This letter is from Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, chosen by God to be an apostle and sent out to preach his Good News. God promised this Good News long ago through his prophets in the holy Scriptures. The Good News is about his Son. In his earthly life he was born into King David’s family line, and he was shown to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. He is Jesus Christ our Lord. Through Christ, God has given us the privilege and authority as apostles to tell Gentiles everywhere what God has done for them, so that they will believe and obey him, bringing glory to his name.
And you are included among those Gentiles who have been called to belong to Jesus Christ. I am writing to all of you in Rome who are loved by God and are called to be his own holy people.
May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. (Romans 1:1–7 NLT)
Paul makes plain in this passage that the Good News is about God’s Son – Jesus. Specifically, Paul points to his birth in Luke 2 as part of a lineage of kings going back to David and his resurrection in Luke 24 showing the power of the Holy Spirit over death itself.
Paul is highlighting the crucial nature of the dual lineages of Jesus: one as the son of Mary, descendent of King David, and one as the Son of God, bearer of our sins and conqueror of death. It wouldn’t have been enough if Jesus had been privy to only one of those lineages – it was vital Jesus be the bridge between God and mankind, and the only way to do this was by wrapping his godhood in flesh: the fullness of his divinity and the fullness of his humanity found in the person of Jesus.
This is the Good News. Because Jesus is fully God and fully man, because he is the bridge between the divine and the mortal, we are capable of knowing God. There previously existed a distance between us and God, carefully managed by the priesthood for our own protection, “for no one may see [the face of God] and live” (Exodus 33:20). But through Jesus, “Anyone who has seen [him] has seen the Father” (John 14:9)!
Because Jesus came like a child, born of a woman, we can know God himself. This is the Good News of Christmas.
And because Jesus was resurrected through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can spend eternity with God. This is the Good News of Easter.
Together, they are the Gospel – God made flesh defeating death itself on our behalf.
How will you celebrate this Good News today?