by George Gregory

Created on: October 30, 2009

Why are the Gospels "Good News"? Perhaps we need to examine the concept of faith to understand better.

There are two meanings for the word faith. One is a noun, as in "the Christian Faith". In this age of pluralism and live-and-let-live, the Christian faith in particular is represented as merely one of a smorgasbord of spiritual options for the inquiring. You can adopt this faith, or that faith; all are considered legitimate.

The other meaning is better rendered "trust". It is an active, relational word, and presupposes an Object of trust. Trust is something you can work with. It is something we choose to do, as in choosing to have faith in someone; to decide to trust in someone as reliable.

In spiritual terms, this trust assumes there a real, uncreated God. Trust is something you can have in a person: it is not just a conviction, opinion or a belief about how things work; nor is it a set of rules. Many people think God is just an idea, something we made up, but Christians believe God is an uncreated Person, one who made us and cares about how we live. What makes Christianity so radical is not so much the moral teaching (which isn't substantively different than any of the world religions) but the Good News that we can now have a relationship with this very real, self-existent God, a 24/7, one-on-one encounter with the One who came to earth as a human baby, grew up, had a ministry, died, and resurrected to make this relationship possible.

The issue is that faith - trust - is a heart sort of thing, and it's our heart that God wants. In fact, it's all He's ever really wanted. What God lost when man fell was our hearts. When we break His moral Law, we are saying that we think God is holding out on us, and that we want to try our own way, thank you very much. We choose to not trust that He knows best when we reject His moral law, walling off in our hearts places that God isn't allowed to go.

All religions - including Christianity - recognize the transcendent nature of morality. In most cases a code of behavior is put forth, and a person's worthiness before their deity is measured by how well they conform. The history of religion is one of ritual, law, and man-made attempts to get through to God. It's all about what we can do for God to be found worthy.

Christianity - as delineated in the Bible - is radically different. The Good News in a nutshell: though our moral imperfection has separated us from God, through Christ's sacrifice God has made a way back to relationship,

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