The Gospel at the Centre

How well do we understand the Gospel and how important is it to us?

“Gospel” is a word which is often translated as “good news”, good because it is to do with Jesus Christ and with an eternal destiny of forgiveness and restored relationship with God. For someone who rejects or does not like the message it is bad news. The word “gospel” translates a Greek word “euanggelion” from which we get “evangelical” and “evangelism”). The Greek word means “an announced message”. In the Bible “the Gospel” is always an announced message which calls for a major response.

We read in Mark 1: 14-15 a report of his sermon preached by Jesus in Galilee, just after his baptism by John and temptation in the wilderness.. He was proclaiming what Mark calls “the gospel of God”. This means that Jesus was proclaiming or heralding God’s announced message.The content of that message was this:”The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has drawn very near. Repent and believe the gospel.”

When the Apostle Paul went to Athens he made this proclamation, “The times of ignorance God overlooked but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has set a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given proof by raising that man from the dead” (Acts 17: 31 ff)

In Romans 1:16-17, Paul claims that he not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God unto salvation. Power evangelism is the proclamation of God’s message. It is received by faith, and it initiates the believer into a life-style that is characterised by faith (“from faith for faith”. Paul quotes Habakkuk 2: 4, “The justified shall live by faith.” This means two things:

1 A sinner is accepted by God as a gift which is received by faith alone.
2 A saved person can continue to live the Christian life only by faith.
This is the “full gospel”. Nothing can be added to it. Everything else in the Bible either prepares us to be found by God through the Gospel, or else how to live by the gospel once we have been saved. Indeed the whole “special revelation” of the Scriptures is to do with the Gospel.

The Gospel is God’s revelation of himself and the response from as that he desires. The Gospel is the code for understanding the whole revelation of the Bible. There can be no further saving revelation. Prophecies and “words of knowledge, dreams, visions and direct guidance should not be referred to as “revelation”, in order to avoid obscuring or compromising the Bible as God’s revelation. Those phenomena are often true and sound, but they should always be evaluated by the teaching of the Bible. That is to say, they should always be evaluated by the Gospel. God has also, apart from the Bible, made a “general revelation”. Psalm 19 says, “the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork. God is interested in all aspects of his creation. Things apart from the Bible that people sometimes call “revelations” may well be examples of God’s “general revelation”.

How would one summarise the Gospel content?

1 This is God’s creation and to him we are accountable.
2 We have all gone astray.
3 God lovingly promised a solution.
4 He sent his beloved Son to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to die on our behalf and as our substitute. Jesus died as sacrifice for our sins, the only perfect sacrifice, that rendered further sacrifices unnecessary. Jesus Christ established a new covenant.
5 He also said that there would be a great judgment at an unspecified time in the future. He would return to establish a new order of eternal joy and fulfilment.

How does this Gospel pattern relate to the Bible?

1 It starts with the creation.
2 Then comes the fall and sin.
3 God selects a nation (ancient Israel)through which he transmits the promises of a redeemer.
4 People are offered the opportunity to surrender their lives to Jesus as Saviour and Lord.
5 Christ will come again.

It will be seen that the whole structure of the Bible reflects this pattern. It is the Gospel which holds together both the structure and the themes of the Bible.

How is the Gospel spread?

God can supernaturally reveal himself and his gospel to anyone anywhere at any time and there are examples of this happening. However, the characteristic way in which God’s message is caught is by means of human proclamation.

Paul writes in Romans 10: 14-17:

"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”… faith comes from hearing he message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ." (NIV)

The Gospel is verbal

It is not possible to convey the gospel without words. Lifestyle and cultural expression (such as music) can support or illustrate the Gospel, but only when there is verbal interpretation. No one would ever guess the gospel message, unless they had heard it. This is because it is a message that the unsaved human nature would not want to hear. Who would ever invent a path to salvation that That did not require good works or ritual as the basis for salvation. By nature we want to feel that we ourselves have achieved or earned something for ourselves. It is alien to the human heart to want to believe that to receive forgiveness and eternal life we had to admit dependency upon God like that of a little child!

It is not possible to repent and believe without the activity of the Holy Spirit

When people repent and believe, it is because they have been “born from above” by the Spirit (John 3: 5) Jesus answered. “ I tell you the truth, unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God…” Paul wrote those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God (Romans 8: 14).

We need to pray for the Lord to open peoples’ hearts to hear and receive the Gospel. We need also to find more avenues to speak the Gospel.

Lindsay Johnstone

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