What Is the Gospel?

The word gospel has been so thoroughly domesticated that it now names a genre of music, a style of sincerity (“the gospel truth”), and a vague religious mood. In the New Testament it names something far more definite: an announcement. Before the gospel is advice about how to live, it is news about what has happened.¹

News, not advice

When Paul wants to remind the Corinthians of the gospel he preached, he does not summarize an ethic. He recites events:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. — 1 Corinthians 15:3–4

Notice the shape. Something happened — death, burial, resurrection — and it happened for us (“for our sins”) and according to plan (“in accordance with the Scriptures”). The gospel is therefore historical, substitutionary, and scriptural all at once. Remove any leg and the stool falls.

This is why the prophets could speak of gospel heralds long before the incarnation. Isaiah pictures a messenger running across the mountains with news of a battle already won: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news” (Isaiah 52:7). Heralds do not negotiate; they announce.

The power of God

Paul calls this announcement “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). That is a strange thing to say about words. But the claim is that when the news of Christ crucified and risen is announced, God himself acts through it — creating the very faith it calls for.

This has an important corollary: the gospel does not become true when I believe it. It is true, and therefore I may believe it. Faith rests on the finished work of Christ, which is why justification can be by faith — faith contributes nothing except its grip on Christ.

What the gospel is not

Three common substitutions are worth naming:

1. The gospel is not law. “Love God and neighbor” is holy, just, and good — and it is not news. It is command. The gospel announces what God has done precisely for those who have failed the command.
2. The gospel is not my testimony. My story may adorn the gospel; it cannot replace it. The news concerns Christ’s death and resurrection, not my experience of them.
3. The gospel is not social improvement. The gospel produces justice and mercy in its wake, but the announcement itself concerns sin, death, and resurrection — see The Atonement as Victory and Substitution for how these hold together.

Where to go deeper

The commentary on 1 Corinthians 15 walks through Paul’s fullest definition line by line, and the essay on Union with Christ explores how the events out there become benefits in here.

Footnotes

1. The Greek εὐαγγέλιον was used in the Roman world for imperial announcements — the accession or victory of an emperor. The apostles borrowed a political word, with all its public, heraldic force. ↩