The Beauty of the Gospel

The Gospel is beautiful. Incredibly beautiful. It's so beautiful, in fact, that nothing that pleases God has ever been accomplished without it by a human being (Hebrews 11:8).

But I think I often neglect half of it.

I think we tend to see the gospel this way: 

We all have this terrible burden to bear. This burden is sin, and it could be likened to a cup that we carry around. Inside this cup is every gross, nasty, grimy sin from every ungodly act, thought, and motivation we've ever had. And this ungodliness separates us from the Holy One.

This is where the Gospel steps in. Through His perfect life, His death on the Cross, and His resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ has taken the sins of those He calls His children upon His shoulders. In effect, he has taken my cup of grime and poured it on Himself. Then He defeated the physical and spiritual death that my cup of grime deserves. By trusting in this Truth, I am His child.

But, if sin removal alone is our view of the Gospel we're missing half of it. You see, I often feel as though Christ has removed my cup of sinful grime but now I carry around an empty up. I'm desperate to fill it with my goodness. Sadly, I often go so far as to try to fill this cup by being loved and accepted by others... even my wife.

But all of my attempts to feel good about myself don't add a single drop of righteousness to my cup. In fact, since they're usually motivated by pride, they only add to my pile of grime Jesus died for.

The Truth of the Gospel is that Jesus Christ's righteous life, undeserving death, and hell-defeating resurrection not only bears my cup of sin-- it fills my cup with righteousness.

That's why the Gospel is so beautiful. God is incomparably Holy. I am indescribably wicked. Of myself, I have nothing to offer Him to close the gap between us. But, in His love, justice, mercy, and grace, God made a way.  

He made impossible demands of us to be righteous, and He beautifully and completely met those demands, in Christ, on behalf of His children.

"For our sake [God] made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might be the righteousness of God." --- 1 Corinthians 5:21