The Gospel is something a little child should understand.

All people have sinned and die.

Therefore Jesus Christ who never sinned came to bring salvation to all who believe.

Jesus died for our sins and took them away on the cross. The proof is that He rose from the dead.

Romans 6 “²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 3 “²¹ But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. ²² This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.”

For the believer, Jesus Christ received our sins on the cross and we received the righteousness of God. The work is finished.

2 Corinthians 5 “²¹ God made Jesus who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

It is that simple: Jesus took away all our sins and we believers are sinless and righteous as God.

The proof of our salvation is not our works but the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

But how many Christians acknowledge that they are sinless and righteous? Not many.

We will look at their works and say that the death of Jesus was not enough.

We ignore the simplicity of the Gospel and make it too complicated by mixing our works with the finished work of Jesus.

We add human traditions like the need for tithing, sabbath, fasting, prayer, Church attendance, Bible reading, confession, repentance from bad deeds, doing good works, to be closer to God or to become more like Jesus.

Colossians 2 “⁶ So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, ⁷ rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.⁸ See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.’

The only thing needed is to believe in Jesus.

When we believe in Jesus we became perfectly sinless like Jesus.

Colossians 2 “⁹ For in Christ all the fullness/perfection of God lives in bodily form, ¹⁰ and in Christ you have been brought to fullness/perfection. He is the head over every power and authority. ¹¹ In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, ¹² having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. ¹³ When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, ¹⁴ having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.”

We became perfect in Christ by faith.

In Jesus, all the sinless perfection and righteousness of God dwells.

And in Christ, we believers received that same sinless perfection and righteousness.

We are complete in Christ, we lack nothing spiritually, we cannot be improved because we were forgiven all sins by faith in Jesus through His death and resurrections.

If we are forgiven all sins, then we are sinless and righteous as God and Jesus.

Therefore there is no need to mix our works to the Cross of Jesus…because then we will be requiring ourselves to do our works ALL the time and that is not feasible. When we add human works then we need to keep doing it all the time and …But the death of Jesus happened ONCE to make us perfect.

Let us take the example of confession and repentance. Many believers require this to become closer to God and therefore they have to do it ALL the time. You see how the work of Jesus becomes secondary and human effort is repeated. If we focus on the death of Jesus then we see that we are perfect by His finished work.

Some people practice confession and repentance to be forgiven in installments or to “experience some form of parental forgiveness”. All of these are just man-made ideas created by people who did not understand the simplicity of the cross. There is no such thing as being forgiven in installments because we are forgiven once and for all by faith through the death and resurrection of Jesus. There is no such thing as “parental forgiveness” because the blood of Jesus forgave us once and for all.

Hebrews 10 “¹⁰ And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all….. ¹⁴ For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are made holy.”

God does not deal with us based on our confessions, apologies, repentance, tears, trying hard, doing works, etc.

Jesus already did everything on the cross to make us perfectly sinless. So then why do we need to do anything to add to His finished work? No…there is no need !

Colossians 2 “¹⁶ Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. ¹⁷ These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. “

Every religious work done by people is a shadow compared to the death of Jesus in whom the reality is found.

Even today, believers add works to their faith, in order to please God. There is no reward or condemnation in doing works to be close to God because each believer has their own expression of faith and we should not judge each other for our differences.

Romans 14 “² One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. ³ The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them….⁵ One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. ⁶ Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. ⁷ For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. ⁸ If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. ⁹ For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.¹⁰ You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.”

God will judge everyone for one thing alone: Did they believe in Jesus?

The unbeliever is condemned. But the believer is judged as RIGHTEOUS and will not be condemned.

John 5 “²⁴ “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. “

God only requires one work : BELIEVE in Jesus.

John 6 ” ²⁸ Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” ²⁹ Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.””

The judgment of works is this: did you believe? No other works are important for salvation.

You see, that man cannot be close to God by doing any other works of confession/repentance/tithing/fasting/etc…

This is why Jesus Christ died on the cross to make us perfect and He rose from the dead to live in us.

Ephesians 2 “ As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins ……we were by nature deserving of wrath. ⁴ But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶ And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷ in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. “

We were dead in sin and could not do any works to be saved.

But God loved us so much that when we believe in Jesus, He made us alive with Christ and seated us in heaven.

We have been SAVED by GRACE through FAITH and NOT works.

It is ONLY based on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This is the simplicity of Jesus Christ.