Week 1 | The Gospel Message

The Gospel Message

In the New Testament, the Greek word euangelion is translated as 'gospel'. Euangelion simply means 'good news', the announcement of something that is positive or beneficial. For a Jew such as the apostle Paul living in the first century Greco-Roman world, there were two ways in which euangelion would have been understood. It was, for a non-Jewish audience, a way of speaking about the Pax Romana, the supposed peace of Rome that was maintained by the Roman emperor and the senate. For Jews like Paul, however, the term was rooted in Old Testament passages such as Isaiah 61:1, where the 'good news' is that God is going to someday return and rescue his people.

Paul is the first person to use the term 'gospel' or good news to describe his central message: that Jesus is the Messiah. But what does Paul mean?

The first recorded explanation that we have of the term 'gospel' is found in 1 Corinthians 15:1-5: 

"Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which 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 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."

There are several key words and phrases that are included in this short explanation of the gospel: "Christ", "died for our sins", and "according to scriptures". All three of these are framed by Christ's life, death, resurrection, and ascension. 

Paul explains his gospel again at the beginning of the letter to the Romans (1:1-5): 

"Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord". 

We see the same themes in this passage as we saw in 1 Corinthians: an emphasis on 'Christ', the Scriptures, and Jesus' death and resurrection. What does this tell us about how Paul understands the term 'gospel'. First, it is a message that centers around the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. But notice that Paul calls Jesus 'Christ', and also refers to him as a descendant of David. What does that mean? The term 'Christ' (christos in Greek) means 'anointed one', and it is a term that is used in the Old Testament to describe prophets, priests, and kings. God promises David, a great king of Israel, that one of his descendents would build a house for God's name and establish and everlasting throne (2 Samuel 7:12-17), a covenant that is developed in many Psalms and prophecies and that Jews of the first century were hoping would soon come to fruition. By calling Jesus 'Christ' and associating him with David, Paul is saying, very explicitly, that Jesus is the long-promised king that would establish God's eternal kingdom. But this is not all. The Jesus event (from his birth to ascension) marked the beginning of his reign as king. This is, Paul states, 'according to scripture'. By this he doesn't mean a small handful of proof-texts cherry-picked from the Hebrew scriptures, but rather that the entire story of the Old Testament finds its conclusion in Jesus. And, as Paul clearly states in 1 Corinthians, Jesus' death, the death of the long-promised king of the world, is the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. Jesus is the Christ, the king, the scriptures have been fulfilled, and our sins have been forgiven. 

All of these concepts are wrapped up in Paul's thinking about Jesus' identity as king. His most succinct definition of the gospel occurs in 2 Timothy 2:8: "Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel". 

The good news of the gospel is that Jesus is King. 

The writers of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, most likely composed their works after the death of Paul based on first-hand oral and written accounts of the life of Jesus. Central to Jesus' proclamation was the coming 'Kingdom of God'. Mark, the first gospel writer, says this of Jesus' kingdom message: "Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel (Mark 1:14-15) .” Remember how the term 'gospel' comes from Old Testament passages such as Isaiah 61? Luke recounts Jesus reading Isaiah 61:1-2 in the synagogue (where Jews met on Sabbath to study and pray) and saying "today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:16-21). Jesus proclaimed the coming of the kingdom of God, and it was happening in and through him, because, of course, he is the promised Davidic king. 

The gospel is the announcement that Jesus is King, that it happened 'according to Scripture', and was 'for our sins'. 

Good news indeed.