April 2, 2000, NewLife Fellowship

Introduction: I hope that you agree with me that the gospel is one of the essential doctrines of the Christian faith. Since we are told to preach the gospel in all the world, it is important that we figure out just what it is that we are supposed to preach. And it is important for each of us to have a basic understanding of what the gospel is, what it is that we are supposed to believe.

Our starting point is Scripture. How does Scripture describe the gospel? If we want to preach the right message, we need to be sure that our message is in line with what Scripture is saying. The Scripture we need, of course, is the New Testament. Although the gospel existed in Old Testament times, it was not until the New Testament that the gospel became clear. So the New Testament is our primary authority.

Now, as we look for the gospel message in the New Testament, there are several major sections we need to consider. First come the Gospels. How do they describe the message of Jesus?

Then comes the book of Acts, which has at least eight sermons in it, eight examples of how the early church preached. How do these sermons describe the message of the early church?

The comes the epistles of Paul. How does he describe the message, and what does he emphasize?

So, if we do all our homework, and go through the New Testament section by section to see what each part tells us about the gospel message, we will come to a conclusion that is at first somewhat disturbing - the message seems different from one part of the New Testament to the other. Now, that is not the way that I would have written the book. I would have given a clear definition and then stuck with it from start to finish.

But that is not the way the New Testament is. So we therefore have the task of trying to figure out why they are different, and we have to look to see if they are completely different, or just different on the surface. And I believe that if we go through this process, then we will come to a better understanding of the gospel, and a better focus on what is essential within the gospel, and we will then be better prepared to share the gospel in modern society.

The Synoptic Gospels: Let's look at what the New Testament says. And we will discover that the first three Gospels describe the ministry of Jesus in pretty much the same way, often using exactly the same words. Mark 1:14-15 gives us a summary of the message of Jesus:

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"

Matthew and Luke basically repeat this statement, and throughout the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke we find that Jesus is teaching and preaching the kingdom of God. He tells parables about the kingdom of God. His message is described as a message about the kingdom of God.

And this is what we used to stress: the kingdom of God. We went to the book of Isaiah to get a description of the kingdom of God, and we then preached that kingdom of God. We had a gospel that was not much different than the message of Isaiah. But this was a hasty conclusion.

We need to consider the fact that Jesus was not simply repeating the message of Isaiah. Our understanding of the Isaiah message was really quite similar to what the Pharisees believed, and Jesus had to correct them. So, instead of going to the book of Isaiah to describe the kingdom of God, we need to look instead at the way Jesus himself described it. That's a whole sermon in itself, but I will summarize all of his parables by saying that Jesus never described the kingdom of God as a time of peace and prosperity on earth.

Instead, Jesus usually described the kingdom as a time leading up to the judgment on the day of the Lord.

So, to summarize the first three Gospels, Jesus preached about the kingdom of God, but it wasn't the sort of kingdom that we assumed it to be. So we need to keep reading.

John: When we come to the Gospel of John, we find that the kingdom is not mentioned very often. Instead, Jesus keeps talking about eternal life, and about believing on the Son of God. John 8:24 is one example:

I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.

John 11:25 is another:

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

So the message in the book of John is a question: Do you believe that Jesus is who he says he is? In fact, the whole book is written for this purpose. John 20:31 says,

These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

It's a message about life - eternal life through believing in Jesus.

Acts: Now, when we come to the book of Acts and the preaching of the early church, we find a different sort of message again. Both Peter and Paul preach a message of Jesus, crucified and resurrected. In Acts 2, for example, Peter says,

This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.... God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.

Again and again we see this in the sermons of Acts. In chapter 3:15:

You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.

Acts 10:39-40:

We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, 40 but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen.

And Paul continued the same sort of message. Acts 13:32-33:

We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers 33 he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus.

So, we find that the Synoptic Gospels emphasize the kingdom of God, and the Gospel of John emphasizes eternal life, and the book of Acts emphasizes the resurrection of Jesus. Now, these are somewhat related, but they are also somewhat different.

Before we explore the similarities and differences, we need to look at the letters of Paul, because he often had something very specific to say about what the gospel is.

Paul: Let's start in Romans 1, and we will quickly get a different flavor for what the gospel is. Paul starts this letter by talking about the gospel. Let's notice verses 16-17:

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last

Paul has a different choice of words, doesn't he? He's talking about salvation and righteousness, and we haven't come across those terms before. But we do see some points of familiarity: he talks about faith and Jesus Christ. If we go to the next mention of the word "gospel," we see yet one more thing. Romans 2:16:

This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

So, according to Paul, the gospel includes the concept of judgment.

Oh, this is more different than I wanted it to be.

And if we go to the next letter, we will see something else. In 1 Corinthians 1:17-18:

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel -- not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. 18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Here, the gospel is the message of the cross. This is the power of salvation, the message about the cross.

We have come a long way from the kingdom of God, haven't we? We are not talking about power and glory, but about death and shame. But Paul says that this is the gospel. How can it be?

And if we look in other letters from Paul, we will see the gospel described as a message of salvation, of peace and reconciliation, of grace, a message about Jesus Christ. Paul said that in Corinth he preached nothing but Christ and the crucifixion. This was the gospel.

But probably the clearest statement of all comes in 1 Corinthians 15, the resurrection chapter. Here Paul gives a definition of the gospel message, and he specifically says that he got this outline from the apostles before him. This was the tradition that he continued. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5:

Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve...

So there is the message, with more of the pieces put together. It's a message about how we may be saved, how we may be given eternal life, how we may enter the kingdom of God. Those are different ways of saying the same thing. We are redeemed, reconciled, or saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is the gospel.

Because he died for our sins, we can be forgiven, we can be counted righteous, we can be counted OK with God, and that is why we can live forever with him. Those are different ways of saying the same thing.

When Jesus was talking about the kingdom of God, he was talking not so much about what it will be like when we get there, but simply about whether we will be there at all. He was talking about how we can enter the kingdom of God. That is a Jewish way of saying that we are forgiven all our sins, counted as righteous, accepted by God, reconciled to him, counted OK with him, and we can live with him forever.

Eternal life is one way to describe it -- we see that term in John, and in most of the other books, too. Forgiveness is also an important concept. Being resurrected is an important concept. And all of these ideas hinge on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is also an essential part of the gospel message, too, since it is only through him that we can be forgiven and resurrected to eternal life in the kingdom of God. What God has done in Christ, is to make salvation possible for all of us, by his grace, through faith in what Jesus Christ has done.

Conclusion: Now, we have seen that the gospel message can be described in several different ways, and I think that is an important concept in itself. We do not have to use a special formula, or a special sequence of words. We do not have to teach people about Isaiah, for example, before they can understand the gospel. We do not have to use special words like justification or substitutionary atonement or even the word resurrection.Those words may be helpful for some people, but not necessarily for everyone. We do not have to use the word redemption or reconciliation or even the word salvation. We can use them if they are helpful, but we can present the gospel without using those particular words.

Well, then, what is the gospel? What are the ideas that we need to include? If we go through the New Testament to see what the apostles preached about, we will see certain subjects coming up again and again, and these seem to be the essential core of the gospel message.

1. First, we need salvation. We need a message of good news, a message about how we can be rescued from where we are now. For most people, this means that we need to understand that we have sinned and fallen short of what God wants.

2. Second, we obtain this salvation by faith, by accepting the message. We don't have to work for it or do fancy stuff to get it. The good news is that it is God's gift to us. He has done whatever is necessary to rescue us from our problem.

3. Third, the answer to our problem is Jesus Christ, particularly his death and resurrection. God didn't just declare a general amnesty -- he did something specific in a specific person. He did something gruesome, because it was necessary, and he did something glorious. No matter how gruesome our sin has been, Jesus has taken care of it, and he has shown us the way toward glory.

4. Fourth, we can live forever with God. That's my way of saying that we are resurrected to eternal life in the kingdom of God. The main point is that the result of salvation is something extremely, extremely good, and it points us back to God.

In short, the gospel is a message about eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ.