Many believers have only a very elementary knowledge of the gospel. To pursue the discipleship of Christ it needs to be in the atmosphere of the gospel. It's important to preach it to yourself everyday. One of the clearest explanations of the Gospel is in Rom. 3:19-26.
There are seven truths to understand.
1) No one is righteous before God by observing the law. Righteous being defined as the exact and perfect conformity to the law of God. Law is defined as the transcript of God's nature and the rules of obedience that He requires of all human beings. It is essentially absolute perfection, James 2:10 and Gal 3:10. We can never in our own obedience gain a righteousness that will give us salvation because it is imposible to achieve perfection due to the depravity of man. As a result, we need to live by grace.
2) There is a righteousness from God apart from the law. This righteousness God has provided through His Son, Jesus, who is the perfect fulfillment of God's law. Rom. 5:12-19. God declares us righteous on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is credited to us through faith, forever. Isa. 61:10.
3) This righteousness from God is received through faith in Jesus Christ.
"Faith itself has no merit; in fact, by its nature it is self-emptying. It involves our complete renunciation of any confidence in our own righteousness and a relying entirely on the perfect righteousness and death of Jesus Christ."
To trust Christ for salvation you have to abandon any trust in your own goodness or merit. They are completely separate, and you can't have one with the other. The basic statement of the Gospel is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, became human, lived a perfectly obedient life, and died on the cross for our sins. This is why Jesus Christ is the object of our faith instead of something of our own merit.
"Faith, again, is merely the hand that receives the gift of God, and God through His Spirit even opens our hand to receive the gift."
We need to live by faith in Christ every day of our lives, and continue to renounce any kind of confidence in our own goodness and place all of our confidence in Christ. Gal. 2:20.
4) Righteousness available to everyone on the same basis because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All people are not equally guilty, but all are guilty. Because of this, there is no room for the comparison of ourselves with others who 'appear' more sinful or less holy than ourselves, and vice versa. That tendancy for comparison needs to be put away. Instead, we need to compare against God's perfect standard and realize how short we fall of the glory of God. Basically, it's between ourselves and God and no one else.
5) All who put their faith in Jesus Christ are justified freely by God's grace. Justification is defined as being declared righteous on the basis of the righteousness of Christ. We are absolved from any charge of guilt and declared absolutely righteous, and are personally accepted by God because of Christ. We are counted as perfectly obedient to God's law based solely on what Christ did and us being in union with Him (Christ). Gal. 2:20. It's as if we lived His life and died His death. Rom. 8:1, 31, 33.
Justification is a completed work that is received through faith and continually renewed in our souls and applied to our conscience every day through faith. Our conscience will convict us as that's what it's there for, but we need to bring the verdict of our conscience into line with verdict of heaven. We do this by agreeing with our conscience about our guilt, but then reminding it that our guilt is borne by Christ, which is given freely by God's grace and there is no payment on our part that is involved. Isa. 55:1.
God has no obligation towards us which is shown by the fact that he didn't do what he did for us for the angels that fell, 2 Pet. 2:4. This decision originates in His goodness.
6) Justification is "through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."
Charles Hodge gives an incredible redemption definition which is, "deliverance effected by the payment of a ransom...That from which we are redeemed is the wrath of God; the price of our redemption is the blood of Christ." Another part of justification is while it's free to us, it was purchased by Christ with His blood. There was a cost involved; it was not just a mere pardon. A pardon is a legal term defined as excusing an offense without exacting a penalty.
In our case, the penalty is paid fully by Christ and so justice is completely satisfied. Justify is defined as to declare that the claims of justice have been fully met. We need to dwell more on the work of Christ because of its satisfaction of God's law.
"When our consciences are smiting us because of our sin, it is important to reflect upon the fact that, though our sins are real and inexcusable, nevertheless God's justice has already been satisfied through the 'satisfaction of Christ,' that the penalty has been fully paid by Him."
7) God presented (Jesus) as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood. The sacrifice of atonement is defined as the one who would turn aside God's wrath, taking away sin. Rom. 1:18, Eph. 2:3. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones stated the following concerning wrath of God, "His settled opposition to all that is evil, arising out of His very nature...His nature is such that He abhors evil, He hates evil. His holiness of necessity leads to that." This is the basis of propitiation, which is defined as that which appeases the wrath of God against sin.
What's amazing is that God the Father initiated the whole plan of salvation, and provided the sacrifice which was the "blood of Christ." Christ's death is the object of our faith, and was planned from the beginning. Heb. 9:14 Heb. 10:10
"It is the blood of Christ, shed once for all on Calvary two thousand years ago but appropriated daily or even many times a day, that cleanses our consciences and gives us a renewed sense of peace with God."
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