When people say “no, our problem is this, or our problem is that”. We say, no our problem is that God created the world and God created man and he put man in the garden to keep the garden and he gave the man a command and he held that man to perfect perpetual obedience to that command and he promised him life if he kept it and death if he didn’t.
Adam didn’t keep it. He ate and because he ate, because of that one man, sin entered the world and death through sin, and everyone born from that man through ordinary generation inherited that man’s sin nature. Because of that sin nature sins proceed from it and our world is broken because of that sin and we stand guilty before a holy and righteous God. We know that he’s holy and we know that he’s righteous and we crave justice, but the problem is that if God gives us justice, we all die.
God, in his goodness and in his mercy, sent forth his son who was not born of ordinary generation but was born of a virgin. Yes, the virgin birth matters. Why? Because if Christ is born of ordinary generation, he’s born in sin but because he’s not born of ordinary generation he’s not born in sin. He is clean of sin his record is clean and he keeps his record clean, and he obeys God’s law. Because he’s fully God and fully man he obeys the law of God on our behalf and his active obedience.
And then in his passive obedience God made him who knew no sin, to be sin for us all. We, like sheep, had gone astray. Each of us had turned to his own way but God laid upon him the iniquity of us all and Christ died for sin. Once, for all the just, for the unjust and God imputes our sinfulness to him. He nails our sinfulness to the tree and Christ dies and raises again on the third day for our justification.
And there’s another imputation. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to us so that God can be both just and the justifier of the one who places faith in Jesus Christ so that all those who come to Christ may enter so that all those who place faith in Christ might be saved. Not only saved but sanctified because he’s the firstborn of many brethren we’re justified and we’re adopted into the family of God and we’re sanctified and as his children we begin to bear the family resemblance and we’re further sanctified throughout this life by the very same gospel that saves us until one day when it’s all said and done we’re not just saved from the penalty of sin we’re not just saved from the power of sin but one day we’re glorified and saved from the very presence of sin.
That’s the gospel that we preach. That’s the gospel that we need and that’s the gospel that’s more than enough.
