What is the Gospel?

The Background of the Gospel

     Breaking this biblical theology down into the simplest terms, the Gospel is the “truth” of salvation. Roughly translated as “good news” from the Greek word euangelion, the Gospel details both the description and the mechanism of the New Covenant established in the various Old Testament passages (ex. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel). In that regard, we can’t truly understand the purpose and gravity of the Gospel without paying Old Testament a visit to learn about the New Covenant. 

Background on the New Covenant

Exodus 6:6: Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. 

⁷ I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. ⁸ I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’”

     For millennia, God led the Israelites under human liaisons: there was Moses and Aaron, Joshua, the Judges, Kings, and the prophets both major and minor. God wanted a people who walked alongside Him in His values and statutes, but the Israelites continuously rebelled against all of them.

Leviticus 26:45: I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.”

⁴⁶ These are the statutes and rules and laws that the Lord made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai.

     God instituted laws in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. These laws were partly to establish righteousness and partly to establish an ideal culture for His people. If the Israelites would not possess His values naturally, perhaps they could learn them through legality. Of course, this didn’t pan out either.

Daniel 9:11: “All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. And the curse and oath that are written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against him.”

     So, why all of the struggle? Well, the Lord wanted a holy people to Himself, and He purchased that right through His covenant with Abraham.

Genesis 17:8: And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.

     The Israelites were never able to live up to His standard of holiness, and God was willing to shepherd them anyway. However, many of them became tilted against God within their hearts, and that was something God knew was unreconcilable.

Isaiah 29:13: “Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:”

     The Israelites, both those who loved God and those who did not, were incapable of being His holy people. They could not do it by their character or by Mosaic law. This brought a lot of suffering both to God and the Israelites. This suffering was necessary though, as it established the consequences of sin and it established the incredible gravity behind what it meant to be holy.

     The history of the Israelites made it very clear than only God Himself was capable of holiness. This presents a bit of a problem for us, because God’s resting place is Heaven, and nothing unclean can dwell there:

Revelation 21:²² And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. ²³ And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. ²⁴ By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, ²⁵ and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. ²⁶ They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. ²⁷ But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

     So, God announced His decision to make His people holy Himself, consecrating them personally by His own will and works. The Israelites would finally have eternal deliverance and God would finally have His Holy people. Listen to how He describes this New Covenant in Ezekiel:

Ezekiel 36:22: “Therefore say to the Israelites, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: It is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them.

Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I am proved holy through you before their eyes. “24 ” ‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.

26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

The Price of the New Covenant

     These gifts, the gift of forgiveness and the gift of righteousness from God Himself, is an incredible blessing. But, God is a God of justice, and a God of Covenants. Payment must first be made for the atrocity of sin, and the offering must be proportional to the cost.

Leviticus 4:1: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ² “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, If anyone sins unintentionally in any of the Lord‘s commandments about things not to be done, and does any one of them, ³ if it is the anointed priest who sins, thus bringing guilt on the people, then he shall offer for the sin that he has committed a bull from the herd without blemish to the Lord for a sin offering. 

⁴ He shall bring the bull to the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord and lay his hand on the head of the bull and kill the bull before the Lord. ⁵ And the anointed priest shall take some of the blood of the bull and bring it into the tent of meeting, ⁶ and the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle part of the blood seven times before the Lord in front of the veil of the sanctuary.“

     If the wages of sin are death (Romans 6:23), then the covenant must be sealed with a sacrifice. If the life force of men is contained in blood, then blood must spilled and sprinkled upon the alter (Leviticus 17:11). If this pact was to eternally pardon the sins of His people, then someone without sin would have to be offering (Hebrews 10:4-10). You can’t scrub clean a dirty slate with dirty tools, after all.

     Well, the only person who could possibly possess an excess of Holiness that could exceed the totality of unrighteousness from the Israelites would have to one “born” of God, since God was the only one who was holy.

1 Samuel 2:2: “There is none holy like the LORD: for there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God.

     This brings us to Jesus. Jesus was with God eternally, and was of God’s essence. So, Jesus was of God, and Jesus then must be perfect and holy. So, Jesus descended from Heaven and took up the husk of a man. Though Jesus valiantly maintained His holiness in this form, He now had blood that could be shed on the proverbial altar.

     Jesus was a sacrificial lamb, just like the ones sacrificed on the altar by the Levites and their contemporaries to pay for the wages of sin. God would describe this in grisly, but also beautiful, detail in Isaiah 53:

Jesus is the Bridge Between Old Testament Prophecy and New Testament Doctrine

      Even though the doctrines on attaining righteousness in Christianity are different from the Mosaic law, the shared purpose of finding salvation in God allows the Gospel to fulfill the order and prophesy of past covenants. Blood sacrifice for sin is not needed anymore, Jesus paid for it all. Now His Lordship makes us righteous. Each tenet of this statement is readily found in John, chapter 1, which you might notice shares more a few parallels with Isaiah and Ezekiel: 

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

     To start, the Word is the knowledge that would make men righteous. This is a good tie in with Isaiah right off the bat. We know that Jesus possesses this knowledge, equating Him with the Word. Since we know that Jesus is of God, than the Word can be logically equated to God as well.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. 9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.

     John the Baptist prophesized about the coming of Jesus. Even though Jesus, being of God, was around from the beginning, the world had no idea of His true identity. Also of note is Jesus being equated with light, this is a stark contrast to sin, which is equated to darkness. These parallels between the Old and New Testament are still holding strong.

11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

     Look closely at verse 12. Just like in Isaiah 53, the knowledge of Jesus makes men righteous. Not just that righteous, but it specifically grants people the ability to become children of God. Just as prophesized, it is by Jesus that God will attain His holy people.

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) 16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

     John 1:17 confirms this concept. Jesus fulfilled the Mosaic law. Sanctification would be ultimately obtained by grace, rather than sacrifice and law. 

So, How Do We Receive This Salvific Grace From Jesus?

     The stressed importance of the Gospel is that this salvation is given as grace from God. Men themselves are incapable of attaining this by their own righteousness. In that regard, belief and submission to the Gospel of Jesus is the operative medium of grace, which in turn is the operative mechanism of receiving salvation:

     John 3:16-18: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

     The belief of Jesus’ messianic role and His Lordship is specifically the knowledge that makes men righteous. Keep in mind that Him being the Son of God, is necessary for both. An important condition is added on to this salvific belief, in order for it to be valid this belief must be one that results in submission and repentance, only then will one be spared God’s wrath and have eternal life. 

     John 3:33-36: Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

    Let’s expand even more on this often mentioned knowledge: The words of God that Jesus utters grant the Spirit (which will later often be associated with truth and life) without measure. 

     John 6:66-69: After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

     The Holy Spirit, a benevolent emissary and extension of God, will later be entrusted with guiding His chosen people to understand and live by the Gospel. This is how God will put His laws on the hearts of His people: 

Jeremiah 31:33: For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Here it is again in Hebrews:

Hebrews 10:16: “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,”

What is the Gospel, Scripturally Speaking? 

     So, now we know in detail about what the Gospel is, but how is it actually professed in scripture? My personal favorite expression of the Gospel comes from Peter:

     Acts 10:36-43: As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.

     He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree,

     40 but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

     Now, while there are many verses offering elaboration of various aspects of the Gospel, Paul explains a more concise and concrete version in 1 Corinthians:

     1 Corinthians 15:1-6: “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you – unless you believed in vain.

     For I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep”.

Let’s break these two proclamations of the Gospel down into four steps:

1. Jesus Christ died for payment of our sins. 
2. Jesus was buried; He truly died a mortal death. His blood sealed this New covenant made back in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel between God and the Israelites.
3. Jesus was raised back to life after three days, proving He is the Son of God, who has mastery over life and death.
4. Those who believe in Him (and repent) will be sanctified so that may be consecrated for God. Jesus appeared to the many of His believers, so that they would believe He had done this.

     Why is this specific (and very literalist) interpretation so important? Because no glory is counted to man, and all glory is counted to God. Jesus could resurrect Himself only because He is God. Following God the Father’s intentions, Jesus died for our sins so that God would obtain a righteous people for Himself, in which He would manifest His glory.

How Does the Gospel Glorify God? Is The Gospel Congruent with the Old Testament? 

     Man did not become righteous themselves and they certainly did not attain perfect lives free from sin, but they received this grace by God’s mercy. This is why Jesus can authoritatively state there are no good men on earth, while at the same time He prepares a place for them in Heaven. We know that this is not a strictly New Testament concept.

     To reiterate, God sparing people on the basis of mercy is something that glorifies Himself, and He does so throughout the Old Testament.

Isaiah 43:25: I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

     Exodus 33:19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

     Psalms 32:5: Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord. And you forgave the guilt of my sin.

     Psalms 103:8-11: The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

     Psalm 51:1: Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness. According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions.

      Even back in the days of the Old Testament, God was granting mercy and forgiving sins for the unrighteous. Notably in Psalms, God shows steadfast love and mercy toward those who fear Him and acknowledge their sins. He was not judging them on a sin-by-sin basis. Man did not make themselves righteous purely through obedience to the Law, God Himself was providing them mercy they did not deserve. Look at how this had exalted God both in Exodus and Psalms.

    Jesus’s life, the Gospel He brought, and His death are a continuation and fulfillment of God’s mercy and power that He had demonstrated then.  Let’s look at Jeremiah:

     Jeremiah 31:31-34: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.

      And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

     Jesus is the messiah, the Son of God, and our Lord. God states that He remembers the sins of those who know the Lord no more. He writes a Law on their hearts, so that they may seek and recognize God and His laws intrinsically. The just and merciful God of the Old Testament is reflected in the sacrifice and teaches of Jesus in the New Testament. 

Is Acceptance and Observance of the Gospel Sufficient for Salvation?

     For some background, many denominations of Christianity do not treat the Gospel truths as sufficient for salvation. They introduce new practices and new offices beyond Jesus that must be submitted to for salvation. This is heresy, because the Gospel was given completely be Jesus Himself.

     The fulfillment of the New Covenant outlined is demonstrated when Jesus, the Word of God incarnated as man, manifested the truths and will of God to the people. After ministering to the people, Jesus died and rose again so people would believe and be saved. This Gospel is complete and sufficient. Jesus Himself summarizes this in the High Priestly Prayer:

     John 17:1-5: When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

     Jesus’ purpose here on Earth was to bring salvation to God’s people. He did so by dying to eternal pay for their sins and by teaching Gospel truths that the Holy Spirit would use to guide Christians to walk by God’s precepts. Look at the underlined passage, Jesus already accomplished this role. All knowledge and tools pertaining to salvation have already been established in their entirety.

     Jesus also reaffirms John 1 when He states that God had given Him authority over all flesh and the sufficient power to give eternal life. No new offices, like the Papacy, have any right or power to challenge Jesus’ assertion or authority. If you believe in Jesus’ Lordship, than you must accept that He delivered a complete Gospel and that He provided all the necessary tool for God to have His holy people. 

 Notice what follows in reference to this:

     John 17:6-10: “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.

     Jesus fulfilled God’s task by manifesting God’s name and preaching the words God has given Him. He did so in a way that these people would know that Jesus and His Word came directly from God. To argue the Gospel in insufficient, that new practices and leaders are needed, is now to reject both Jesus and God. 

     John 17:11-14: And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

     Jesus has since then left the world to reside with God. The High Priestly prayer was made with the context that He was to be crucified shortly after. In His absence, the Word Jesus had spoken of during His ministry keeps His people oriented toward God with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

     Most notably, Jesus specified that He had “given” them God’s Word, the same one He intended to impart among His people all the way back in Isaiah and Jeremiah. The Gospel is complete and sufficient, not just for salvation, but even for the joy of Jesus.

     John 15-23: I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

      Jesus reaffirms that the words He had spoken, God’s Word, is truth. This truth consecrates people, as in, it imputes them with sacredness or holiness. People themselves are not holy, they do not make themselves holy. Our righteousness is the product Jesus’ actions and the dispensation of the Holy Spirit that would soon follow. 

    Jesus fulfilled the New Covenant through his sacrifices and the provision of the Gospel so that in the time of judgement God would a righteous people who could walk with Him.  Jesus then re-emphasizes the importance of Christians to believe in Him, and that He was sent by the Father.

24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.

     Jesus resides in Heaven with God the Father, and as stated in Revelation 21:27. Nothing impure can enter Heaven. Jesus died so His blood would once and forever pay for the sins of God’s chosen people (we will cover more of this later).

For God’s Chosen, the Gospel Itself Is Immediately Salvific

     Notice how the Gospel is announced as complete and sufficient for salvation long before the establishment of any legalistic Christian denomination. There is no need for anything to be added. People certainly need to seek Jesus and live for Him, but this is explicitly because they’ve accepted the Gospel with a belief that comes from the heart rather than just through words and rites. This topic will be further expanded upon in following chapters.

     But for now, here is our biblical example of the total sufficiency of the Gospel for realizing salvation:

     Acts 11:34 So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36 As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), 37 you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

     39 And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, 40 but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. 43 To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

     Look at the underlined passage, this is salvation by the grace of God, provided through faith in Jesus. No rites, traditions, or theocratic offices were needed. You want to know what irrefutable evidence of a saved man is? Imputation of the Holy Spirit is pretty good example. Look at what happens below at Pentecost, after these people heard the Gospel from Peter:

44 While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. 45 And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. 46 For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, 47 “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” 48 And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.

     Peter would later recount to the Early Church, situated in Jerusalem, how it was specifically the receipt of the Gospel that facilitated the imputation of the Holy Spirit onto Cornelius and his household:

  Acts 11:12 And the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. 13 And he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter; 14 he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’ 15 As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning.

16 And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”

In Closing

     I opened this chapter with the argument that the belief and adherence to the Gospel was the complete truth for salvation. 6,000 words of scriptural arguments later and I have now closed it that way. Thousands of years of Old Testament prophecy and New Testament doctrine are all in flawless accordance with this.

     So, make no mistake, the truth of the Gospel and submission to Jesus’ Lordship is the beginning and end of salvation. Anything added to that assertion is heresy. God wants you, so Jesus died for you. Let’s take a moment to appreciate it.