I’ve Got Good News and Bad News

You have to hear the bad news first.

I am writing this with a little frustration. On the one hand it is no trouble for me to repeat gospel truths. But, I am frustrated that many who have heard it before don’t seem to grasp it or remember it. Perhaps this is an evil on my part, for I am more lowly than most and yet by His grace alone I have attained a measure of understanding. Indeed, my Lord maybe wounded by my lack of understanding in light of the measure of grace portioned out for me. So now I come to have charity for those who have not understood the bad news. And it is with charity that I seek to explain it now.

We all must hear this bad news for it gives us the context necessary for understanding the good news. You cannot receive the good news until you have understood and accepted the bad news. The bad news is that mankind is inherently evil and deserving eternal punishment in hell. The good news is that Jesus Christ has redeemed those who put their faith in Him. You must trust that Jesus’ death on the cross paid the penalty for you sin. If you have not yet come to see yourself as a sinner then you have nothing to trust Christ for.

The Heidelberg Catechism was prepared in 1562 as a guide for instructing people in the Christian faith. It is divided into 52 sections to provide a year’s teaching. On the first day we are asked, “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” In brief the answer is that I belong to my savior Jesus Christ. The second question for the day is, “What must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?” The answer is, “Three things: first, how great my sin and misery are; second, how I am set free from all my sins and misery; third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance.” In the next section, the teaching for week two out of fifty-two, we are asked, “How do you come to know your misery?” We find that this is what the Word of God teaches, and we learn what is required of us (the greatest commandment, Mark 12:28-31). Then we are asked, “Can you live up to all this perfectly?” The answer: “No, I have a natural tendency to hate God and my neighbor.”

We see in the example of the catechism, which is the fruit of the Reformation, the need to first accept the bad news of our sinfulness before the good news of Christ rescuing us from our sinfulness makes any sense. Having made a case for the necessity of preaching the bad news, let us turn to the Scriptures.

I’d like to start with Isaiah 64:6, “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” In the context of Isaiah crying out for mercy for Israel we have here a description fitting for all mankind. Even the good things people do are filthy and evil in God’s sight. I share this because I recently had someone I care for tell me of their unbelieving loved one whom they were sure would make it to heaven because the unbeliever lives such a good life. Even the best life, if it is lived apart from faith in and dependence on God, will not glorify Him and will be evil in His sight. And so it will not save. The poor soul will not go to heaven. Paul says of God, “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior” (Titus 3:5-6).

Let me share the good news at this point. Actually John 3:16-18 will give us both: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved by Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” The good news is that those who believe in Jesus will go to heaven when they die, and spend eternity with our Lord.

I now offer a few more Scripture quotations as evidence of our sinfulness. In Psalm 51:5 David writes, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” This is true of us all for as Paul said with reference to Adam and the Fall, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” If all sinned then all are under the penalty of hell, and only those who believe the gospel will escape this judgment. Early in Romans Paul has testified to the sinfulness of all mankind quoting Psalm 14, “…we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written, ‘There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God’” (Roman 3:9-11). One other quote form Paul that I wish to offer comes from Ephesians 2:3, “Among them we too formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” Speak of Christians he says that we were what non-believers still are, children of wrath by nature. So this is the natural state of all mankind. Verse five reveals that until God makes someone alive with Christ they are dead in their sins. And all whom God makes alive exercise faith, so apart from faith no one can be saved.

In light of the bad news, let us who have received the good news be all the more eager to share both.