What is the Gospel?

The word gospel means “good news”. It has become synonymous with the story that is told in the Bible. It is the story of how Jesus saves people. (Link to who is Jesus).  

The Gospel story begins by describing how God created everything including man and woman and it was perfect and without sin. (Link to What is Sin? article) The first man and woman were named Adam and Eve. They lived with God and enjoyed all of his goodness. But they were deceived by Satan (Link to Who is Satan/demons? article) into disobeying God. When they disobeyed God, the world “broke” and sin entered the picture. Everything since that moment has been broken and tainted by sin: creation, animals, even people and their relationships. Most importantly, man and woman’s relationship with God was broken. Because God is holy, meaning perfectly good (Link to What is Holiness? article), He could no longer be in the presence of the sinful Adam and Eve. Every human since then has inherited the same sinful nature from Adam and Eve because we all come from them. As a result, all humans are unable to be with God.  

God loves us and wants us to live at peace with Him, but His holiness cannot mix with our sinfulness. And because he is Good and Just, he must judge our sin. Because of our sin, we deserve death and eternal separation from Him, which means eternal suffering and pain. But because God is powerful and loving, He had a plan to rescue us. He sent his Son, Jesus, who was perfect and sinless and He died for the sins of mankind. He took the punishment for sin and he gave us the reward He deserved for His perfect obedience, namely a relationship with God. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice for us, we are able to be reconciled to God.  

But the Gospel story doesn’t end there. Jesus didn’t just die for our sins and stay dead. He paid the price for sin with His death, but he came back to life three days later, proving that He had defeated sin once for all. He revealed himself to thousands of his friends and those who had lived with him and then he literally rose into the sky and went to heaven to be with God. But before He left, He told his friends to tell others the Gospel message. He also promised them that one day he will come back, and when he does, he will make all things right again. He will get rid of all of the sin in the world including those people who haven’t accepted his death in their place, and he will once again live with His people, but this time, it will be forever, never again broken by sin.

Those who don’t believe Christ died for them, or who don’t believe they deserve eternal separation from God don’t receive Jesus’ reward. This is why Christians (Link to Who/What is a Christian? article) often share the Gospel message with people, because we want people to be reconciled to God and to receive Jesus’ reward that he freely offers us.

There are a lot more details to the story, but that is a very basic overview. If you read through the Bible, this is the story that you will find interwoven into all of the books that make up to Bible. (Link to What is the Bible? article).