Truly Good News
Romans 1:16-17
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”
Several years ago I was in the waiting area of a Hindu temple in India and noticed a plaque on the wall. It had a message declaring how someone could find eternal life: “He who desires to cross the painful ocean of worldly life, which is full of the crocodiles of anger, greed, and infatuation, should catch hold of the Bhagavad Gita which has the disciplines of action, devotion, and wisdom as its oars. It will easily take him to the land of liberation.” This is the Hindu path to heaven, or Nirvana. Frankly, all the man-made religions of the world are flawed in their teachings. They really don’t have any Good News.
Mankind intuitively knows that we have a “sin problem.” Everyone understands the concepts of sin and guilt. God has written His law on every man’s heart. Because of that instinctive knowledge, the human race is yearning for good news. That’s what the word “Gospel” means—good news. Paul wrote that the Gospel of Christ is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes. The Gospel is the solution to mankind’s sin. The Gospel is where the righteousness of God is offered to those who recognize they have no other hope or help.
The Gospel is an invitation to cling to the One who already suffered for our sins on the cross—not to our own ability to suffer for our sins until they are purged. On another journey to India, I made video footage of a Hindu priest washing in the polluted waters of the Ganges River. He believed this ritual would wash his sin away. It struck me that both physically and spiritually, he was dirtier after he came out of the river! Remember God’s righteousness through His Son’s atoning sacrifice for our sin; it’s the only truly good news.