The Gospel

God has eternally existed as one God in three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each Person is fully God. These Three Persons as the one God eternally enjoyed community and glory among one another. Out of the overflow of God’s joy and desire to display His glory, He created the universe out of nothing but the word of His command. Everything that God created was very good and was in perfect harmony and submission under His rule, including man. Man and woman were to exercise a stewardship rule over all creation under God and by so doing were to manifest God’s rule and God’s glory over all creation (Gen 1:26–28). This was a perfectly blessed, restful state. God put man and woman in the beautiful garden of Eden to keep it and to enjoy intimate fellowship and communion with Him. They could eat from any tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for if they did, they would surely die.

Satan, the chief rebellious angel and adversary to God, enticed woman and man to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In so doing, they sought to be like God, deciding good and evil on their own terms. Effectively, through this act of disobedience, they staged a coup against God’s reign and sought to be their own independent rulers. This was how sin entered the world. God kept His word, and man and woman entered a state of death and exile from God’s intimate fellowship and presence, punished with painful work and painful relationships. The state of sin, death, and exile that Adam and Eve entered has been passed along to every single human being. This death is not only a physical death but a spiritual death (Rev 20:11–15). Any time we sin, we exchange loving God and seeking His glory for self-worship, and slap the infinitely worthy God in the face, which is an infinite crime, justly deserving an infinite punishment in eternal, conscious torment in hell. Even one deed where we disobey God or one deed where we fail to honor and love God with our whole being deserves this punishment.

However, even immediately after Adam and Eve’s disobedience, God announced a plan of redemption. God announced doom to Satan and hope for humanity through the promise of a male offspring of the woman who will crush the serpent’s head, succeeding where Adam failed and restoring things back to creation conditions and better (Gen 3:15). This promised offspring, this last Adam is Jesus of Nazareth, born of the virgin Mary, the chosen one of God, the Christ. Jesus is truly God (John 1:1–3, 14) and truly man (Gal 4:4–5; Heb 2:14–18), and as such He is fully able to sympathize with man, even though He never sinned, having a perfect lived-in-flesh, human righteousness. He is fully God, having infinite worth and value in Himself, and this He demonstrated through His perfect life and miracles. Jesus was crucified, bore God’s wrath in place of all who would entrust themselves to Him, and died physically (2 Cor 5:21; Col 2:13–14). However, Jesus rose again from the dead on the third day showing that He really paid the debt of sin of His people and will give future, bodily resurrection to those who entrust themselves to Him (John 11:25–26). After ascending to the right hand of the Father in heaven, Jesus sent forth the Holy Spirit to live inside all who entrust themselves to Him so that they might live lives that increasingly glorify God and are increasingly free from the presence of sin (2 Cor 3:16–18).

True faith is always accompanied by repentance from sin. Repentance is agreeing with God that you are sinful, confessing your sins to Him, and making a conscious choice to turn from sin (Luke 13:3, 5; 1 Thessalonians 1:9) and pursue Christ (Matthew 11:28-30; John 17:3) and obedience to Him (1 John 2:3). It isn't enough to believe certain facts about Christ. Even Satan and his demons believe in the true God (James 2:19), but they don't love and obey Him. True saving faith always responds in obedience (Ephesians 2:10).