What Is the Gospel? The Good News in Plain Words
Adapted from Chapter 3 of my book, Transformed.
The gospel is the good news that God has made a way back to Himself through Jesus. We were made to walk with God, but sin broke that relationship and left us separated, guilty and ashamed. Jesus lived the life we could not live, died in our place for our sin, and rose from the dead. Everyone who turns to Him and trusts Him is forgiven, made new and welcomed home as a son or daughter of God. The gospel is not only about escaping judgment. It is about restored intimacy with God.
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
1 Corinthians 15:3-4, World English Bible
We Were Made to Walk With God
From the first chapters of Genesis, humanity was created for relationship with its Creator. Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the day. They knew Him without barriers and without shame. That was their natural state: connection, love and trust.
Then sin entered the world, and that intimacy was shattered. Where Adam and Eve had once enjoyed unbroken fellowship with God, they now hid among the trees, afraid of the very voice that had once brought them joy. Sin did not only introduce moral failure. It severed the deepest and most life-giving relationship a human being can know.
Three things happened that day, and they still describe the human condition:
- Spiritual death. The part of us made to commune with God withered, and every person since has been born on the wrong side of that rift.
- Shame and separation. Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves to cover themselves, but no covering of human effort could remove the guilt they now carried.
- A broken world. Creation itself began to groan under decay and death (Romans 8:20-22).
Yet even in the middle of judgment, God made a promise. One born of a woman would one day crush the serpent's head (Genesis 3:15). The rescue was already in motion.
The Whole Bible Points to a Sacrifice
When Adam and Eve tried to cover themselves with leaves, God clothed them with garments of skin (Genesis 3:21). The innocent died to cover the guilty. That picture runs through the rest of Scripture: the Passover lamb, the Day of Atonement, the sacrifices in the temple. But those sacrifices were only shadows. They covered sin for a time. They could never take it away (Hebrews 10:4).
Isaiah saw a day when God's own servant would carry the weight of our sin.
But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5, World English Bible
When John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward the Jordan River, he said what every sacrifice had been pointing to.
The next day, he saw Jesus coming to him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
John 1:29, World English Bible
What Jesus Did on the Cross
The climax of history came on a Roman cross. Unlike the old sacrifices that had to be repeated year after year, Jesus offered Himself once for all.
Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;
1 Peter 3:18, World English Bible
Three big words help us understand what happened there:
- Justification: through faith in Jesus, we are declared righteous before God. It is not earned. It is given (Romans 5:1).
- Propitiation: God's justice against sin was fully satisfied. The judgment we deserved fell on Christ so that mercy could fall on us (1 John 2:2).
- Reconciliation: the relationship broken in Eden is restored. We were enemies. Now we are welcomed home (2 Corinthians 5:19).
At the moment Jesus died, the curtain in the temple that separated the Holy of Holies from the people was torn from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51). That was God's declaration that access to His presence had been opened to everyone who comes through Jesus.
The Father Runs to You
Jesus told a story that captures the gospel better than any definition. A son demanded his inheritance, wasted it on reckless living, and ended up feeding pigs in a far country, starving and ashamed. On the long walk home he rehearsed a speech: he was no longer worthy to be called a son, and he would ask to be taken on as a hired servant.
But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and ran. In that culture a dignified older man did not run, but this father did not care about appearances. He threw his arms around his son and kissed him before the boy could finish his speech. Then he called for the best robe, a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet, and threw a feast (Luke 15:20-24). The son came home expecting to be a servant. He was restored as a son.
We usually call this the story of the prodigal son. It is really the story of a prodigious father, whose grace is extravagant. This is the gospel. No matter how far you have gone, the Father runs to meet you when you turn back to Him.
I know what shame feels like. In college there was a season when I was trapped in a cycle of sin and felt so unclean that I tried to scrub the feeling away in the shower. Nothing I did could remove it. It was only when I fell on my knees, confessed to God and turned from it that I felt clean, not on my skin but in my soul. God did not recoil from me. He drew near.
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
Romans 8:1, World English Bible
More Than a Ticket to Heaven
The gospel secures eternity, but it does far more than that. It is an invitation to know God and be known by Him now. Through Jesus we are no longer outsiders. We are sons and daughters who can cry out, "Abba, Father" (Romans 8:15).
When I first started following Jesus wholeheartedly, I spent many evenings alone at a little Cuban restaurant near my apartment with nothing but a meal and my Bible open on the table. I came to meet with God there as surely as any priest who ever entered the temple. That is what the gospel makes possible. The veil is torn. The question is no longer whether you are allowed to come close, but whether you will.
If you have never turned to Jesus, you can do it today. Read How to Be Saved for a simple next step.
Go deeper. This post is adapted from Transformed: How the Gospel Changes Everything by Hazen Stevens. Get the book on Amazon, or watch the Transformed sermon series free.
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (public domain).
