Thinking About the Gospel, Part 1

The Gospel Itself

What is the gospel? Perhaps we should not be surprised that people disagree in their answers to this question. As early as the middle of the first century, people were already proclaiming gospels that were different from the one Paul and the apostles had announced (Gal. 1:8-9). If new gospels were already being invented within a few years of Jesus’ death, surely the number of divergent gospels must have multiplied through the centuries.

Today we are faced with a multiplicity of gospels. The message of the gospel is understood in terms of political liberation, social reconstruction, initiation into a body of secret teaching, synergistic cooperation in the work of salvation, reshaping of consciousness, divinization of the individual, liberation from the feeling of embarrassed shame that is wrongly called “guilt,” and any number of other constructs.

Contemporary theologians have developed sophisticated ways of discerning what they think of as the real intention of the gospel. One currently popular approach is to privilege the teachings of Jesus about the Kingdom. Understood against the backdrop of these teachings, the gospel is front-loaded with the prophesied blessings of the Kingdom, which are thought to be largely social and environmental rather than personal. Since the Kingdom is thought to be inaugurated, the gospel becomes the announcement that these blessings have arrived or are arriving or can arrive. The inference is drawn that proclamation of the gospel consists in any labor to secure those blessings for humanity in the here and now. According to this view, the gospel is not so much about getting people to heaven as it is about getting heaven onto earth.

While intriguing, this gospel of Kingdom activity is plagued by needless complexity. Furthermore, it argues from inferences drawn from narrative texts that do not aim to offer a definition of the gospel. If those texts were the only source of information about the gospel, then the gospel of Kingdom activity might be more persuasive. In fact, however, the New Testament does contain texts that deliberately aim to teach what the gospel is. To privilege a tangential narrative above a directly relevant didactic passage is simply a shabby theological method.

The key text that aims to define the gospel (as nearly everyone knows) is 1 Corinthians 15. Here Paul begins by saying that he intends to talk about the gospel. In fact, he is announcing the gospel; that is, he is saying what it is. He makes it clear that the gospel he is announcing is the very gospel that he has preached, that the Corinthians have received, in which the Corinthians stand, and by which they will be saved. In other words, in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul intends to give a definition of the gospel.

The definition consists of two parts, each of which is supported by evidence. The first part is that Christ died for our sins, and that is supported by the evidence of the burial. The second is that Christ arose from the dead, which is supported by the witnesses and explained through the remainder of the chapter. These two parts of the gospel are worth further consideration.

Both parts center upon events. This is exactly what we should have expected. The very word gospel means “good news,” and news (as Machen noted years ago) is about things that have happened. Fundamentally, the gospel is events, i.e., actual occurrences in space and time. The gospel is not a moral philosophy, a system of ethics, or a program of social improvement. The gospel is events.

If those events did not happen, then the gospel is false and without value. At some point in space and time, Jesus really did die. At some point in space and time, Jesus really did rise from the dead. If He did not die or if His dead body did not return to life, then we have no gospel.

So important are the events that Paul supports them with evidence. How do we know that Jesus really died? We know because He was buried. The burial of which Paul writes involves more than the depositing of Jesus’ body in the ground. It includes all of the events involved in the preparation of the body after its death. It includes the spear in the side, the examination of the centurion, the inquest by Pilate, the handling of the body by those who removed it from the cross, and the preparation of the body by the women. These were people who knew what death looked like, all of whom had an interest in certifying that no life remained in the body of Jesus. To assert that Jesus did not really die is a folly of gigantic proportions.

Likewise the resurrection: as improbable as Jesus’ resurrection might seem, it is attested by hundreds of witnesses on multiple occasions. In fact, the total number of occasions named by Paul is at least seven, and the total number of witnesses is at least 502. Paul includes himself as an eyewitness, eventually certifying that witness with his own martyrdom. Clearly Paul thought that the actual emergence of a living Jesus from the tomb was essential to the gospel.

The gospel is events, but it is also more than the events. The events by themselves are meaningless and without value. Jesus died—but so did everyone else who lived during the first century. What makes the death of Jesus different? In order to answer this question, Paul must include an explanation that clarifies the meaning of the event.

Not only did Christ die, but He died “for our sins.” In other words, the death of Christ has significance as a vicarious sacrifice. He died in our place, accepted our guilt, and suffered our judgment.

What sins is Paul talking about? What does it mean that Christ died for our sins? Certainly he means the kind of sins that he has discussed elsewhere in 1 Corinthians. A list of those sins will include matters like bickering with one’s fellow-Christians, judging the motives of others, preening over one’s own superiority, incest, greed, idolatry, slander, crooked business dealings, suing fellow-Christians, adultery, homosexual conduct, general sexual immorality, stealing, drunkenness, the use of prostitutes, confusion over gender roles, abuse of the Lord’s table, falsifying spiritual gifts, and even cursing Christ. Whatever else may be said of these sins, they are all intensely personal. They are not structural evils, though people can erect structures to protect themselves while they act in these ways. They are attitudes and activities that particular people manifest at particular times and places. Granted, some of these sins are also social, inasmuch as they are committed against other people. Even the social sins remain intensely personal, however. Sins are never committed by structures or impersonal societies but always by individual persons. The sins for which Christ died are personal sins entailing personal guilt and requiring a personal salvation.

The gospel is about events. Specifically, it is about the death and resurrection of Christ. It is also about the meaning of those events and especially about the truth that Christ died for our sins. In the context of 1 Corinthians, these sins are not primarily structural, but personal acts that individuals commit against God and sometimes against other humans. The true gospel is a message of personal salvation, and it most certainly is about going to heaven when we die. What we have called the gospel of Kingdom activity is not merely a different gospel; it is a gospel of an entirely different kind.

O Lord, I Am Ashamed to Seek Thy Face

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

O Lord, I am ashamed to seek Thy Face
As tho’ I loved Thee as Thy saints love Thee:
Yet turn from those Thy lovers, look on me,
Disgrace me not with uttermost disgrace;
But pour on me ungracious, pour Thy grace
To purge my heart and bid my will go free,
Till I too taste Thy hidden Sweetness, see
Thy hidden Beauty in the holy place.
O Thou Who callest sinners to repent,
Call me Thy sinner unto penitence,
For many sins grant me the greater love:
Set me above the waterfloods, above
Devil and shifting world and fleshly sense,
Thy Mercy’s all-amazing monument.

This essay is by Dr. Kevin T. Bauder, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). Not every professor, student, or alumnus of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.