When people say our problem is this, our problem is that we say no, no our problem is that God created the world and God created man and he put man in the garden to keep the garden. And he gave the man a command and he held that man to perfect perpetual obedience to that command and he promised him life if he kept it and death if he didn't. And man didn't keep it; he ate and because he ate sin entered the world and death through sin and everyone born from that man through ordinary generation inherited that man's sin nature. And because of that sin nature sins proceed from it and our world is broken because of that sin.
And we stand guilty before a holy and righteous God, and we know that he's holy and we know that he's righteous and we crave justice, but the problem is that if God gives us justice, we all die and so that God in his goodness and in his mercy sent forth his Son who was not born of ordinary generation but was born of a virgin. Yes, the virgin birth matters why because if he's born of ordinary generation, he's born in sin but because he's not born of ordinary generation he's not born in sin. He's clean of sin. His record is clean, and he keeps his record clean. And he obeys God's law and because he's fully God and fully man he obeys the law of God on our behalf. His active obedience and then in his passive obedience God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us.
All we like sheep had gone astray each of us had turned to his own way, but God laid upon him the iniquity of us all. Christ died for sin once for all - the just for the unjust. God imputes our sinfulness to him, and he nails our sinfulness to the tree and Christ dies and is raised again on the third day for our justification.
And there's another imputation - the righteousness of Christ is actually imputed to us so that God can be both just and the justifier of the one who places faith in Jesus Christ so that all those who come to Christ may enter in so that all those who place faith in Christ might be saved but not only saved but sanctified because he's the firstborn of many brethren we're justified and we're adopted into the family of God. We're sanctified and as his children we begin to bear the family resemblance, and we're further sanctified throughout this life by the very same gospel that saves us until one day when it's all said and done we're not just saved from the penalty of sin we’re not just saved from the power of sin but one day we're glorified and saved from the very presence of sin.
That's the gospel that we preach, that's the gospel that we need, and that's the gospel that's more than enough.
