I was asked one day what the gospel really means to me. And it forced me to think deeply about not only what I believed, but why I believed it. Growing up, I had a very emotional approach to my faith. If I was crying, that must have meant God was near. If I was stiffened, it must have meant he wasn’t. If things went my way, God was working. If I underwent catastrophe, where was he? It was an up and down, inconsistent view of the God I thought I knew, and of a gospel I thought I lived for. And if someone were to have asked me then what I thought it all meant, in all honesty, I wouldn’t have an answer to give them. Fast forward many years and I wish I could say I fully understand it, but I don’t think any of us in this lifetime will. I do, however, believe I’ve learned some things along the way, and as best that I can, I’d like to go deeper into what I do know the gospel is, and how to truly embrace it.
I don’t believe that you can talk about the gospel without mentioning sin,
and vice versa. In fact, nowhere in the bible does it define the gospel apart from sin. It would be as if I were to begin a sentence and leave it unfinished. With that said, I’ve battled with my understanding of sin for quite some time. For many years, I lived life in a way that maybe some of you can say was your story as well. God existed, but my very superficial sense of happiness did too. So I lived day-to-day with the head knowledge that God is God and then walked right out the door rejecting that knowledge with my lifestyle. I thought I had it covered. I went to church – sometimes. I even listened to worship music. I liked the sound of some bible verses (but stayed away from others, you know, the weird ones), and I knew that someday I’d end up in heaven. Looking back at that time today, I can confidently say I didn’t understand sin and its very apparent hold on me. And if I could be a little more honest, I never knew why it was that Jesus even needed to save me from it.
So, what is sin? And what’s the big deal about it? Well sin as you probably know in the simplest terms is rebellion against God. But I’d like to break it down much further than that. For some context, let’s look at the very first act of sin in the bible, or what it is known as, “The Fall.” The biggest question we might ask ourselves in the midst of our sin is exactly what the serpent asked Eve in Genesis 3. Did God really say that? He brought doubt into the picture, that maybe God isn’t really who he says he is. And if he isn’t who he says he is, maybe what he says isn’t true either. Then the serpent says to Eve, referring to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil where God told them not to eat from, “You will certainly not die, for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:4-5).
This might sound a little intense, but in essence, that’s sin. To deny the reality that God is God, and to place yourself, even if for a moment, as your own God.
To get an even better understanding, let’s go one chapter forward and take a look at Genesis 4. This is the story of Cain and Abel, the sons of Adam and Eve. When the Lord saw that Cain’s heart was not right before him he said something so fundamental. He said to him, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it” (Genesis 4:7). It isn’t just a simple act of disobedience. It’s an identity. A deceitful predator. Sin desires to have you. And all of you, at that. So Cain, in his rage and discontent, kills his brother Abel. He sins against God. And in response, the Lord puts a curse on Cain and says to him, “When you work the ground it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth” (Genesis 4:12). No matter how hard you try, nothing will fulfill you.
Sin has deceived you. It cannot give to you what you desired to have from it. Sin will leave you restlessly wandering for the rest of your life.
So then, how does sin tie into the gospel? Paul says in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” In order to grasp the redemptive price Jesus paid, I knew I had to understand what it is he paid for. Our defiance toward God brought on spiritual death, or in other words, separation from him. And because of the finished work of the cross, Jesus has broken the hold of sin, reuniting us, in absolute right standing, with the Father. Not by our works, but by his grace. Now, the sin that desired to have me no longer can. I belong to Christ. Now, I am no longer a wanderer. I have been found by him.
Just as it is partial to look at the gospel apart from sin, it is equally as partial to look at the gospel apart from God’s love and kindness.
You’ve probably heard this question before: why did Jesus have to come and die? If God is so loving, why couldn’t he just forgive everyone? Let’s look at it this way: if someone inflicts harm on your children, is it not right for that person to be punished? Does your love for your child not render a response of justice and a desire to protect them? A dismissive love is hardly love at all. True love demands for someone to answer. Pastor and author Timothy Keller said it best, “If you love someone, you must and will get angry if something threatens to destroy him or her. As some have pointed out, you have to have had a pretty comfortable life – without any experience of oppression and injustice yourself – to not want a God who punishes sin.”[1]
Going even a step further, we know that under the old covenant the shedding of blood was necessary for the forgiveness of sins. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, blood was offered for the sins of the entire nation (we see this in Leviticus 16). In the same way, under the new covenant, God required a sacrifice, who was perfect and pleasing in his sight, to die in order that we may be forgiven and declared blameless. Hebrews 9:22 reminds us, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” This means God loved to such extent, that he did not abandon his word as a God of atonement, but rather chose a perfect sacrifice in place of us. He sent his own son to be forsaken by him, so that we didn’t have to be. When Jesus hung on that cross and cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), Jesus, for the first time, did not refer to God as his father. What overwhelmed me with absolute gratitude was this:
Jesus lost a moment with his Father so that we could be given an eternity with him.
John the apostle reminds us in his first epistle that, “This is how God showed his love among us” (1 John 4:9). It is this truth that Paul grasps as he tells the Roman church, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus or Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). Truly we will never be able to understand the depth of God’s love, a love that surpasses all knowledge, but my hope is that we may live in absolute assurance of it.
So, after all of this, what does the gospel mean to me? The best way I could conclude my thoughts is to point you to just one last verse in the bible.
“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” – Matthew 13:44
We have done nothing to deserve this rich inheritance, but I pray we hold tightly to it, and continue to seek the one who has given it to us so freely. In joy, in suffering, in blessing and in waiting, let us be willing to put aside all things for the sake of Christ. Let us continue to allow the gospel to reveal itself over, and over again, each time bringing us closer into the image of Christ. I’d like to end with a brief quote from George Owen who said, “The world has many religions; it has but only one gospel.”
Meklit Girma serves as one of the leads at Overflow City Church in Silver Spring, MD.
[1] Timothy Keller, The Prodigal Prophet: Jonah and the Mystery of God's Mercy, (New York, NY; Penguin Random House LLC: 2018)
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