THE GOSPEL IS GOOD NEWS, NOT GOOD ADVICE!

The gospel is not a plan of salvation that you can follow.  It’s not advice about how to please God or go to heaven. It is the good news of what God has already done for us through Jesus and will do in us by his Spirit.  The only thing you need to do is believe it.

Good News about what God did for you in the past.

Jesus lived and died as the representative of a new humanity.  In him, you are already dead and resurrected. That means that since the wages of sin is death, you are already paid up.  You died with him. You were also raised with him to new life. You are already part of the new creation. That’s the gospel.

Good News about what God is doing in you now.

Of course you should love God and people.  But that is not the gospel.  It’s a summary of the law.  Jesus loved God and people perfectly and now his Spirit is living in you to make you into the kind of person who loves God and people.  That’s the gospel.

Believe it, or not.

The apostle Paul summarized the gospel in Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me. So the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and delivered himself up for me.” That is good news. If you believe it, it will change your life. Otherwise, it’s business as usual.