God's Rescue Plan
In the face of such bad news, is there any good news? Yes! The good news is that God knew from the moment of the first sin that people would be able to do nothing to restore themselves to him.
Again, in God's economy, good deeds cannot erase bad ones; though the world would tell us otherwise. A good life cannot pay for even one small sin. It doesn't work like that. This means that if anyone will be rescued or saved from the coming separation, God himself will have to intervene.
God’s plan to rescue people and redeem them (make them whole again) was to send his only Son, Jesus Christ, to earth as a human being. In his time on earth, Jesus invited people to be restored to a relationship with God saying, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Even though he lived a 100% perfect and sin free life, Jesus ultimately died a tortured death on a cross.
This undeserved death by a perfect man allowed Jesus to take upon himself the punishment and separation from God that all mankind deserved. When he rose again after three days, he was able to offer to anyone who would trust him and surrender control of their lives to him the opportunity to have their sins washed away, their wrongs forgotten, and to be restored to God. In dying and rising again, Jesus did for people what they could not do for themselves, offer a way back to God that honored God's justice but demonstrated his great love.
