The Simplicity of Christ's Gospel

This is the season for giving and receiving gifts, but oftentimes the wrapping and the color of the bow and trimmings are more glorious than the gift inside.

There are many ways in which gifts may not live up to their billing - they run out, they lack essential parts, they require assembly, they fail to satisfy for very long.

But the Angels announced the perfect gift to the shepherds that night: A Savior Who is Christ the Lord! Christ is the most glorious, most perfect gift that was ever given to men!

Man is lost in sin and rebellion, and the punishment from an offended God is eternal. But Christ brings salvation and eternal life to as many as believe on Him! There can be no gift greater than Christ's Gospel of redemption and everlasting joy!

And that great gift is received by simply trusting in the Lord Jesus! How often He asserted the simplicity of it all: whosever believeth in Me shall have everlasting life!

To believe in Christ is to know Who He really is - the Lord of Glory, God manifest in the flesh; to believe the promise of salvation He announced; and to rely upon the means that He has used to accomplish His promise of salvation.

No matter how deep the theological teachings of the rest of the Scriptures, they cannot and they do not undermine the stark simplicity and beauty of the Gospel of Salvation from the lips of Christ Himself.

Indeed, the theology of Paul, the hope of the prophets of old, and the symbols of the old sacrificial system, all explain the means by which Christ's simple promise of salvation by faith in Him is accomplished.

None of the work of redemption is shifted onto us. Christ finished all the work at Calvary!