"Good Good News vs. Bad Good News"

We’ve all seen religious leaflets someone leaves in our front doors or in restaurant bathrooms; or, from time to time we see them being blown about on downtown sidewalks on a windy day. Sure you’ve seen them: the kind a zealous person hands to you as you round a street corner or you find shoved under the windshield wiper of your vehicle at a mall parking lot.

Most such leaflets begin by telling you the "good news" about how much God loves you, but then go on to stress in gory, vivid detail that because you are a terrible sinner, God is going to cast you into a fiery hell in which you will burn forever as punishment for a lifetime of sin. Oh, it’s true they also tell you about a way out of such terrible doom, but often the major emphasis of the leaflet is on your horrible, everlasting punishment in hell if you don’t "get right with God." I guess the writers of such leaflets are trying to "scare the hell out of you" and make you plead with God to break you out of hell in some cosmic jail break.

Whoever provided you that type of leaflet probably has the best of intentions—but such intentions all too often translate into brazen audacity to think the emphasis upon everlasting punishment is "good news" that will literally scare the hell out of you and make you turn to God because He is so loving. Forget about that kind of so-called good news. It’s not!

But there is honest-to-God good news for you. And it comes from the same Bible the "bad news" people get their information from. It’s all a matter of the Bible reader’s point of view. Same Bible, two widely differing views. This article is about the good news view. I’ve summarized most of the information in this paper from various references throughout the Bible. If you don’t believe the Bible, that’s okay. Just read along anyhow. It’ll only take a few minutes of your time and could possibly make some sense to you. Maybe. Maybe not.

Here are a couple of facts most thinking people know almost instinctively. One of them is we are all sinners and are going to die. Please note I didn’t say we’re all going to die and burn in hell forever. I merely said we’re all going to die; if you don’t believe that, you may want to rethink your position because so far everyone who has ever been born has either died or is slated to die. I don’t know of any exceptions. What about sin? Okay, let’s just put it this way: we all violate rules and act against our consciences; can you accept that concept of sin? And we’re all mortal—meaning we will all die. So far this doesn’t sound like very good news, does it. In fact, it sounds like the "bad" good news we mentioned above. But keep reading. Good news is on the way—

In the Bible, God assures us we’re in this sin-full, death-full condition through no fault of our own. God places the human responsibility for our condition upon an incident that occurred in the lives of our remote ancestors, Adam and Eve. They turned against God thousands of years ago and all their descendants—that’s us—became subject to mortality and death.

We didn’t "choose" Adam and Eve as our first ancestors. We had no choice at all in the matter. We had no choice in our mortality and being placed on "death row." Yet we sin, suffer mortality, and will die simply because we were born. Oh, it’s true that when we sin, we exercise our own volition; we sin willingly and experience the consequences. Nevertheless, death will come to each of us, not because we chose to be born as mortal, sinful human beings, but simply because we are here on planet earth—through no choice of our own.

In fact, God claims direct responsibility for placing the entire human race in the condition in which we find ourselves. Yes, God made us mortal sinners! God placed us in the world to experience both good and evil for very specific reasons. I’m going to put it to you bluntly: It’s God’s fault you are a mortal sinner who will die some day! This still isn’t sounding like very good news, is it?! But at least it presents a radically different—and more hopeful—view from the traditional Christian view you may have heard or read.

Okay, in a nutshell, here’s the "good" good news: Through the death of Jesus on the cross some 2,000 years ago, God has already saved all of us from our dying condition as mortal sinners. Yep, it’s all taken care of. Totally. Completely. He put us in our sinful, mortal condition. He’s fully responsible. So…it’s his job to get us out of the condition we find ourselves in. And that’s what he’s done. God assures us that because of Jesus dying on the cross on our behalf, we will all be set free from sin, "overcome" death, and experience immortality.

Through what Jesus did on our behalf God has set us free from our mortal dying condition, forgiven us of all our sins, and reconciled us to himself. That has been his intention all along. Those have always been his plans and purposes for every human born since Adam and Eve.

God left nothing to chance. Remember, none of us had any choice in becoming mortal sinners. But, being sinners, we have all sinned through our own volition, choosing to sin. Nothing we do can change our mortal, sinful condition. Also, there’s nothing we can do to make ourselves righteous ("right with God") or earn God’s good favor toward us. From the very beginning, God placed all humans in this "school of hard knocks" we call life, subjecting us to a mixture of good and evil, with the same goal in mind—that each of us will ultimately desire to love him and have fellowship with him. Such qualities as goodness, love, joy, peace, and the like cannot be truly appreciated without experiencing their absence, their loss, or their opposites.

Again, in saving us from our sinful, mortal condition, God has left nothing to chance. God’s salvation from our sin is totally his work on our behalf. It was fully accomplished by Jesus’ obedience to God, his death on the cross, and his resurrection. That’s the sheer beauty of God’s plan. Jesus died for every human ever created. God’s intention has always been to save every human being ever born on this planet. He will be satisfied with nothing less. Every single one of us will be set free from our sin and mortality in due time.

If the Bible teaches anything, it’s that God saves us totally by grace. What is grace? It means God has done it all because he loves us all. He has taken the initiative totally and completely. God has done all there is to be done on our behalf to free us from sin and rescue us from death. Why? Because he loves each one of us completely, totally, unconditionally, and eternally.

There are no conditions we have to perform or live up to in order to be saved. We have already been saved because of what Jesus did on our behalf over 2,000 years ago. We don’t have to weep and moan over our sins, be baptized, tithe, join a church, speak in tongues—whatever. We are saved simply by believing the good news.

But even that’s not completely true. Faith—belief—is not a condition; it’s the result of what God has done for us. Faith to believe is given us by God. Not only is there nothing we can do to "qualify" for salvation, or to "earn" God’s forgiveness, but nothing we do after receiving God’s salvation can disqualify us from fully experiencing that salvation. Nothing! According to God’s eternal plans and purposes, he has worked it out so some people will freely receive this gift of salvation in this life. Every one else will be saved later. But all humans ever born, each in his or her own order—before time ends—will receive the salvation secured by Jesus on the cross.

So what, specifically, is this good news from God? Jesus, God’s son, died and rose from the dead, and he did it for you! Jesus actually died; that’s one of history’s most well-established facts. His death secured forgiveness of our sins. Jesus was actually raised from the dead by God; that’s an historical fact, too. His resurrection made us completely righteous and sin-free—from God’s vantage point. As far as God is concerned, we are already totally forgiven sinners and completely righteous. Not only that, but God has completely reconciled us to himself. Reconciled means we and God are best friends again. There is no condemnation for anyone ever again—only peace and friendship between God and each of us.

Jesus accomplished all this for us while we were still sinners. In fact, this full and complete salvation was planned even before God created the world. God has no backup plans. There is no "Plan B." There is just the one plan—worked out by God before the world was created, and accomplished by Jesus 2,000 years ago. The sin of Adam and Eve did not take God by surprise, causing him to have to scramble around and wrack his brain to come up with some alternate plan.

Hey, God is God. He is absolutely sovereign. He knows the beginning from the end and everything in between. He is working out all things according to his eternal plans and purposes. His intention has always been to save all human beings, to fully reconcile us to him. In fact, even God’s enemies are fulfilling all his intentions. Good and evil are both necessary to fully reveal God and his goodness and love for each of us.

You may have been informed that billions of people are going to spend eternity in "hell." Nothing could be further from the truth. The Bible does not teach that. Period! That would mean God is a failure—either unable to save those he wants to save, or unwilling to save all he could have saved. That’s not good news. That’s bad news. That’s not what the Bible—properly understood—teaches.

"Hell," as most people have learned to envision it in our day and age, is medieval, dark ages fiction foisted on people to keep them in line in an attempt to "scare the hell out of them." Oh, don’t misunderstand me: there is a state of being called hell, but it serves an entirely different purpose than what you’ve been taught. It’s a "place" of cleansing, correction, and discipline, not a never-ending place of punishment for sin.

You may have been taught that people can refuse God, eternally resist God’s will, even choose to be lost, or—if not careful—become disqualified and "lose" their salvation because of sin or neglect. Again, nothing could be further from the truth. How could we possibly disqualify ourselves from something we never "qualified for" in the first place. Salvation is a free gift to everyone from a good and loving God.

What do we have to do to be saved? Nothing! Jesus is the savior; we aren’t. He is the one who saves. He’s the good shepherd who seeks and finds every lost sheep: us. Me. YOU! Jesus doesn’t seek and save us provisionally, potentially, or conditionally. He actually seeks for, finds, and saves every lost sheep—and returns them to God’s sheepfold.

Are you a sinner? C’mon, be honest. Yes, you are. Are you going to die? Same answer. But God has included your salvation in his eternal plans and purposes. Jesus died for you and rose from the dead for you. Believe it. When you do, that doesn’t save you; that’s merely proof that you have already been saved by the Savior. Reconciliation and peace with God are already yours now—this instant. This is the real good news!

Forget about the bad news. There’s enough of that going around. Just accept all that God has done for you. And then move on, enjoying life to its fullest and enjoying your new-found peace and fellowship with God. He’s done all that needs to be done for you. Receive it. Enjoy it.