The gospel. Nothing could be more important. It both saves those who believe and grows those who believe. Yet many people – even many Christians – are confused about what it is.
Some people think that the gospel is the good news that we can go to heaven.
It is not.
Some people think that the gospel is the good news that we can have our sins forgiven.
It is not.
Some people think that the gospel is the good news that God loves us.
It is not.
These things are certainly related to the gospel but they are not the gospel. According to the Holy Scriptures the gospel is a very specific message with very specific content. The gospel is nothing more and nothing less than the message about Jesus Christ. More precisely, the gospel is the message about who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. As is explained in 1Corinthians 15:1, 3-4,
“Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand… For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…”
This is what makes the gospel “the gospel” (which literally means ‘good news’). The gospel is good news because it is not a message about what we must do or what we ought to do. The gospel is good news because it is a message about what someone else has already done. It is not the proclamation of a way to achieve victory; it is the proclamation that victory has already been achieved through the life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God. This good news becomes even better news when we understand what Jesus’ victory has done for us. As the Apostle Peter explains in 1Peter 3:18,
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God…”
The message of who Jesus is and what he has done does not just have historical meaning. It has significant personal meaning for each of us. Jesus did what he did in order to bring you to God. This implies, of course, that you were separated from God. And you were. Not only were you separated from God because of your sin but you were also under God’s judgment for a lifetime of loving, trusting, and fearing created things more than you love, trust, and fear the Creator of those things. In this state you were unable and unwilling to seek God. Your only hope was for someone else to bring you to God. And this is precisely what Jesus did for you.
He did this by living the perfectly righteous life that you failed to live and by dying the death under God’s judgment that you deserved to die. Jesus did this as your substitute so that God now rewards you as though you have lived the perfectly righteous life that Jesus lived and God now forgives all of your sin because he punished Jesus as though he had lived the terribly sinful life that you have lived. Jesus’ work as our substitute continued when he rose from the dead to defeat our enemies for us (sin and death) and then brought us to God by ascending into heaven and sitting down at his right hand. All of these saving benefits of this glorious gospel are freely given to anyone and everyone who simply places their faith in who Jesus is and what Jesus has done.