gospel

i know it's the main thing, but what *is* it, exactly?

It’s important to find a church that preaches the gospel, they say.

There just isn’t much gospel in it, they criticize.

To spread the gospel is why we’re here, they insist. It’s the most important thing of all.

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But what IS the gospel?

I started noticing a few years ago that I would come across the word gospel in the Bible, and I’d look for the passage to define the word, but it rarely does. There are many mentions of Jesus proclaiming the gospel, but the text never records what exactly He said when He did, as if it was expected that we would just know?

I came of age in the Bible Belt, dove deep into the evangelical waters surrounding me as a teen and through the first half of my twenties, and in those years I became acquainted with things like “gospel presentations” and tracts and tricks you could use to explain the gospel to others. Back then, I probably could have given you some sort of concise summary about how we’re born in sin and need saving and so God sent His son Jesus to die that we may be forgiven and spend eternity in heaven with Him, if only we repent and believe.

Over the years since, when I see the word gospel in Scripture, I look for that summary to follow. Or for that summary to exist somewhere in the Word. Surely we got that somewhere, right? If it is the thing, then surely Jesus said it somewhere, right?

But, no. He never actually does. Not in one succinct section. Not with any regularity. Not really even at all.

Unlike our churches with carefully crafted “What We Believe” statements posted on glossy websites. Unlike preachers who have a set thing to say every Sunday for the altar call. And—this catechismed girl is pained to admit—even unlike our creeds from the ancient church.

And I’m not saying there’s not biblical text to support the creeds or our statements of faith. I know where to find multiple references to support the attempt at a gospel statement I just typed out a few paragraphs ago. There’s even a section or two in Paul’s letters that get close to that summary, but even they aren’t exact and don’t match each other point for point.

But gospel feels to me like something I should be able to define easily, instantly. And not because I memorized a statement that’s a product of centuries of revision or repetition but because it’s clear in the life of Jesus, clear in His words, clear in the Word.

And so, I’ve been searching it out, keeping my eyes peeled and praying for them to be the kind of eyes that can see. And on one hand, in my heart, I know the gospel, and on the other hand, I’m still looking for the words.

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When I was a kid, in a wooden pew in a Lutheran church, Gospel was a part of the Bible, as in “Today’s Gospel reading comes from the first chapter of John.” And it was the most important part of the Bible, it seemed, since it was the part directly, specifically about Jesus. And it was the part the pastor preached from each Sunday. It was the Gospel that required the congregation to stand while it was being read, and it was the Gospel that concluded with the pastor proclaiming, “The Word of the Lord” and everyone responding “Thanks be to God” before shuffling into seats for the sermon.

I’ve come to be so very grateful for that upbringing. There’s something so precious, so life-giving to me to look back and know that, Sunday after Sunday, I sat and I heard a story of the life of Jesus or one of His teachings ever single week. Every single week.

My pastors didn’t pick ideas or politics they wanted to preach and then find a piece of Paul’s letters to match. They didn’t strategize attention-getting topical series and then find Scripture references to fit it. The didn’t get to skip over sections that were perplexing or that they’d rather not discuss.

They opened up the lectionary to the week’s Gospel reading, and they shared thoughts on what was there in the text. What it revealed about Jesus, what Jesus taught, and how that might inform the way we live here and now and what we hope for the future.

The Gospel.

Every Sunday.

Thanks be to God.

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Even after years of pruning in the evangelical bathwater, that’s still what I think of first when I think gospel. I think about those four books of the Bible—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—that give their testimonies of the life, times, and teachings of Jesus.

And I don’t know that all of what we’ve come to mean by the word gospel in evangelicalism is wrong, but I do feel, when I’m actually reading the Gospel texts, that our gospel formulas feel contrived and oversimplified at best, transactional and manipulative at worst.

I care a lot about getting it right. I do believe in Jesus, and I do want to follow Him, and so I look for Him to say, “I’ve come to spread the gospel, which is XYZ set of beliefs to have about me so that you may be saved.” But He never says that middle part.

So what do I think the gospel is?

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To me, it seems like most of the times Jesus uses the word, it fits to simply say that gospel means what its Greek counterpart euangelion means: good news.

In most instances when Jesus uses the word, it fits perfectly to say, good news.

“I’m here to proclaim good news.”

“Go tell the good news.”

But what good news?

The good news that we’re sinners in need of a Savior and here’s a prayer to pray to get forgiven and get saved and spend eternity in heaven instead of hell?

If that’s the definition of the good news, why didn’t He ever say that?

Why didn’t He say “I’m here to proclaim the good news that…” and finish off His sentence with a formula we could all cling to?

He just leaves it at “good news,” as if it’s enough on it’s own.

And maybe it is. The more I read His proclamations of the gospel, it seems to me like the good news is Him. He’s the embodiment of it, His very presence bringing light and healing with Him where He walks.

The good news is that He is here. The good news is that the kingdom has come near.

Maybe that’s it.

And maybe what needs to be searched out and unpacked and lived isn’t a right set of beliefs but the reality that the kingdom has come near. What does it mean to live in light of that?

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This to me is the gospel:

Jesus came here. He lived here, died here, defeated death and rose again here, sent His Spirit here. God redeemed this world and our lives by participating in them. By coming to earth by a human mother, living a human life, dying a humiliating and painful death—the likes of which only we humans inflict on one another—God-made-flesh declared, “Humanity is worth it. Being here is worth it. God is with you and among you.”

That alone might be enough for me, just knowing that He who created us was willing to be one of us.

But I think the gospel runs deeper. The first part was Jesus’s very existence. The next part was what He did while He walked the earth.

People were healed. Of diseases, fever, leprosy, hemorrhage, blindness, disability.

People were healed from unclean spirits, demons cast out.

People were healed even from death. At least three separate times, Jesus commanded someone dead to be alive, and they lived.

That’s good news.

Not only did God Himself come to live in this world that is plagued with disease, demons, and death, He has power over them. He undoes them.

And I won’t get into the questions of why He doesn’t undo them all right here and now forever. If you’ve been here long, you know I wrestle with it often. Even so, as I sit here in 2023, vulnerable to disease, demons,¹ and death, I find it to be good news that Jesus has the power to defeat them all. And I even believe that He will defeat them and that He already is.

In all that happened as Jesus walked the earth, and as He was buried within it before emerging from it alive, there is a promise.

A promise, first, that it’s good to be here, disease, evil, and death notwithstanding.

And another promise that none of those things are final.

It’s good news. It’s slippery, and it’s yet incomplete. But it’s good news.

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I’m still learning about the context Jesus lived in, what His Jewish audience would have expected from their years of learning and living the Scriptures we call the Old Testament (and from all their texts I’m ignorant of as a twenty-first century western Protestant).

But I think I understand that His audience would have expected the gospel, the good news, to be that the Messiah had come.

And I’m pretty sure I understand correctly that they didn’t expect a Messiah who takes away the sins of the world and makes a home in heaven for all who believe in Him.

I think they expected a Messiah much more tied to time and place and the concerns right in front of them. They expected a military victor to save them from Roman oppression. They expected a king, one who would finally be good the way David kind of was—but better.

And they didn’t get that in Jesus.

We would say, in our formulas now, who Jesus actually was and what He actually did is better: the possibility of salvation for everyone, a way to be forgiven and go to heaven.

And yeah to some of that.

But all I can muster for a gospel statement at the moment goes something like this:

The good news is just that Jesus was here. That He is here. And that He is the one who makes the final call one day. The good news is that, somehow, He undoes the sting of death. The good news is that He who is merciful, He who understands and has lived the human life, holds the final judgment. The good news is that He did not come to condemn the world but to save it. The good news is that He is true, He is good, and one day He will make all things new.

That’s the good news I’m clinging to.

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I appreciate how the Bible Project addresses this and many other topics in Scripture. I love listening to their podcast, and they have several great episodes about the gospel, the Gospel texts, and how to read them.

For a quick overview, check out the video word study of gospel/euangelion:

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