What Is the "Gospel"?
Trying to define a surprisingly-vague and sometimes-misunderstood term
Photo by Alexander Michl on Unsplash
(A ten-minute read.)
A few months ago, I listened to an interview with a guy who had been a part of my faith community but who no longer is. I’m usually “all ears” when it comes to these types of things, always eager to hear about the ways we’ve failed people, but the guy especially seemed to have an “ax” to grind and I found myself getting unusually frustrated and defensive the more I listened to him.
Mostly, I think I was feeling defensive because he presented his views in such dogmatic terms, speaking as though he has it all figured out and we don’t (which, as you may know, is, like, one of the cardinal sins in my book).
In particular, he repeatedly said that Seventh-day Adventists don’t understand or preach the “gospel”—and we therefore need to repent because there will be millions of people who burn in hell forever because they believed the message we proclaimed.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit it: I believe Seventh-day Adventists are generally weak on the gospel. This is to my great frustration and sadness. It’s why I try to take every opportunity I can to sound that alarm and bang that drum, reminding my brothers and sisters of the centrality of the gospel.
But listening to this guy got me to thinking: what even is the gospel?
Christians constantly throw the word around—probably more than any other word in our vocabulary—but often just assume everyone knows what we’re talking about.
Yet the word suffers from incredible ambiguity to the point of perhaps being devoid of meaning. It can be used in the service of many different agendas, theologies, and doctrinal systems.
Some people use it as an umbrella term, covering a whole range of topics; others use it in a very narrow sense, excluding anything else that doesn’t fit into their box.
Some use the term “gospel” as a way to push a progressive social agenda; others use it in the service of a very strict explanation of how a person gets “saved.”
The young man on the podcast seemingly used it in this latter sense, essentially defining the term in the very narrow way John Calvin did.
According to this definition, “the gospel” declares that humans are sinners who deserve God’s eternal wrath, but Christ took that wrath upon himself—and all those whom he’s elected can therefore live forever because of his act of “vicarious substitution.”
Anything different from this, this young man would seemingly say, is not “the gospel.”
Of course, there are others who would disagree with this very narrow definition.
And it’s therefore ironic—and perhaps tragic—that a term that’s arguably the most important term in Christianity is thus also one of its most ambiguous.
So, again: what is “the gospel”?
I want to try my hand at offering a brief sketch of what I understand the gospel to be, even while admitting that’s it’s simply one person’s take on it—and a brief and limited take at that (for a more robust and detailed exposition on the topic, I found Czech theologian Petr Pokorny’s book to be a helpful and interesting read).
What’s so “good” about the “good news”?
As is well documented, the word “gospel” comes from the Greek word euangelion, which literally means “good news” or “glad tidings.” As Porkorny shows, it was often used in the broader Greek world in reference to military victory. A messenger (an euangelos, from whence we get the word “evangelist”) would return from the battlefield and announce the “good news” of the nation’s conquests.
This Greek word was used a handful of times in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (what’s called the Septuagint), and was often used in similar contexts (see, for example, 1 Chronicles 10:9), and it therefore seems likely that the first followers of Jesus utilized this word from the Septuagint as a way of both placing the Jesus-story within the context of the Hebrew Scriptures and Israel’s story, and because of its more general meaning of “good news” (since the Septuagint also used it beyond the context of military conflict).
It’s no wonder, then, that in the New Testament, the term “gospel” is often accompanied by other modifiers, denoting that the gospel has specific content (which may or may not be the same content every time).
After all, if I were to randomly ask you if you heard the “good news,” your natural response would be, “About what?”
So quite often, when the term “gospel” is used in the New Testament, it’s followed by the word “of” in our English translations.
Thus, for example, there’s the “gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24); the “gospel of God” (Romans 15:16; 2 Corinthians 11:7; 1 Thessalonians 2:2, 8, 9; 1 Peter 4:17); the “gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4); the “gospel of your salvation” (Ephesians 1:13); and the “gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6:15).
Then there’s the way the Gospel writers themselves—and specifically Matthew and Mark—use the term. They quote Jesus as talking about the “gospel of the kingdom” (Matthew 4:23; 9:35; 24:14) or the “gospel of the kingdom of God” (Mark 1:14).
More than any other phrase, however, the apostle Paul talks about the “gospel of Christ” (Romans 1:16; 15:19, 29; 1 Corinthians 9:12, 18; 2 Corinthians 9:13; 10:14; Galatians 1:7; Philippians 1:27; 1 Thessalonians 3:2).
By this phrase, Paul seems to be pointing to the reality of Jesus’s Messiahship, identifying him as the fulfillment of Israel’s Scriptures and the great hope of humanity.
Perhaps his most explicit and succinct exposition of this idea comes in his first letter to the Corinthians, where he reminds the Corinthians of the “gospel which I preached to you,” which, he says, he himself “received” (thus leading many scholars to conclude that this was some sort of early creedal articulation that Paul was passing along).
And what was this gospel?
“[T]hat 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, then by the twelve” (1 Corinthians 15:3-5).
Simply put, according to this explanation, the “gospel” was the good news about Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection—and that he was alive in bodily form and had been seen by his followers.
Of course, this wasn’t the only way Paul defined the gospel. He filled out the canvas a lot more, further explaining the content of this “good news.”
I think especially of his letter to the Galatians—which is, in many ways, one long exposition on both the gospel and the gospel’s implications.
There, Paul is greatly agitated and animated, warning the churches of Galatia that there are Jesus-followers who are trying to promote a false “gospel,” thus making the “good news” not sound so good.
The most obvious example of this anti-gospel messaging, according to Paul in Galatians, is the way some people were insisting that non-Jews had to be circumcised in order to be a part of God’s people.
Paul even takes Peter task for this for implicitly promoting this idea, after Peter stopped sitting at the table with uncircumcised Gentiles (who were Jesus-followers) when circumcised Jews were watching him.
In so doing, Peter was—according to Paul—being a hypocrite and “not [being] straightforward about the truth of the gospel” (Galatians 2:14).
This is because, as Paul goes on to explain a few verses later, they knew that “a man is not justified by the works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ” (v. 16).
In other words, the gospel declared with poignant clarity that a person’s worthiness—and eligibility to sit at the table—wasn’t based on their conformity to prescribed rules and rituals but on the work of Jesus the Messiah.
Indeed, the good news was that a person’s fitness wasn’t predicated on their faithfulness but on Christ’s.
Simply put, through his death, burial, and resurrection, humanity was brought back into harmony with God—and all those who put their confidence in Christ would continue on the path toward full restoration.
I like how Petr Pokorny, in the book mentioned above, summarizes Paul’s understanding of the gospel throughout his letters (though I’d perhaps quibble with a few things):
Because of Jesus’ substitutionary death, all who believe in him as the Christ may pass muster at the Last Judgment, may be released to freedom as the righteous ones, and may become members of the messianic people.
But what about Jesus?
Of course, as alluded to above, Paul isn’t the only New Testament figure to use the term “gospel” (though, in truth, about 80 percent of the usages come from him), so he’s not the only person whose perspective matters.
And such a situation—as well as others—has led some Christians to conclude there’s a conflict between Paul’s “gospel” and Jesus’s “gospel.”
This is all the more poignant when one notices that Paul very rarely talks about the teachings of Jesus when he speaks of the gospel, and Jesus doesn’t talk about his death, burial, and resurrection—or the substitutionary nature of these acts—when he speaks of the gospel.
Instead, Jesus, when he references the gospel, speaks of the “gospel of the kingdom.”
Thus, in many ways, when Jesus talks about the “kingdom of God” (which was his favorite subject), he’s explaining the good news about the way his kingdom operates—which was completely at odds with the ways the kingdoms of the world operated.
So essentially, when Jesus speaks of the “gospel,” he’s describing the nature of God’s kingdom and the character of the King at the head of that kingdom.
And this was such “good news” to those who heard it because the King of that kingdom affirmed the value, worth, and dignity of all, and didn’t use power, exploitation, and coercion to achieve his ends (which was a way of operating they’d never encountered before).
Indeed, healing and salvation didn’t come to those who earned it—to those who were strong and able—but to those who put their trust and confidence in the King, regardless of their status, resources, or ability to measure up and achieve.
So I don’t see this version of the “gospel” as being at odds with Paul at all. Both Jesus and Paul are whistling the same tune, even if they’re perhaps on different verses.
Jesus’s “gospel” looks at the broader context of the good news, taking a wide-angle view of the way his kingdom operates and the character of the King of that kingdom.
Paul, while occasionally touching on some of these themes, zeroes in on a particular aspect of that good news, spending more time expounding upon the means by which those who are alienated from God are brought back into full harmony and restoration with the King and his kingdom.
Both are aspects of the good news. Both announce the glad tidings of what God has done, is doing, and will do in the future to restore the universe back to a place of complete love, peace, and safety.
So bottom line: what is the gospel?
I could write more. And I’m guessing I’ll spend eternity perfecting my brief explanation that I’ve started here. I’m excited about that.
But, for now, I’d say, in summary, that the gospel is the good news about what God has done, is doing, and will do to accomplish the full restoration of his kingdom of love in the universe.
The central and climactic act—the act from which all other acts flow—is what God did through Jesus via his death, burial, and resurrection.
This act—which Christians celebrated this past weekend—is without parallel. And it not only reveals the character of the King and his kingdom; it also provides the necessary means by which those who were alienated from God have already been (to some extent), and will continue to be, brought into full at-one-ment with him.
Over the last two thousand years, many Christian thinkers have taken this “good news” and tried to further explain various facets of it—to varying degrees of success.
John Calvin was one of them—and I think he did a good job of explaining certain aspects of the gospel, but definitely not all of it.
And we thus get into trouble, in my humble opinion, if we think Calvin—or anyone else (including myself)—has the final or full word on the topic.
With that said, I continue to emphasize that it’s critically important that we make much of the gospel. Apart from it, nothing else makes sense—leaving every other teaching in the Bible unintelligible and meaningless.
Thus, as I like to often say: we never graduate from the gospel.
It’s not like first grade math that we never need to return to after we’ve figured it out, thinking there are more important and meatier subjects we need to concern ourselves with.
We ever need to be reminded of the gospel, and can only understand anything else about God and religion insofar as it’s placed within the framework of the gospel.
This is at least how I see it.
Which is why I’ll explicitly return to this topic in my next few posts—first tackling perhaps the most surprising exposition on the gospel in the whole New Testament, and then returning the following week to show a little love to John Calvin.
Shawn is a pastor in Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.