Christians talk a lot about “the gospel,” and many of them know that this term means “good news.” But what—precisely—is that good news? In this episode, Jimmy Akin reviews a bunch of proposals for what the gospel is and reveals why they do not correspond to the New Testament’s own understanding of the gospel. For example, the gospel is NOT the message of how to “get saved” or “go to heaven.” He then reveals what the actual New Testament understanding of the gospel is, where it came from, and who it’s actually about.

 

TRANSCRIPT:

Coming Up

Question: Pastor John. Many people understand foundationally that they’re saved by the gospel of Jesus Christ, but they don’t even know how to articulate that, and many people don’t understand what the gospel actually is. Can you define that for us and tell us what is the gospel

John MacArthur: You’re going to go to eternal hell and conscious punishment for unless you put your faith in Jesus Christ? But here’s the good news, if you trust Christ, repent of your sin, he will take you to heaven forever. You’ll forgive all your sins. The gospel is we’re all headed to eternal punishment in hell, conscious punishment out of the presence of God forever. But God has provided a rescue through the death and resurrection of his son, Jesus Christ. You’re not talking about the gospel unless you talk about sin, repentance, Jesus Christ dying, rising again and faith in him. That’s the gospel. But it has to do with the best news that anyone will ever hear, and that is you can escape eternal punishment, spend eternity in heaven.

Let’s get into it!

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“The Gospel”

Christians talk a lot about the gospel, but what actually is it?

An easy answer is that the gospel is the “good news.” That’s what the Greek and Hebrew terms translated gospel mean, and we even get the English word gospel from roots that mean “good news.”

So far, so good. But what actually is the good news that the gospel contains? What is it, specifically?

That’s where things get fuzzy, and the truth is that Christians don’t have a single, clear definition for what the gospel is. In reality, there are several different uses for the term, and they can vary from one group of Christians to another.

 

“A Different Gospel”

This is a problem, because St. Paul has some very stern things to say about people who don’t understand the gospel correctly. In Galatians 1, he writes:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.

As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed (Galatians 1:6-9).

In Paul’s view, anyone who has a fundamentally different understanding of the gospel is to be condemned and ejected from the Christian community. That’s part of what being accursed means.

So making sure that you have a correct understanding of the gospel is very important, and that means that figuring out what the gospel is is a very important task. And yet, this is where we run into trouble.

 

The Gospel = All of Scripture

Sometimes you encounter people who use the term very broadly. For example, GotQuestions states:

The gospel is broadly speaking, the whole of scripture.

This sounds inspiring since the gospel is a good thing and the whole of Scripture is a good thing, and so it sounds inspiring to link the two concepts and say that all of Scripture belongs to the gospel. If you don’t think about it carefully, it could even sound irreverent to propose that there are things in Scripture that are not part of the gospel.

But if you do think about it more carefully, problems with the claim quickly emerge. For example, there are various verses in the New Testament that say that Andrew was the brother of Simon Peter. That’s part of Scripture. But do we really want to say that the historical fact that Andrew was the brother of Peter in some acceptable, first century definition of the term “brother” is something that is part of the gospel?

Or what about verses like Deuteronomy 3:11, which says that Og king of Bashan had a bed that was nine cubits long? Is the length of a pagan king’s bed really part of the gospel?

Most Christians would not suppose so. It may be interesting that Og’s bed was 9 cubits—or between 13 and 14 feet long—but this curious fact is scarcely something that warrants being considered an element in the gospel.

It’s clear that what’s going on in this definition is a pious identification of one sacred concept—the gospel—with another—Scripture. But this is not how Scripture itself uses the term gospel.

Even GotQuestions expressed reservations by saying that the gospel is the whole of Scripture “broadly speaking,” suggesting that this is an extended use of the term and not how you’d define it in a more proper sense.

Of course, language changes over time, and communities of language users can use terms however they see fit. So if some group of Christians identify all of Scripture with the gospel, they can do that. But we need to be honest about the fact that this is not how Scripture uses the term.

 

The Gospel = All Christian Doctrine

Other Christians who have a very broad understanding of the gospel make it identical with the whole of Christian teaching. Any doctrine of the faith is part of “the gospel” on this usage.

For example, the Lutheran Book of Concord says that the term gospel is used two ways in Scripture and that:

In the one case the word [gospel] is used in such a way that we understand by it the entire teaching of Christ, our Lord, which in his public ministry on earth and in the New Testament he ordered to be observed (Book of Concord, Formula of Concord 2:5:4).

Here the term gospel would be identified either with all the teachings of the Christian faith or at least those taught by Jesus himself.

But it’s pretty easy to see that this is not how the Bible is using the term. To give an example I often use, one of the truths of the Christian faith is the existence of angels.

Jesus himself taught the existence of angels. But the biblical authors wouldn’t say that the existence of angels is part of the gospel.

One of the reasons for that is that the existence of angels is taught in the Old Testament, but the gospel is something new. It hasn’t been with us all through redemptive history. Whatever the good news of the gospel is, it’s something associated with the New Testament, not the Old.

Another problem with this approach is that—if St. Paul is correct that anyone with an incorrect understanding of the gospel is to be regarded as accursed, and if the gospel is identified with the whole of Christian doctrine—then you won’t be able to have fellowship with anyone who disagrees with you on any point of doctrine.

If someone disagrees with you on a point of Christian teaching, and if all Christian teaching is part of the gospel, then you’re going to have to regard that person as accursed and kick them out.

On this view, there could be no doctrinal diversity in the Christian community. All Christians would need to agree on all doctrines, and anybody who doesn’t agree—even on a single doctrine—needs to be expelled.

Needless to say, most Christians don’t hold this view. For example, in the Protestant community it is common to say that different groups of Christians can have different opinions on doctrines as long as they agree on “the essentials.”

 

The Gospel = Grace?

The trouble comes when trying to identify what counts as an essential. People have different views on what is essential and what is non-essential. For example, in many Protestant communities, the idea that we are saved strictly by God’s grace and not by our own efforts is common.

This claim is true, but in some circles it has led to an identification between the gospel and the concept of grace. You’ll recall that the Lutheran Book of Concord stated that the term gospel is used in two senses, one of which was identified with the whole of Christian doctrine. The other, more restricted sense is based on a Lutheran tendency to divide biblical teaching up into two categories that Luther referred to as law and gospel. The Book of Concord continues:

In addition, however, the word “gospel” is also used in another (that is, in a strict) sense. Here it does not include the proclamation of repentance but solely the preaching of God’s grace. . . .

Everything that preaches about our sin and the wrath of God, no matter how or when it happens, is the proclamation of the law. On the other hand, the gospel is a proclamation that shows and gives nothing but grace and forgiveness in Christ (Book of Concord, Formula of Concord 2:5:6, 12).

On this view, law is anything that discusses our sin or God’s wrath, while gospel is anything that deals with grace and forgiveness.

Now, it’s okay if Lutherans want to use the terms law and gospel this way in their own community and classify different verses in Scripture according to these two categories. But we need to be exegetically honest about the fact that these uses are not how Scripture itself employs these terms. They are definitions that come from a later age and are being used to classify Scripture, but Scripture does not conceptualize the terms in this way.

For example, the primary meaning of the term law in the New Testament is a reference not to human sin and divine wrath but simply to the Law of Moses that God gave during the Exodus, and while that law does have things to say about sin and wrath, it also contains promises of grace and provisions for forgiveness.

 

The Gospel = My Favorite Doctrine

Another problem with the idea of being united on essentials while allowing diversity on non-essentials is that people also have a notable tendency to identify their own movement’s distinctive doctrines as essentials and thus as parts of the gospel.

Whatever makes us special—whatever separates us from other Christians—well, those things are essentials. Otherwise, our identity as a group will be undermined.

For example, some Pentecostals use the phrase “full gospel,” and they hold that many Protestants are not preaching all the elements they need to for a full presentation of the gospel. One of the elements they hold is part of the gospel is the idea that God continues to give miraculous gifts today. GotQuestions.org explains:

A “Full Gospel Christian” believes that the Holy Spirit is still doing everything he was doing in the New Testament Gospels: He is still healing, giving the gift of tongues, performing miracles, etc.

So you don’t have the full gospel unless you include miraculous gifts in it. Most Protestants don’t teach this, and so for Full Gospel Christians, most Christians don’t have a complete version of the gospel but a truncated version.

On the other hand, Calvinism places a great deal of emphasis on what they refer to as “the doctrines of grace.” These are teachings connected with grace, predestination, and so forth, and they are often summarized with the acronym TULIP, which stands for total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints—the so-called “five points of Calvinism.”

Many Calvinists are of the opinion that the doctrines of grace are so important that you have to have them in order to have a correct understanding of the gospel, you must teach the doctrines of grace. I’ve known Calvinists who teach that, and if you point out that this would imply that non-Calvinists don’t actually have the gospel, they’ve somewhat sheepishly admitted that this is the case: Non-Calvinists don’t really teach the gospel.

These two views identify the gospel with the views of two fairly narrow groups—certain Pentecostals and Calvinists—but most don’t identify the gospel so narrowly with their own group.

 

The Gospel = Sola Fide? Sola Gratia?

Many in the Protestant community seek to identify the gospel with something that’s broader—something that most or all standard Protestants could get on board with.

For example, there are certain slogans in Protestantism like sola fide, which is a Latin phrase that means “by faith alone.” The claim is that we are justified by faith alone, and this was a big point of controversy during the Reformation.

To justify breaking away from the Catholic Church, Protestants accused it of teaching a false gospel, and this was often expressed in terms of justification by faith alone. In doing this, they appealed to the passage from Galatians that we read earlier, where Paul condemned anyone with a different understanding of the gospel than the one he preached.

According to the Reformers, Paul preached the idea of justification by faith alone, and so the slogan sola fide expressed an essential element of the gospel. If anyone taught that anything besides faith was involved in justification, it was argued that he was in some degree engaging in self-justification and adding “works” to the gospel, making it a false understanding.

John Piper: That is extended in an offer to the world that is free. If the offer were not free, there would be no gospel. If it were by works instead of by faith, there would be no gospel.

Got Questions: The gospel is good news when we understand that we do not and cannot earn our salvation.

There are a number of problems with this understanding, and we don’t have time to go through them all at the moment. However, it’s worth pointing out that “by faith alone” is not the language of Scripture, for the phrased is used only once—in James 2:24—where it is rejected.

It’s also worth pointing out that Catholics don’t actually have a problem with the formula “faith alone” provided you understand the faith in question correctly. Thus Pope Benedict XVI stated:

Luther’s phrase “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love. . . . So it is that, in the letter to the Galatians, in which he primarily developed his teaching on justification, that St. Paul speaks of “faith that works through love” (General Audience, Nov. 19, 2008, quoting Gal. 5:6).

In light of the growing Catholic-Protestant reproachment, some Protestants have backed off on the necessity of the faith alone formula and been more open to the idea that the gospel merely requires that it’s God’s grace that saves us rather than us doing anything to earn salvation. As a result, they might identify the gospel with another Reformation-era slogan, the idea that we’re saved sola gratia or “by grace alone.”

 

Gospel = How to “Get Saved”?

One of the most common ways of presenting the gospel is that it is the message of eternal salvation. It’s all about sin and forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

As British scholar N.T. Wright says:

N.T. Wright: I grew up in a world where “the gospel” was the message that we’re all sinners but Jesus died in our place so—whew!—we get to go to heaven if we believe in him.

As GotQuestions says:

GotQuestions: More narrowly, the gospel is the good news concerning Christ and the way of salvation. The key to understanding the gospel is to know why it’s good news. To do that, we must start with the bad news. Sin is anything that falls short of perfect. The righteous requirement of the law is so stringent that no human being could possibly follow it perfectly in order for us to go to heaven. Sin must be somehow removed or paid for. When Christ offered himself at Calvary, that symbol became a reality for all. Who would believe the work of atonement is finished now, and that’s good news. The gospel is the good news that God loves the world enough to give his only son to die for our sin. The gospel is good news because our salvation and eternal life and home in heaven are guaranteed through Christ.

And as John MacArthur says:

John MacArthur: You’re not talking about the gospel unless you talk about sin, repentance, Jesus Christ dying, rising again and faith in him. That’s the gospel. But it has to do with the best news that anyone will ever hear, and that is you can escape eternal punishment, spend eternity in heaven.

The idea thus is that you are a sinner, and you cannot save yourself. If left to your own devices, you will spend eternity in hell. That’s the bad news that many preachers say one needs to understand in order to appreciate the good news or gospel.

The good news is that God has not left us to our own devices. Instead, he has send his Son Jesus Christ to die on a cross for us, and as a result he graciously offers to forgive our sins—at no cost—if we will only repent and believe in his Son. That way, we can be saved from sin and from hell and spend eternity with God in heaven.

Now, it so happens that every one of the claims I’ve just described is true. But is this the way the New Testament conceptualizes the gospel, or does the New Testament understand it some other way?

 

What About Scripture?

You may have noticed that in our discussion thus far we haven’t looked at how Scripture itself uses the term.

We’ve seen how the term gospel is used in different Christian movements, and we’ve noted problems with these definitions, but what we haven’t done is start with the text of Scripture and see how it uses the term. So that’s what we’ll turn to now.

The root meaning of gospel is “good news.” That’s the meaning of the Hebrew term bsorah and the Greek equivalent euangelion. But people have been giving and receiving different kinds of good news all through history, so what kind is meant in the Bible?

Is the gospel really all about sin and salvation, about being rescued from hell and brought to heaven through the death of Jesus on the Cross? Or is the gospel about something else?

 

Good News in the Bible

When the concept of the gospel leaps to prominence in the New Testament, one of the things that’s clear about it is that it’s not coming out of nowhere. In Romans 1, St. Paul writes that he is

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures (Romans 1:1-2).

So if we want to understand the New Testament’s gospel, it’s important to look back into the Old Testament to see what was prophesied.

When the Old Testament speaks of good news being announced, it frequently has in mind the announcement of a military victory (2 Samuel 4:10, 18:19-31, 2 Kings 7:9, etc.)—that God has given his people victory in battle—and this meaning needs to be borne in mind.

 

Good News in Isaiah

The term good news becomes particularly prominent in the book of Isaiah, which—together with the Psalms—is one of the books that Jesus quotes most frequently in the four Gospels. Since Isaiah is a prophetic work, it is here that we would be most likely to find material directly prophesying the emergence of the gospel in the New Testament.

It is thus no surprise when we consult Isaiah and discover that the end of the book—which frequently deals with the coming age of the Messiah—has multiple references to good news. For example, in chapter 40, we read:

Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news;
lift it up, fear not;
say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”
Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him;
behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him (Isaiah 40:9-10).

Here the good news that is announced to Israel is the arrival of God as king. He comes with mighty power, and his right arm is going to rule. This hooks into the theme of military victory that we have already seen associated with the idea of good news.

Next, in chapter 52, we read:

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace,
who brings good news of happiness,
who publishes salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” (Isaiah 52:7).

Here the good news being announced is that there will be a time in which Israel’s God reigns, resulting in a time of peace, happiness, and salvation—the last of these being a common Old Testament reference to salvation from one’s enemies in battle, again hooking into the theme of military victory.

Finally, in chapter 61, we read:

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Isaiah 61:1-2).

Here the good news being announced includes encouraging the brokenhearted, proclaiming liberty to those who are captive or in prison, and the reason for this is the arrival of the year of the Lord’s favor—so once again God brings about a new and improved state of affairs for his people.

We thus see Isaiah building up a picture of a coming time when God will arrive with powerful might and a strong right arm, he will reign and bring peace, happiness, and salvation from their enemies to his people, and in this year or time of the Lord’s favor, he will encourage the broken hearted and announce liberty to captives and those in prison.

That is the essential content of the good news or gospel that Isaiah focuses on.

 

The Gospel in the Gospels

So how well does Isaiah’s understanding of the coming time of good news correspond to the way the concept is handled in the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?

The earliest reference we find to Jesus preaching the gospel is in Mark 1:

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:14-15).

This fits very well with the understanding of the gospel in Isaiah. Here the gospel is presented as being “of God”—that is, it is good news from or about God—and it is announced that “the time is fulfilled”—meaning that what has been previously prophesied is now arriving. The thing that is now arriving is “the kingdom of God.” And the appropriate response is to repent or turn away from one’s sins and believe in the gospel or good news of God’s arriving kingdom.

All of this fits with the vision of the gospel presented in Isaiah of a time when God would arrive with power and begin to rule in a new golden age, in which God’s people—those who have repented of sin and allied with God—will be blessed.

We also find a connection with Isaiah’s understanding of the good news in Luke 4, where we read:

[Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabb... Read more on Catholic.com