Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Reading from Ambassador International!

This month, as we observe the Easter season, let us remember our Lord and Saviour and the true reason for celebration: the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Without the sacrifice Jesus made by dying on the cross, we would have no reason to celebrate. Through His resurrected life, we have new life.

Every spring, we see the evidence of different plants coming up, sprouting, and blossoming all around us creating something that wasn’t there before. The regeneration and awakening of nature after a long winter reminds us of the sin we left behind and the new life we have been given with Christ through His victory over sin, death, and the grave.

It is for this reason that I have chosen an excerpt from Jacob Taggart’s book, Theology from the Spring. Jacob amplifies, through his expertise and analysis, the best news ever: that of Jesus Christ through his death on the cross and resurrection from the grave.

“The work of Jesus is very simply His life and death – as prophesied by prophets of old that the vicarious death of the Savior would bear the wrath of God against the sins of His people. And that is just what Jesus did. Jesus lived the perfect life we could not live, satisfied God’s perfect Law we could not satisfy, and yet suffered the sacrificial death that we should have received. In what I call ‘the Divine exchange,’ Jesus stood in our place, gorily crucified on a cross, where God the Father placed our sin and punishment upon Him, in order to transfer His perfect righteousness to us (2 Cor. 5:21). Only by this righteousness imputed, not infused, to the account of our souls, are we able to stand before God without fear of our just condemnation. Rather, we can now stand before God with the righteousness of Jesus. The genius of the atonement’s redemptive plan speaks to its Divine origin, as it provides something no other world religion can: a solution for our guilt and need for righteousness.

Fortunately, the work of Jesus did not end with His sacrificial death on a cross. Death could not defeat Him, so, as the Bible tells us, ‘Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures’ (1 Cor. 15:3b-4). After His resurrection, Jesus ascended into Heaven, seated next to the Father’s right hand, ruling and making intercession for His people. Therefore, Jesus did for us what we could not possibly do for ourselves. Such is the beauty of the Gospel. When humanity’s most natural inclination is to say, ‘Give me the rules, so I can follow them; I can work to be good enough to save myself,’ the Gospel says, ‘No, you can’t . . . but God, rich in mercy, has done it for you.’ When the world says, ‘Peace and contentment can be found if you will just validate yourself to all,’ the Gospel says, ‘Everlasting joy and comfort is yours because you no longer have to validate yourself to God, other people, or your pride.’ The Gospel is the ultimate metanarrative of humanity, bookended with contrasts: by one man, universal sin and universal guilt entered the world. But by another came infinite righteousness, so that sin may reign no more . . . ”

“This is the Gospel, the Good News that God saves sinners, doing for us what we could never do for ourselves, in spite of ourselves. It is a Gospel of contrasts – where simple meets profound, where good news meets bad news, where wrath meets love, where grace meets justice, where self-sufficiency meets self-surrender, where death meets life, and where God meets us – yet without compromising His holy character. This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the best news you could ever hear. This is the Gospel with a Foundation you can stand on.”

May we all seek to remember the Foundation Jesus laid through His sacrifice and resurrection this Easter season.