Too Good to be True?

11/9/18     Alejandro and Diana (video HERE)


Is the Gospel too good to be true?

This was the reason Alejandro, a young man I met while shopping at Target, gave me for the doubts he had about believing the good news of the Gospel.  I could relate, because I often struggled with the same doubts as a young Christian.  I wondered if salvation through faith in Jesus – and even God’s very existence - might just be nothing more than wishful thinking.

But the world’s idea of “too good to be true” is very different from the biblical perspective.  A popular saying says “you don’t get something for nothing”, so the idea that we can get off scot free when it comes to eternity really makes no sense from the world’s point of view. 

But the biblical perspective is very different.  There is indeed a cost for salvation.  We all need peace with God because of the offense of our many sins, and the cost of this reconciliation wasn’t free or even cheap.  1 Cor. 6 tells us that we have been “bought at a price” – nothing less than the blood of God’s own Son – and so to say the Gospel is too good to be true is to say that God wasn’t willing to pay that price. 

But the amazing Gospel says that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  To disbelieve because it is “too good to be true” is to say that God couldn’t possibly be that loving, that we should doubt a part of God’s very being.

But there’s another reason why some say the Gospel is too good to be true.  It’s the question of why the price for our sin is so high in the first place.  Why did Jesus have to die for our sins to be forgiven? 

The reason also has to do with God’s goodness.  Just as God is loving and merciful because of His goodness, God is also wrathful and justly punishes sin because He is good.  It’s good to hate sin and its consequences, and its good to love justice. 

Many people doubt the reality of hell, because they find it hard to believe God is so good that his justice requires such an infinitely high penalty for sin.  That price is more than we could ever pay outside of the eternity of hell, so God in His goodness paid it for us – so that “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”  (Eph. 1)

Is the Gospel too good to be true?  No, its not, because there is no limit to God’s goodness in His infinite love and His infinite justice, both expressed perfectly through the blood of Jesus at the cross.

PS – Thanks to Alejandro and Diana for allowing me to record our conversation.  It can be seen HERE