What is the Gospel

The martyr William Tyndale, who was burned at the stake in the fall of 1536 for translating the Bible into English, wrote the following about the Gospel:

“Evangelion (that we call the gospel) is a Greek word and signifieth good, merry, glad and joyful tidings, that maketh a man’s heart glad, and maketh him sing, dance, and leap for joy: as when David had killed Goliath the giant, came glad tidings unto the Jews, that their fearful and cruel enemy was slain, and they delivered out of all danger: for gladness whereof, they sung, danced and were joyful. In like manner is the Evangelion of God (which we call gospel, and the New Testament) joyful tidings; and as some say, a good hearing published by the apostles throughout all the world, of Christ the right David; how that he hath fought with sin, with death, and the devil, and overcome them: whereby all men that were in bondage to sin, wounded with death, overcome of the devil, are, without their own merits or deservings, loosed, justified, restored to life and saved, brought to liberty and reconciled unto the favour of God, and set at one with him again: which tidings as many as believe laud, praise and thank God; are glad, sing and dance for joy.”

We see from this quote that the Gospel, properly speaking, is the Good News about who Jesus Christ is and what he has done for us and for our salvation!

When we think about the Gospel, it is important to make some distinctions. There are four ways we can think about the word Gospel in the Scriptures.

1. Gospel Proper

2. Gospel Promises

3. Gospel Presentation

4. Gospel Genre

The Gospel Proper is the bullseye of Christian proclamation. It is the heart of the Good News and what the Apostle Paul calls, “that which is of first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3). It is the proclamation of the person and work of Christ for us, outside of us, and in history: culminating in his death on the cross for our sins and his resurrection from the dead according to the Scriptures for our justification. Gospel proper is not about us, but about the Incarnate Word of God who was “born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law that we might have adoption as sons” (Gal 4:4-5).

The Gospel proper is all about Jesus and what he has done in history to save us!

The Gospel promises are all the promises of God in Scripture that are, as Paul says, “Yes and Amen! In Christ” (2 Cor. 1:20). We find these promises all over the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. Paul says in Galatians 3:8, God “preached the Gospel beforehand to Abraham.” So while the Gospel proper is a New Testament revelation of the person and work of Christ for us, the Gospel in its promises is scattered throughout the whole Bible. As Jesus said about the Old Testament scriptures, “these are they which speak of me” (John 5:39).

So when we focus on the promises of God, we find the Gospel word throughout the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Therefore, we can preach the Gospel from all of Scripture because it is all ultimately about Jesus. We can have perfect confidence in all God’s promises for us in Christ!

The Gospel presentation includes the bad news, too, along with the Good News. It is the preaching of the Law along with the Gospel, explaining that there is none righteous, no not one, that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and that in Adam, all die.

The Law condemns the whole human race as it brings knowledge of sin, inflames lust, convicts the conscience, and kills the sinner under the righteous demands of God’s perfect justice. The Gospel presentation explains why we need a Savior and excludes the whole world from being righteous before God by our works and then proclaims Christ alone for righteousness, salvation, and eternal life.

The Gospel presentation, after proclaiming the Law and the Gospel proper, also calls for the proper response of the sinner to the glorious proclamation of Christ, namely that we should repent and believe, and receive the free gift of righteousness and eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is important to remember: our response to the Gospel is not the Gospel.

The Gospel proper is not the call to repent and believe; it is the glorious proclamation of the person and work of Christ for us, outside of us and in history, but, after heralding the Gospel proper, we call all people everywhere to repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ in response to the Good News. The Gospel presentation connects the Law and the Gospel to us personally as needy sinners, and urges us to respond positively to Christ in faith.

The last sense of the word Gospel is the Gospel as a genre. The genre of Gospel includes the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These four books are narratives that share the story of the birth, life, ministry, miracles, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Since the Gospel proper is the proclamation of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for us and for our salvation, and that message is the main thrust of the four Gospels, the Gospel proper has given its name to these writings.

That said, it is important to note that not everything written in the Gospels is Gospel properly speaking. For example, when the rich young ruler comes to Jesus and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus preaches the Law to him. Rather than seeing his sin and need for Christ, the rich young ruler says that he has “kept all the commandments from his youth” (Mark 10:20).

Jesus knows that no one is righteous and no one seeks God, including this young man, he presses the demand of the Law to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself, further saying, “sell all that you have and give it to the poor and come and follow me.” The rich young ruler went away sad because he realized he couldn’t fulfill the true spiritual nature of the Law. He loved money more than God and didn’t love his neighbor as himself.

Also, in the Sermon on the Mount, for example, Jesus is not preaching the Gospel proper. Rather, he is expounding the Law again to the people of Israel. There are, of course, important ethical and moral implications for the church in the sermon on the mount, but it is not primarily a Gospel sermon, but a Law sermon: exposing sin and the moral inability of the flesh, (though it does, thankfully, still assure the poor in spirit that they are not abandoned by God in their weakness and failure, while reminding them that it is still the Father’s good pleasure to give them the kingdom).

Also, throughout the four Gospels, Jesus repeatedly rebukes the religious leaders and pronounces woe on them for their arrogance and unbelief. Jesus did not give them the Gospel but instead heaped the full weight of the Law upon them that they might see their hypocrisy and hardness of heart, become poor in spirit, repent, and then come to him for life; for up to that point, they were denying and rejecting him, saying he was a Samaritan and had a demon.

So why do these distinctions matter? For many reasons.

First, we will greatly mistake what the heart of Christ is like for sinners and sufferers if we take his words that are directed at the arrogant and unbelieving and apply them to struggling believers. Jesus is not harsh with weak and weary saints. He is tender and compassionate. No one who comes to him in faith will be cast out. Though our sins are like scarlet, he will make us white as snow. But if you reject him and cling to the law for righteousness, confident in your own goodness and spurning the blood of Jesus, there will certainly be harsh judgment against you for your arrogant pride and unbelief. In this way, Jesus showcases both the severity and kindness of God in the Gospels. He is kind and tender-hearted to the humble ones who know their need, but to the haughty and self-confident who scorn his grace, he is severe (though not without mercy). His goal is still salvation and restoration.

Secondly, if we don’t see Christ in all the promises of the whole Bible, we will be tempted to “unhitch the Old Testament” from our faith. But this can never be, for if we lose the Old Testament, we lose the Scriptures that provide the context, framework, and meaning for the person and work of Christ in the Incarnation as our Prophet, Priest, and King and only Mediator. Without the Old Testament, the New Testament is unintelligible. God has breathed out all Scripture to make us wise for salvation and to help us grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus. We need to see that the Gospel and its promises are for us in Christ from all of Scripture.

Thirdly, if we preach repentance and belief, but fail to proclaim the person and work of Jesus Christ for us, outside of us, and in history, we will slowly replace the person and work of Jesus as the object and center of our faith with our own selves and our own works. We will let our lives and our choices eclipse Jesus in our hearts, thereby losing sight of him as the author and perfector of our faith and the anchor of our souls. This will lead to being tossed to and fro, and having our assurance shaken as we look for a hope and confidence in ourselves and in our works that can only be found in Christ alone.

Therefore, we must remember that the Gospel properly speaking is about the person and work of Jesus Christ for us in history. How he died for our sins and rose again for our justification. That he has come and done for us, on our behalf and in our place, what we could never do for ourselves. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit for us, born of the virgin Mary for us, he lived a perfect life for us, suffered under Pontius Pilate for us, died on the cross for us, was buried for us, and was raised on the third day for us in accordance with the Scriptures.

He then ascended into heaven for us, is seated in glory at the Father’s right hand for us, he is interceding for us, and he is coming back again to make all things new for us! This Good News about the person and work of Christ for us is the Gospel in which we stand and in which we are saved. We don’t want to lose it or forget it, but rather proclaim it! And as we keep Jesus front and center, the Gospel will grow in our understanding and bear the good fruit of the Spirit in our lives according to his power and promise.

Lastly, this is the Gospel that we have been called to proclaim to the world. The only way we can fulfill the Great Commission is by heralding Christ, by opening our mouths and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, telling others what God has done in history to save them through Jesus. Some people only want to focus on themselves: our works, values, choices, morals, and life (and these things have their place), but the Scriptures focus us on Christ. God has not given us a coach, a therapist, or a guru, but a Savior: the one and only Mediator between God and man, our Lord Jesus Christ, who was given to us to completely set us free and to reconcile us back to the Father. Therefore, “Him we proclaim!” (Col. 1:28)

In summary, not everything in the four Gospels is Gospel properly speaking, but the Gospel proper is the main theme of the four Gospels, which is why we call them Gospel as a genre. The Gospel presentation includes the bad news, the Good News, and our response of repentance and faith. The promises of the Gospel are found in all the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation and not just the four Gospels or the New Testament only; we need the whole Scripture to know the whole Christ. And the Gospel properly speaking is the proclamation of the person and work of Jesus Christ for us, outside of us in history, with the bullseye being his death for our sins, his burial, and his resurrection from the dead in accordance with the Scriptures for our justification and salvation.

May the Lord grant you to know the “hope to which you have been called” (Eph 1:18), and empower you to share and proclaim Jesus’s person and work, “the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light,” (1 Pet 2:9) to your family, friends, classmates, coworkers, and neighbors this Easter season.

Amen.