Alexandra Herrick
CWV-101
November 3
rd
, 2019
Josh Matteson
Benchmark - Gospel Essentials
Across the world, there are thousands of religions, with Christianity leading as one of the
largest. Without every aspect working cohesively and in complete verity, there would be no
purpose to believe in Christianity and all that it encompasses. There is too much complexity and
profound thought that if even one teaching, word, or action did not align with who God says he is
and his Truth, the religion would be dead. In the New Testament, the Bible proclaims the gospel–
the good news of Jesus Christ and the redemption that his sacrifice signifies. Christianity is based
upon the timeless, basic morals and ethics that come from God in attempt to restore and redeem
humanity from its broken state.
God is an omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing), omnibenevolent (all
good), and omnipresent (all knowing), being in three distinct persons as the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit. God’s characteristics are unique because he is the only one who is perfect and
possess every righteous-natured quality. His characteristics are outlined throughout the Bible
through his actions and words. 1 John 4 describes God as love and humanity knows God’s love
because of the Holy Spirit living within each person and Jesus as the atonement for sin.
There are two distinguishable, if inseparable, and successive aspects of love in God's
heart: 1) unconditionally living for the sake of creatures to warmly encourage and help them to
reach unity so the realization of the values of beauty and goodness in them; 2) loving them in the
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sense of appreciating and enjoying the values they realize in them in response to God's
encouraging help. (Shimmyo, 2015, pg. 29)
Anytime true love is mentioned in the Bible, it is describing God and what it means to live like
him, for him. However, humanity fell and broke away from perfect unity with God (Genesis 3)
and now struggles to love God, each other, and itself.
Jesus is the one and only Son of God who stepped down from eternal glory in Heaven to
become the mediator between humanity and God in the humble form of a man. His arrival and
work were prophesied hundreds of years before his birth. Jesus for three years proclaimed the
