The Gospel
Salvation of lost and sinful humanity is possible only by grace.
We believe that the salvation of lost and sinful humanity is possible only by grace, through faith in the finished work of Jesus; because He died on the cross and rose from the dead to show that death has been defeated and the sacrifice of His life was accepted as payment for our sins.
Radical Corruption can only be remedied by Radical Grace Alone
If you have stumbled upon this page and/or are wondering about how to “get right with God” then our desire is that you see how our radical corruption can only be remedied by radical grace.
Radically Corrupt:
Genesis 3 tells us that sin entered the world though man’s disobedience in the garden.
Romans 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”
Romans 3:9 reiterates that by saying that we are all under sin.
Psalm 14:1-3 says, ““The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.“
When God looks down from heaven he does not see a world full of people moving closer and closer to him, he sees corruption, sinfulness, rebellion.
Paul says the same thing in Romans 3:10-20 when he says that none are righteous, no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned away, no one does good, not even one.
Paul is saying that no human being on his or her own seeks for God or does any good that merits salvation. He is not denying that people perform some actions that look like goodness, he is saying that, prior to salvation, all actions are stained by evil, since they are not done for God’s glory and they do not come from faith.
David said, in Psalm 51:5 that he was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did his mother conceive him.
David was not saying that his mother did something wrong and had him out of wedlock or anything like that , David was saying that he has been a sinful person from the point of conception. He was not born good and then turned sinful, he was born sinful. Sin had permeated and corrupted every aspect of his life, no part of him was left untouched by the taint and consequences of sin. He was radically corrupt.
John Piper gives a helpful illustration regarding our situation before salvation. “Once I was as close to hell as I am to the chair I am sitting on – even closer. Its darkness, like vapour, had entered my soul and was luring me down. Its heat had already seared the skin of my conscience. Its views were my views. I was a son of hell (Matthew 23:15), a child of the devil (John 8:44) and of wrath (Ephesians 2:3). I belonged to the viper’s brood (Matthew 3:7), without hope and without God (Ephesians 2:12). I must believe that just as a rock climber, having slipped, hangs over the deadly cliff by his fingertips, so I once hung over hell and was a heartbeat away from eternal torment. I say it slowly, eternal torment.”
Enemies of God:
And because we are radically corrupt, sinful from birth, the Bible does not call us friends of God, the bible does not look at the unbeliever and say, “everything is going to be alright”
You see, the truth of Scripture is that God’s wrath hangs over the heads of all unbelievers (John 3:36 tells us that “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.“), Scripture is also clear that God’s face is against those who do evil (Psalm 34:16) and that he, in the words of Psalm 5:5, “hates all evildoers.”
So we had, and some still have a major problem. By examining the Scriptures we are forced to conclude that we were born in sin; at conception sin had corrupted every part of us and carried a death sentence along with eternal separation from God. On top of that, God’s wrath laid heavy on us. Finally, if things were not bad enough, we are told that we had no desire to seek out God to help us. We, on our own, wanted nothing to do with Him.
Here comes the good news:
Yet, beautifully, in our time of need and in our lives of disobedience and sinfulness, God demonstrated radical grace towards us.
Radical Grace Alone:
The horrible news of Romans. 3:23 is followed by the good news of verse 24 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, AND ARE justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” Note the words grace and gift. Romans 3:20 has already told us that by works of the law no human being will be justified in God’s sight, so salvation, justification, has to come through a gracious act of God.
The bible doesn’t say that after we started walking towards God He noticed our interest and saved us. It says that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
We have been saved by grace alone. If we had deserved it it would no longer be grace.
I sometimes struggle to understand grace. Each time I think about it I feel as though I could know more of what it means. As I was thinking about grace I opened up Charles Swindle’s ultimate book of illustrations and quotes and came across this illustration of grace.
“The Bible is a photo album filled with pictures of God’s grace. One striking image is found in the pages of 2 Samuel. The setting is the place of King David. Gold and bronze fixtures gleam from the walls. Lofty, wooden ceilings crown each spacious room. In the banquet room, David and his children gather for an evening meal. Absalom, tanned and handsome, is there, as is David’s beautiful daughter Tamar. The call to dinner is given, and the king scans the room to see if all are present. One figure, though, is absent. Clump, scrape, clump, scrape. The sound coming down the hall echoes into the chamber. Clump, scrape, clump, scrape. Finally, the person appears at the door and slowly shuffles to his seat. It is the lame Mephibosheth seated in grace at David’s table. And the tablecloth covers his feet. Now the feast can begin.”
In case you are unfamiliar with the passage, Mephibosheth was the son of Saul who had been crippled when he was a child. David could have, as many kings did, had Mephibosheth killed when he took the throne, yet David doesn’t. David instead restores all of Saul’s land to Mephibosheth and then even goes beyond that and invites Mephibosheth to eat at King David’s own table for the rest of his life. Mephibosheth had not done anything to deserve this treatment. In fact, David was demonstrating grace to the son of a man who hunted David for years in attempt to kill him.
Faith in the finished work of Jesus
God’s radical grace is the only solution to our radical corruption, and it is this grace of God that enables us to have faith in the finished work of Jesus.
One way to define faith is to say, “Faith is believing God”. Faith is not simply believing in God but actually believing God. In the words of R. C. Sproul, “In the first stage of our Christian experience we embrace Christ and trust Him for our redemption.”
We are saved by believing that Jesus’ sacrifice was enough. That Jesus’ sacrifice paid for our sins, that Jesus’ sacrifice freed us from the debt we could not pay. We believe that Jesus took our place and that there is nothing we can add to His work to save us.
Faith says that we embrace the promises of God that are found in Christ Jesus and in doing that we are saved.
Faith says, I trust you God. I trust that you did the impossible and saved me and made me your own through the finished work of Christ. I trust that it truly is finished. My salvation has been accomplished apart from my own works by the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
God’s gift to us
But where do we get this faith? Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.“
Saving faith is a gift of God by his grace.
Thus, the Holy Spirit, working with the Word of God, brings spiritual life to spiritually dead people and gives them faith to believe in the finished work of Christ on the cross.
This is not a result of works (as Ephesians just said), so that no one may boast.
Jesus says it like this, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”“
We see then from Scripture that the Father grants us salvation, the Spirit regenerates us, or makes us alive spiritually, and we come to Christ.
Penal substitutionary Atonement:
All of this is possible because His life was accepted as payment for our sins. This is what some call Penal Substitutionary atonement. It sounds complicated but it really isn’t.
If we break down the phrase we get
Penal: God’s holy justice requires payment of the debt we ran up against his covenant law. Someone had to pay the price for the wages of our sin. That someone was Jesus.
Substitutionary: Jesus paid the price in our place, as our substitute.
Atonement: Essentially, the removal of sin by the sacrifice of Christ, that enables us to have reconciliation with God. Or in other words, Christ took care of our sins and the punishment of our sins as our substitute on the cross so that we, the guilty, could go free.
Living in light of the gospel:
This is what we must remind ourselves of daily. Satan would love nothing better than for us to forget the truths of the gospel.
But how can we daily preach the gospel to ourselves? What does that practically look like?
It looks like daily remembering that we are saved by the grace of God alone, that we were completely undeserving of the salvation he offered to us.
It looks like daily remembering that we are not saved by our works but by the finished work of Christ.
It looks like daily returning to Jesus for forgiveness, cleansing, empowerment, and purpose.
It looks like daily remembering and believing the promises of God.
Promises that remind us that our sins no longer condemn us for Jesus has covered them all in his blood.
Promises that remind us that even though our works fall short that we have been given the righteousness of Christ.
Promises that remind us that God has promised to take care of me forever because I am now, through Christ, His child.
Promises that remind me that the gospel that saved me is the same gospel that continues to keep me saved, and continues to work in me to make me more and more like Christ.
Lastly, As we remember who we were before God saved us, and then remember who we are now that we are saved, we are to remember that the Bible now calls us to live a new life of obedience to Christ. (Col. 2:6)
This is the outworking of the gospel in our lives. He saved us, now He desires to sanctify us, to make us more and more like Christ.