The Significance of the Gospel
The Gospel is “Good News”. But it’s more than good news. It’s not even news in the traditional sense of how we process news where we read about something that recently happened, and move on with life. Rather, it’s a message about a singular event that happened 2000 years ago. But that event, and the central figure of it, Jesus Christ, is so significant that we can’t just move on with life once we have processed it.
The Gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:1-4). It was a prophesied and a personal event. According to the Apostle Peter, Jesus willingly bore our sins in His body on the cross, fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy that “by His wound we are healed” (1 Pet. 2:21-24). Jesus made our personal sins His own on the cross.
Jesus did this for us when we were at our worst - while we were still sinners, weak, and even enemies of God. And why did God decide to take on our personal sin, die for us, justify us by His blood, and save us from His righteous wrath? In order to put His love for each of us on full display. God paid a costly price to redeem the soul of you and me (Rom. 5:6-11; Ps. 49:8; Acts 20:26).
But the Gospel isn’t just an event that happened. The Bible also says the Gospel is something to be obeyed (Rom. 6; 2 Thess. 1:8). Through baptism God has allowed us to be beneficiaries of this purchased salvation by personally uniting with Christ - dying to our old self, being buried in a watery grave, and rising again as a resurrected new creation to walk in the newness of life (Rom. 6:4). Although Jesus’ sacrifice freely offers unlimited atonement to all (Heb. 10:14), salvation is conditional. It is generously offered to all, but only received by few who willingly respond in faith and obedience (Mt. 7:14; Heb. 5:9; Rom. 6:17).
Once you’ve been told the “Good News” and processed its significance to all of history and your life personally it demands a response. You may either move on as if this is just like any other story you hear on the news reels, or you may decide to submit to God’s great gift of love. If you move on, you are doing so either with a great degree of faith in a number of theories that try to discredit the Bible and/or God, or a great degree of hope that the Bible doesn’t actually mean what it says about the consequences of those who ignore complete submission to God’s will. However, if you submit to God’s great gift of love you will find that the Gospel is not just “Good news” for the world, but the greatest news in your life personally. It is the news that forever defines you.
C. Dixon, 7-13-25