That Flows from God’s Free Gift: Repentance, Love, and New Obedience.

• All who receive by faith alone in Christ alone forgiveness, righteousness, and eternal life are also daily blessed with and grow in:
  • Repentance – turning from justifying their sin to acknowledging their sin, grieving over their sin as a great offence to God, and endeavoring to walk in faithfulness to God and His Word while looking to the mercy of God in Christ Jesus (Mark 2:17; 2 Corinthians 7:10).
  • Love – denying self and sacrificially giving one’s self to serve God supremely and one’s neighbor subordinately in accordance with God’s holy commandments (Matthew 22:36-40; 1 Corinthians 13:1-8).
  • New Obedience – endeavoring to do God’s will in obeying His commandments, not only as a duty, but also as a fruit of a thankful heart to the Lord for all that He has freely bestowed upon an undeserving sinner                                   (John 14:15; Ephesians 6:6-7; Philippians 2:13).

6. The Goal of God’s Free Gift: The Glory of God Now and Forever.

• The goal of God’s free gift of salvation is not to glorify ourselves (as if there were anything in which we might boast about ourselves), but rather is to praise and glorify our Triune God and to boast now and for all eternity in what He has done from beginning to end in rescuing guilty sinners who deserved His just condemnation (Psalm 44:8; 1 Corinthians1:31; Jude 1:25; Revelation 5:12-13).
• The believer in Jesus Christ has gone from being a condemned criminal before God’s bar of justice awaiting the just sentence of hell (Romans 5:8), to being one who is declared righteous in Christ (Romans 3:24), is adopted into the family of God (made an heir of God and joint heir with Jesus Christ, Romans 8:16-17), is presently being conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29), shall be perfected at death, and will reign with Christ for all eternity in a resurrected and glorified body (Philippians 3:20-21; 1 John 3:2).

The Sum of Saving Knowledge (modern English)