What is the Gospel?

Review- What are the Gospels

Matthew

The Messiah, the long awaited king of God’s people

Jesus is the new Abraham, the founder of a new spiritual Israel consisting of all people who choose to follow him including Jews and Gentiles.

Jesus is the new Moses, the deliverer and instructor of God’s people

Jesus is the new Immanuel, the virgin-born Son of God who fulfills the promises of the OT.

Mark

Pastoral - To teach Christians about the nature of discipleship

Missionary-training - to explain how Jesus prepared his followers to take on his mission and to show others how to do so as well

Apologetic - to demonstrate to non-Christians that Jesus is the Son of God because of his great power and in spite of his crucifixion

Anti-imperial - to show that Jesus, not Caesar, is the true Son of God, the Savior, and Lord

Luke

“That you may know” or “have certainty in” the things you have been instructed or taught. We’ll contrast this with the purpose of John soon.

John

“That you may believe in Jesus”

What does Gospel Mean?

Euangelian > Evangelism

Godspell > Gospel

Verb: proclaim good news

Noun: Good news

In the Bible this Good News is this: that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection have fulfilled God’s promises and brought about salvation for world.

Gospel in the OT

The Hebrew word for Good News bāśar means to announce or proclaim news in general but usually refers to proclaiming good news specifically.

It is translated as Euangelian in the Greek NT (Septuagint) making a clearer connection to the Greek reading Jews like Jesus, his disciples and the first century church.

We lose some of that in English but can still easily see the themes of the gospel in the OT, especially because New Testament writers help explain it to us.

For example:

Psalm 96:1–3 ESV

Oh sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth! Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!

“Tell of his salvation” actually uses the same word bāśar. In a lot of translations it says “proclaim” while some English translations write “proclaim the good news.”

Either way, we know that proclaiming God’s salvation from day to day is proclaiming the Gospel from day to day because the good news of the gospel is God’s salvation in Jesus.

Isaiah 52:13 starts a prophecy about Jesus the suffering Messiah.

about how the Messiah would be pierced for our transgressions,

how all of us like sheep have gone astray the iniquity of us all will be placed on the Messiah’s shoulders,

that he would die like a lamb,

that after his death he would see his offspring and have his days prolonged by God.

This is clearly the NT GOOD NEWS, but let’s see what Isaiah says right before this.

Isaiah 52:7 ESV

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

New Testament

Mark 1:14-15

Mark 1:14–15 ESV

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Jesus isn’t speaking directly of elements we most commonly associate with the gospel: his death on the cross or resurrection, or the word salvation.

What does topics does Jesus talk about here that are described as “the gospel?

The time is fulfilled

The kingdom of God is at hand

The Time is fulfilled

By using the term gospel Jesus is signaling to his Jewish listeners that the promises from the OT like the one we read from Isiah are coming to pass.

By saying “the time is fulfilled” Jesus is making clear that right now God is keeping his promises. What He said he will do through the prophets is being fulfilled right now.

So when we speak of the gospel Jesus doesn’t start with just our sin or how we can be saved.

He starts by looking at God’s promises from the Old Testament and how they are fulfilled in God’s kingship and kingdom coming coming through himself.

But what is our response to the Gospel?

Repent & believe the gospel

The gospel, the good news starts with God fulfilling his promises but we are called to respond to it.

Our response is twofold:

Repentance means turning around. Turning from our sin, turning from our rebellion against God.

For the Pharisees what would it have looked like for them to repent in the face of this gospel?

What about for a tax collector?

What about a Gentile who participated in idolatry?

Repentance fundamentally is about a change of heart. It’s about shifting what has the place of authority and power in our lives. Will our traditions, our power, our money, our false God’s, our sins, our self have authority, or will we submit to the rule of God to join his kingdom.

It starts with our heart but it also changes the direction we are living.

2. Belief is an easy word to understand but not always easy to do.

Jesus is expressing here the key element to becoming part of Faith in what God is doing.

He says to believe in the good news. This means putting our trust in God’s fulfilling his promises in Jesus and that trusting that his kingdom has come.

It means believing in Jesus.

This is the beginning of Jesus ministry and by the end of Mark and the other gospels we will see exactly how Jesus is fulfilling God’s promises and ushering in the kingdom:

His sinless life

His miracles

His teaching

His death

His resurrection

We’ll see that Jesus can say “the kingdom of God is at hand” because Jesus has arrived and Jesus is beginning to fulfill everything God had promised.

And we are called to repent and believe the good news. To repent and believe in Jesus.

John’s Gospel

How many times does the word “gospel” appear in the Gospel of John?

But we don’t have to look very far to see the theme of the Good news of God fulfilling his promises from the Old Testament to save humanity through Jesus and that this salvation is available through belief in Jesus. It’s present in John 1, in John 2, and in one of the most famous verses about the gospel, in John 3:16.

John 3:1–21 ESV

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”