Why the Gospel is So Amazing

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 (John 17:22-23)

Looking at these two verses taken from Jesus’ high priestly prayer, I can only marvel: perhaps never has so much consequential truth been revealed in so few words.

First, Jesus reveals how the gospel of his glory will come to all nations. He asks that the Church be made one so that the world will come to know the gospel. The biblical theology of missions in this passage has been expounded in So the World Will Know by J. Christopher Evans, so I won’t repeat that here.

What I want to draw your attention to here is one of the most wonderful expressions of the greatest truth in the world, the gospel. Here Jesus reveals:

What the gospel is
How it is given
Why it is given

WHAT THE GOSPEL IS

To paraphrase John Stott, “The gospel is not good advice; it is good news.” God doesn’t tell us what we must do to save ourselves. Given our fallen condition, that’s impossible. In fact, God delivers us from the vain quest of religion, i.e. trying to gain favor with the holy God through our own efforts.

The vain quest originated in the Garden of Eden when Satan implanted the idea that we can be “as God” through our own efforts while not believing what God said and disobeying what he commanded. This is deeply embed in our old nature and it doesn’t die quickly or easily. The good news is that God saves us not only from our sins but also from our “good works.” As John Gerstner said, “The main thing between you and God is not so much your sins; it’s your damnable good works.”

Rather than telling us what we need to do to be saved, God tells us what he has done to save us. The good news is that Jesus Christ has given us his glory. That’s right, Jesus actually gives us his glory. Here he is not speaking of his divine glory; that glory is not shared (Isaiah 42:8). He is speaking of his glory as the new Adam, the head of a new humanity untainted by sin and free to live a life of love, as Jesus did (1 Corinthians 15:45-49).

The good news is that God has given us eternal life as a gift apart from any merit on our part. Grace is unmerited favor, but God’s grace goes a step further. It is unmerited favor in spite of actual demerit. “He made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

HOW IT IS GIVEN

Jesus Christ didn’t just show up in the world. The Father sent him into the world to accomplish a specific mission. HIs mission was to save us. He was sent to become the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

Jesus Christ willingly took upon himself the sins of the world that we might be forgiven and reconciled to God. God could only grant a principled forgiveness, so the sins of the world had to be accounted and paid for. Since man sinned, a representative man had to die. The just penalty for sin is death. But one man, even a perfect man, could only pay the penalty for one sinner. And only God himself could pay the price of this staggering magnitude for the multitude of sins committed by billions of sinners. Therefore the Word who was God had to become flesh in order to redeem us from our sins.

The Father loves us the same way he loves his Son (17:23).

Let that sink in for a moment. Here is the heart of the gospel. It’s so astounding that it’s hard to take in. But when we do, it is transformative. As Tim Keller suggested, at some level we often don’t really realize this in our hearts though we might know it in our heads. If we did really grasp it in our hearts, we would be a lot happier, a lot more secure and a lot more free from the trinkets of this world, Keller suggests.

How does the Father love the Son? Freely, fully and forever. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit live eternally in perfect, joyful, mutual love. The holy triune God is the fountainhead of holy love. Through the gospel, the Son extends that love to his people.

This love was given as a gift before we did anything good or bad. In fact God granted it to us even before he created the universe:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ…(Ephesians 1:3-5).

God’s love for you originated before time began and it will never end: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 136:1).

So here is the heart of the gospel: The Father chose to love us just as he loves his Son before he created the universe. And we are destined to enjoy that love in this world and throughout eternity: “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28).