“Fundamentally, the gospel is news. It’s good news—the good news about what our triune God has accomplished for His people:
the Father’s sending His Son, the incarnate Jesus Christ, to live perfectly, fulfill the law, and die sacrificially, satisfying God’s wrath
against us that we might not face hell, thereby atoning for our sins; and raising Him from the dead by the power of the Holy
Spirit. It is the victorious announcement that God saves sinners . . . The gospel is good news, not good advice or good
instructions, just as J. Gresham Machen wrote: “What I need first of all is not exhortation, but a gospel, not directions for saving
myself but knowledge of how God has saved me. Have you any good news? That is the question that I ask of you.”
Burke Parsons
“But He gives more grace (James 4:6). This is one of the most encouraging verses in Scripture. It tells us that whatever we forfeit
when we put self in the place of God, we cannot forfeit our salvation: ‘He gives more grace.’ No matter what we do to Him, God
is still not beaten. Our salvation depends not upon ourselves and is not in an ultimate sense threatened by our self-centredness,
because He gives more grace. Even when we break the heart of God, His response is this, to give more grace . . . That is, even if we
were to turn to God and say, ‘The supply I have had so far is not enough to carry me through in this process of cleaning up my life
until it is pleasing to you’, God would reply, ‘Well, you may have more.’ His resources are never at an end. His patience is never
exhausted. His initiative never stops. ‘He gives more grace.’”
Alec Motyer