IN THE BEGINNING…
There was God. Before anything else existed, God was perfect, whole and sufficient in Himself. The Bible teaches us that God is eternally three persons in one being. The fact that He’s three persons means He lived in the joy and unity of personal relationships long before He created anything else. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all enjoyed one another, loved one another, and have always been completely satisfied in one another, apart from any created thing.
THE PURPOSE OF HUMANITY
Because God’s nature is relational, the natural expression of His nature is to create. He created you and me and all of humanity so that we might share in relationships with Him and with one another, participating in His joy for His glory. God created us so that we might glorify Him by enjoying Him forever.
THE FALL OF HUMANITY
If that was the end of humanity’s story, you wouldn’t be reading this right now. We would all be living in peace and harmony, enjoying God together. But we’re not. Something terrible has disrupted our unity with one another and with God and has caused us to be confused about who God is and who we are. The Bible calls that sin, and God hates sin. Sin has separated us from God and has cursed our existence with death and destruction. Our hearts have grown dark with the pursuit of things that can never make us happy and with things that dishonor God. Because we seek to steal God’s glory for ourselves, we have made ourselves God’s enemies and must pay the price for our sin. It is a price so great that we could never fully pay it in this world, and we must therefore pay it for eternity.
GOD’S PLAN FOR RECONCILIATION
In eternity past, God freely and graciously chose a people to save for His glory. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit agreed among themselves in a covenant that the Son would come into this world as a man to pay the price for sin and save all those who believe in Him. Since the price for sin is God’s eternal wrath, the only one capable of fully paying it is the eternal God himself. But since mankind sinned, the only one capable of identifying with us and bearing our sins is another human being. That’s why God sent Jesus Christ who is truly God, so He could pay for our sins, but who is also truly man, so He could identify with us and bear our sins.
THE GOOD NEWS
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross to pay the price for our sins and rose again to proclaim His victory over sin. He taught us that whoever would place their trust in Him will be saved from sin and reunited with God. Jesus taught us that trusting Him is recognizing that we have no goodness in ourselves that can earn God’s forgiveness and that we need His sacrifice to gain acceptance from God. All human beings are sinful and none deserves God’s forgiveness. The Bible even says that we are incapable of trusting Him because of sin’s corruption, but because Jesus is victorious over sin, He can change our hearts and free us from sin’s grasp so that we can trust in Him and be saved. It gets even better. He has promised that all those who He saves, He will save completely. He will never leave us or forsake us, and He will finish the work of salvation that He started by making us more like Him.
IN THE END…
Jesus will come back to save all those who trust in Him and will gather them into the presence of God forever and ever. He will destroy this sinful world, and all those who have not placed their trust in Him will be separated from His loving grace forever. He will create a new world, free from sin, where we will glorify Him and enjoy Him forever!
