What is the Gospel?
The gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ…
1 Corinthians 15:1-6
“Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you – unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time…”
What is the Gospel?
The word “Gospel” means good news and refers to the central truth of the Bible – the most important truth of Christianity. The Good News is that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead. There are four important aspects of this good news.
First, the good news requires a context and that context is human sin. God initially created humanity, men and women, for loving relationship with himself. Humanity, however, rejected God’s loving rule and rebelled against him (Genesis 3). Ever since, every person has sinned and fallen short of God’s goodness (Romans 3:23) with the result that every person deserves the penalty of sin (Romans 6:23). All people naturally stand condemned as guilty (John 3:18).
It is in this context that the Son of God added to himself a human nature and lived a human life (John 1:1-3 & 14; Philippians 2:5-8). He lived a sinless life (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus then gave his life as a ransom to rescue guilty people from judgment (John 3:16; Mark 10:45; Romans 5:6-11).
On the third day after his death, Jesus rose from the dead! He fully paid our debt of sin and now offers righteousness to all who come to him in repentant faith (2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 10:9-10). The fact of Jesus’ resurrection is attested to by eyewitnesses – including Paul who had previously been hostile to Christianity.
Finally, the Gospel requires a response. Romans 10:9-10 states that a person must believe that this message is true. If true, then one must respond by confessing Jesus as Lord and so turn from rebellion to him. When one believes and confesses, he/she is rescued by God and adopted as his own child in an everlasting family relationship!