Sunday School 10:00-10:45
Worship 11:00
What Is the Gospel?
At the heart of the Christian faith is a message of Good News.
I Corinthians 15:1-8
"Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain."For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas {Peter], then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time."
Church Words?
In church we use a lot of traditional words – good words, not bad or wrong – whose meanings aren’t really clear. Grace, mercy, faith, repentance, holiness, righteousness, Gospel: all of these are ‘church words’ that we don’t use very often in our regular, day-to-day lives. And often we or our hearers don’t really carry in our minds what these words actually mean. They’re ill-defined, vague, and obscure. The word “Gospel” is one of these. What is it?
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The word “Gospel” is an Old English word that means – quite simply – “Good News.” That’s a literal translation of the Greek word used in the original language of the New Testament: "euangelion." We see that in our modern English words “evangelical” and “evangelism” (two other ‘religious’ words we use without thinking about what they mean). “Evangelical” doesn’t properly refer to a sect or a political movement; it simply means “Good News.” To do “evangelism” doesn’t mean “to make people follow our rules,” it means “to tell Good News.” During the Protestant Reformation (begun in Germany in 1517 AD), Protestants called themselves the “evangelische kirche,” or “Good News Church.”
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So “Gospel” means “Good News.” But that begs the question, “What is this Good News?” Why is it good? And that also implies that there is also a “bad news” to which it provides a solution. After all, good news without bad news isn’t good, it’s just, well… news. For example, if you believe that you’re in perfect health and go to the doctor for a physical and he tells you that, yep, you’re in good health… well whoop-te-do. But if you have been agonizing for months fearing that you have some horrible wasting disease and that you’re on death’s doorstep and the doctor tells you that you’re inexplicably the picture of health and wholeness… that is really GOOD news.
The Gospel is the very best news that anyone can ever hear. It is a truth more precious than anything. It is a message of hope and love and healing so gloriously wonderful that countless people have been willing to live and to die to hold on to and to share with others. It is, as we read in the Book of Acts, a message that has “turned the world upside down” and changed the course of human history.
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So what is it?
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At is most basic, the Gospel is the Good News that in the birth, life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ God has provided the solution to mankind’s most pressing problem, and has given undeserving, broken people the gift of love, forgiveness, acceptance, and healing.
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R.C. Sproul, a pastor and seminary professor, once said this:
“The gospel is called the 'good news' because it addresses the most serious problem that you and I have as human beings, and that problem is simply this: God is holy and He is just, and I'm not. And at the end of my life, I'm going to stand before a just and holy God, and I'll be judged. And I'll be judged either on the basis of my own righteousness–or lack of it–or the righteousness of another. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus lived a life of perfect righteousness, of perfect obedience to God, not for His own well being but for His people. He has done for me what I couldn't possibly do for myself. But not only has He lived that life of perfect obedience, He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice to satisfy the justice and the righteousness of God.
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“The great misconception in our day is this: that God isn't concerned to protect His own integrity. He's a kind of wishy-washy deity, who just waves a wand of forgiveness over everybody. No. For God to forgive you is a very costly matter. It cost the sacrifice of His own Son. So valuable was that sacrifice that God pronounced it valuable by raising Him from the dead–so that Christ died for us, He was raised for our justification. So the gospel is something objective. It is the message of who Jesus is and what He did. And it also has a subjective dimension. How are the benefits of Jesus subjectively appropriated to us? How do I get it? The Bible makes it clear that we are justified not by our works, not by our efforts, not by our deeds, but by faith–and by faith alone. The only way you can receive the benefit of Christ's life and death is by putting your trust in Him and in Him alone. You do that, you're declared just by God, you're adopted into His family, you're forgiven of all of your sins, and you have begun your pilgrimage for eternity.”
D.A. Carson, an author and professor, put it this way:
The gospel is good news—the good news of what God has done in Jesus Christ.
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The Bible depicts human beings, all human beings everywhere, as in revolt against God, and therefore under his judgment. But although God stands over against us in judgment because of our sin, quite amazingly he stands over against us in love, because he is that kind of God—and the gospel is the good news of what God, in love, has done in Jesus Christ, especially in Jesus’s cross and resurrection, to deal with our sin and to reconcile us to himself.
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Christ bore our sin on the cross. He bore the penalty, turned aside God’s judgment, God’s wrath, from us, and cancelled sin. The brokenness of our lives he restores; the shattered relationships he rebuilds in the context of the church; the new life that we human beings find in Christ is granted out of the sheer grace of God. It is received by faith as we repent of our sins and turn to Jesus. We confess him as Lord, and bow to him joyfully.
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The gospel is good news—the good news of what God has done in Jesus Christ.
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One day he will make all things new. The good news culminates in a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness, where neither sin nor any of its effects can survive, and where we enjoy the presence of God forever in the context of resurrection existence.
Cheer Up!
Both of these are good definitions. But my favorite way of expressing the implications of this Good News is in the words of Jack Miller, another pastor and seminary professor, who put it this way (my paraphrase):
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"Cheer up!
You’re worse than you think you are.
And more loved, forgiven, and accepted
than you’ve ever dared hope."
Cheer up! The Gospel tells us that in His life, death, and resurrection Jesus has paid the full penalty for each and every one of your sins, failures, shames, and guilt. His last words on the cross before He died were these: “It is finished!”
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When Jesus died on the cross, the Bible tells us that this wasn’t just a tragic death of a good man. No, when He died, it was the Son of God (who is God Himself) who perished. But His suffering and death wasn’t just any crucifixion. In His suffering and death God the Father poured out on Jesus the full measure of His wrath and punishment for each of His people. He made an end of the guilt and shame we bear. He declared us to be clean, pure, and righteous as if we’d never done any wrong or left any good thing undone.
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The bad news is that you and I have spent a lifetime doing wrong, as well as leaving undone those good things we ought to have done. And those things – our sins and trespasses – must be judged and punished. Only perfect people who do no wrong and who perfectly love God, others, and even self can stand in God’s presence. But apart from God, Scripture tells us that we sin continually in thought, word, and deed. Our hearts are corrupt, our minds debased, and our wills are twisted.
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But the gloriously Good News is that Jesus loves His people so fully that He voluntarily suffered the full measure of God’s wrath for all our failures. Because of that, we are free. We are free to see, to believe, and to accept the truth of our own brokenness. Because we no longer have to fear judgment, we can admit the truth about ourselves in all its gritty ugliness.
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We can take Dr Miller’s advice to “Cheer up!” because no matter how bad I am – no matter what human measure I use to evaluate myself – by God’s measure I am far, far worse than I could ever imagine in my darkest, most despondent moments of self-loathing. It’s Good News! It’s Good News because if I cannot measure up, then I am free from trying to measure up! I have nothing to prove! And that is such a relief!
But there’s more!
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Cheer up! Not only am I so much worse than I ever imagined, but God loves me, forgives me, and accepts me far more fully and completely than I could ever dare to hope. Do you see? When we accept the truth of the Resurrection, trust Jesus, and stop trying to earn our own righteousness, we find that God has already given us far more than we could ever ask or imagine. We find that we are loved perfectly, forgiven totally, and accepted unconditionally.
That really is Good News. And that Good News is the foundation of everything that we do. It isn’t just a doorway into a new life, it is a new life. It is the touchstone for every aspect of our life together, our worship of God, and our service and witness to the people around us. From how we speak to ourselves in the dark midnight, to how we relate to our spouses and children, to how we structure the very order of our worship service, the Gospel is the Christian life.