The Gospel — Al Whittinghill

The Roman Road and the Miracle of Conversion

Perhaps you've heard people talk about the Roman road, the way to Jesus, or the four spiritual laws. People read those and they believe that. They may think that because they believe some facts and pray the prayer that they have become a Christian.

Encountering God's Holiness and Human Sinfulness

But being a Christian is a marvelous miracle. It's when suddenly in my own world the Word of God comes to me and I hear with my inner ears by the Holy Spirit that God is holy and that I am not in harmony with Him.

It's a dreadful experience to discover that we're not as good as we thought we were and we're just undone. And as the Word comes and says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, sometimes we think that means just bad things we've done.

Salvation Is Found in the Person of Jesus

But we fail to realize that something in us is so antagonistic toward someone else actually being our love Lord. You see, the Roman road is not the plan of salvation. The plan of salvation has never saved anyone.

You can believe the plan and never be saved. It is the man of salvation that saves, about whom the plan is all about. It's not the Roman road that saves you, believed. It leads to the feet of the risen Lord Jesus.

Adam's Fall and the Need for a Second Adam

God so loved a sinful world, a world that was out of touch, could care less, that He became a man to undo what the first man did, which was go his own way. Adam had it all going for him. And God said, the day you choose independently from Me, you will die.

And Adam chose to be his own Lord and his own boss. And that day, the Holy Spirit was taken out of Adam. And since that day, death has passed upon all the sons of Adam, and there's been darkness within.

And how would they ever recover? God Himself breathed into that virgin's womb. We celebrate that, the birth of the Lord Jesus, God became a man, grew up, and He became what Adam was before the fall, the second man, the Bible says.

Christ's Substitutionary Death and Justification

And as He grew, He became that Lamb of God, sinless, faultless, blameless, so that when He went to the cross to pay Adam's wages for sin, God the Father was able to be totally righteous in laying on the Lord Jesus, my sin, your sin, and the sin of the whole world.

So that now, since Jesus has been crucified and His blood was the payment for sin, whosoever will may come freely, justified by the precious blood of Christ, that His death became your death, and your sin became His sin, and He who knew no sin became sin for you, so that you and I, sinners, could become the righteousness of God in Him.

The Resurrection and the Son of God

But see, it's not just His death. As He was buried, God put away sin by the sacrifice of His Son and raised Him from the dead because death couldn't hold Him. He was the sinless Lamb of God. God raised Him from the dead and declared Him to be the Son of God with power.

Christ's Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood

And after 40 days of showing Himself to His disciples and them realizing that what you see and hear and smell and taste and touch is not all there is, there is an eternal dwelling place that He is going to prepare for us.

So He ascended into heaven from where He took His blood that He shed on Calvary right into the throne room of the Heavenly Father, sprinkled it on the throne of the universe, Hebrews tells us, and sat down having paid for your sin and mine.

The Holy Spirit and the Indwelling Life of Christ

Now because of that, He sent the Spirit of God, the third person of the Trinity, back into the world that whosoever would believe in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, they could repent of running their own life, being independent from God, and having a basically just a dead religious life.

Everybody believes in God in some extent, but when you believe on Jesus and He sends His Holy Spirit into your heart, you become a Christian and His life becomes your life. And that's what it means to be a Christian, that it's not you living for Jesus, it's the living resurrected Jesus coming to live His life in you, forgiven and belonging to Him.