What is the Gospel?

Many authors and evangelical theologians have remarked in recent times on how the church in the West is undergoing a process of remarkable fragmentation. This fragmentation extends to our understanding of the Gospel itself.

For some Christians, firstly, ‘the gospel’ is a narrow set of teachings about Jesus’ death and resurrection which rightly believed one is tipped in to the kingdom and then after that all the real life transformation and discipleship and maturity take place. This is a far cry from the emphases in the Bible which understands the gospel to be the embracing category that holds much of the Bible together and takes people from lost-ness, condemnation, alienation from God all the way through conversion and discipleship - to consummation, resurrection bodies, to the new heaven and new earth!

Secondly, other voices identify the gospel with the first and second commandments - 'to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself.' These commandments are so central that Jesus himself says that all the law and prophets hang on them - but they’re not 'the gospel!'

A third option today is to attempt to treat the ethical teaching of Jesus found in the canonical gospels as 'the gospel'. Yet it is often the ethical teaching of Jesus removed from His passion and resurrection. This approach is dependent on two disastrous mistakes;

(1) First, it overlooks the fact that in the first century there was no gospel of Matthew, or gospel of Mark, or gospel of Luke - NO ONE used that terminology in the first century. In the first century it was the gospel according to Matthew, ...according to Mark, ... according to Luke - that is - it was just one gospel - according to these various witnesses. And then when you see what is common in the canonical books today - in the gospels we have - you run from the beginning of Jesus, right through his teaching and miraculous power, the shutting down of the powers of darkness, through to his death and resurrection - including his commission - that constitutes THE GOSPEL. The ONE gospel according to Matthew, Mark , Luke and John. These elements are not independent pearls on a string that constitute the life and times of Jesus, the Messiah. Accounts of Jesus’ teaching cannot be rightly understood unless they are alongside the flow of and point forward to Jesus’ death and resurrection. To study Jesus without simultaneously considering his passion and resurrection is far worse that reflecting on Hitler’s Mein Kamf without thinking of WW2.

(2) Second we can see that to focus on Jesus’ teaching while making the Cross peripheral reduces the glorious good news of the gospel to mere pious religion. The joy of forgiveness to mere ethical conformity. Jesus' call to obedience to mere duty. The result is disastrous, it is catastrophic!

However, perhaps the more common event today, is the tendency to simply assume 'the gospel '- whatever that is! Whilst devoting our time, passion and energy to other issues - marriage, happiness, children, prosperity, the poor, wrestling with Islam, bioethics, secularization, politics - the list is endless! But this overlooks the fact that inevitably our hearers are drawn to that which we are most passionate. If the gospel is merely assumed whilst relatively peripheral issues ignite our passion we will train a new generation to downplay the gospel and focus on secondary issues. For 'the main thing is that the main thing remain the main thing' (Martin Marty) - keep the gospel at the very center. If only we understood the gospel better then we’d be equipped to deal with that list of issues I mentioned just before.

There are many biblical texts and themes that we could explore to think more clearly about the gospel but can I urge you now to read and think hard about 1 Corinthians 15:1-19. Read it. Read it again. Read it slowly. Read it quickly. Think about it.

¹ Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. ² By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

³ For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. ⁶ After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, ⁸ and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

⁹ For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. ¹¹ Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

¹² But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³ If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁴ And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. ¹⁵ More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. ¹⁶ For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. ¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. ¹⁸ Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. ¹⁹ If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all others. (1 Cor. 15:1-19, TNIV)

Let us be a generation and train the next generation to be people that know the true gospel and seek to win some to Christ by proclaiming it. May the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ - suffered, dead and risen again be our central passion - may in God's mercy he allow deaf ears to hear and blind eyes to be opened.