There are so many reasons why the gospel is such good news. For me, one reason that tops the list is the relief of actually being able to tell the truth. It’s refreshing to be given permission to be respectively blunt, or to ‘tell it like it is’, rather than trying to put a spin on things to hide the truth.
I remember being puzzled as a child, when I heard my teachers bending and twisting the stories of Old Testament characters in an attempt to make appear as heroes who were blessed by God because of their faithfulness. I remember one example in Sunday School when a certain story about King David was up for another “flannel-board incarnation”. In this particular account, David took Bathsheba (a married woman), impregnated her, and then turned around and had her husband killed. There was no way to justify David’s actions in this situation, so the spin was simply that it was David’s sincere repentance (only after being confronted by the Prophet Nathan) which made him right with God again. It was David’s sorrow over his sin that prompted God to call him “a man after His own heart“, and this is what we should strive to imitate if and when we sin so that we, too, can be right with God once more.
The facts are, however, that after the Prophet Nathan exposed David’s sin, David simply admitted, “I have sinned against the Lord“. Nathan then told him, “The Lord has taken away your sin; you will not die. But since you have shown total contempt for the Lord by this affair, the son that is born to you must die.”
“David’s sin had already been taken away. It was not the depth of David’s sincerity in repentance which prodded God to forgive him. It was God’s grace, and His grace alone.”
It’s a relief now for me to revisit Old Testament accounts and see them for what they are – the long trail of God’s great faithfulness in the face of the great unfaithfulness – a trail that stretches from the beginning of creation to you and me.
“For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
The gospel is far more than a “too good to be true” story. It is so amazing that it defies all normal human logic and intuition. It’s the spiritual miracle of miracles that becomes the normal identity of all of God’s blood-bought children by grace.
It’s amazing enough that we are forgiven and accepted by God, by grace, and His grace alone. There is nothing natural about this. We tend to automatically think we have to work our way into God’s favor and earn our way into his presence, but the gospel message is anything but natural. It’s the story of rebels who not only don’t desire a relationship with God, but who couldn’t possibly earn it even if they did.
This is a story of divine intervention, of divine substitution, of divine sacrifice, and of divine grace. It is a story of God sending his Son to live as we were supposed to live, to die the death that each of us deserves, to satisfy God’s righteous requirement and appease his anger, and to rise out of the grave, conquering sin and death.
It is a story of incredible patience, tenderness, compassion, love, mercy, and grace – forgiveness granted, acceptance secured, and righteousness given to those who could not have merited any of it on their own.
As amazing as the grace of forgiveness and acceptance of God are, there is still much more amazing grace to this story. God knew that the dilemma of our sin was such a deep personal moral disaster that it was not enough to simply forgive us. That forgiveness should never be minimized, but God knew we needed more. He knew that after our forgiveness and acceptance, we would need help on a day-to-day basis. He knew we would need rescue, strength, wisdom, and deliverance. So he didn’t just forgive us.
He didn’t just accept us.
He came to us and made us the place where he dwells.
Paul says it well:
“It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” – Galatians 2:20
I don’t think we talk about this enough. I don’t think we celebrate this reality enough.
As Christians (and ultimately by grace) we are the temple of the Most High God. By grace, he lives in us. By grace, his power is at our disposal. By grace, he fights on our behalf even if we don’t have the sense to do so. By grace, he works within us to complete the labor of grace that he has already begun in us and will work to completion through us. By grace, he animates us to desire and do what is right even after we have lived in the wrong. By grace, he exposes us and by grace he convicts us.
Only by grace are we able to choose and do what is right – simply because he lives in us and gives us the power to do so. He hasn’t just forgiven us, he’s taken up residence in us, and in that fact, there is true, real, tangible, mind-blowing hope.
The gospel message isn’t “too good to be true”.
It’s “too good not to be”…true.
Let us live in light of that simple, yet profoundly complex fact.
Let us live in light of God’s grace.
GREATER DEPTHS 