The gospel explained - Part 2

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18)

We read here that the message of the cross – that is to say, the announcement and explanation of what the cross is – carries a power that shakes, that has the power to turn upside down the heart of the one who receives the message.

But we still need someone to explain to us what the cross is, its deep meaning and its astonishing effects on practical life. More than that, we need to understand it, because without understanding, it remains without effect in our lives.

There is a real power, but it is hidden – very well hidden from the inattentive eye – because it is only released by the Holy Spirit into the heart of the one who listens, understands, and accepts it with meekness.

So, we are going to talk about the cross, and I am going to make sure that you understand.

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)

When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he announced what, a few years later, would become a historical reality. On the cross, Jesus took away the sin of the world.

“To take away” does not only mean “to forgive”. It is more than that. At the cross, sin is no longer counted by God. At the cross, for God, in His eyes, sin disappears from human history. It has been taken away.

Sin and its devastating consequences still rage among human beings, but it is no longer imputed, no longer charged to us by God. That is what is called the gospel, and it is what few understand or want to fully accept. This is confirmed in Hebrews 9, where it is said in another way:

…But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:26)

On the cross, the Son of God took our sins and our diseases upon himself, but we read here that He does even more: at the end of the ages, He does away with sin. “do away with sin” – that is a strong expression! And it confirms John the Baptist’s words that the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world.

The sacrifice of Jesus has taken away all your sins – all of them in the eyes of God, in the eyes of the Father! There are, and there will still be, sins to wipe out in our experience. We are all guilty, but that is no longer the issue, because at the cross God pardons the guilty. He no longer imputes, He no longer charges to us, the sins condemned by the law of Moses. Your sins and mine have been taken away by the death of Jesus.

Do you hear this good news? Because it is truly good news, with an incalculable number of excellent consequences in our present life and for our future life.

From now on, and for 2,000 years already, the sentence of the supreme and eternal Judge has been pronounced over you, final and irrevocable, and here it is:

“NOT GUILTY!”

I can hear the protests… “That’s not fair! That’s too easy.” Really? So you would like to appeal to a higher opinion that would be more favorable to you? Would you be the judge?

Another blow of the judge’s gavel:

“NOT GUILTY.”

Yes, the case is closed, because we all know that a judge’s decision puts an end to all questions and all discussions.

Through the gospel, God decrees today that, by virtue of His Son’s sacrifice, yesterday, you are declared free from all condemnation. The faults have been wiped out, taken away by His Son. This salvation does not come from you. It is the Father’s will. That’s all!

It makes no sense at all to doubt this under the pretext that you don’t “feel” it. In everyday life, if a friend tells you he forgives an offense you committed against him, do you try to “feel” it in order to believe it? You say, “All right,” you are relieved, and life goes on, easier, in a restored relationship. Do the same with God. Accept His forgiveness. It is already obtained and free for everyone. That is why the gospel is good news.

And that is not all! By believing what you have just heard, you have also just received something that you cannot feel either! You have just received eternal life. It’s not me who says that:

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:13)

It does not say: “I have written these things so that you may feel that you have eternal life.” It says: “so that you may know.” Knowing is not a feeling.

It does not say either that you will have eternal life, but that you have it – you who believe in the name of the Son of God.

The name of the Son of God, that Name, is Jesus, Yeshua, which means: “God saves, God heals.” This name is the smiling and just hand of God stretched out toward humanity, offering it reconciliation, the voluntary forgetting of all faults, and healing for soul and body. All of this thanks to, and through, the cross.

With eternal life, you have just entered true happiness. And this happiness, which today is only a little trickle of water, becomes over the years a great river that fills an entire life.

The tree of religion, with its simplistic and limited knowledge of good and evil, does not place man in a position to approach God, who is the source of true, indescribable, undefinable happiness. Human nature keeps him away from happiness, because there is a narrow link between sinning and being unhappy. This principle, this invisible law, is expressed here:

There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil… (Romans 2:9)

Trouble and distress on every soul of man who does evil. This is a principle as fixed and constant as a scientific or physical law. It is an invisible spiritual law, but no one escapes it, like the air we breathe!

You may ignore intellectually the mechanisms of the law of gravity, and yet you are subject to it every day.

Why do we feel unhappy, anxious, or not fully happy, dissatisfied, as if something were always missing? This text offers an explanation. Happiness and doing evil are incompatible. Doing evil produces trouble and distress. Everyone does evil, more or less. And no one can naturally escape this law.

And yet, if we think about it for a moment, is this really fair?

Do we really have a choice? Do you have the constant ability never to fail? Surely you wouldn’t claim to believe that or affirm it seriously?

If they could hear you, would it be fair to reproach a cherry tree for producing cherries, or an apple tree for producing apples, when it is in their very nature to produce them and they cannot do otherwise?

In the same way, could God, without being unjust, reproach human beings for committing sins when it is in their very nature, and they cannot keep themselves from committing them? Pause on this for a moment. Think about it honestly.

Honestly?

Yes, there is an injustice, and God sent His Son to repair this injustice.

“…unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me.” (John 16:7–8)

That is why the only sin the Holy Spirit will convict us of today is not accepting the Savior whom God has sent to us, just as one throws a lifebuoy to someone who is drowning and has no chance of saving himself. When a lifebuoy is thrown to us and is within our reach, drowning is no longer a fatality. We become free either to drown or not. To stay in the picture and without being disrespectful, our lifebuoy, our salvation, is called Jesus Christ.

Sin for you and for me is no longer failing to obey the Ten Commandments, contrary to what religion – that of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – keeps hammering in. Sin is refusing to grab hold of the lifebuoy that has been thrown to us. You are invited to eat freely from the tree of life, because it is available again. Sin is not eating from this tree of life, which is called Jesus.

In Jesus, at the cross, all sins – past, present, and future – have been abolished. They have disappeared from the eyes of the only Judge, who now sees only His beloved Son.

If you listen to religion, you will hear it insist on convincing you that you are a vile sinner and that your sins lead you straight into the flames.

If you listen to the Holy Spirit, sent by Jesus, you will hear something else. He convicts the world that the only sin today is not believing what Jesus is for us: the Savior sent by the Father. You read it well:

“He (the Holy Spirit) will convict the world about sin because they do not believe in me.” (John 16:9)

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

On the cross, Jesus took upon Himself all our faults and all our diseases. He is struck in our place by the God of justice. On this cross is established a union that is impossible on earth, the union of love and justice.

In human society, if justice is applied, the guilty are punished. There is no room for love.

If love is applied, the guilty person is left without punishment, and then there is no justice. The two are irreconcilable.

In Jesus Christ, love and justice fuse. Jesus, out of love, takes upon Himself the sins of the world, including ours, and becomes in the eyes of the one Judge the only guilty one. He is punished as He must be. Justice is done. And the love of the Father and of His only Son is at the origin of this justice.

It is important to understand that there is no double punishment with God, unlike what can happen among men. If your fault has been atoned for and paid – and it has been paid by Jesus Christ – you will not be punished a second time, because the verdict has already been pronounced, but not on you. God gave His only Son. He is your lifebuoy, your salvation.

But there is more:

He has canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. (Colossians 2:14)

This text is unambiguous. There was a book in which all your faults and all mine were recorded, an act that established our guilt beyond dispute. This act of condemnation has been destroyed, the gospel tells us; it has been nailed to the cross by Jesus Christ. The moment you believe this incredible news, you have already entered into its reality!

Imagine a guilty person waiting for his trial. But what happens? What is causing this sudden hustle and bustle? A sound of keys. The door opens. You are told that you are free! “What do you mean, I am free?!”

The evidence can no longer be found! Someone has made it disappear. No charge can be brought against you anymore.

That is exactly what has happened. The evidence, the act that condemned us, has been destroyed. The record has disappeared. All that is seen now is a cross! That is what this text says in modern language.

You are free, acquitted. You can go out. Nothing can ever again be proved against you.

Let me repeat: do not expect to feel something when you hear these things. It is not about emotions but about a factual biblical truth that you simply have to know. That’s how it is. Jesus Christ has wiped out the act with its ordinances that condemned us and stood against us, and He destroyed it by nailing it to the cross. If you have understood this, you are beginning to believe in the Son.

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. (John 3:36)

God will not condemn anyone who stands before Him with this declaration written across their chest: “Very guilty, but saved by Your Son at Golgotha.” That is the meaning of “that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Salvation is the gift of God through Jesus Christ. There is nothing to add. Only to receive.

The tree of life communicates to us, freely, eternal life. To you who have just realized what the sacrifice of Jesus means, I say it to you on the authority of the Bible: you have eternal life; you have it now, whether you feel it or not, simply because God has said it and you have accepted it!

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:13)

You did not know that the sacrifice of Christ meant this. Well, yes. Now you know, because these things were written so that you may know it. You have believed it? You have eternal life.

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them. (John 3:36)

Do not worry about those who do not yet believe in the Son. Your concern is noble, but we are not the saviors of the world. God takes care of each person, and no one knows what He is doing in the lives of others. No one knows their secret life. No one knows the calls they have received or will one day receive from God.

Jesus said that He would draw all people to Himself. He does it, among other things, through the testimony of those in whom He dwells, through preaching, and through many other means, but He is the Savior. He knows how to meet each person and leaves each one free to accept or refuse. And no one knows, either, what each one’s choice is. For now it is you that He is drawing, by enlightening your understanding. And this good news is for you today, you who are hearing it and understanding it.

There is one more thing you need to know. You have been reconciled with God. Be reconciled to Him.

For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! (Romans 5:10)

You have been reconciled to God through the death of His Son, and that too had not yet been explained to you. Read this verse again. Have you noticed the tenses? They are all in the past here. It does not say: “You will be reconciled,” but “You have been reconciled.” You have been reconciled for 2,000 years. You are reconciled today and tomorrow and always, and this takes effect immediately at the moment you believe it.

By believing that Jesus Christ bore on the cross everything that separated you from God, that His death – and not any action on your part – has unconditionally reconciled you to God, you have just met God’s requirements according to the gospel.

You are at this very moment receiving, in your spirit and your soul, the full assurance of the forgiveness of all your past, present, and future faults, and therefore of a total and complete reconciliation with your Creator.

Here is the message for you: Christ has died; you are forgiven of everything by His death, by His shed blood. You simply did not know it!!! Now you know it, and if you do not oppose this incredible good news, if you receive it with meekness, you have entered eternal life, without drums or trumpets. You have believed. That’s all. It’s simple. That is the power of the preaching of the cross.

For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. (Romans 10:10)

Take a pause now and tell the Lord Jesus, in your own words, that you thank Him for what He has done and that you accept, perhaps with astonishment but fully and with all your heart, this magnificent gift that He has given you and that was only waiting for two things:

• that you hear the news, that it be explained to you and that you understand its full scope;
• that you overcome your astonishment, and perhaps your feeling of unworthiness, to accept in your soul this magnificent gift that God has made to all men, women, and children of all times. Faith is simply believing what God says.

To confess with the mouth means to declare your faith openly, to say it with your mouth. The mouth is not the same as thought. With your mouth, say these words if they now make sense to you:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. (Ephesians 2:8)

You can even, without committing sacrilege, adapt it to make it your own:

For it is by grace that I am saved, through faith. And this is not from me, it is the gift of God. (adapted from Ephesians 2:8)

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:23–24)

For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13)

To call on the name of Jesus (“God saves, God heals”) is simply to speak to Him with the confidence that your words are not addressed to the wall or the ceiling, but to the One who is omnipresent (everywhere at once), omnipotent (all-powerful), and omniscient (knowing all things, even your most secret thoughts), and who has been waiting for so long for this instant – this moment when you have finally understood His love for you and when you surrender your life to Him. Now, verbally hand over to Him the direction of your life. Confession with the mouth is important.

Well, have you thanked Him? Yes? Then we can continue, because this is only half of the good news!!!!!!!!

Second Seed: The Resurrection

“Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them.” (Romans 4:6–8)

It is extraordinary to know oneself forgiven for all past faults; it is an immense relief and an immense happiness – and we are forgiven, thanks to the death of Jesus on the cross. God no longer imputes, that is to say, He no longer charges to us our sins. It is as if we had never sinned!!!

But I can already hear some of you asking a very legitimate question:
“If I understand correctly, according to the doctrine of the gospel, since I am in any case forgiven, I can take it out on my neighbor who annoys me, insult my neighbor who offended me, lie, steal, do all the evil I want… It will be enough afterwards to ask for forgiveness since my sins have already been wiped out anyway! Is that it?”

I might be tempted to answer yes! You have understood the gospel – but only having the first part of the story, you are not asking the right question.

If everyone were innocent, would there be any need for God’s grace? Grace exists for the guilty. A righteous person does not need grace. Yes, God pardons guilty people, slaves to their rebellious nature. You must therefore be guilty to be eligible for Grace. God pardons guilty people, and the good news of the gospel is that it makes almost everyone a pardoned guilty person.

The real question, the right question, is: “Have you become a child of God, have you been born again, are you a new creation?” And you are going to understand why that is the right question and soon be able to answer it, because the following principle cannot, under any circumstances, be revoked:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1)

No condemnation for the guilty?! It is completely normal to react, because at first glance it is not acceptable, of course! Unless we put this back into the full context of the gospel. A coin needs two sides to be complete.

There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because, having received the forgiveness of sins, they have been born of God. They have received a new life, the life of Christ. They have entered, supernaturally, into a newness of life.

And that, too, needs a complete explanation. God’s plan for humanity is greater and far more perfect than we think. Listen to this astonishing statement:

No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. (1 John 3:9)

The two key expressions here are “born of God” and “does not practice sin.” We are speaking of someone who is born of God and in whom the seed of God remains. We have not changed subjects. We are not in religion, but in a supernatural work that no religion can produce. It says that the one who is born again, who is born of God, does not practice sin. “Does not practice…” To explain this, let us begin with this passage:

All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. (Ephesians 2:1–3)

Before being born again, we walk in trespasses and sins; we practice sin. Sins are not accidents but a normal repeated practice, a lifestyle, the natural mindset and way of life of a son or daughter of Adam, which we all are.

To use again the image mentioned earlier, the wild cherry tree produces its sour cherries – and why would it feel any guilt, if that is its nature? We lived according to our desires; we were by nature – notice the word “nature” – children of wrath. That was our nature, our practice, and it posed no problem, except for the inner or religious law that occasionally shook our conscience a little.

But here is what changes everything!

Whoever has understood and received the forgiveness of his sins at the cross receives, at that very moment, in his spirit, the seed of a new life, a new nature – the nature of Christ, the nature of the One who perfectly obeyed God in His humanity, in a human body. And this is not a sensation either.

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. (Colossians 2:13)

At the moment when we realize that He forgives us all our offenses, God makes us alive together with Jesus Christ, by communicating to us the seed of the life of Jesus Christ.

Christ will henceforth, from within, communicate and cause to grow in us the same desire and the same capacity for obedience, because He has brought forth a new heart, a new spirit that He has recreated in all those who receive Him. That is what it means to be born of God.

And that explains the new desires, the new attractions, the new ambitions, the new tastes that arise and begin to manifest themselves just as naturally in anyone who has received Christ.

We do not force ourselves to be different. We have become different. The nature of Christ now flows in us, expressing His life, His desires, His capacity. And our practice changes and gradually sheds all the old reflexes and habits of the former life.

We understand better the immense scope of Ezekiel’s prophecy, 600 years before the birth of Christ, and how it is fulfilled in those who receive Christ in their heart. Listen to this prophecy in which God announced what He would do through Jesus Christ in human hearts:

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” (Ezekiel 36:25–27)

The child of God is first purified and then receives a new nature, a new heart, a new spirit, opposed to the nature he had before – a nature that does not like to do evil and that has the supernatural capacity to overcome it.

In other words, the evil that the one who has become a child of God may commit (and it will happen) is an accident along the way, due to weakness or lack of vigilance, but it is no longer and will never again be a practice, a way of living, or a normal pattern of thought. It is no longer his nature. His nature has been supernaturally changed.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God… (2 Corinthians 5:17–18)

At the very instant when we receive by faith the forgiveness of sins, at that same instant, in the twinkling of an eye, we receive a new nature, a nature that hates the practice of what is evil in God’s eyes. Whoever is born again will be able to testify to you how his desires have changed.

And if, through weakness, the child of God fails, he finds in Jesus Christ an eternal, extremely effective Advocate, whose nail marks in His hands guarantee an immediate and unconditional forgiveness, since the sins have already been taken away.

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. (1 John 2:1)

That is why there is no condemnation for the children of God, for those regrettable sins that are accidents along the way – for you who have received the new nature of Christ. For a new nature is at work in you, far more effectively than your attempts to keep commandments.

It is the guarantee that you are no longer the same, that God Himself has now taken things in hand. This new life, which maybe is only a very small, barely perceptible seed today, will become, with His help, a mighty tree bearing the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, goodness, and self-control.

And if the born-again child of God strays from love and holiness – and that happens – it is no longer like before. He cannot remain indifferent, because of the nature of Christ in him. He feels what you feel when, after putting on new clothes, you get a stain on them. You have only one desire: to wash yourself as quickly as possible. You can no longer tolerate any stain. You then turn again to the Advocate, you remember the purifying and eternal work of Christ’s sacrifice that has abolished sin, the eternal action of Jesus’ blood that, in the Father’s eyes, cleanses us from all sin, and you can no longer remain under condemnation.

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)

A simple acknowledgement of our fault, a look lifted toward the One who died for us, is enough.

Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation. (Galatians 6:15)

Paul spoke these words to the Jews of his time who had accepted Christ – for there were some. He was saying to them, in essence: now that Jesus has come, it is not the keeping of the law (circumcision was a requirement of their law) and the commandments, or belonging to a religion, that matters, because in any case you will never manage to be perfect as God requires, as long as your nature has not been changed.

What matters is being a new creation. That was the “right question” from earlier. Because it is the guarantee that God Himself is at work in your life. And this is what will make the difference, because God NEVER fails. It is no longer you who are trying to save yourself.

That is also why:

He is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. (Hebrews 7:25)

God Himself, from within, saves you and will save you perfectly. What matters is being a new creation. Isn’t that wonderful news?!!!

Let us come back to this verse we mentioned in the first part of this article:

For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:19)

Do you now understand this bombshell in Romans 5:19? Let me help you with two questions.

1. What must one do to become a sinner? Please, do not answer: “I become a sinner when I disobey a commandment.” No! You understand now. You inherited a sinner’s nature from your parents. You are a sinner by nature, even before committing a single sin. We are born sinners; that is why we sin.

Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. (Romans 7:20)

So, the answer to the question “What must one do to become a sinner?” is: nothing. A sinner is what I am from birth, even before committing any bad action, because I am a sinner because of the disobedience of another, of only one: Adam. “Through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners.”

2. What, then, must one do to become righteous?

The answer is the same: nothing. Righteous is what we become from the new birth, before we have performed any good action. We inherit the nature of Christ just as naturally as we had inherited the nature of Adam at our first birth. “Through the obedience of the one man (Jesus Christ), the many (those who believe) will be made righteous” in the same way as “through the disobedience of the one man (Adam) the many were made sinners.”

We do not yet see the sinner in the joyful, innocent, adorable little baby. It may also be that we do not yet see the righteous one in the person in whom the seed of God has just begun to live – or in the one who has not nurtured that seed so that it might become a great tree visible to all.

But one thing is certain: by nurturing it, by cooperating with the Holy Spirit, this righteous life manifests itself more and more and progressively makes the old life and its bad habits disappear.

To sum up, we could say: we do not become sinners by committing sins. We do not become righteous by doing good works. We are sinners because we have inherited the nature of Adam through our parents. We are righteous at the moment we receive the nature of Jesus Christ at the new birth. We first receive the nature, and the fruits follow.

This is the complete message of the gospel: forgiven and regenerated!

The seed will grow if you believe and continue to believe, in spite of your amazement – and in such an extraordinary way!

“He also said, ‘This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.’” (Mark 4:27)

Your faith alone allows the Holy Spirit to release all the wonderful effects of this life into your everyday existence. Nourish your faith by listening often to the gospel, the one I have just shared with you. Simply keep your eyes fixed on these truths about who Jesus is and trust the Holy Spirit to create in you sufficient faith and to generously grant you all the blessings in Jesus Christ.

You want to reign in life over your old nature and over circumstances (and not over your neighbor – that’s not in the contract). Then receive, receive, receive, receive, receive again and again…

For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! (Romans 5:17)

One Last Thing

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Romans 6:4)

“We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death…” This text implicitly speaks of water baptism. Perhaps the following verse will speak to you even more:

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? (Romans 6:3)

Or this one:

…all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. (Galatians 3:27)

Numerous texts underline the great importance of baptism.

If you have not been baptized, find a church, an assembly (ekklesia = assembly = church) that preaches the new birth, water baptism, the work of the Holy Spirit, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – a church whose leaders are simple and unselfish – and be baptized.

Baptism is part of your declaration of faith. When we have understood and believed what Jesus Christ’s death on the cross is for us, our intelligence certainly assents, but our body, which is also part of us, remains outside of all that.

Our soul, the seat of the intellect, understands, accepts, and believes the good news of the gospel. That is good. Our spirit is made alive and welcomes the Holy Spirit, who henceforth makes it His dwelling. That is very good. And our body – how do we include it in this total process of regeneration? By water baptism.

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:37–38)

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18–20)

Jesus Himself told John the Baptist that baptism was the right thing to do.

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented. (Matthew 3:13–15)

Jesus set the example. Baptism is an important act because God saves the whole person – spirit, soul, and body.

Baptism – the burial of our body in water – is our way of telling God and those around us that we fully accept the condemnation of our old nature. It is an act of repentance and faith expressed by a concrete action. We symbolically submit our body to death. If we did not come up out of the water, we would be truly dead. We identify through baptism with Jesus’ death, and with His resurrection when we come out of the water.

It is not only a symbolic act but, in the light of the texts we have read, an important act inseparable from our inner faith. True baptism is an act we perform to make concrete our faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus, which we now understand are also our death in Adam and our resurrection in Christ.

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. (Mark 16:16)

Let us remember: to repent simply means, after realizing the corruption of our natural being and our inability to free ourselves from it, to accept to be freed from it by God’s supernatural action. It is to make a U-turn – a decision to turn our back on the source that inspired the life we once lived, and to embrace the new life of freedom that is offered to us. That is true repentance. We do it with our heart and add actions to words. Baptism signifies and concretizes this in a visible way. We leave our past life at the bottom of the baptistery, or the swimming pool, or the river, or the lake.

I can predict without being mistaken that in the coming days, even in the coming hours, everything will be set in motion – as if by chance – so that you forget these simple truths I have just explained, or that you neglect them, busied by a sudden increase in your activities, by the sudden appearance of obligations that dissipate in your mind the clarity of all these wonderful truths that have the power to transform your life.

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers. (Psalm 1:1–3)

It’s not a disaster. Listen again regularly to this gospel. Water regularly and strengthen your understanding, and you will see the seed of God in your heart grow day by day. Feed yourself every day on this gospel by thinking about it, by establishing it firmly in your way of thinking. You will see it gain strength, day by day. “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind,” says the Bible.

The work of God – His work in you (not yours) – is that you believe in everything that the One He has sent will do in you and through you: Jesus Christ, His only Son. He is the sun in which you simply must bask as often as possible, to put on the beautiful colors of true life.

Enter fully and completely into this new life that is offered to you.

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. (1 Timothy 1:15)