This is the heart of the gospel. Here are the sole grounds of our salvation, the grounds on which all else rests.
How can we be delivered from the world, for it has penetrated into the deepest recesses of our minds? We are not like those who had been kidnapped and would gladly be set free. In our madness we are willing captives. Christ therefore not only had to liberate us but to transform our minds so that we understood and hated our previous bondage. He could rescue us only by himself becoming subject to the destruction that threatened us.
How great is the contrast between Paul’s plain-spoken condemnation of mankind and affirmation of its helplessness without Christ; how great is the contrast between this and the softly, softly approach of those who try to get people into the kingdom of heaven without ever mentioning the matter of sin. The true gospel is up front in telling the world what is the cause of its lost condition and that the first word of the gospel is therefore ‘Repent’.