Facing Grace in the Gospel
The first time I shared the gospel with someone was at a football game in the back of a pickup truck. I was a young teenager and as I walked past the truck, I saw a classmate laying down in the bed of a truck. Back then if you were laying down in the back of a truck you were laying down on cold hard metal, not the first place I would choose to rest. I climbed up in the back of the truck and started talking with him about the meaning of life and led him to Christ.
Another time I led someone to accept Jesus as Savior we didn’t even speak the same language. I had a pamphlet that explained the gospel that was written in his language. I couldn’t read it and we couldn’t speak to each other. Yet he became a Christian. I did eventually get a translator to come and help him and follow up with him.
Now the reason I tell these stories is not because I am great at sharing the gospel or have the spiritual gift of evangelism. These stories illustrate how the Holy Spirit can work even in the most difficult situations. As a young teen I had no training in evangelism or sharing the gospel. And even with an barrier like language, God was still able to work. The gospel is simple to communicate, easy for the Holy Spirit to enlighten and only takes moments for a person to accept. And that is good news for the Kingdom of God.
However, the gospel presentation is like the tip of the iceberg. It is necessary to understand what is deeper. Most people understand the gospel in simple terms because that is how we present the Gospel. The need to explain the gospel in a conversation or within a person’s attention span requires that we boil it down to the essential statements of the Gospel. That makes it efficient in bringing someone to a decision point for Christ. Unfortunately, not having a deeper understanding of the gospel can have debilitating effects on how we live out our salvation. In living a life facing grace, we need to understand clearly the foundation of our new life in Christ. Our life has been given a new destination and we need to be sure of the direction we are heading.
It is important to understand that the Gospel has no meaning apart from God’s character. God’s love, His anger, His compassion, His mercy, His justice — all of the many attributes of His character are right. The rightness of His character is complete. All that is right derives its rightness from the character of the God who created everything. His character is set apart from our character and we are judged not by the character of those around us or those who have been the best human beings, or the worst, but we are judged by God’s character. His character never changes. It has always been right, and it does not vary. What was right 1000 years ago is right today because it is judged so by the unchanging character of God.
His character is so right and ours is so fallen, that to even enter His presence would destroy us because of our sin. God tells us in the following verses;
Isaiah 55:8-9(ESV) “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth , so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Exodus 33:20(ESV) “But,” He said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”
Malachi 3:6(ESV) “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob are not consumed.
The gospel exists because He loves us perfectly but is obligated to punish the sinful. How could He maintain the standard of His rightness in love and justice? How would He be just and bring the punishment on sinners they deserved yet love them so dearly and not want to be separated from them. In His mercy He holds back His wrath against sin because He does not want anyone to perish. But He must somehow execute His justice and His love. It was His plan all along that He would do this by sending His son Jesus Christ into the world as a man. Jesus would live a perfect life of obedience to God. He would then take man’s place and accept their sin on Himself. God would expend all of His wrath against the sin of all men for all time on His only Son Jesus. The wages of sin is death. But Jesus had not sinned and so death could not hold him because He had lived a perfect life before God. So, God was just to raise Jesus back to life. Eternal life. God’s wrath against man’s sin was spent at the cross. It was poured out on Jesus His son. And God offers this salvation for man to all who by faith believe in Jesus.
The gospel is an expression of God’s perfect character – His masterpiece of salvation –love and justice. To begin a deeper understanding of the position the gospel puts us in, our next blogs will look at four words used to describe aspects of the gospel: Union, redemption, atonement, and justification.
