by 
By Bob George
I tell you the truth, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed from death to life. ~ John 5:24
For the longest time, my explanation of the gospel centered solely on the forgiveness issue. If you had asked me as a Christian how I was saved, I would have answered, “Through Christ’s death on the cross.”
Down through the years I’ve often asked people, “What does it mean to be saved?” In most cases they reply, “Jesus died for my sins, and there will be a place for me in heaven when I die.”
For a long time I used what I thought was an effective illustration of the forgiveness issue to help explain salvation. The illustration shows a person standing at the side of a cliff overlooking a deep chasm with God on the other side. In the illustration, the cross of Jesus is what bridges the gap and enables us to experience God’s forgiveness.
In the past several years, however, I’ve discovered the gospel is more than forgiveness. Now my illustration has taken on a new, even deeper meaning.
From the time that I received Christ, Romans has been one of my favorite books of the Bible. I’ve read it dozens of times. But during one of my readings, Romans 5:10 jumped out at me as if I’d never seen it before. It reads, “If, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved by His life!” I read this verse and asked “Life? I thought we were saved by His death. What does life have to do with anything?”
But then I came to realize the importance of Jesus Christ not only dying for our sins but also His rising from the dead. I had understood what the cross of Jesus Christ meant, but I had no idea of the significance of His resurrection.
Sometimes we Christians are absolute geniuses at overlooking the obvious. What’s the most obvious implication of the word “resurrection”? It’s the restoration of life!
Perhaps you’ve had the experience of having a word called to your attention for the first time.Then you begin finding that word again while reading the newspaper, and in conversations, on billboards — seemingly behind every bush. You know, of course, that the word was there all the time; you were just unconscious of it. That was my experience with the word “life” in the Bible. Suddenly it was everywhere. It seemed as if God had sneaked in and rewritten the Bible when I wasn’t looking.
Seeing the word “life” throughout the Scriptures brought to mind other Scripture references. For example, Ephesians 2:1: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.” This verse made me ask the question, “What kind of person needs life?”
The answer was obvious: only the dead. Before if I was asked what the problem of mankind is, I would have always discussed people’s sinfulness and the need for forgiveness. This is certainly true, but the problem is much deeper. From God’s point of view, the problem of people isn’t just that they’re sinners, but that they’re dead and in need of life.
This brings us back to our illustration of how to explain the gospel. We aren’t only standing at the edge of the chasm in our sins, but we’re standing there also spiritually dead and in need of life. And the only spiritual life that’s available for us is the life of God.