SparkNotes Gospel
Very few things in our lives unfold in a way that seems orderly or predictable to us; part of the plan, if you will. If I pass away (or am raptured with the church), I want this post to serve as my testament to who Jesus is and why He matters so much to me and so many others who love Him. This is the gospel message, partially in my own words. If anyone who reads this finds anything inaccurate or incomplete, please feel free to message me. I will be relying on the Bible to explain the story it so clearly tells, though I realize that not everyone believes that it's trustworthy or reliable. If that's you, check out the video below. It does a great job of succinctly arguing the legitimacy of the historical claims the Bible puts forth:
Scholars say that the whole Bible testifies to the person of Jesus Christ, but rather than copying and pasting the whole book here, this SparkNote-sy version is a great place to get started. This is written for those of you who want to know God through Jesus, but have no idea how.
“Okay, so I've got some good news and I've got some bad news.”
We've all heard that phrase before, and hearing it always causes some anxiety. Which kind of news do you want to hear first? Do you choose the good news and then have it dampened by the bad news that follows? Or should you take the brunt of the bad right away, hoping that the good will make up for it?
The word gospel comes from Greek and essentially means “good news.” The good news of the gospel is that people can be reunited with God through the redemption that comes through Jesus. But being reunited with God doesn't make sense if we don't know that we were separated from Him in the first place. This leads us to the reason that the gospel is so offensive to so many: those who hear the good news have to hear the bad news first. Otherwise, the good news makes no sense at all. The bad news is that today, by default, human beings are separated from God.
What is Sin?
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” ~Matthew 22:36-40
Sin is what separates us from God, but what is sin? Sin is anything that prevents us from loving God and other people with our whole self. It's really hard for us to love anyone because we all naturally want to do things that benefit ourselves. We naturally concern ourselves with self preservation and self promotion rather than looking to the needs of others. The Bible paints sin as a universal problem:
“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” ~Romans 3:11-12
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” ~Romans 3:23
I grew up going to church and knew the Ten Commandments (paraphrased from Exodus 20:3-17):
You shall have no other gods before Me.
You shall not make for yourself a carved image (an idol) to worship.
You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain (making light of Him).
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor your mother and your father.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor (lie).
You shall not covet your neighbor's property.
These are all things that God expects from people He calls His own. In 4th grade, I thought I was doing really well in God's eyes. I knew I wasn't perfect, of course, but as far as I knew I had never served another god, made an idol, taken God's name in vain (I wasn't even allowed to say 'stupid'), not rested every week (I was a kid with no job!), killed anyone, or stolen anything. The only real obstacle to flawless victory for me was respecting my mom and dad, and maybe being jealous of a friend's Gameboy Color. Lying was a bit of a problem, but only a little one.
It wasn't until my teen years that I learned how deeply broken I was. I heard a pastor say that Jesus explained those commandments further in His teachings. The first time I heard this, really heard this, was devastating to me:
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery,” but I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” ~Matthew 5:27-28
In his heart?! Sin is more than what you do outwardly? I couldn't believe it. I never knew that adultery was so easy to commit. I started to realize that I had been regularly sinning against God my whole life and had, in fact, broken every one of the Ten Commandments. My offenses were coming out of the woodwork. I learned that hating someone carries the same weight as killing them (Matthew 5:21-22), and that treating people or things as being more important than God is the same as making them a god over me (Romans 1:23-25). I was amazed and dismayed. After that, I read about how Jesus treated sinners in scripture with new eyes:
While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and “sinners” were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the “sinners” and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?” On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” ~Mark 2:15-17
Eating with someone was considered a very intimate act in Israel's culture. It's a lot like a high school cafeteria: the popular crowd tends to hang with people from the same group and the outcasts sit somewhere else. Religious leaders did not associate with people who were known delinquents or troublemakers. Jesus eating with sinners made Him appear to approve of sinners' behavior, but He was really after their hearts, to win them to Himself. This is a very important point: Jesus loves sinners. He sees us for what we can become in Him and longs to show Himself to us.
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” ~Romans 5:6-11
Why does God care if we do wrong from time to time? Why is it made out to be such a big deal? The Bible is very clear that sin profoundly damages people from the inside out, not because God arbitrarily decided that it should happen, but because those consequences must follow from sin:
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." ~Romans 6:23
People like to blame God when things fall apart, but death and decay are a natural result of removing ourselves from the source of our lives. Death in this verse is referring to both physical and spiritual death...eternal suffering in hell. People get angry at God because he lets people go to hell when they die, but that's never something He wants to happen. Jesus cries over the people of Jerusalem:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!” ~Luke 13:34
He loves you so much and wants you to hear Him calling you! His desire is for you to be saved from death and to escape devastation of the body and spirit. Sin, however, doesn't only have natural consequences, but will also be judged by God Himself:
“A false balance is an abomination to the LORD, but a just weight is his delight.” ~Proverbs 11:1
“Be sure of this: The wicked will not go unpunished, but those who are righteous will go free.” ~Proverbs 11:21
Mercy is His desire, but justice is in God's nature. He has to correct and eventually remove evil because He is good. If a good God allowed evil to exist forever or condoned what is evil, He would stop being good. He Himself would be evil! And without justice (i.e. the just reward of good and evil), no one could have any hope. There would be no true rest for anyone. The day of God's final judgment is coming, and I believe it will be here very soon. Here's one of many passages describing this event (notice that there is both mercy and judgment present at the same time):
"Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by. See, the LORD is coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The earth will disclose the blood shed on it; the earth will conceal its slain no longer." ~Isaiah 26:20-21
God has told us that we will all give an account to Him for what we've done:
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. ~2 Corinthians 5:10
Because of our sin we are spiritually dead; hollow versions of our former selves, with no way to resurrect our own spirit. The problem is, we HAVE to be spiritually reborn to know God again:
In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked, “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!”Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' (John 3:3-7)”
By His Wounds We Are Healed
How can new life replace the death that is in our flesh and spirit through the power of sin? God puts an emphasis on the significance of blood, specifically its ability to keep us alive:
“I will set my face against any Israelite or any foreigner residing among them who eats blood, and I will cut them off from the people. For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.” ~Leviticus 17:10-11
A life for a life.
This is the reason that God instituted ritual sacrifices of goats, calves, and young lambs. God's saying here that the life of one creature can serve as a substitution for a sinner's life, and that it suffers the death that has already taken place in the one who sinned. This foreshadows the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, which would serve as a permanent solution to sin.
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” ~John 1:29
Because the consequence of sin is death, the sinner must die unless a sacrifice is made in her place. The sacrifice needs to be perfect though, that is, sinless and completely acceptable in God's eyes, in order to cover our sin. You see, the sacrifice and the sinner trade places spiritually. The sin of the sinner is transferred to the sacrifice and the righteousness of the sacrifice is transferred to the sinner! In other words, if the sacrifice is impure in any way, then the impurity will be transferred to the sinner, which would make the whole thing pointless. So God, in His wisdom, sent Himself as Jesus to live a perfect life and take the blame for our rebellion.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. ~John 3:16-18
There are those who argue that all religions are interchangeable; that each path leads us to God (or some other higher power). But Jesus makes a powerful statement about Himself, in this:
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” ~John 14:6
Jesus declares that He is the ONLY way to know God! He is the only perfect sacrifice that is capable of restoring relationship between God and His creation. We've already seen that God knows the attitudes of our hearts when it comes to sin, but the same heart-attitude concept applies to our salvation as well.
That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile – the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” ~Romans 10:9-13
It doesn't matter who you are or what you've done. Everyone who calls on the Lord will be saved, and that's a promise. It's really incredible that God is satisfied to remove the blame of our sin when He sees our heart to trust in Jesus!
Notice that we should confess with our mouths that “Jesus is Lord.” It's very important that you understand what that means. The word “Lord” has its roots in the Greek word kurios, and it implies “one who has power or authority.” It is translated as Master, King, and Owner. When you say that Jesus is Lord, what you are really saying is that He is the master of your life. You are surrendering your whole self to Him. This act is also known as repentance and it's absolutely necessary in order to receive the fullness of life that Jesus wants to give you.
Eternal Life
For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. ~2 Corinthians 5:14-21
This is huge! “If anyone is in Christ, he is a NEW creation!” He is remade and reborn. He now has complete access to God, and is not held back by anything anymore! He can freely receive eternal life...but what is eternal life? Jesus answers this question when He prays for Himself right before being crucified:
“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” ~John 17:3
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” ~Revelation 3:20
Remember when Jesus was eating with sinners and tax collectors earlier? This is Jesus' way of saying that He wants you to know Him deeply. He comes as a friend, not an enemy! When you open the door of your heart, He will be there, waiting to greet you with the greatest love you have ever known.
He loves you, He loves you, He loves you.
Commitment Questions
(If you say yes, you're allowed you to move on to the next question)
Do you acknowledge that you have sinned and are a sinner?
Do you want forgiveness of sins?
Do you believe that Jesus is Lord and that He died on the cross for you and rose again?
Are you willing to surrender your life to Jesus Christ?
I Belong to Jesus, Now What?
Tell someone, another Christian, if possible. Jesus says that, “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven. (Matthew 10:32-33)” Confessing your belief in Jesus as your savior is a sign that you are saved through Him!
Find a Bible that you can easily understand (I think the New International Version and the English Standard Version are the best).
Read the gospel of John. When you accept Jesus' lordship and forgiveness, He sends His Spirit to help you know Him. With His help, you'll be reading with a new understanding of John's gospel.
This is the beginning of a new kind of life, and you're going to need help. Find a church or group of believers to help you grow in your new faith. If God hasn't taken me from this world, I'd love to talk to you about this. :)
Author: Daniel Escobedo
Updated: August 16, 2019
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