Paul says that [the gospel] is God’s power for salvation. In other words, this is the means used by God to bring men and women from our position of alienation into a living, vibrant relationship with God who made us. The story of the Bible can be summarized in four words, the good, the bad, the new and the perfect. God has made the world, and it’s absolutely good, He pronounces it good. Man chooses bad, and suddenly sin’s in the world, and animosity and disruption, and dysfunctional families, and a creation that is now ravaged by weeds and by dissonance, and alienation between God and man, and man and man, and man and woman. The bad pervades our world tonight. The new is provided here in the substance of the gospel. And one day, that which is made new in Christ will be perfected when we see Him and are made like Him. Reconciliation between God and His holiness and men and women in their sinfulness is accomplished in the gospel. When Jesus dies on the cross, He doesn’t die as a martyr. There have been plenty of people who have died as martyrs. Christ doesn’t die as a martyr or as an example, He dies as a substitute and as a Savior. He does in the place of sinners. He didn’t die for good people, He died for bad people. Only bad people go to heaven. The gospel is not good advice about what we need to do in order to be saved. This kind of instruction is absolutely soul-destroying, and unhelpful. The gospel is not good advice about what we’re supposed to do in order to make ourselves acceptable to God. The gospel, the good news, is about what God has done in the Lord Jesus and all He has done through the Lord Jesus is that which is necessary for salvation. |
Alistair Begg:
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