Transcription
[Music] The word gospel today is one of the most popular words Christians use, but it's very peculiar that when you ask people to define the gospel, that the definition that most people use is a definition that would be unrecognized in the first century, either by Jesus or the apostles. That sounds controversial, and in part, it is. But I want to defend that on the basis of what the Bible teaches.
So if you ask someone what does the word gospel mean, they might say something like this: that God loves us, that he has a perfect plan for our life, that, uh, we are sinners by birth, and we need to awaken to our sinfulness. And sometimes we can awaken people by preaching the law, but eventually we realize that we are sinners, that Jesus died for our sins, he came to Earth to die for our sins so that we might be forgiven. And if we accept this by faith, by trusting in him, by receiving him into our heart, then we can be saved, justified, and then when we die, we will go to heaven.
Well, that's, um, that's a pretty common understanding of the meaning of the word gospel. And I don't think there's too many statements that I just made that that wouldn't be true, that couldn't be found in the Bible. But why then do we call that gospel? When, when we look at the New Testament, we have a completely different set of lines that are used for understanding the gospel.
So I thought I'd just read these. This is straight from the Apostle Paul, who I like to say knew what he was talking about when he said, "This is the gospel." I have a lot of confidence that Paul knew what it meant. And he said this: "I want I now, brothers, in 1 Corinthians 15, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel that I preach to you, which you have received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preach to you, otherwise you have believed in vain."
And here Paul now explicitly defines the gospel. He states what it is: "For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance." An expression that means this is the core of it all, this is the basic idea, the most important thing about the gospel is this: that Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the 12.
So when Paul tells us what the gospel is, he says it is four points about the life of Jesus, including his birth and life and teachings, etcetera. And that is that he died, that he was buried, that he was raised, and that he ascended. So for Paul to announce the gospel is to announce that Jesus Christ has been raised as the Lord.
Listen to this. At the end of Paul's life, in one of his last letters, in 2 Timothy chapter 2, Paul says this. That's 1 Timothy 2, 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 8. He says, "Remember King Jesus, or Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel." Notice how Paul says this, that the gospel is about remembering that Jesus is the Messiah. It is about Jesus being raised from the dead. It is about being descended from David.
The earliest Christian gospel was to tell the story of Jesus. It was to tell the story that Jesus lived, that he died at the hands of sinners unjustly, that God overturned his death and raised him from the dead, that he ascended, and that he is coming back to rule. So the gospel was first and foremost to tell the story of Jesus. It wasn't to tell the story of how to get saved, although this story saved people. It was instead, it was to tell the story about Jesus. Jesus is the King. Jesus is the Lord. Is the central gospel affirmation of the New Testament.
So when the apostles like Peter and Paul preached, they preached this same message. In Acts chapter 2, Peter told people what was happening at Pentecost by telling the story of Jesus. In Acts chapter 10, with Cornelius, Cornelius has a vision, Peter has a vision, they they meet together, Peter preaches the gospel. What does he do there? He tells them the story about Jesus. And he sees that as he preaches this story and narrates the story about Jesus there along the Sea of, uh, the Mediterranean Sea, the Holy Spirit comes down upon these people, they speak in tongues, and they get baptized.
So Paul and Peter both preach this gospel. What I have discovered in teaching students and in talking to people is that the message that Christians need to focus on is first and foremost about what God has done in Jesus Christ. We need to focus upon the story of Jesus himself. We don't need to focus first and foremost on how we can be happy when we die or what's going to happen to us when we die. We tell the story of Jesus, and when we tell the story of Jesus, this story is a redeeming story. It does take care of our sins. It shoulders our sins. It removes our sins. We are justified. We are sanctified. We are filled with the spirit. This is what this story will do for us. But it is a story not about us. It is a story about Jesus. And we are called to tell this story.
So let me say this again. Whenever we have the opportunity to tell people about Jesus, we are evangelizing. Whenever we have an opportunity to bring what Jesus has taught into a conversation, whenever we can bring Jesus into our own personal lives, that is what evangelism is about. It is to recognize that Jesus is the center of God's story in the world, and that we are all called to look to him, to be saved by him, to live under him, to be, uh, for him, to send the spirit into our hearts so that we can live a life of holiness and grace in this world.
So the gospel is not first how to get saved. The gospel is first the story about Jesus. The first four gospels are called gospels because they are the gospel, and they tell us the story of Jesus. But if we tell the story of Jesus, we will be telling people about someone who saves and redeems people from their sin and gives them a new opportunity for a transformed life that pleases [Music] God.