The Simple Gospel, and Why Nobody Takes It Well

“Gospel” simply means “good news”, and Christianity has an extremely straightforward message:

  1. God created and runs everything in the universe.
  2. All of humanity has rebelled against God.
  3. To deliver justice, God requires payment for that rebellion, which requires death.
  4. God used the Jewish law to show us the state of our sin.
  5. Jesus fulfilled that Law, then died for our sins as a perfect payment.
  6. Jesus became the risen ruler and savior of humanity.
  7. Anyone who believes in Jesus’ sacrifice won’t die a permanent death.

That’s really it. There are many evangelistic approaches to it, but it all distills down more-or-less to that same set of ideas, told through four (or maybe five) humble angles to specific target audiences:

  • Matthew was a tax collector (effectively a debt-collector accountant), and wrote his account about 30 years after Jesus’ crucifixion for his fellow Jews.
  • Mark wrote his account about 20-30 years after Jesus’ crucifixion, and directed toward Romans.
  • Luke, who was not one of the 12 apostles, wrote his accounting about 31 years after the crucifixion with a scientific angle, directed at the highly analytical Greeks.
  • John, who was a boy in the fisherman trade at the time, was probably writing from the island of Patmos much later on in his life.
  • Paul, who only converted later from being a high-ranking Jew, wrote to the new churches throughout the Roman Empire.

The scope and style of the message wasn’t designed to confound anyone, but there are many reasons why every human alive will find at least something in this Gospel to comfortably accept.

1. God made and rules everything

To start with, there are many religions with contradictory views on God, so we must clarify what we mean by “God” before continuing.

  • Not Pantheism: God can’t be merely some energy or cosmic force in all of nature. God is distinct and separate from us.
  • Not Polytheism: Any other gods, alleged or legitimate, are subordinate to this God.
  • Not Deism: God is actively involved in this universe, and not simply a casual observer.
  • Not Scientific: God is open enough to design everything in plain sight, but clever enough to hide the details.

Further, God has all the power. Even when not acting on that power, it doesn’t mean God is incapable (Revelation 4:11).

  • The domain of miracles is easy for a Being that created the universe.
  • Paradoxical concepts about God (e.g., can God create a stone so heavy He can’t lift?) presume that God is subordinate to the systems of logic and order He designed.
  • In other words, it’s God’s system, and absolutely anything is possible with God.

If this was where we stopped, we’d all accept it, with the exception of the questions revolving around the hardship we all endure.

2. All of humanity has rebelled against God

This allegation of rebellion is the first major offense. Most people can accept God’s power and sovereignty, but they also often feel quite uncomfortable with the respect God deserves in light of that.

There are tremendously deep theological debates about when we’re sinners, but it really doesn’t change the problem:

  1. One argument is that we inherited sin from the first person who sinned, and that would make us guilty in a similar way (Romans 5:12-14).
  2. Another is that we have demonstrated a similar rebellion to the first sin, which is a very profound point: all parents can attest to the moral failings of their children, and it was not simply taught to them.
  3. If we’re being perfectly honest with ourselves, we all sin, especially if we know we can do it without any adverse consequences whatsoever (e.g., victimless crimes).

Even non-Christian religion attests to this sin problem. They may vary the scope and intensity of our sins or its consequences, but everyone agrees that sins are somehow part of the human condition.

And, the Judeo-Christian creation story explains exactly where our sin condition began:

  • The first man and woman were perfect and associated with God in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2).
  • They implicitly trusted God so much they didn’t even know they were naked (Genesis 3:7).
  • The first man saw the Satan tempt the first woman to defy God’s order to not eat the fruit to know morality, then he followed.
  • God’s perfect attributes mean He can’t coexist with imperfection, so He exiled them from the Garden.

Some people say the creation story is merely symbolic, but its mythological phenomenology is still consistent with what we all know to be true.

This, however, is not the most offensive part for most people.

3. God requires payment, which requires death

Quite a few people may be able to accept they’ve sinned, but the consequences from it would make them hesitate.

Since the above-stated Fall, we’ve been cursed distinctly between the genders:

We’ve also been exiled from God, and have lost the implicit connection with nature we once had:

  • In our existence, most human experiences with God are outright deceptions.
  • We no longer have authority over other living organisms, and the laws of physics don’t serve our interests.
  • We don’t even connect well anymore with each other’s feelings and thoughts!

And, beyond that, all humanity is cursed to die:

  • The final consequence of sin is permanent, complete death (Revelation 21:8).
  • While this may seem unfair, if we had stayed in Eden and eaten the Tree of Life, we’d be stuck this way forever (Genesis 3:22).

4. God used the Jewish Law to show us our sin

The structure of the Law shows we can’t rebuild back to God’s presence:

The issue here for most people is contained within the doctrine of hell.

  • Some people claim there is no hell, it’s not eternal, or that we’ll only cease to exist.
  • However, the Bible makes it abundantly clear that hell is a real, eternal place (Isaiah 64:6, Matthew 13:41–42, Luke 13:24–28).

If we can get past the severity of this Law and the exile we presently endure, God also made a promise:

  • He said the Satan would be struck down later (Genesis 3:15).
  • The Jewish Prophets prophesy a Messiah who will establish a new arrangement (Jeremiah 31:31–34).
  • The word “gospel” itself draws from a Hebrew doctrine indicating that humanity needs saving.

5. Jesus fulfilled and died under the Jewish Law

The Messiah had to fulfill every prophecy while on earth (Psalm 40:7, Luke 24:44, Revelation 19:10).

Jesus’ existence was unique, even beyond what the Bible indicates:

  1. Jesus died by crucifixion, which is the most shameful and public execution possible, but they never found a body.
    • This is in light of the most powerful military unit at the time stationed to protect that body.
  2. After Jesus’ crucifixion, his disciples and other followers all had legitimate experiences of seeing Jesus.
    • If it was a cleverly designed hoax, every follower of Jesus believed they were real events, including high-ranking officials and tradesmen.
    • Jesus’ biological half-brother, James, had an experience he thought was a separate appearance of Jesus.
    • These people were so motivated by those experiences that they left their jobs to deliver his message.
    • Paul, a prominent and well-respected Pharisee with absolutely nothing to gain from following Jesus, experienced what he believed was Jesus appearing, and then converted to Christianity at a tremendous cost to his reputation and estate.
  3. Within 1-2 years after Jesus died, thousands of people were following Jesus and preaching his story.
    • If Jesus was a successful scammer or magician, the hype would have died with him, or at least would have mostly died out.
    • Against all attempts to destroy or revise the Bible for 2,000 years, it keeps carrying on that same message across all languages and cultures.

As Lee Strobel puts it, the presence of this strange trending Jewish carpenter-turned-rabbi from 2,000 years ago is simply so remarkable that it can only mean several possibilities:

  1. Jesus was a complete con artist, to the point that he successfully deceived everyone who gave their lives later to die for his message.
  2. Jesus was completely insane, which has led countless many into a pathway deserving of some form of rehabilitation or correction throughout society.
  3. Jesus was the legitimate Messiah he claimed to be, and there is no room for doubt over that.

Most people find it too remarkable to believe, so they don’t investigate further.

6. Jesus became humanity’s savior and ruler

Jesus’ sacrifice ended up giving Him title to the world (Matthew 28:18). For anyone politically savvy, the conflict with this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Our modern political society has developed a very anti-monarch approach. For the most part, democracy represents an ideal, with the current world power being a constitutional republic that balances against the “tyranny of the majority”.

Therefore, the allusions that we have a King coming who will eventually run everything (Revelation 19) is a very unfashionable thing to say.

And, in light of this, Jesus gave a plain command to believers: to make disciples everywhere (Matthew 28:19-20). Christian culture in general, though, has mishandled what they should be doing:

It’s an utter guarantee, though, that Jesus will eventually come back to run things. This guarantees a power struggle for anyone who has power they don’t want to give up, and further renforces more of #2.

And, finally, if someone can get past all of this, there’s a final challenge to unfold.

7. Belief means no permanent death

By Jesus fulfilling the Law as a human being, any person who believes in Jesus won’t have to live by the Law anymore if they believe and follow Him (Matthew 5:17).

To “believe” is to declare Jesus is the Lord and believe He died for your sins to receive salvation (Romans 10:9).

  • This means accepting He’s your Lord and savior, to the exclusion of all other lords and saviors.
    • This isn’t just abstract acceptance of the information, but a clear form of fealty and submission.
  • It also means believing that Jesus died, which meant He had to have become a man.
    • This means that there’s no philosophical room for Gnosticism (i.e., where flesh is evil and spirit is good).
  • And, lastly, it also means believing that God (specifically, Jesus’ “Father”) raised Jesus from the dead.
    • This means the definition of “God” is far less straightforward than we can understand (i.e., discussions about the Trinity).

This last part is the reason why intelligent people have the hardest time accepting Jesus (1 Corinthians 1:27).

God promises that after this life, believers will go to heaven (John 3:16, Romans 5:10, 1 John 4:9–10) and nonbelievers will go to above-stated hell (Revelation 20:11–15).

But, the most difficult part to accept is that we are forgiven only by His grace.

  • This means we have nothing we can do to work our way to salvation: Jesus paid all of it.
  • It also means that others have that complete exoneration as well, which means we must forgive and trust them again repeatedly, just like Jesus did to us (Matthew 18:21-35).

This is a severe conflict among Christians, and many Christians have trouble accepting the full implications of how simple Jesus’ sacrifice made things for us.

  • It is certainly true that simply believing and not acting isn’t really “belief”, but our merit or effort doesn’t determine who Jesus saves.
  • Praying a specific prayer shows our commitment, but only through our sincerity in praying it and not the prayer itself.
  • The baptism tradition is a symbolic act of devotion and not a condition for salvation (1 Peter 3:21).
  • Other activities like communion/Eucharist and honoring the Sabbath pertain to your relationship with God and communal experience, but have nothing to do with attaining salvation.
  • Speaking in tongues and baptism in the Holy Spirit are part of God’s work in us, but they’re not salvation (1 Corinthians 14).
  • Some Christians say purgatory will sort out sins that aren’t confessed, but they refer to a passage that’s vague enough to refer to the spiritually dead on this earth, and in a book many Christians consider non-canonical (2 Maccabees 12:39–46).

Our true, final salvation comes at the Great White Throne Judgment, where all sins will be eradicated with the people found guilty of them (Revelation 20:11–15).

There’s More, Though

To the people who are willing to accept what God has done, He promises much more than merely entry into heaven and escape from hell.

  1. All Christians receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16, 1 Corinthians 12:13).
  2. Jesus promises an abundant remaining life on this earth (John 10:10).
  3. Following Jesus is a living, dynamic relationship with the one true God (Romans 8:31–39).
  4. In response to your faith in Jesus, God will make you a new creation, permanently changed from what you were.
  5. God promises believers will receive an incorruptible and eternal crown of glory (1 Corinthians 9:24–25, 2 Timothy 4:8).

And, to anyone who has unresolved past trauma or tremendous internalized shame, this all seems too good to be true.