WHAT IS THE GOSPEL?
No question could be more important to the writer of this blog and no question could be more important for the professing Christian. It seems all too elementary, does it not, to be asking such a rudimentary question? “This was covered in my catechesis classes years ago,” one might say. “Why do we need go back and discuss a truth we learned in Sunday School? Aren’t we now fathers in the faith who need to be teaching others the advanced disciplines of ecclesiology, soteriology. and eschatology?” To answer these objections we go back to a book written decades ago by Robert Fulghum called All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. In that volume, Fulghum postured that the most important things that we learn in order to live well in society are learned in the first few years of life. And oh, how easy it is to forget these simple lessons as we grow older and more sophisticated. In the same way, the gospel is that one truth the Christian cannot afford to forget if the Christian life be rightly lived out. The tragedy is that many Christians have consigned the gospel to the back shelves of their memory. They have forgotten what they once knew just as older people will often forget to wash their hands before they eat. Poll after poll shows that an alarming number of professing Christians cannot adequately define the gospel. Hearing that should cause us to shudder. The same could have been said for the medieval church prior to the advent of Martin Luther. This comparison causes many to say that we have entered a new dark ages in the Western Church. Whether that be true or not will not here be debated. But if it is true, then a chief cause of this darkness must be a loss of this most basic of all Christian truths, the gospel. In this post we shall endeavor to review the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The first thing to remember is that the gospel is news, good news. We all know what news is. It comes to inform us that we might be aware of what is going on outside of us. The gospel is pure news. It is news that announces the saving of humanity from utter destruction by the historic events surrounding a man named Jesus of Nazareth. In 1 Corinthians 15:1-2 Paul describes the gospel as that ‘which I preached to you, which you also received, in which you also stand, by which you are also saved.’ The gospel, then, is news of the saving activities of God in His Messiah, Jesus Christ. What are those saving activities? The apostle continues, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also” (1 Cor 15:3b-8). Please notice the obvious, which is not so obvious to many. Paul did not include one thing that the Corinthians must do to validate that news. He doesn’t even say how they should react to that news. He simply reports the raw historic events and how they can be validated. The gospel, therefore, is news that rests on rock solid historical events that are to be proclaimed to mankind. The gospel is news.
That brings me to my second point about the gospel: it is a public and verifiable news. Who knows what Muhammad really did or didn’t do in his shadowy life. What about Joseph Smith? Did he actually enter a cave and interpret golden plates? Who really knows or cares about the lives of Gautama Buddha or Confucius? As it turns out, the historical details of the lives of there religious leaders are not that important. Their movements do not depend on the historical events of their lives. It is the the religious movement itself that matters and what that religious movement does for the human condition. But Christianity does not rest what it produces in men. It rests on the miraculous events of Jesus, His virgin birth, His miracles and His resurrection from the dead. Paul affirms this when he says, “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, your faith also is in vain.” No matter what Christianity does for a person personally, if the facts about Jesus are not true, then then entire movement falls to the ground. Christianity is therefore laid out before the public to be proven or disproven. Should one find the corpse of Jesus then Christianity becomes itself a corpse. Christianity openly invites critics to investigate. It hides not behind shadowy events and secret meetings. Listen to the Apostle Paul as he stood before a skeptical King Agrippa. “For the king knows about these matters, and I also speak to him with confidence, since I am persuaded that none of these things escape his notice; for this has not been done in a corner’ (Acts 26:26). Christianity is not primarily an inward unverifiable experience, but public news that can be known and believed.
This leads to my third point. What news demands more than anything else is that it is accurate. All the hype about ‘fake news’ in America has brought to the fore the possibility that news can be fabricated. The only questions we must ask about news is, “Is it true?” The Bible presents us with four historical accounts of the life of Jesus: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Each is written as true history. Each employs numerous historical references that demonstrate that we are dealing with true events not myths. The prologue of Luke shows that the writers engaged in intense research when they wrote their gospels. For two thousand years men have been scrutinizing the biblical authors and their accuracy. And for two thousand years the Bible has stood the test. Men like Albert Henry Ross, writing under the name Frank Morison, set out to disprove the Bible. Ross was a theological skeptic. But in the course of his investigations he came to realize that the biblical accounts were accurate (but not inspired) and that Jesus did truly rise from the dead. No religion is like Christianity which depends on carefully documented historical books. And after two thousand years (thirty five hundred if you include the Old Testament) the Bible has withstood the most vigorous scrutiny of any document ever written and has been found true. Many hammers of skepticism have been shattered on the anvil of the Bible.
The fourth point then is simply this. News, if it is true and if it is relevant, demands a response. If one heard a report that a missile was heading for one’s city and would land in an hour, one would like to know if the news was true, and if so, it would demand an immediate response. This is how the Bible looks upon its own news. If Jesus truly predicted that He would rise from the dead and if indeed He did rise, and if that same man claimed to be the Lord over all, then it would behoove us all to listen to Him and obey Him. Jesus told humanity that He came to save mankind from its sins. He further said that He is the only One who can forgive those sins and that the way to receive that forgiveness is to trust Him as Savior. In other words, the news of the biblical gospel deals with eternal destinies, whether one is eternally secure or if one shall be consigned to eternal misery. You see the pattern. First the news must be proclaimed and substantiated. Then it must be believed. This is exactly the tact that the apostle takes in the Bible. Here is the historical proof that Jesus rose from the dead, now you must respond and trust Him for salvation.
And it is only when those steps are taken that Paul gives application to this truth in verse 58. If Jesus did really rise from the dead, and if this news demands a response of faith, then how should that manifest itself in the Christian life? The answer? The Corinthians are to be strong and immovable in carrying forth their mission to proclaim this good news to others. And what will give them the confidence to keep on task? Because they have believed the news that they same Christ who rose from the dead is the same Christ who rules the universe and controls history. Having this Christ, this risen Christ, this ruling and reigning Christ behind them, they can now go forth in confidence knowing that their labors will not be in vain.
But it all begins with news… the historical news…. the accurate news… the gospel news.