The gospel isn’t about Jesus Christ. The gospel is Jesus Christ. “For in Him all the fullness was pleased to dwell.” Colossians 1:19.
I have a really simple view of the atonement, and it is an “in Christ” theology. God reconciled all things to Himself through Christ. “He made known to us the ministry of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things “in Christ,” things in heaven and things upon the earth.” Ephesians 1:10 – 11.
God became human (though He never stopped being God) when Jesus clothed Himself in our fallen and broken humanity. Then in Him at Calvary, fallen and broken humanity was crucified and buried. On Easter morning, grafted into all that Jesus is and has, a whole New Creation arose and though still standing on earth, is now seated in the heavenly places in Christ. That is quite a rescue for fallen Adam.
God didn’t just brush the sin off of us, declare us forgiven, and guarantee us a place somewhere in heaven one day. Jesus, in His incarnation, became us and lived a sinless life, restoring our record. On the Cross as us, He killed what couldn’t be salvaged and then raised up a creature like the world had never seen, in union with Himself. The incarnate Christ was God’s masterpiece that we were written into. “For we are His masterpiece (poem) created in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 1:10.
We were re-created in the stuff of Jesus that He might live His life through us, and in turn, mutually, we might live our lives through Him. Finally, free from the reign of sin, entirely free, we can be uniquely whom each of us was created to be because we are now able to live and be ourselves from Christ. Our union with Christ is the identity and potential that God sees when He looks at us, for we are “partakers of the divine nature.” 1 Peter 1:4. The gospel is the good news of Jesus and all things being made new in Him.