What Is the Gospel?

The word gospel means good news, and it has been repeated so often in Christian circles that its content is frequently assumed rather than stated. Yet the New Testament treats the gospel as a definite message with a fixed content, something that can be preached wrongly as well as rightly, received or refused, guarded or lost. To ask what the gospel is, then, is not to ask for a mood or a general encouragement. It is to ask for the specific announcement that the apostles delivered and that the church is charged to keep.

A Message, Not Advice

The first thing to see is that the gospel is news before it is instruction. Paul opens his letter to the Romans by calling it "the gospel of God," a message that God Himself promised beforehand "by his prophets in the holy scriptures," concerning His Son.¹ The gospel is therefore God's message before it is ours. It did not begin as human insight and it does not depend on human approval. It is an announcement of something God has done, which is why Paul can describe it as "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth," rather than as counsel to be weighed.² Advice tells a person what to do. News tells a person what has happened. The gospel is news.

The Content Paul Delivered

When Paul states the content of the gospel in its most compact form, he does so with the care of a man handing on a fixed tradition. He reminds the Corinthians of the gospel "which also ye have received," and then sets down four clauses.³ Christ died for our sins. He was buried. He rose again the third day. He was seen. Each clause matters, and two of them carry a phrase that governs the whole.

Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. His death was not an accident of history but the appointed sacrifice foretold by the prophets, the smiting of one on whom the iniquity of others was laid.⁴ He was buried, which grounds the death in fact and prepares for what follows. He rose again the third day according to the scriptures, so that the resurrection, like the death, stands as the fulfillment of what God had already declared.⁵ And He was seen, appearing bodily to named witnesses, to Cephas, to the twelve, to more than five hundred at once, and last of all to Paul himself.⁶ The good news is not that Jesus lives on in memory or influence. It is that He rose in His body and was seen.

Rooted, Historical, and Received

Three features of this message deserve emphasis. First, the gospel is rooted in the Old Testament. The repeated phrase "according to the scriptures" shows that the death and resurrection of Christ were not a departure from what God had said but the keeping of it. Second, the gospel is historical. It rests on events that happened at a particular time and were verified by witnesses who could be questioned. Third, the gospel is received before it is proclaimed. Paul delivered what he had first received, which means the church does not invent the message but hands it on unchanged.

Why It Is Called Good

The gospel is good news precisely because of what precedes it. A right understanding of sin shows that human beings stand condemned and unable to remedy their own condition.⁷ Into that situation the gospel announces that God has acted. Christ has borne the penalty, satisfied the demand, and risen as proof that the work was accepted. The righteousness required is provided, "revealed from faith to faith," and received not by achievement but by belief.⁸ This is why the gospel is offered to everyone who believes, and why it can never be reduced to a program of self-improvement. It is the report of a finished work, and the only fitting response to news of that kind is to trust the One who accomplished it.

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Scripture quotations are from the King James Version.