The Essence Of The Gospel

The gospel is the unconditional redemption God accomplished for all sinners in the person of Christ in his living and dying. The good news is not about what happens to you when you believe. The good news is who God is and what He has done for sinners whether or not they believe. Whatever takes place subsequent to man’s faith and repentance is not the gospel but the result of the gospel. “Justification by faith” seems obviously subsequent and conditional to man’s personal response to Jesus Christ. However one defines and claims to understand justification by faith, because it is “by faith” it would necessarily have to fall under the category of result or effect of the gospel.

The gospel is the unconditional redemption God accomplished for all sinners in the person of Christ in his living and dying. The good news is not about what happens to you when you believe. The good news is who God is and what He has done for sinners whether or not they believe. Whatever takes place subsequent to man’s faith and repentance is not the gospel but the result of the gospel. “Justification by faith” seems obviously subsequent and conditional to man’s personal response to Jesus Christ. However one defines and claims to understand justification by faith, because it is “by faith” it would necessarily have to fall under the category of result or effect of the gospel.

And will it not be good news only to those who believe?

Our calling is to proclaim the good news but good news to whom? The good news, if it truly is good news, will still have to be good news whether or not its recipients embrace it. What is the good news even to the deliberately impenitent? What has God done that is infinitely significant and real for sinners whether or not they believe?

What is centrally and essentially the good news to all sinners, penitent or impenitent, is the unconditional forgiveness, justification and acquittal of the entire human race which God accomplished through Christ’s atoning death antecedent to and independent of any human response. I have always tried to say that “Christ signed with His blood the pardon, justification, acquittal, and redemption of the human race” to convey the conviction that Christ accomplished something infinitely significant for every sinful human being not only prior to the act of believing but whether or not they believe.

The unconditional justification Christ accomplished when He died is absolutely good news because it is real, permanent, and final. It is real because it is actual, definite and extant in God’s heart. I personally believe God actually forgave all sinners at the cross, not potentially or provisionally. I don’t think it is accurately possible to say, “I have potentially or provisionally forgiven you.” You’ve either truly forgiven your offender or not at all. God has either actually forgiven the unsaved in His heart or He hasn’t. I believe the unconditional good news is that God’s decision to forgive, justify and not impute the sins of the world against them prior to faith is not potential or provisional but factual, concrete, and certain in His heart and that it can be experienced by any penitent sinner by faith.

It is permanent because it is irreversible by any human response or action. God will always see as forgiven and justified even those who will eternally perish in hell because of the cross. Their sad end is the tragic consequence of their persistent unbelief in God and His unconditional forgiveness and not because God changed His mind and declared them “unjustified” and “unforgiven.” And it is final because God did it “once and for all.”

I believe the message of unconditional forgiveness and universal justification that is actual and real is consistent to God’s loving character and will soften the hearts of many sinful lost and make them eager to come home to God. It is a powerfully life changing good news we can be thoroughly excited about and passionately share with others. Isn’t it amazingly good news whether or not you believe God has a heart which has truly and fully forgiven you?

Here’s a true story which gives a framework from where I’m coming from when I share the gospel:

“There was a penitentiary where the inmates suffered unimaginable abuse from the warden. The living conditions were horribly inhumane. There were times when food wasn’t served not only for several days but weeks! Many prisoners have starved to death. Some prisoners were beaten to death. All these were daily occurrences unknown to the government. The time came when the warden’s crimes were exposed and he was punished to the fullest extent of the law. A new warden was installed and on his first week he tried to get to know the inmates. He got to know Jack who is one of the most mistreated inmates.

One day as the warden was going through Jack’s records, he discovered a certificate of pardon and release duly signed by the governor tucked in the Jack’s file. To his surprise, the certificate was signed ten years previously! For ten years it was already signed for but the former warden deliberately withheld the good news from him.”

During those ten years, was Jack a prisoner or a free man? Was his pardon potential or actual? What did Jack have to do in order to be pardoned? If you were the assistant to the warden and was sent to tell Jack the good news what will you tell him?

Jack was both a free man and a prisoner. Legally, he was a free man but experientially, he was a prisoner. His pardon was real, definite and actual as far as the governor and the law is concerned. It will be up to him though if he will choose to live the life of a pardoned person. He absolutely had nothing to do in order to be pardoned because he already had been pardoned.

Christ signed for our pardon long before our faith and repentance. The unrepentant will never get his pardon “unsigned.” He will fail to personally experience God’s pardon but he is always forgiven as far as God is concerned. The good news is unconditionally good. Once again, what do people hear from us?

a) Obey, do what is good, live a moral life THEN God will sign for your pardon.

b) NO, NO, NO! It’s not by works. Only believe! Just come home in faith and repentance THEN God will sign for your pardon.

I personally believe the wonderful good news is not A or B but C:

c) While you were yet unrepentant, long before you ever knew God and believed in Him, He already has signed for your pardon with His blood when He died. Will you come home and experience Him whom to know is Life Eternal?

Isaiah 44:22 I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.”

How is this perspective of the gospel reconciled with advocating the idea that sinners are already children of God before receiving Christ?

The new birth is the miraculous experience of being made spiritually alive in Christ. Through spiritual rebirth we cross from death to life. It is the beginning of eternal life in the experience of a believer. It is essentially a change of experience and not of status. I believe when John said, “to them that believe gave them He the power/right to become/be called the children of God,” he was referring to the experience of sonship. When we believe we are empowered to experience our father-child relationship with God which was always there as indicated in the story of the prodigal son. Let me reiterate: The prodigal son did not become a son when he returned home. He was always a son to the father. Instead, the prodigal son was a “dead” son who became a “living” son. He was a “lost” member of the family who became a family member who is now “found.” The understanding that God begins to see and consider the sinner as His child only when he believes will be contradictory to the spirit of the parable of the lost son. It’ll be hard for me to believe that Christ’s blood signed for our pardon, redemption, emancipation, and acquittal when He died but not for our adoption.

by : Richard David Tamayo