What is the gospel? This question is central to Christianity and therefore central to the Christian's task of "contending for the faith once delivered" (Jude 3).
We’ve been preaching through Jude together on Sunday mornings at GLC and I’d like to spend some time this week following up (in various ways) with what we’ve been learning together and offering resources that might help us grow in the realities of the gospel. The first way that Jude instructs believers to respond in the midst of false teaching is to remember the teaching that we received (17-19). It's impossible to contend for the faith once delivered if we fail to regularly remember the gospel that we received.
With that in mind, one of the best summaries of what the gospel is (and isn't) that I've ever heard was D.A. Carson's 2007 address at The Gospel Coalition. After identifying a few common misconceptions of the gospel, he offers eight summarizing words, five clarifying sentences, and one evocative summary as he preaches through 1 Corinthians 15 (and related texts). I commend this to you as a resource as you seek to remember the teaching you received. Here’s a link to the video and some of my notes taken directly from the session for those who would rather read a summary.
A Few Common Misconceptions of the Gospel
The gospel is reduced to a narrow set of teachings about the death and resurrection of Christ, which rightly believed, tip people into the kingdom. After that, the real training and transformation, discipleship and maturity take place. This view is much narrower than the biblical view, in which the gospel is the embracing category which holds much of the bible together, encompassing lostness and condemnation, through reconciliation and conversion, through to the consummation and the resurrection.
Some voices identify the gospel with the first and second commandments: to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself. Well these commandments are so central that Jesus himself insists that all the prophets and the law hang on them. But they’re not the gospel.
A third option today is to treat the ethical teachings of Jesus found in the canonical gospels as the gospel. Yet it is often the ethical teachings of Jesus abstracted from his passion and resurrection. But To focus on Jesus’ teaching while making the cross peripheral reduces the glorious good news of the gospel to mere religion, the joy of religion to mere ethical conformity, the highest motives for obedience to mere duty. And the result is disastrous. It’s catastrophic.
Perhaps more common yet today is the tendency to assume the gospel while devoting creative energy and passion to other issues. But this overlooks the fact that our hearers inevitably are drawn toward that about which we are most passionate.
Eight Summarizing Words
1. The Gospel is Christological (Christ-Centered).
The gospel is irrevocably Christ-centered. The point is powerfully articulated in every New Testament book and corpus. This is the gospel of Christ crucified and risen again. When we insist that the gospel is Christological we are not thinking of Christ simply as the God-man who comes along and helps us like a nice insurance agent. “Jesus is a very, very nice God-man and when you break down he comes along and fixes you.” There is no content to that kind of Christ. The gospel is Christological in a more robust sense. Jesus is the promised Messiah who died and rose again.
2. The Gospel is Theological.
This is a shorthand way of affirming two things: (1) God raised Christ Jesus from the dead. God sent the Son into the world and the Son went obediently to the cross because it was his Father’s will. It makes no sense to pit the mission of the Son against the sovereign purpose of the Father. (2) Christ died for our sins. The cross and resurrection are not nakedly historical events. They are historical events with the deepest theological weight. In recent years it has become popular to sketch the Bible’s storyline in a way that depersonalizes the wrath of God and fails to wrestle with the fact that from the beginning sin is an offense against God. It’s the de-godding of God––the replacing of God with something or someone else. As a matter of first importance, Christ died for our sins.
3. The Gospel is Biblical.
“According to the Scriptures.” What is very striking is that Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 grounds the gospel in the Scriptures, and of course he has in mind what we call the Old Testament, and then he moves on to the Apostles, and thus what we call the New Testament.
4. The Gospel is Apostolic.
Paul repeatedly draws attention to the Apostles in 1 Corinthians 15. Jesus appeared to Peter, then to the Twelve (v. 5), then to James, then to all the Apostles, and then last of all he appeared to Paul (v. 8), the least of the Apostles (v. 9). And then listen to the sequence of pronouns in verse 11: Whether then it was I (an Apostle) or they (the other Apostles), this is what we (the Apostles) preach and And this is what you believed. This sequence of pronouns––I, we, they, you––becomes a powerful way of connecting the witness and teaching with the faith of all subsequent Christians. This gospel is Apostolic.
5. The Gospel is Historical.
Here four things must be said. (1) 1 Corinthians 15 specificies both Jesus’ burial and his resurrection. The burial testifies to Jesus’ death. The appearances testify to Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus’ death and resurrection thus are tied together in history. The one who is crucified is the one who is resurrected. The body that came out of the tomb had the wounds of the body that went into the tomb. This resurrection took place on the third day. It is in dateable sequence from the death. The cross and the resurrection are irrefutably tied together. Any approach––theological or evangelistic––that attempts to pit Jesus’ death and resurrection against each other is not much more than silly. (2) The manner by which we have access to Jesus’ death and resurrection is the exact same manner by which we have access to any historical event: through the witness and remains of those who were there by means of the records they left behind. That is why there is such a huge emphasis on witness in Scripture. That is why Paul enumerates the witnesses. He mentions that some of them are still alive at this time of writing and therefore could still be checked out. And he recognizes the importance of their reliability. (3) We must see that unlike other religions the central Christian claims are irreducibly historical. The revelation of God is Jesus Christ, and this revelation entered into human history. It’s an historical revelation, and there are historical events that are central to the whole of Christianity. It’s not faith about Jesus that saves, it’s Jesus who saves. (4) We must face the fact that in contemporary discussion the word “historical” is sometimes invested with a number of slipper assumptions. For many it excludes the miraculous. It’s far better to think of historical as events that actually happened in space and time even if it was caused by God’s spectacular power.
6. The Gospel is Personal.
The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are not merely historical events. The gospel is not merely theological in the sense that it organizes a lot of theological precepts. It sets out the way of individual, personal salvation. “Which you received and on which you have taken your stand––by this gospel you are saved.” An historical gospel that is not personal and powerful is merely antiquarian. A theological gospel that is not received by faith and found to be transforming, is merely abstract. In reality, the gospel is personal.
7. The Gospel is Universal.
The new humanity in Jesus, the second Adam, draws from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. The gospel, in this sense, is universal. It is not universal in the sense that it saves and transforms everyone without exception, for in reality, those whose existence is connected exclusively to the old Adam are not included. Yet this gospel is gloriously universal in its comprehensive sweep. There is not a trace of racism here. The gospel is universal.
8. The Gospel is Eschatological.
It is not enough to focus narrowly on the blessings Christians enjoy in Christ this present age. The gospel is fully eschatological, and all of its fruit appears finally in the new heaven and the new earth, the home of righteousness.
Five Clarifying Sentences
1. This Gospel is Normally Disseminated in Proclamation.
Look up every instance of the word gospel and wherever there is any mention of its dissemination––almost always, almost without exception––it’s connected with one of the preaching words. This gospel is disseminated by heraldic ministry. When dissemination of the gospel is in view, overwhelmingly the Bible specifies proclamation. THe good news must be announced. It must be heralded. It must be explained.
2. This Gospel is Fruitfully Received in Authentic Persevering Faith.
“By this gospel you are saved, if you persevere…” The faith must be of the persevering type. “God has reconciled you… if you continue in your faith… not moved from the hope held out in the gospel…”
3. This Gospel is Properly Disclosed in Personal, Self-Humiliation.
People properly respond the way the Apostle does. Far from this event becoming a source of pride for Paul, it evokes a sense of his own worthlessness apart from Christ. Not an utterance of pride but contrition.
4. This Gospel is Rightly Asserted to be the Central Confession of the Whole Church.
Paul insists that the gospel is rightly asserted to be the central confession of the Whole Church, and always beware of churches that proudly flaunt their differences.
5. The Gospel is Boldly Advancing Under the Contested Reign and Inevitable Victory of Christ Jesus the King.
“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
One Evocative Summary
One of the results of this summary is that it shows how cognitive the gospel is. It is propositional. It is to be understood, taught, explained. Yet the gospel is not exclusively cognitive. Where the gospel triumphs, lives are transformed. The gospel works itself out in every aspect of a believer’s life. This is done not by attempting to abstract social principles from the gospel, nor by imposing new levels of rules, nor by focusing on the periphery in the vain effort to sound prophetic; but by preaching and teaching and living out the glorious gospel of our blessed Redeemer.
