Jesus - The Good News in 90 Seconds
A Loving Creator
There is one triune God, three persons united in love—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is perfect in every way, in His love, mercy, goodness, and justice. He created us to live in perfect harmony with Him. As a loving parent provides rules to protect their child, so the Father, in His love for us, provided laws for our good and well-being.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…” Genesis 1:26
Our Deadly Rebellion
While God is perfect, we are not. We’ve all chosen and behaved in ways that are contrary to Him. This rebellion against God’s laws, care and authority is called sin. Because God is perfectly just and righteous, He cannot have harmony with us in our sinful state. The penalty of our sin is death and separation from our Creator in hell for all eternity.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23
The Perfect Sacrifice
But…there is hope! In His great love for us, the Father made available a way, a substitution for the penalty of our sin. He sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world as a man—he was fully God and yet fully man; but the Son lived a life without sin, perfectly pleasing to the Father. Then, Jesus willingly paid the penalty of death for our sins on the cross. He was the perfect sacrifice. In Jesus’ death, God poured out His wrath—the wrath that we deserve—onto His Son.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
A New Life
But Jesus was more powerful than death—after three days, He rose from the dead, defeating sin and conquering death once and for all. It’s in the power of the Son’s resurrection from the dead that we can receive new life in the Holy Spirit. We can have the perfect righteousness that we didn’t earn, that Jesus provided for us. And for all of eternity, we can live in right standing with the Father. The way we receive that is by turning from sin, which means we reject our own way of living, our own way of trying to make ourselves acceptable to God. We put our full hope and confidence in the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. And one day, Jesus will return to earth to judge sin and purge the world of evil.
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. 2 Corinthians 5:17