The Gospel-Part 2

Question 2-What is the “bad news”?

Scriptures:
• Genesis 2:16-17
• Genesis 3:6-7
• Genesis 3:22-24
• Romans 3:10-18
• Romans 3:23
• Romans 6:23


We have established the gospel as the “good news”. The next step is understanding what the good news is. To find this, however, we must first understand what the “bad news” is:


“way before anything was created, He (God) had a plan to create a world with people and to save people from sin.” -Marcus Gray

God has always set out a way for man to be saved from their sin. So when God created Adam He set up a covenant with Adam and promised him eternal life. God told Adam simply not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil warning that if he ate of the tree he will surely die.

But Adam disobeyed God and ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. When this happened Adam and Eve’s “eyes were open”. This simply means that in eating from the tree Adam and Eve actually did have knowledge of good and evil. They now knew what was morally right and wrong. In Genesis 3:22 God says:

Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.

God states that man, in an attempt to be more like God, now knows good and evil. Because of this Adam could no longer have eternal life unless he also ate from the tree of life. The covenant was broken.

Because the covenant was broken and Adam now had knowledge of good and evil, Adam had a sin problem. And because we are children of Adam, we inherit that same sin problem. As Romans 3:10-18 says:

There is none righteous, no not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.

and continues on to say:

Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit; The poison of asps is under their lips; Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; Destructions and misery are in their ways; And the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

But why is sin an issue? The answer is found in Romans 3:23 and 6:23 which respectively say:

For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.

and

For the wages of sin is death.

Our sin is an issue because the “wages” or penalty for our sin is death. The Greek word used for death here is thanatos and can be interpreted as meaning “the death of the body with implied meaning of future misery in hell”. Basically this “death” directly refers to not only the death of the body but the eternity in hell spent after that death as well.

This makes perfect sense when we look at Romans 3:23.

God is a perfect, righteous, holy, and glorious person who cannot dwell amongst anything unholy and unrighteous. This is made obvious throughout the Old Testament when several times the glory of God would blind men, condemn them of their sinful nature, or even in some instances destroy a man.

This inability to be around the glory of God and in God’s presence is due to our sin. God hates sin and our sin separates us from God. Because of this separation it is totally impossible for man to dwell in heaven with God. Instead man, because of our sin, is condemned to eternity in hell, fully separated from God. This is the bad news.

Study Questions:
• What is the “bad news”?
• What did Adam and Eve do?
• Why do we have a “sin problem”?
• Why can’t God dwell amongst sin?
• What is the solution to our “sin problem”?

The Gospel-Part 1

Question 1-What is the gospel?

Scriptures:
• Romans 1:16

If you were to ask any group of “Christians” for their definition of the Gospel you are likely to find various different responses. Some may say “it’s Christ dying on the cross”, some will say “it’s the fact God’s loves you and wants to you to love Him back”, some might say “it’s your sins being forgiven” while other may even say “it’s how Christ died so Christians could be happy” or “live a good life” or even “have money”. While some of these statements do hold some truth in them the complete and full gospel is not any of these things itself.

In Romans 1:16 Paul says:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes…

He defines the gospel as “the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes” meaning he defines the gospel as the way God saves people.

The Greek word for gospel is euangelion. The definition of euangelion is simply the good news. It is the promise of salvation and the fulfillment of salvation by Christ. Essentially that is the gospel. The good news of what Christ did to save those who believe in Him.

Study Questions:
• What is the Gospel?
• What do we need to Christ to save us from?