The Gospel is the Good News. And the Good News is that Christ died for our sins. He has redeemed us so that we can have access to Heaven. No longer will our souls remain in the land of the dead.....a place which the Jews called "Sheol." Christ has conquered death, so that we no longer have to fear death. There is a resurrection for us because Christ came down and died for us.
The Good News is God's love for us. God loved us so much that He gave His only Begotten Son that those who believe in Him will not perish (John 3:16). God loves all sinners. He loved us even when we sinned just as St. Paul stated:
Romans 5:6-8 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Dear Steve Finnell,
ReplyDeleteThe title of my posts is "God Loves All Sinners", which you posted on my blog. God loves all sinners, including the pagans. It has nothing to do with "universal salvation" because there is such thing as Heaven and Hell. St. Paul spoke these words to the Gentile converts in Rome:
Romans 5:6-8 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
St. Paul said that even when they were still sinners, Christ died for them. At the actual time of Christ's death, these Gentile converts did not even know who Christ was until the Gospel was preached to them. Christ loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him would not perish. It is up to Christians to go out into the pagan world to preach the good news to them so that they can come to know Christ.
Why does God loved the world so much that He gave His only Begotten Son for them?? Because mankind was created in God's image and likeness. God views all of us as His children because He created all of us in His image and likeness. It is in this that we are all "Children of God." St. Paul understood this when he called the pagans in Athens "God's offsprings."
Acts17:22-29 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.....................“Therefore since we are GOD'S OFFSPRING, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill.
As you can see from the Holy Bible, St. Paul called the pagans in Athens "God's offspring". It means that they are also His children created in His image and likeness, and this is why He sent St. Paul to preach the Gospels to them so that those who believe in Christ will not perish. And when a person is baptized, then the person becomes a "son or daughter of God" in which the seed of faith is planted in them, so that they may grow in faith.