The News is Both Bad and Good

The Bad News - We're All Sick
When God created the world one specification of His design was that all living things reproduce each after their own kind. Before the fall of man if Adam & Eve had reproduced they would have produced sinless children. However, they didn't have children until after they sinned and were cursed. Therefore, since they had a sin nature prior to reproducing, Adam & Eve's "own kind" was a human with a sin nature - a sinner.

The bible says that if anyone says they are without sin, the truth is not in him. Since God is just and cannot dwell with us due to our sin, He must deal with us justly and hand down the punishment for sin. The bible says that the wages of sin is death... This is speaking not only of a physical death, but also a spiritual death - or to be eternally removed from God. The absence of God exists only in Hell.
Fortunately for all of us, it doesn't end there. That same verse goes on to say ...BUT, the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Eternal life is living forever with God (just as He intended when He created us). This is the exact opposite of eternal death (the absence of God in Hell).
So if you now find yourself asking "What gift is the bible talking about?" The answer is simple. We have established that God is a just judge and therefore must deal with our sin justly by handing down the punishment for sin. We deserve Hell, as we choose to reject God and continue to be "Children of Wrath" who are at war with God. The required price (eternal death) is impossible for us to pay.

The Good News - There's a Cure
God's free gift to us is that He sent his son who knew no sin to step down off his throne in Heaven, come down to Earth as a man, live a sinless life and therefore not being deserving of Hell as we are, and then to pay our fine for us. Jesus did that for us. The bible says that God loved the world so much that He sent his only Son to die in our place and pay the required price for our sin, so that WHOEVER believes in Him will not have eternal death, but will have eternal life (Paraphrased by FP - Ref. John 3:16). This act of Jesus paying our price satisfied the just nature of the God in that the price required to be paid for our sin was paid in full at the death of God's son.
But Jesus didn't just die. He went on and overcame the power of death once for all by not allowing death to be his end. Just as He said he would before He died, He rose again on the 3rd day. The price for our sin was paid in full by His Son's undeserved death and acceptable by God as proper and complete payment for our sin. All we have to do is to receive Him (accept His free gift) and He comes into us and makes us a new creature. At the split second that this happens, we are justified, and all of Heaven begins to rejoice as the new Christian's name is written down in the Book of Life.
The bible says, it says to as many as receive Him, to them He gave the power to be called the sons of God. Once we have received Him, we are joint heirs with Christ. That makes us sons of God. When each of us dies, we will face God (the just judge) on judgement day. God will look at the Christian, and He will see His Son in us, because we have been justified which means God looks at us "just-as-if-I'd" never sinned at all. He will open the Book of Life and find the Christian's name written in it.

"Well done, thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

Sin and Consequences

Sin is the opposite of righteousness, just as evil is the opposite of good, just as darkness is the opposite of light. Without sin, one wouldn't know what righteousness was. An example of this is the handicapped child who doesn't know they're handicapped until they see someone who isn't handicapped. Before they see someone who isn't handicapped they see being handicapped as being normal. To put it simply, the existence of sin & evil allow mankind to recognize it as such by contrasting it against the righteousness and goodness of God. Does this mean that we should try to sin as much as possible so that God is shown as all the more righteous? The Apostle Paul would say, "May it never be!" One reason is because light and darkness (evil and righteousness) cannot occupy the same place at the same time. God cannot abide where sin is present which is why he created a place to send the sinful so as to be separate from God. That place is called Hell.