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What is the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
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Aineo
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Joined: 28 Nov 2002
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Location: Grand Junction, Colorado
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 Posted: Sat Jan 18, 2003 11:00 am Post subject: What is the Gospel of Jesus Christ? |
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| Quote: | Matt 28:19-20
19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. "
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Mark 16:15-16
15 And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 16 "He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.
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Mark 13:10-11
10 "And the gospel must first be preached to all the nations.
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Rom 1:16-17
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "But the righteous man shall live by faith."
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As Christians our mandate from Jesus Christ is to preach the gospel and make disciples throughout the world. I have seen many ideas of what the gospel is on this and other message boards, however, what is the gospel? Following are three excerpts from Bible dictionaries that answer this question. The authors of these articles come from diverse denominational backgrounds, but they all agree on the simple truth that the gospel is proclaiming salvation by faith in Jesus Christ and by the grace of God alone.
GOSPEL
(gos'-pel) (to euaggelion): The word gospel is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word which meant "the story concerning God." In the New Testament the Greek word euaggelion, means "good news." It proclaims tidings of deliverance. The word sometimes stands for the record of the life of Our Lord (Mark 1:1), embracing all His teachings, as in Acts 20:24. But the word "gospel" now has a peculiar use, and describes primarily the message which Christianity announces. "Good news" is its significance. It means a gift from God. It is the proclamation of the forgiveness of sins and sonship with God restored through Christ. It means remission of sins and reconciliation with God. The gospel is not only a message of salvation, but also the instrument through which the Holy Spirit works (Rom 1:16).
The gospel differs from the law in being known entirely from revelation. It is proclaimed in all its fulness in the revelation given in the New Testament. It is also found, although obscurely, in the Old Testament. It begins with the prophecy concerning the 'seed of the woman' (Gen 3:15), and the promise concerning Abraham, in whom all the nations should be blessed (Gen 12:3; 15:5) and is also indicated in Acts 10:43 and in the argument in Rom 4.
In the New Testament the gospel never means simply a book, but rather the message which Christ and His apostles announced. In some places it is called "the gospel of God," as, for example, Rom 1:1; 1 Thess 2:2,9; 1 Tim 1:11. In others it is called "the gospel of Christ" (Mark 1:1; Rom 1:16; 15:19; 1 Cor 9:12,18; Gal 1:7). In another it is called "the gospel of the grace of God" (Acts 20:24); in another "the gospel of peace" (Eph 6:15); in another "the gospel of your salvation" (Eph 1:13); and in yet another "the glorious gospel" (2 Cor 4:4 the King James Version). The gospel is Christ: He is the subject of it, the object of it, and the life of it. It was preached by Him (Matt 4:23; 11:5; Mark 1:14; Luke 4:18 m), by the apostles (Acts 16:10; Rom 1:15; 2:16; 1 Cor 9:16) and by the evangelists (Acts 8:25).
We must note the clear antithesis between the law and the gospel. The distinction between the two is important because, as Luther indicates, it contains the substance of all Christian doctrine. "By the law," says he, "nothing else is meant than God's word and command, directing what to do and what to leave undone, and requiring of us obedience of works. But the gospel is such doctrine of the word of God that neither requires our works nor commands us to do anything, but announces the offered grace of the forgiveness of sin and eternal salvation. Here we do nothing, but only receive what is offered through the word." The gospel, then, is the message of God, the teaching of Christianity, the redemption in and by Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, offered to all mankind. And as the gospel is bound up in the life of Christ, His biography and the record of His works, and the proclamation of what He has to offer, are all gathered into this single word, of which no better definition can be given than that of Melanchthon: "The gospel is the gratuitous promise of the remission of sins for Christ's sake." To hold tenaciously that in this gospel we have a supernatural revelation is in perfect consistency with the spirit of scientific inquiry. The gospel, as the whole message and doctrine of salvation, and as chiefly efficacious for contrition, faith, justification, renewal and sanctification, deals with facts of revelation and experience.
GOSPEL
DAVID H. BAUSLIN
(from International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Electronic Database Copyright (c)1996 by Biblesoft)
BAUSLIN, DAVID H.; D.D., formerly Dean and Professor of Historical and Practical Theology, Hamma Divinity School, Wittenberg College, Springfield, Ohio.
(from International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Electronic Database Copyright (c)1996 by Biblesoft)
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GOSPEL
The joyous good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. The Greek word translated as gospel means "a reward for bringing good news" or simply "good news." In Isa 40:9, the prophet proclaimed the "good tidings" that God would rescue His people from captivity. In His first sermon in Nazareth, Jesus used a passage from the Old Testament to characterize the spirit of His ministry: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor" (Luke 4:18 ).
The gospel is not a new plan of salvation; it is the fulfillment of God's plan of salvation which was begun in Israel, was completed in Jesus Christ, and is made known by the church.
The gospel is the saving work of God in His Son Jesus Christ and a call to faith in Him (Rom 1:16-17 ). Jesus is more than a messenger of the gospel; He is the gospel. The good news of God was present in His life, teaching, and atoning death. Therefore, the gospel is both a historical event and a personal relationship.
Faith is more than an intellectual agreement to a theoretical truth. Faith is trust placed in a living person, Jesus Christ. When the apostle Paul warned Christians of the dangers of following "another gospel" (2 Cor 11:4 ), he was reminding them that any gospel different than the one he preached was no gospel at all.
In the second century, the word gospel came to be used for certain writings in which the "good news" or story of Jesus Christ was told. These writings were written in the first century, but they became known as "gospels" much later. Mark was the first to write such a story (Mark 1:1 ), and in so doing he invented a literary form that we call a "gospel." The New Testament has four versions of the one gospel: the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
A gospel is more than a biography intended to provide information about a historical character. It is the presentation of the life of Jesus to show His saving significance for all people and to call them to faith in Him.
Also see GOSPELS.
(from Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Copyright (c)1986, Thomas Nelson Publishers)
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GOSPEL
GOSPEL (Anglo-Saxon, godspel, "good story"). Good news, and employed as the equivalent of the Grk. euaggelion. This word in the earlier Gk. language signified "a present given to one who brought good tidings," or "a sacrifice offered in thanksgiving for such good tidings having come." In later Gk. it was employed for the good tidings themselves. It is used to signify:
1. The good news of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ as provided by our Lord and preached by His disciples (1 Cor 15:1-4). The gospel then is full and free deliverance from sin on the basis of simple faith in Jesus Christ, the vicarious sin-Bearer (Eph 2:8-10). In this aspect the gospel has two phases: one, to the unsaved-Christ died for me (John 3:16; Acts 16:30-31); second, to the saved-I died in Christ (Rom 6:2-10), with a key to the experiential realization of this fact in the life furnished by Rom 6:11.
2. Forms of the gospel to be differentiated. Many Bible teachers make a distinction in the following: (1) The Gospel of the Kingdom. The good news that God's purpose is to establish an earthly mediatorial kingdom in fulfillment of the Davidic covenant (2 Sam 7:16). Two proclamations of the gospel of the kingdom are mentioned, one already past, beginning with the ministry of John the Baptist, carried on by our Lord and His disciples, and ending with the Jewish rejection of the Messiah. The other preaching is yet future (Matt 24:14), during the Great Tribulation, and heralding the second advent of the King. Closely connected, although perhaps not identical in its emphasis with the gospel of the kingdom, is the everlasting gospel (Rev 14:6) preached to those on earth during the latter part of the Tribulation. (2) The Gospel of God's Grace (see no. 1 above). Paul calls this gospel of the grace of God "my gospel" (Rom 2:16) because the full doctrinal content based upon the gospel of the grace of God embraces the revelation of the result in the outcalling of the church, her relationship, position, privileges, and responsibility. This distinctive Pauline truth, honeycombing Ephesians and Colossians, is interwoven in all of the Pauline writings.
3. "A different gospel" (Gal 1:6; 2 Cor 11:4) "which you have not accepted." This consists of any denial or perversion of the gospel of the grace of God. Its essential stamp is that it denies the full efficacy of God's grace alone to save, keep, and perfect, and introduces some sort of human merit. In Galatia it was legalism. Its teachers are under God's terrible anathema. The relation of the gospel to the law of Moses has been a source of much confusion. Under grace the Ten Commandments are all presented, except that involving the observance of the seventh day. However, they are to be operative not to find favor with God but because the redeemed one has already found favor and eternal life and possesses the indwelling Spirit to work them out in daily conduct.
4. The four stories of our Lord's life published by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The writers are called evangelists. These accounts are "gospels" because they recite the events in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord and predicted bestowment of the Spirit, making possible "the gospel."
M.F.U.
(from The New Unger's Bible Dictionary. Originally published by Moody Press of Chicago, Illinois. Copyright (c) 1988.)
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What is the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
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