Some of you might have opened this article expecting to read something like "It's not just good news. It's great news!"
While that is definitely true, that is not the point I'd like to drive home today.
What is the gospel? The gospel is a message about the love and grace of God through Jesus Christ that He has lavished upon all people. That is the good news.
But that's not all there is to the gospel. The gospel is not just good news, it's also bad news—the bad news of man's depravity and sin, and the separation between us and God because of that sin.
The good news only becomes good news because there was bad news to begin with. When a headline reads "Young boy saved from house on fire," it becomes good news because there was the bad news of a house fire to begin with. It's not drama. It's just reality. There is salvation, but there is also something that we need to be saved from.
Every human being who ever walked this earth (except Jesus Christ) has had this huge disastrous problem called sin. Romans 3:23 says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
Because of our sins, we are destined to spend the rest of eternity in torment and separation from our loving God.
But the gravity of the bad news of our depravity and the seriousness of hell make us appreciate the free gift of God through Jesus Christ. When we know the bad news, we know the real cost Jesus had to pay, and we value the gift He has purchased for us all the more. The gravity of our sin makes us appreciate the glory of God's love because despite our heavy sinfulness, God loved us the most.
When we remove the bad news from the good news, it fails to be good news. It's just news, and it's not even the gospel.
But also, the gospel isn't simply just bad news without good news. Paul writes about this in Galatians 1:6: "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ."
The gospel is always meant to be shared in its entirety bearing both the bad news of our sin and consequence and the good news of the free grace that we now receive through Christ to experience life both here and for eternity. The gospel isn't just good news. It's great news! But only because it started off with a terribly grave news.
